Vessel of Starfire by Carr Waechter Allison

Author:Carr Waechter, Allison
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allison Carr Waechter
Published: 2020-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

Interlude

The corporeal world does not govern our existence. We are spirit, above all.

— Raothami Proverb

If anyone had been watching, they would have found it difficult to describe what happened. Those with dull senses would say the thing crawled out of the child, and certainly, it did come out of her. Those with keener perceptions would say, and rightly so, that it unfurled from her, stretching out from the center of her into its own shape.

Its eyes glowed hot in its shadowy face as it gazed down at her. Had it lived inside her? It had not. It simply stepped through her heart, as though it were a door. And it was a door, of a kind—a portal, from one realm into another, right through the center of the sleeping child’s chest.

The child had no idea she housed a portal in her heart, or that the thing could use it as a door, if it so chose. Nor had she any idea, as she tossed in her sleep, that it watched her. She did not know it perched at the end of her bed, then on the dresser and then the windowsill, watching and thinking. Considering and wondering.

If she had woken to see it, she would not have believed it capable of doing such things as considering and wondering. For, in truth, it was a terrible thing to look upon, though not unlovely. It was as lovely as the sleeping girl herself, even as it swirled in shadow and its eyes burned hot. The two were very much alike otherwise.

None who looked upon the pair would say they were the same. No, she was a she and it was an it, and it knew the difference very well. Still, there was a connection, a thin thread of sameness between them, and the thing plucked it to hear it sing.

And sing it did, a note so perfect and sweet that if it had been a real sound it surely would have woken the girl. But it was not a real sound. It was something else, a cosmic stirring, a call. The thing smiled then, for this was just exactly what it had been waiting for and why it unfurled in the first place.

It bent over the bed, its lips moving slowly, forming the words that were needed, the ones that would weave the thread of sameness into something dazzling and well-wrought. And when the thing was done forming the words and whispering them into the girl’s soul, it stroked her pale face with one long finger, and drew a strand of the ebony hair toward it, only to watch it fall, glinting indigo by the dim light of the stars. A loving touch, but not a tender one.

You shall be feared, it said, in its own tongue. You shall burn through everything you touch, a vessel of starfire. Somewhere in her dreams, the girl heard, and her lips curved into a smile. With that reaction, the thing was most pleased. It went

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