I Shall Rewrite the Stars

Chapter 28

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All the world holds its breath.

Cyrus stares at my hand, his wide eyes growing wider, madder, until a vicious shout bellows from his parted lips. Aakesh shifts back, dragging me with him, but not before Cyrus catches a fistful of my hair.

Jerking my head toward him, he latches onto my arm with his other hand and wrenches me from Aakesh’s hold.

“Cursed brat,” Cyrus growls, hauling us to our feet. Breathing heavy, he ignores Cearion’s demands to let me go, to focus on Juba, who stalks ever closer. “Careful, slave. One more step and I’ll snap her neck.”

“One more threat, and I will part your neck from your shoulders,” Juba replies, each word seeping with hatred.

Shivers weep down my spine—doubling as a long, thin pin of silver slips from Cyrus’ sleeve. Releasing my arm, he lifts its pointed end to the side of my throat.

“Think she can turn this to water, too?” Cyrus taunts, shaking me with a rough jostle. “The girl can’t even hold her own weight!”

Juba pauses, his face blank, and Cyrus barks a laugh.

A laugh that ends in a snarl.

The swish of a blade brings Cyrus’s gaze back toward Aakesh. Whipping the pin sideways and up, Cyrus throws Aakesh back a step. No sooner do footsteps race for us, and Cearion looses a war cry.

“Damned brat!” Cyrus growls, throwing me aside to catch Cearion’s blow.

“Selene!” Aakesh whispers as his fingers sink into me—one around my arm and the other around my waist. Teeth bared, he pulls until I tumble into his arms. “Are you alright?”

“Aakesh!” Cyrus snaps, his hand trembling beneath the weight of Cearion’s sword.

“How dare you?” Cearion seethes, pressing his sword down harder. “How dare you put your worthless hands on my sister?”

“I do so as…as easily as I’d intended to wrap them around your mothers throat,” Cyrus laughs.

“Selene?” Aakesh asks, as coughs wrack my body.

Gasping, I wipe a thin trail of saliva from my chin. “I-”

“Let’s go,” Arun says, sliding his arms under mine. Together, he and Aakesh drag me to my feet. “Selene can you—”

“I…I’m so dizzy,” I whisper, coughing again. Everything inside of me is churning like an angry sea. The world shifts to the left, then the right. I blink fast, desperate to find stable ground.

Instead, I find Cyrus’ pin bearing down on me.

Arun twists to the left, dragging us down to sand. Landing half on top of me, he moves to his hands and knees before I’ve fully registered what is happened.

“Crawl away,” he gasps, the words shifting to a ragged cry.

“Move!” Cyrus demands.

A swift kick sends Arun tumbling off and away. I glance toward him, crying out as a rough hand grasps my ankle and flips me onto my back.

Grinning wide, Cyrus lifts the pin high. I clench my eyes shut, offput by the rain of sand that promptly dowses us.

“You’ve got to move!” Juba shouts.

“Arun!” Aditya cries.

“Forgive us, Selene,” Aakesh begs. “Forgive us!”

I don’t know what has happened, but as their footsteps withdraw, I cannot blame them for leaving me. If Arun is hurt, and I imagine he must be, then Aakesh is doing exactly what I would—putting his family first.

“I told you to back down!” Cearion snaps, following a loud clash.

“How are you to win this fight?” Juba snaps back. “Cyrus taught you all you know—every move you make looks a sloppier copy of his own actions! You can’t beat him at his own game!”

“And you’re special enough that you can?”

“As if there could come a day when a lowly slave might defeat me,” Cyrus scoffs. “But please, do try your best Juba. Then, even if I do somehow fall, I can die knowing that a mighty pharaoh was bested by a lowly rat-”

“You-”

“Ignore him!” Juba roars, drowning whatever Cearion had begun to say. “He’s baiting you—can’t you see that? He wants to throw you off, to use your pride and fear against you-”

“I’ve no need for the lecture of some Romasian traitor!” Cearion sneers, and yet another clash of swords shatters through the air.

Sensing a shift in the battle, I swipe the sand from my eyes. My heart breaks at the sight of a trail of red extending from my left. Arun must have been severely injured, all because he’d tried to protect me…

“Help me,” I whisper, calling out to the spirits. “Please, help me to heal him.”

‘You’ve done too much already,’ the spirit of the sea whispers. ‘Even if the moon was full and the sea at your side, you’ve channeled too much of our power. Your body cannot endure anymore.’

“Forever?”

‘For now.’

“Then I’ve still some capacity to-” My words choke off with a bout of coughs—coughs which force a torrent of saliva past my lips. Heaving in great gasps, I flinch at the salty taste left on my tongue. Is…is this seawater?

“Enough!” Cyrus shouts.

As I look toward him, Juba falls back. A breath later, Cyrus turns on Cearion, slamming his fist into my brother hard enough to knock him off his feet. Propelled by the momentum of his swing, Cyrus turns fully and charges my way.

Covered in wounds and crimson trails of blood, the man glares down at me like a nightmarish monster made real. A monster that blurs away when yet another heave of water forces its way from my throat, leaving me gasping and weaker still.

“How convenient,” Cyrus clucks, his fingers weaving into my hair. “Is this illness a blessing from the spirits, or has fear turned your stomach?”

I choke for breath, noting the colored blurs shifting beyond him. Let me see them clearly, I beg the stars. If I must die here, let me see my brothers face just one last time before I go. Let me look into Juba’s eyes and beg his forgiveness for leaving so soon. Please. Please…

“Please,” I whisper, gagging. “Please.”

‘Selene, don’t!’ the spirit of the sea begs.

“For those I love most, I will do anything.” Sinking into the churning inside of me, I close my eyes. “Anything.”

