20

Traces of sand and salt still lingered in her nose, but when her eyes adjusted to the dark she was surrounded by dirt and trees, the heat of the sun replaced by chill moonlight. Sabi shivered and wrapped her cloak tighter.

Leaves crinkled next to her as Anya shifted and sighed.

“Nightmare?” she asked.

Sabi nodded. “Yeah. I’ve had the dream before. I think it’s where I was born here, in South Fair. Only this one was different. A guy calling himself a star with these whited out eyes was there.”

Anya bolted upright and Sabi jerked away. Her eyes were wide and glimmered in the nighttime glow.

“The star, he wasn’t just a voice?”

Sabi shook her head. “It was a guy, blonde, good-looking. Except the eyes.”

Anya’s lip trembled, but the rest of her was stock-still. Until her fist swung out and struck a sleeping Cabal in the thigh. He scrambled to sit up, one fist up while the other supported him. When the confusion faded and he realized it was still just them, he relaxed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

“Is there no other way to wake a person?” he asked as he stifled a yawn.

“Sabi had a Star in her dreams” she said, ignoring Cabal’s weary voice.

“Impossible. Stars don’t meddle and they definitely don’t appear in form other than a voice,” Cabal said as he leaned over his folded knees.

Sabi told them about her dream, about the parts she could still remember that weren’t slipping through her fingers the more she woke. Cabal tensed and he became just as unnaturally still as Anya.

“One’s actions must be cataclysmic for the stars to show in form.” His eyes squinted at her as he pursed his lips. “What were you going to do?”

Her fingers played with the hem of her sleeve and her eyes dropped down to watch them dance with the fabric. “Nothing.”

“No,” Anya said as she shook her head. “Not nothing when they show.”

“It doesn’t matter now.” Sabi’s voice rose. “I fixed it. It’s fine.”

“You were going to go back.” Cabal’s voice was soft. A defeated resignation strung through the words. It would have been better if he was angry. “To the world you came from.”

Her tongue grew thick and the words bunged up behind it. She didn’t even know what she would have done. But the stars did. He, it, pulled it out of her and forced her to face it. The shame of knowing she was a raging hypocrite flushed her cheeks. She accused Cabal of keeping things from them and here she was with her own secrets. And they looked at her exactly the way she thought they would.

“I’m not from here. This isn’t my home. My family is on the other side of some universal rift I can’t get to.” She looked to Cabal whose face reflected a sadness tinted blue by the moon. “Don’t look at me like that. Tell me you wouldn’t even think the same thing and I’ll show you a liar.”

Anya’s nostrils flared and her jaw flexed. Her hands bunched into fists on her knees and she glared Sabi down. Tears prickled at the corners of her eye and Sabi’s heart twisted.

“Anya.”

Anya sneered and pulled herself up. Sabi reached for her wrist, but Anya yanked it back and stalked away. Calling after her would have been wasted breath, like telling a tree to come. Sabi watched as Cabal stood, stared at his face, willed him to look at her. But he walked by and went after the other girl. Her own tears stung and she angrily wiped them away. After a heavy breath she scrambled up and ran after them both.

“Will you guys listen?”

They were both in a clearing, moonbeams filtering through the leaves and casting jagged shadows across their skin. She could see Cabal’s hands moving and could hear hard tones as he whispered urgently to the pissed off firecracker with a short fuse. Anya stood stiff, her arms crossed over her chest, and hissed back at him between pauses.

“Please . . .”

Sabi reached out and Anya slapped her hand away. “You leave and destroy everything!”

Anya seethed, her arms straight at her sides, her fists clenched. Sabi stepped back, out of reach. Cabal composed himself and remained calm, his eyes trained on Sabi as he waited.

“You’re just like your parents. The only person you care about is yourself.”

“Anya, listen to me—”

“What’s to listen to? You start a war and leave us to die so you can be happy.”

She stepped forward and shoved Sabi in the shoulders, but Sabi just stumbled, refusing to fight back. Still, Cabal stepped in, poised to break something up.

“You murder—”

“No.” Anya couldn’t go there. “I-I needed to decide—”

“You made the wrong decision if a star showed up. You’re okay killing us!”

Now Sabi shoved back, forcing Anya to stumble a couple of steps. Cabal stepped between them, closer to Sabi, and put his hands up. She didn’t even acknowledge him.

