Bright Star (44 page)

Those below saw those eyes opening as gaping black holes. From her upturned palms, a red glow started to pulsate and her levitating body rotated to face Jacob Rush. Then her arms came out straight in front of her as she aimed her palms at him. Then his eyes flew open, white-hot light emanating from them. And the light was coming from his nostrils, beams of light shooting from his ears. As if in pain, he bent his head back and arched his back as light escaped through his fingertips his feet, his elbows, and his knees. The light soon overcame him, then just as suddenly, was gone.

Slowly Rush sank to the ground, watching above him as Bright Star’s black eyes grew wider. He tried to look into them but could find no characteristic to latch on to, not one single feature in those eyes to let him know what was there. He then watched her ascend even higher with a speed they had not been able to attain together. Still a part of the entity above, the defeated half of this incited High Energy system could shudder with combined ecstasy from the luscious, succulent power coursing through her, and the draining of his own by the second. Jacob watched her rise.

They all watched her rise. Suddenly they were covering their ears as a powerful booming noise from above shook the ground and assaulted their hearing with its thunderous boasting. And then the light surrounding Bright Star was gone and she was hurtling toward the ground faster and faster until she fell, her landing broken by the hard ashes of that little girl. Her skin was covered in gray ash as she flailed, trying to get the scent of charred flesh out of her nose. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t do anything but swipe at her nose as she grew more and more nauseated and weak. And then the ashes were in her eyes and she was blinded, grappling for a stronghold so that she could stand, though she was being strangled by that very same ash. Clawing into the dirt and moaning, Bright Star felt nothing like she had only moments ago, when she had ascended.

Her fingers soon found flesh, cool flesh as hands reached out to take her. Arms came around her and hot, hot tears coursed down her face. She welcomed them as they washed the ash away and when her coughing subsided. She looked up to find Jacob smiling down at her. He too was covered with ash but Bright Star knew it was his own. She pushed back from him and she heard laughter, she heard the laughter come from all directions as she swiped at her face with the sleeve of her ceremonial robe. She felt hot, sticky sweat all over her face. Though when she looked down at the sleeve she found it drenched crimson. She looked up toward Jacob and found herself faced with him and Elizabeth. They stood side by side, the same benign expression cursing their faces. “I will not burn with you,” Elizabeth said. “She will not burn with you,” Jacob said as well.

“You can’t have her!” Bright Star groaned.

“
You
can’t have her,” Jacob told her. And, after those words, the spirit that was Elizabeth was gone from his side. “She is free from you. She will be born into the soul of another.” They were surrounded by the tribesmen who had persecuted her so many lives before. Those who chanted
Burn! Burn! Burn!
And in unison, like soldiers, they turned and walked away from Bright Star’s dying body.

“
Nooo!
” The scream caused a ripple through the ground that ripped the earth open to accept her. Like a geyser, though the soil that had been eagerly awaiting her, spit her from its pursed lip of a ridge. “Jacob!”

In the sky, she saw him. He was physically alone, but she knew. She knew that Elizabeth stood just there over his left shoulder. Elizabeth, the one he had always loved, was no longer a part of her. The only being on earth who wasn’t. “Jacob!” She dragged him to her with her High Energy. Elizabeth would never have him. Elizabeth would not stop him from achieving his destiny. “Jacob!” she screamed it again.

As her voice pierced the blackened sky, she could feel rivers swell, drenching valleys and mountains with their shared tears. “Jacob, you have not succeeded in separating us. You cannot separate us.” Her words came out of the mouths of each and every witness beneath them. The words came out of the mouths of every individual sleeping, eating, breathing in the world. Every one. Every single one.

The words came, but they were not true.

Jacob lashed out, his Energy sought to insert itself between Bright Star and the subjugated assembly below. It didn’t work. They were one. Like a splitting atom, driving a wedge between Bright Star and Earth would only serve to destroy them all. With Herculean effort, he flexed, contracted, squeezed his muscles, his brain, his Energy, until the force he exerted started to work with that of Bright Star’s. He could not work against her. He could only use the Energy she expelled, the Energy that doubled and re-doubled itself as it spread through every soul. He could only use its momentum, to help him do what had to be done.

Suddenly, black veins spread in a tainted web over her alabaster skin. Her body began to twist and curl, convulsing and breaking and rebuilding all at once. The scream torn from her body was more than guttural, more than visceral. It sounded like an earthquake and thunder and flooding waters at once. Black tears turned to diamonds as they welled and dropped from beneath her eyelids.