“What are you—you disgusting wretch!”

As Cyrus screams, I hurl seawater, falling onto my stomach in a miserable heap. Bubbles form at my lips, my chest aching. Eyes closed, I sink deeper into the churn.

Searching.

Reaching for whatever power lies inside of me.

But how do I invoke it? How do I control it? Perhaps I can’t, but…maybe I don’t need to. Maybe it will understand my desires on its own.

“Let him fall,” I breathe. “Let this monster fall.”

Something seeps from my chest, welling around my body into the warm sands. I feel it pool, expand, and move. Slithering away, the something pauses, and Cyrus cries out. I hear him thump on the ground, rise, and fall again.

When he moves, stomping off to place distance between us, I feel the something follow hot on his heels. Within seconds, he thumps back to the sand.

“What is this?” Cyrus demands. “What cowardly trick have you pulled, Selene?”

“You should keep your focus on your opponents,” Juba sneers, eliciting a series of desperate clashes.

Though I can see nothing, the whistles of fast-moving objects have changed. One side is swift, crushing; the other is shaken. No battle could last in such a state.

“Do you take pride in what you are doing?” Cyrus cries, his fanatic voice wild and high. “Striking down a man who can’t stand, due to the trickery of magic—where is the honor in this?”

“I take pride in avenging my father’s misplaced trust, my people’s fallen homeland, and my false memories of all that we shared.” Cearion’s voice rises to a shout. “And more than anything, I take pride in returning every ounce of the pain you’ve caused my sister!”

The shrill of a blade slicing through the air is met with laughter, which ends in one final thump.

In the silence that follows, the something that seeped out of me recoils, pounding back into my chest with a painful throb. I can’t know for sure if the fight has finally ended, but I want to believe it has.

And I want to believe that we’ve won.

“Selene,” Cearion gasps, over a flurry of deep breaths and footsteps. “Selene, are you alright? Say something!”

“Selene?” Juba whispers, reaching me first. He kneels, his gentle hands turning me onto my back, only to be knocked away before I am drug into Cearion’s arms.

“Look at me,” he begs. “I won—we won. Whatever you did, whatever blessing you wielded, it toppled that traitor to his knees. You defeated him!”

I try to speak, but cannot tell if my lips so much as part. All the light is fading, my consciousness ebbing toward the depths of my mind. But how I wish I could at the very least smile. How I wish I could tell Cearion that this was his victory.

He survived.

He took down one of our most dangerous enemies.

He changed his fate!

And I am so happy, so grateful for it, yet not a single word bubbles out.

Cearion’s trembling grows, his chest heaving beneath my cheek. “Leanie,” he whispers. “Open your eyes. Let me see that you’re alright. You have to be alright! You’re our fierce lioness of Kemet, remember? You’re the person who will help me to fix everything. The person who will help me to rule, until I’ve settled into being a pharaoh. You wouldn’t leave that job to me alone, would you?”

“Cearion,” Juba tries.

“Stay back! She’s fine—Selene’s fine. She’s-”

“She’s turning blue!”

Cearion’s trembling worsens, and though distant, I feel something wet splash across my cheek.

“Open your eyes, Leanie,” Cearion begs. “Please. You can’t leave me too—you can’t…you can’t make me deliver your loss to Heli and Ptoli. They’re both such babies. They won’t—I can’t…I can’t…”

“She’s not deeply wounded,” Juba notes. “It has to be the blessing. Whatever the spirit did, it has not settled well in her.”

“She said that the spirit told her to endure,” Aakesh shouts, his voice terribly faint. “Knowing Selene, she may well have pushed herself beyond whatever limits she was given!”

“So how do I fix this?” Cearion demands. “You’re supposed to be a holy-man—tell me how to end my sisters suffering!”

“All around us smells like the sea,” Juba says. “Could she be…”

Drifting into oblivion, I frown when, as the darkness consumes me, two figures appear.

‘There are dire consequences for abusing powers beyond mortal confines,’ the spirit of the sea says, his eyes clenched tight. ‘I cannot spare you from them.’

‘Why do you love mortals so much?’ the spirit of the moon weeps, against his chest. ‘Why must you always give of yourself, for them? Wasn’t your last sacrifice, good enough?’

As her shoulders heave, the spirit of the sea presses her eyes to his shoulder. With tear-lined eyes, he summons me into a place deeper, further still from wherever we are now.

‘Rest,’ he whispers. ‘All will be alright. I promise.’

I close my eyes, succumbing to the gentle nothingness left in the spirits’ wake. Drifting down, down, down, I open my eyes at the feel of arms settling around me.

Long, golden tresses flutter around us, pooling at the sides of her soft, white gown. A small smile lifts her lips, and Mother chuckles. “You brilliant, brave, wonderful little fool.”

“It is far too soon for us to meet again,” Father sighs, his hand heavy as it strokes my hair. “You should take better care of yourself—and your brash, reckless fool of an elder brother, too!”

“Forgive me,” I whisper, to which Mother shakes her head.

“Beg forgiveness later,” she says. “For now, close your eyes and sleep a while. We will watch over you till the night has passed.”

“Is it night?”

“All the bad things of life are but a dark night,” Father says. “Once the bad things have gone, the sun will rise, and all will be well again.”

“Ah, but the sun casts dark shadows,” Mother says. “The goodness of life is gentle and kind. I’d much sooner compare it to the moon.”

Father hums. “Then we shall call the bad a two-faced sun, and the good the moon. So rest until the moon has risen again, Selene, and once it has, promise that you’ll go back and smack your brother for me. I will not rest peacefully until then.”

“As you wish,” I say, and finally, I slip away.

***