Page 73 of Starchaser
My heart hammers against my rib cage. “Do what?” I ask, breathless.
He smirks. “This.”
A wave of water crashes over the top of my head, soaking me to the bone.
I splash him, a trill of laughter slipping past my lips. “Bastard!”
He flourishes a mock bow. “Now,” he says, raising his hands. Two streams of water rise up to mimic the flow of his movement, hovering in the air like two vipers poised to strike. “Focus. How do you feel?”
“Wet.”
His expression cracks, and he barks a laugh before schooling his features once more. “Yes, but how do youfeel?”
I huff. “I don’t know. There’s this… buzzing.”
“Close your eyes,” he instructs. “Breathe deep. Listen to that voice—what does it sound like?”
I do as he says, squinting my eyes shut, attempting to focus on the quiet voice that hums in the water all around me. “Like music,” I answer. My heart twists as I realize the melody feels familiar—tugging at my chest, a bittersweet reminder of days spent on theLightbringer. I recognize the song—recognize the melody—as the tune my father used to hum. “Like a song.”
Water caresses my hands as they hover just above the surface, encircling my wrists, spiraling up to my elbows. I gasp, opening my eyes to find Titus’s hands outstretched, commanding the two tendrils of water that dance in the air around my arms.
“The buzzing,” he says, “can you still feel it?”
I nod slowly, latching onto the hum of the water he commands, feeling it vibrate in the air around me, until I’m not sure where my limbs end and the water begins. “Yes.”
“Good.” He lowers his hands. “Now,” he tells me, “let itsing.”
So I do.
I let the blood thrumming in my veins become its own force—let it sing its own melody—commanding the tendrils of water as if they were merely extensions of me.
Me. I find myself in the water, in the moisture that clings to the air, in the steady beat of Titus’s heart. I am there, in every drop of blood. In every wave. In the depths of the ocean and the firmament of the sky.
I am so much more than Aster Oberon. More than what they forced me to become. More than I could ever hope to be.
“Aster?”
Titus’s muffled voice seems to come from below, buried somewhere in the dark.
I open my eyes—I’m not sure when I closed them again—to see him looking up at me from dry ground. The cyclone of water that encapsulates me distorts his worried expression, but there’s no mistaking the glint of awe in his eyes.
Fear grips me. This isn’t control. This force—this power—came from somewhere within.
And itterrifiesme.
I blink, feeling my connection to the water break—feeling the tentative hold on my magic snap—and I fall as the cyclone transforms into a wave that crashes over Titus, dragging us both beneath the surface of a deeper pool than the one we were standing in before.
For a moment, I’m lost, frantically kicking as I attempt to swim for the surface. But then his arms close around me, pulling me close to his chest, and in seconds, we breach the interface, gasping for air. Above, the stars twinkle against the backdrop of night. The current pulled us out into the sea, depositing us a few strokes from the mouth of the cave.
“You clearly have no issue with shows of force,” Titus says, laughter dancing in his eyes. His wet hair sticks to his forehead, water dripping from his eyelashes, but he makes no move to release me. “Perhaps we should start with something simple, like stirring a cup of tea.”
I almost laugh, but the voice of the water seems even louder than before, shouting at me—at the part of me that petitions me to surrender to the force of the waves. To let my power rise up and drown all of Castle Grim beneath its crushing weight.
I twist Titus’s shirt in my fists, my teeth clenched. “Don’t let me go,” I plead, my eyes shut tight.
His grip on me tenses, pulling me closer than I was before, our bodies flush as the waves toss us back and forth. “Never,” he whispers, pressing his forehead to mine. “Not ever again.”
At the feel of his skin on my skin, the voice quiets, the waves relenting as the surface of the water smooths out, peaceful once more. In its place, the soothing beat of Titus’s heart lulls me half to sleep.
