Pulling off her glove, firmly banishing the visceral memory of how it had affected her for Jak to take control like that—ordering her to put on the gloves, holding her hands with such fierce passion in his eyes—she wrapped her palm around the Star’s heat. The eroding weariness that came from healing began to fade, leaving her refreshed, her magic fully restored. An extraordinary benefit of having the Star. She’d done more healing in the last day than in her entire life leading up to this, and now felt none of the usual aftereffects. She no longer needed to crash into the restorative sleep to recover.
Too bad, as she’d actually welcome a bit of oblivion at the moment.
Had Andi ever felt this alone in her sorcery? No, because she’d married Rayfe before she knew much of anything about her magic. And while Andi and Stella shared many of the same talents, Andi wasn’t an empath like Stella, with all the attendant, devastating side effects of being so porous to the world. Debilitating impacts the Star did nothing to alleviate, alas.
At least it was peaceful out on the beach of this empty, wintry lake. Being alone always helped. With most everyone still asleep—but for a few servants she sensed quietly going about their chores—Stella was blessedly free of the chaotic emotions that battered her on a daily basis. Even with her shielding as good as she could make it, just being around other people in normal circumstances left her drained. Her friends understood, to an extent, but she didn’t like to make a problem of herself, so she rarely mentioned it. Even Astar didn’t realize how much simply living at Castle Ordnung had been an ordeal for her.
But she had only herself to blame there, as she’d made sure he didn’t know how bad it had been at times. She’d had no intention of leaving him to the elegant wolves there, dressed in their silks and satins and slavering to take a bite of the next high king. Stella would never abandon Astar in his time of need, no matter the cost to her peace of mind.
But now Astar would have Zeph as his companion. She’d be a good partner for him, giving him the unconditional support and occasional wake-up kick he needed. Astar would no longer need—or want—his sister hanging around. Stella would be free of Ordnung now. The insight came as a shock—and explained why her future held a lonely tower and nothing else.
She shouldn’t mind that, knowing that she’d be alone all her life. Being alone was a good thing for her. She needed that time to herself to rebuild her shields, to refill the well within that drained away just being around other people. Being around anyone but Astar, that was.
Jak had always been considerate of her, protective even, and more careful than most about her sensitivities. But, like Astar, even he didn’t realize how being around him could be painful. His scorching desire and his excruciating longing for her just now had left her feeling flayed from the inside out. He made her want what she couldn’t have, his wanting and her own tangling together to make an internal blade, the bitter edge of it leaving her gutted. Feeling Jak’s crushing disappointment at her rejection, experiencing his grief at the slicing knowledge of what could never be, along with hers, had been almost more than she could bear.
Bad enough that she broke her own heart, but she’d had to feel every drop of blood she’d drawn from his. At least it was done.
But far from being cleansed by the catharsis of the break, only gritty misery filled her.
“Wallowing in self-pity will get you nowhere,” she said aloud, her voice echoing softly over the mirror-smooth black water of the lake. It seemed a whisper of something replied. More than an echo. Hmm.
Gazing over the water, she focused her vision—physical and internal—on the far distance. She wasn’t nearly so good as Aunt Andi at projecting her consciousness beyond her body, but she could selectively shapeshift, increasing the focal length of her eyes to farsight, and adding a dollop of magic to extend it even farther. What is out there?
Lena and Zeph had gone through that rift into another realm. Both of them had sensed it as a sort of fold or doorway in the walls between different realities. Logically, those must be smaller versions of the vast metaphysical rift that had yet to occur in their future, the disaster to come that Andi had seen and that the high queen had sent their crew to stop.
Stella had caught glimpses of that future in confusing fragments. When they’d battled the stone giant at Gieneke, Stella had sensed something of that same overlap in different realities—something she’d also caught a sense of from Lena and Zeph’s minds as she’d healed them from their ordeal in that world. She’d like to discern more for herself, and she might as well do something productive while everyone else recovered.
The something moved through the opaque water, and her heart quickened with excitement. Could it be Lake Sullivan’s famous, seldom-glimpsed lake creature? She’d love to see it. It would be useful, too, to get a feel for the creature, to determine if it indeed belonged to the world Zeph and Lena had unwillingly visited. It could be that the lake creature moved back and forth between worlds through one of those rifts. If so, it—or its ancestors—had been doing so regularly for centuries, since the stories about it stretched back that long. Sifting her mind through the dark waters, she looked for the lake creature.
The waters parted, and a dark head rose.
Gaping in astonishment, Stella tried to make sense of what she saw. Gleaming black as the water it rose from, as if formed of the water itself, the triangular head of the creature continued to rise on an impossibly long, sinuous neck. It rose high enough to look into the second story of the manse if it wished, then tilted to gaze at her with an obsidian eye. A thin line across the snout delineated its reptilian mouth, but besides that—and the eyes that blended into its skin seamlessly—the head was featureless. No nares in evidence, no pinna or sign of openings for ear canals. The skin wasn’t scaled, but seemed to be a soft mucus membrane, like an amphibian. Behind it, coils of its long body emerged from the water, leaving no ripples, no sign of limbs moving beneath.
With an unsteady blend of trepidation and delight, Stella realized she’d never seen any creature in the world like it before, not living nor in any text or illustration. Something she would’ve said was impossible before this. Living among the shapeshifting Tala, she’d thought she’d seen every possible creature in existence—and a few supposedly mythical ones, too.
The lake creature continued to gaze at her, no hint of threat in its posture. Instead it seemed more… curious? With a start, Stella realized she sensed nothing from it whatsoever. No glimmer of emotion, no thoughts, murky or otherwise. Its presence blended seamlessly with the water that birthed it. If she closed her eyes, she wouldn’t know it was there at all. All living things had some kind of presence to her internal sight, even the simplest of plants or the tiny organisms that lived in the soil at their roots. This creature had no more sense of life than the pure waters of the lake it dwelled in.
Either it was something undetectable to anything but her eyes—or its shields were so impenetrable even their existence couldn’t be felt. Unprecedented.
“Hello,” she tendered, extending a mental wave of greeting as well.
Nothing. It simply looked at her, motionless in the water.
Then, as silently as it had arrived, it withdrew, sinking back into the water as if dissolving into it, leaving not even a ripple behind.