Free Starbreak by Phoebe North Page B

how he wanted to fold me into his body. I knew that it would be better than what I’d shared with Silvan. Safer. Purer.
    But I couldn’t. For sixteen years I’d convinced myself that everything I did was noble—right. When the truth was, I had no idea what “right” even meant. All I’d ever understood was desire. Anger. Emotions that I carried with me even now. For sixteen years I’d lived like a loaded gun.
    I can’t , I told him as he laced spindly fingers through my hair. I can’t. I can’t.
    His fingers froze at the nape of my neck. They were so cold. Sometimes I wondered if blood even ran beneath the surface of his jewel-toned skin. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe he had no heart, no mind. Maybe he didn’t exist.
    He drew away from me, hugging his bandy legs to his body.
    Come? he asked. Then he pointed out toward the sky above.
    In that moment I couldn’t be sure if I were asleep or awake. The moons overhead were real, I knew that much. Akku shone down on me, the color of a just-ripe fruit. But Aire was far, far west. Who knew how long it had been since our group had last walked the path between them?
    No. I can’t. Aleksandra is leading us east—
    But the beasts! The beasts! He waved his fingers wildly, gesturing at something in the darkness, something I couldn’t quite see.
    But I heard it. Something halfway between a click and a shudder, so loud that the trees all around us recoiled, tucking their branches under, hiding themselves away. The frozen ground beneath me shivered. I turned toward the boy. His bottomless eyes gaped back at me. He snatched up my hands, gripping them tight.
    Promise me you won’t go any deeper. Promise me! I can’t lose you, too.
    Too? I asked, but he didn’t answer. In the distance the shudder grew louder, and louder still—huge clouds of snow rising up in the distance. Fear rattled through him like an oncoming storm.
    I promise! I promise! I said, just as the snow and ice swallowed up us both.

7
    T he sensation of falling wrenched me from my sleep. In my ears that animal racket echoed. But when I sat up, the forest around me was quiet, the sky the color of pale gold in the morning light. Strange, here, how there were no birds. It made everything seem lonely, half dead. Still shivering from the dream’s aftershock, I rose. My body felt stiff, aching at a thousand points where it had touched the ice-cold ground straight through my flight suit.
    “Good morning,” Laurel called to me from across the cold,ash-spent logs. She swiftly rolled up our tent. Ettie, at her side, seemed to be doing more to impede her progress than to help. But Laurel didn’t seem to mind much. Under Aleksandra’s command, I guessed, Laurel had found new purpose. She tied the tent straps tightly around the bundle, then slipped it into her pack.
    “Morning,” I grunted back. Who knows how long they’d all been up, milling around me, conversing, listening to me whimper in my sleep? I’d always done it. My brother, Ronen, used to tease me for the things I said. But if I’d said anything embarrassing, none of them gave any sign. They continued to drink their coffee substitute out of enamel cups as they broke down our camp.
    “You’re finally awake, then?” Aleksandra called as she came down over a nearby ridge. She was flanked on either side by a guard. The radio on her belt still spluttered static. I wondered who she’d been talking to up there. I wondered how everyone was. I felt a sudden stab in my chest, sweet and cutting. I’d left so many people up there on the Asherah : my best friend, Rachel; Koen; Van; my brother, Ronen; and his newborn daughter. Even Mara Stone.
    “Is everyone okay?” I asked, my eyes lingering on the radio. She flashed her hand down over it, gripping it tight.
    “ Now you care? They’d be safer if you’d disposed of certain difficulties.”
    From beneath her fingers I heard muffled words: “Silvan Raffertyhas sent out a message to the Council-born: join him in