A Touch of Stars and Stones by Natalie Alexandra

Author:Natalie Alexandra [Alexandra, Natalie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2025-09-22T00:00:00+00:00

twenty-five

. . .

Ever

It wasn’t far enough away.

I needed to be miles from Azur, from Ascella, but I had to settle for my room. There was someone else I wanted to see, but I couldn’t ask that of him. Not when I now feared the outcome. Did that happen every time for him? Pain. The same pain I saw scorched on his face.

My hands clutch the ceramic mug, re-filled twice now, with a warm tea, which Micah retrieved for me. It’s meant to calm me, but it hadn’t worked because my nerves were still humming under my skin, and my stomach felt hollow, as though I hadn’t eaten in days, and whatever was left was now rotting and festering.

My anger still simmers, but the stress of what happened with Azur has subdued it. With every blink of my eyes, I was back there, following him along that narrow path that I know now was in my mind, until the path morphed, and I was trapped in miles of pathways, around every corner, surrounded by trees and mountains of rock.

It all happened so quickly.

That landscape shifted, grew, and mutated like it was responding to my rising panic and fear. Closing in around me, suffocating.

“Did you want to go and see the Maker, like Aurelia said?” Micah asks from his post at my desk, turning my attention away from the memory.

There isn’t any choice. I have to master this. Have to get a grip.

I don’t even know what happened when Ten touched me—if he was hit with a vision, or something else entirely. But any excitement at what could be between us, what the connection between us might be, now lay like ashes at my feet.

“Can we see Kyra?”

“My sister? Sure. She might be able to accompany you.”

“Do we just go? Make an appointment?”

“We’ll find out.”

My limbs feel heavy as I rise from where I’ve been sitting on the bed. And I miss Lyle. I miss the simple comfort she provided without even realising it. I hadn’t even realised what it was, but the sheer lack of it in my life was now overwhelming.

But I will not break.

I will master this.

My finger rubs over the ring on my finger, checking it’s still there, and I follow Micah out the door, down the hall of the residence, and into the fading light of the afternoon.

On the way, I clear my mind and search for the spark and anger that had me shouting and fighting to be taught, needing to learn how to protect people. My eyes scan off towards the horizon, towards the Ember and the first watch tower I saw, and around to the quiet fortress that is The Court, with the spires towering above everything below—pockets of light and green and stone and thatch.

I’ve been here for weeks now, and I’ve only walked through the settlements and streets and haven’t visited Kyra and Micah at their home. Would that make a difference, help me see this place as a possible home, and

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