“Check yourself,” Sabi said as her worry settled into something calmer but steadier. Harder. “And use that head of yours. What’s here for me, Anya? Other than you and Cabal, what do I have here? My whole life was ripped away from me. My mom and sister are nowhere here. And you expect me to say screw it, I’m staying, without a second thought?”

“We didn’t expect you to just run away.” Cabal’s voice was deep and low and barely loud enough for her to hear.

Tears trickled down her cheeks. “I—“

Anya stewed in her anger. “This is bigger than you! We are the reason people will fight. We can’t just shake them and run. The Goquin will slaughter everyone. Me—”

“You are one of the reasons I’m staying.” She looked to Cabal, his face uncomfortably close to hers. “You too.”

Sabi hung her head. “I’m too into this now, aren’t I? The star, he rubbed my nose in it. He knew. He was in my head and knew. He made me see it.” Her voice cracked. She looked at Cabal and he’d taken a step back. “I’m not my parents. Maybe when it’s your kid it’s different but I . . . I can’t live with a pile of dead, innocent bodies behind me. I can’t.”

Anya stepped up to them, nearly touching Cabal. “How can we trust you?”

Sabi shrugged. “Wait? Let me prove myself? I don’t know.” Tears welled and flowed down her cheeks. She didn’t bother to wipe them away. Diamonds belonged in the dirt. “I didn’t ask for this.” Her face crinkled, but she couldn’t straighten it out. “I didn’t ask to get thrown around worlds or be able to cry diamonds. “ She sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve without a second thought. “They’ll hunt all of us no matter what. No matter where we go.”

A weight rested on her shoulder and when she looked she thought she got it wrong. Her tears muddled things up or something. But when she blinked them back it was still Cabal’s hand there, a gentle pressure. Was he reassuring her?

“Now you know what our lives have been like all along. We live in Raydin and this is all we know.”

Anya lifted her hand, pressed her palm to Sabi’s face, and roughly wiped away the tears. She looked at her hand a moment, watched the glitter dance in the pale light, and then wiped it on her cloak.

“Stop this,” she said as she waved her hand in Sabi’s face.

Cabal’s hand fell away and a burst of cold hit her skin when his heat left. “You see it now. The stars could have gotten drastic had you not. They don’t like to be ignored.”

“She knows.” Anya stepped up next to her and Cabal looked at her. “They also love and they help more than hurt.”

The corner of Cabal’s mouth ticked up into a secret smile. “Unless you’re the Goquin.”

“The cosmos abandoned them long ago. Jeviar just can’t admit it.”

“Now we finish the job.” Cabal’s voice was almost a growl.

“And Sabi gets direct orders from the stars themselves.” Anya wrapped an arm around her and Sabi put on an awkward smile. “They’re on our side.”

She sniffed. “Yeah, I don’t know about that. He was pretty intent on this one thing. He wasn’t all like ‘kill the Goquin’ or anything.”

Anya gripped her harder. “You’re touched by them,” she said, smiling.

“Just be careful. If you let them in they may not be so willing to leave.” Cabal’s smile faltered before he turned and walked back to their makeshift camp.

Sabi turned to Anya. “What does that mean?”

Anya shrugged. “South Fair people are the closest to the stars. They know the most. Some say you’re all stars on earth and that’s why you have your own magic. Or you're children of the stars. Could be just a South Fair story. He’s been gone so long I doubt he knows anymore either.” She smiled down at Sabi and slipped her arm off her body to follow the boy.

The cold that replaced her touch sank deeper than Cabal’s and Sabi hurried along after them. When she reached their sleeping area they were both curled into their cloaks and breathing steadily. Sabi lowered herself at the base of a tree, closer to Anya than Cabal, and did the same. Her cloak was surprisingly cozy and she felt protected in a nostalgic sort of way, safe from monsters regardless of whether they were under the bed or lurking in the closet. The monsters in Raydin were neither and they would require far more than a shut closet door to stop.

She curled into herself more and heard the rustle next to her. Anya shifted and Sabi felt Anya’s head just touch her back. Sabi breathed deeply and settled as best she could into the hard ground. She had an urge to inch back but stopped herself. Instead she closed her eyes and listened to the whisper of the forest as she drifted off to sleep.