Stars Above Chapter 13

Instructions

I shifted, groaning as consciousness returned. Voices drifted above me—muffled, uncertain. My skull throbbed with each heartbeat, and the cold bite of cobblestone pressed into my back. I forced my eyes open to the blurred spirals of Vildora’s towers, the distant roar of Ebony Waterfall threading through the clouds. Home. Somehow, impossibly, I was home. I tried to sit up, every muscle protesting, and found myself staring into storm-gray eyes—so much like my own, and yet, older, weighted with sorrow. A boy with pale white hair hovered above me, familiar and achingly strange. “Yang?” I croaked, hardly daring to believe it. He rushed forward, pulling me into a desperate embrace. His shoulders shook as if he was holding back a lifetime of tears. “Ying! Thank the gods—I thought I’d lost you. When the Ashbringers attacked, I got you out as fast as I could. I couldn’t let them hurt you.” He let go, his hair falling across his face, eyes red-rimmed but smiling. For a heartbeat, I wanted nothing more than to cling to my brother, to forget the fire and the screams—but memory crashed down: the flames, the taste of blood, a child’s cry lost in smoke. “Laelynn—” My voice broke on her name. “Where is she? Please, Yang, tell me she’s safe.” Yang’s expression crumpled. He turned away, guilt shadowing his features. “The little girl in the tree… Ying, I tried. I swear I tried, but by the time I reached her, the fire—” His voice faltered, brittle as glass. “She was gone. I’m so sorry.” The world spun. Grief and fury knotted in my chest, tears threatening to spill. I forced them back, jaw set as I glared at Yang. “Why did you leave us?” My voice was raw, trembling with pain. “Didn’t you see what happened because you vanished? The mortals—our world—everything is falling apart! Kai to móno pou ékanes ítan na tréxeis!” My words tangled, grief and anger spilling into my native tongue. Yang’s eyes flashed, his own anger rising. “Egó?! Na fýgo tréchontas!? You think I wanted to run away? You have no idea what it’s like, Ying—to be trapped here, carrying all that weight. I thought you’d be better for the throne. I thought—maybe—you’d finally be free if I wasn’t in the way!” My breath caught at the fire in his voice. I stared down at my hands, then back at him, voice shaking. “You thought I wouldn’t notice my own brother was gone? You left without a word, and everything fell apart. That little girl—Laelynn—she lost everything because you left. Now she’s gone, burned with the only home she had left.” Tears finally spilled down my cheeks as Laelynn’s face flashed in my mind—her laughter, her stubborn hope, the way she’d clung to my promise of safety. I’d spent all that time searching for my brother with that brave little mortal, and somewhere along the way, I’d let myself grow soft. Now grief hollowed me out, sharp and unbearable. When the fire took her, it felt like a piece of me burned too. I turned away from Yang, anger and sorrow pounding in my skull. “Ying, wait—where are you going?” he called after me, desperation lacing his voice. I didn’t look back. My jaw tightened with resolve as I strode toward the edge of the courtyard. I had only one thought left—if the goddesses of life and death could be bargained with, I would find them. I would make any sacrifice necessary to bring Laelynn back