“I am the Prophet and I am the Soul!” Her tortured voice called to them all. She opened her eyes and the entire distance—including the red horizon—glowed blue. Her body began to rise on a watery blue cloud. Her chest thrust upward, her head flung back. She screamed it again in a voice that was its own accompaniment, a double voice of soft and dark, yet reaching to the edges of the world. “I am the Prophet and I am the Soul.” She repeated the words over and over again. She repeated them until the blue light that lived inside her became a beam out of her throat as well as her eyes.

*

Goodbye, Jackson
. The voice was stark and emotionless.

It stopped Jackson in the motion of laying a cold compress on Point’s forehead.
What are you doing?
Jackson demanded from inside Rush’s mind.

You want me to save her
, Rush explained as though he were speaking to a frightened child.
But I can’t do that. I can’t continue saving her. Instead, I’m going to save you. All of you
.

“No!” Panic flared in Jackson’s eyes as he called the word aloud. “No, Rush. You don’t have to save me. You don’t. You’ve saved me since I was born. You don’t have to do this.”

Rush sent Jackson a mental embrace, He hugged him fiercely.
I can’t fight fate anymore
, he whispered in a calming tone.
I do have to do this. I have to save you, and I must save Domina, and I have to save everyone else
. And then he released the brief embrace and left Jackson only a vision of what was happening miles above him in the sky.

Rush faced the evolving Bright Star once again. The ball of blue light began to pulsate and grow. Heat washed over the assembly as the ball grew hotter, lighter, brighter. Then there was the screaming.

Piercing and deep at once. Blare and echo. Anguish and indignation. The ball was screaming its agony and defiance. The sound was tangible and left no watcher untouched. And then, the world was screaming. Even Jackson and Point threw their heads back and howled their communal pain.

Higher the ball floated into the sky until it gained momentum and hurtled out of the atmosphere. A shooting star in reverse, the assembly watched as the star took its place in the day sky, a smaller, blue sun, as bright as the large yellow ball beside it.

Jackson and Point both stopped their plaintive cries and looked at each other. It was then that Jackson fully understood. When Bright Star bound her fate to that of their universe, she had made herself impervious to earthly catastrophe. She could not die. She was as impervious as he. More so. So she was going to attempt to kill herself with Shift. She was going to kill herself and in that, demand that Rush save her. And she would never stop. Even if Rush saved her this time, she would not stop. She would continue until he could not save her. And she would take the world with her every time.

He couldn’t kill her. He could only hold her. Hold her forever. He would have to hold her to him forever. What had she said?
Destined to orbit each other
.

Jackson remembered the day at the observatory. He felt his body go hot and cold at once. Liquid started to collect beneath his tongue and he could feel an acidic burn in his nose. His eyes were raw and his breath was ragged. He fought to find that path, that thread that had bound them together since his birth.
You can’t do this
, he pleaded with his brother. He knew what Rush was doing. He understood everything now so well.

Rush didn’t answer.
If you do this Rush, I swear I will become the Prophet
. Tears rolled down his dirt-streaked cheeks.
I swear to you that I will die every day just like she did
.

You won’t. Domina will not let you
, Rush returned, nothing more than a quiet murmur. Then, as Rush rose before Jackson’s mind’s eye, his body began to radiate red. Much quicker than Bright Star, he became a floating, opaque orange then yellow bubble causing heat and electricity to horrify the assembly.

The new star took less time to achieve its place in the sky. A darkened yellow ball next to the blue one, seated at the horizon.

Domina

At the moment when two new stars were born into Earth’s sky, Point delivered a squalling baby girl into Jackson Rush’s waiting arms. The cinnamon-hued baby had a full head of silken, curling sandy hair and soft amber eyes. She had strong lungs. She weighed over eight pounds.

Domina is what she was called. Point did not survive the birth so did not declare it. Jackson hadn’t asked. It was her name.

Domina, the second born Precocial, bore a mark high on her tummy, beneath her heart. It was a square patch of skin—no bigger than the head of a cufflink—that looked like three tiny blue stars.

About Grayson Reyes-Cole

Grayson Reyes-Cole adores drama, the fantastic, and words. She is intrigued by the relationships people build and what makes them work. Grayson hopes to bring intense and engaging characters to life for her readers along with well-developed, interesting stories.

Splitting her time between Florida and Alabama, Grayson considers herself a quintessential Southerner. She also has a longstanding love affair with travel and speaks two and a half languages (if you count English, a fair amount of French, and the travel Spanish, German, and Tagalog). Grayson never needs her arm twisted to share stories and photos of her adventures across Europe and Asia.

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http://www.graysonreyescole.com

Reader email: [email protected]

Coming Soon from Grayson Reyes-Cole

The Chemist

http://lyricalpress.com/the_chemist.html

from the
Delicious Darkside
Series

Also Available from Lyrical Press