37

STARFIRE

STAR LOWERED HIS NECK AND CHARGED THE Destroyer. Nightwing flashed his teeth and flew to meet him. They collided over the heads of the Wind Herd steeds, fighting with hooves and teeth. Star bit into Nightwing’s neck, tasting blood, while the Destroyer tore into Star’s chest with his hooves. They battled each other through the clouds, twisting and kicking, flying higher and higher.

But Nightwing’s muscles were weak. He’d spent his time in the Flatlands eating and playing with Petalcloud. Star had spent his time lifting and carrying heavy stones. He reared back and struck Nightwing, sending him hurtling across the sky.

The Destroyer twisted around and returned, hissing starfire. This is where he was stronger—with his powers. Nightwing sucked in a huge breath and then shot hundreds of silver light quills at Star. They arced across the sky with ferocious speed, trailing sparks.

Star threw up his shield and watched the sharp quills bounce off.

Then Nightwing circled closer, blasting him with star bombs. Star ducked and twirled as they exploded against his shield, over and over, lighting up the clouds and sky. Silver smoke billowed, and shocked screams erupted from the watching steeds. The fiery bombs knocked Star’s golden orb toward land, and he struggled to right himself.

Nightwing roared in frustration.

Star hovered high above the Flatlands, his thoughts tumbling. He’d once asked his mother in a vision, “What if I can’t defeat him? What if he’s stronger?”

“Maybe you’re not stronger,” his mother had answered, “but you’re better, Star. Follow your love, not your fear.” What did Star love? He loved the pegasi of Anok. What did he fear? That Nightwing would destroy them. But Star didn’t fear the Destroyer himself, and suddenly Star had an idea.

All that mattered was them—the pegasi of Anok. And since Star couldn’t project his shield around the nearly twelve thousand steeds, he would project it around one—Nightwing.

But first he would have to get close to him. Star dropped his shield and faced Nightwing with his hooves down, his mouth closed.

“Are you surrendering?” asked Nightwing.

“In a way I am,” said Star.

Nightwing flew closer, studying Star’s expression, noticing that he wasn’t poised to fight. “What are you playing at?” he asked, spitting sparks. They landed on Star’s hide and sizzled through it.

Star winced as the cold embers burned through him, not like fire, but like ice. “I’m not playing,” he said.

Nightwing clacked his teeth in Star’s face, close enough to feel his hot breath. Star didn’t flinch.

Triumph bloomed in Nightwing’s eyes. He inhaled sharply, unhinged his jaw like a viper, and roared starfire, thinking to end Star for good. Star faced it, his heart thrumming, and he sprang his shield, but not to protect himself. He snapped it around them both, sealing their fates together.

The starfire filled the sphere, burning both stallions.

Star gasped and clamped his jaws, biting back his screams.

Nightwing threw out his wings, touching the sides of the golden orb. “Let me out!” he brayed.

Star’s teeth rattled, and the burning fire scorched his flesh and feathers, and reached into his bones, but he focused all his energy on keeping his shield intact.

Nightwing panicked and attacked Star harder, burning them both worse.

Star trained his eyes on his enemy, watching Nightwing’s flesh blister with his own.

Nightwing withdrew the fire and kicked Star in the knee. The orb fell toward the valley with the two stallions battling inside. Star reared, striking Nightwing across the jaw with his hooves, but kept his attention on projecting his shell and keeping them both trapped inside.

They crashed onto the grass, scattering the Wind Herd steeds into the sky. Star and Nightwing bounced across the Flatlands until the orb rolled to a stop. Star felt his rear leg snap, so he balanced on three.

The Destroyer roared at him. “You’re killing us both!”

Star shook his head. “No. You’re killing us both.”

The Wind Herd pegasi dropped from the clouds and surrounded the two stallions who were trapped inside Star’s golden shield. Star saw their terrorized expressions, but also saw that they were safe.

Nightwing lashed his tail. “This just makes you easier to destroy,” he said, and then he re-created the thin beam of silver light that had pierced Star’s chest in the Sun Herd lands. He shot it at Star, in the exact same spot, and Star’s eyes popped as he felt the power press through his hide, through his chest bones, and into his thumping heart.

Not again, he thought. Then a soothing voice filled his head: Don’t fight him. And Star relaxed as peace washed through him. He accepted Nightwing’s power and let it spread into his heart and throughout his body, absorbing it as his own, and it didn’t kill him.

