Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar

Author:Shveta Thakrar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

17

Sheetal used the archivist to look up another subject, half-stars, and located a single title. Then, her arms heaped high with reference books, she staked out a quiet table in a remote corner of the library. By the enormous clock on the wall, she had an hour left before her next lesson, enough to at least start skimming.

Some authors wrote more favorably of her grandparents’ reign than others, but all agreed that in their day, Nani and Nana had ruled the court with iron fists. Not only had they closed the gates between the worlds after a violent incident on Earth, but they’d cultivated the attitude that only children took an interest in mortals beyond the duty of inspiring them. At one point, they’d even convinced the court to seal off the Hall of Mirrors. But so many stars had protested the loss of their mortal soap operas, they’d had to backtrack. Eventually Nani’s and Nana’s popularity had waned enough that they’d basically had to abdicate their offices, and House Dhanishta had won the ensuing competition.

Wow, her grandparents really, really didn’t like humans. It made Sheetal sad and angry—what did they think of her? Especially since, unlike Kaushal, she wasn’t about to give up her human heritage.

It was a gross thing to think, but maybe they would try to separate the realms again if she won.

With a shudder, she scoured the texts for any details about the incident that had set them off. Had it involved Dev’s ancestor? But except for that vague mention, the books were silent, as if the woman in the dream-memory had never existed. So who was she?

Still pondering that, Sheetal dove into the book about half-stars. Like she’d witnessed in the dream, up until about a thousand years ago, stars had walked among mortals, inspiring them. All the time, even. Occasionally the already-close muse-artist relationship grew intimate in more ways than one, so it was no shocker that babies often followed. They always took after their celestial parent—the starlight hair, the inner flame, the ability to inspire—but their human heritage meant their blood couldn’t heal.

All stuff Sheetal had known, but seeing it written out like this, reading that there had been other half-stars, made her feel like she was part of something. It meant she wasn’t an anomaly, an accidental one-off, and that for the first time she fit somewhere. It almost didn’t matter that Dad was lying in a hospital bed or that Dev was here to support her rival. She felt like she could breathe again.

Thirsty for more, she read on.

The mortal world was a hard place for half-star children. They were lost, full of longing; and without guidance, their powers often blew up, harming themselves or others. Sheetal hurt just reading that.

Worse, in the age of the star hunters, word spread of the healing nature of stellar blood, making stars targets for eager buyers and the curious alike. A pair of hunters seeking to hone the process discovered that ingesting the blood even heightened mortals’ receptivity to inspiration, creating yet more demand for it.

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