Starbright: The Complete Series by Thompson Hilary

Author:Thompson, Hilary [Thompson, Hilary]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Oftomes Publishing
Published: 2017-03-09T05:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-THREE

Though I walk through the valley in the shadow of death, I will fear nothing.

For you are with me, and you comfort and guide me.

Ancient prayer for bravery

From Madna’s Archives

I wake in the middle of the night, so cold my teeth are chattering despite the three layers of blankets Ama provided me with. I had been dreaming of the thirteen deaths today, and all the darkness I burned away. In the dream, the darkness did more than leave the people: it flowed sinuously into my own heart.

The black heart within me grew more and more dense with each life I took, until I was nothing but an empty black hole, ringed by fire.

I get up to pace the enormous room. There are no sounds of Lexan breathing, no wrinkled spot on the bed beside me; there is nothing because he is in the prison.

I knock on my door and ask my guard to take me to Irana. He shakes his head, and I look closer at his eyes - brown, not blue. My guard has been changed.

I go back to pacing. Sometime while I was gone today, the portrait of Justice has been moved from the throne room to hang on the wall near my couches, and I pass it again and again as I force my brain to focus on finding a way out of this mess.

I make a mental list, not dissimilar from those Charon dictates.

I do seem to be using my power of fire in the way it must surely be intended - to burn away the darkness of people’s sins. But I can’t do it without killing the person, which conflicts with the sense of Justice.

I should be able to summon the fire, cleanse the people of their darkness, and then allow them to live.

That should be how I serve Justice - the pain will be their penance, but keeping their life means the scale of light and dark will become balanced.

Balance.

Of course.

I laugh out loud at my idiocy, and the sound echoes back at me, brief and unpleasant. The True Prophet must surely have given up on me by now. I knock on my door again. The guard opens it a few inches, his brown eyes tired beneath his mask.

“Can you take me to see Irana?”

He shakes his head, frowning at the repeated request.

“How about the prisons? I need to speak to Lexan.”

Another silent no.

“A walk around the gardens?” No.

“Charon?” No.

“Is there anywhere you’re allowed to take me?” I cry in exasperation.

He nods, and I sigh.

“Hade?” Yes.

Of course that one is a yes. I grab a thin black robe which covers very little of my thinner black pajamas and hurry to follow the guard down the hall. He turns into a corridor I’ve never seen before and soon stops at a simple wooden door. He produces a key and unlocks an ordinary lock.

I pause, wondering if Hade is really inside such a room - with his obvious penchant for showing off and playing games, what

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