But with the Destroyer’s silver fire came his dark feelings of destruction. They cycled through Star’s mind, poisoning his thoughts. He bucked and twisted as his mood blackened. The world was hateful, despicable. He was despicable. Star slammed into the side of his shield, every piece of his soul begging him to release Nightwing and fly away.

Nightwing saw Star’s agony, and he pressed his hatred deeper and deeper into him.

Star glanced at the Wind Herd steeds surrounding him, gaping at him, and he wanted to destroy them all. But he also knew these weren’t his feelings but Nightwing’s. How the ancient stallion had lived with this poison in his heart for so long, Star didn’t know. He bucked again, and the orb spun around the field.

Nightwing touched Star’s neck with his wing, trying a new tactic, appealing to Star as a fellow black foal. “Don’t fight me, Star; join me.” His voice was low and tantalizing, as though he were offering Star something delicious.

Star felt how easy it would be to give in. . . .

Then Star’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he saw white light—his mother.

Lightfeather roared her secrets into his ears—no, not her secrets, her instructions, repeating words he’d heard before: Don’t fight him. Heal him.

Star shook his head. No, that wasn’t what she’d said to him on the night she died. She’d said: Don’t fight them, heal them.

The image of Lightfeather appeared, and she pressed her forehead against his. “It was never about them,” she said. “It was always about him. Nightwing is the Killer of Light. He is Fear. He is Hatred. Don’t fight him, Star. Heal him.”

Star shuddered, and his eyes flew open. He stared into the empty eye sockets of Nightwing’s skull. Heal the Destroyer, could he? He had nothing to lose by trying.

“Destroy me if you must!” Star brayed. He would need all Nightwing’s rage and hatred directed at him if he was going to heal it.

Nightwing’s eyes widened, and he gleefully accepted the challenge, blasting Star with the full strength of his powers, and Star absorbed it all and let it fill him, taking four hundred years of Nightwing’s hatred into his gut.

The pain of it shredded Star’s thoughts and rattled his bones; but he held it inside, and he seared it with his golden fire, cleansing it and turning it back on Nightwing, soaking him in healing light.

The Destroyer froze, stunned. The starfire repaired him. Star watched Nightwing’s black heart soften, his injuries heal, his coat turn glossy, and his eyes shine with hope. Star held out his wing, offering Nightwing an opposite truce. “Don’t fight me, Nightwing; join me.”

Nightwing stared, his jaw hanging slack. A single tear fell from his eye, landed at the base of the shield, and a white flower blossomed between them. Star’s heart pounded with excitement.

But Nightwing groaned like a whale, holding his head and staring at the white flower in awe, then horror. He reared and crushed the flower under his hooves, and then he bellowed at Star. “NEVER!”

Nightwing shut his eyes and squeezed his muscles, ejecting Star’s power from his body. The golden light flashed and disappeared, leaving Star empty. It was all the starfire he had. He’d given it all away. And now it was gone. The shield evaporated, and Star saw Sweetroot fly off to retrieve the death berries.

“I failed,” Star whispered.

Nightwing pounced on Star and blasted him with renewed power.

Around Star the valley burned and the pegasi trembled, watching the two black stallions destroy each other.

Star grit his teeth against the astonishing pain, and the agony of losing. But then he saw an aqua feather floating over his head, and Morningleaf dashing across the sky, rocketing toward him, with Brackentail at her side. Star realized that everyone had been wrong—including her. Heal him. Embrace him. Fight him. Star had tried it all. But only one pegasus in Anok had the power to destroy Nightwing—and that was Nightwing himself.

“You don’t fight a pegasus on the terms he sets,” Morningleaf had warned him once, when they were still weanlings. He remembered the conversation in a blur.

“It has to be on his terms, Morningleaf. Otherwise it won’t mean anything,” Star had answered her. And with a ragged breath taken through shredded lungs, Star exhaled and relaxed. He knew exactly what to do, and he’d known it all along. He had to beat the Destroyer on his own terms.

As Nightwing poured all his hatred into the silver fire and blasted it at Star, Star let it fill him. When the weight of death and suffering, guilt and grief all but crushed him, Star faced Nightwing, opened his mouth, and gave it all back.

The Destroyer hid his face and bellowed in terror as his own silver fire blazed from Star to Nightwing, in one colossal burst, and then the ancient stallion’s body exploded.

Purple and silver smoke drifted upward and away, revealing one neat pile of black ash.

The Destroyer was dead.