Free The Lost Years by T. A. Barron Page A

claws raked my back several times. I tied the sails of Vela, swam far with Pisces, marched beside Hercules.
    Sometimes, while exploring the stars, I imagined the entire sky shrinking down into a single, glorious cape. In a flash, I would put it on. Deep blue, studded with stars, the cape fell over my back, sparkling as I moved. The stars riding my shoulders. The planets ringing my waist. How I would love to own a cape like that one day!
    Yet even as I celebrated, I could not forget how much lay hidden from me. The clouded sky obscured some of the stars; my clouded vision obscured more. Still, the thrill of all I could see far outweighed the frustration with what I could not. Despite the clouds, the stars had somehow never seemed so bright.
    And yet . . . there remained a dark place inside of me that even the light from stars could not reach. The ghosts of my past continued to haunt me. Especially what I had done to Dinatius. I still heard his screams, still saw the terror in his eyes, still felt the twisted and useless remains of his arms. When I asked Branwen whether he had survived, she couldn’t say. She only knew that he was still hovering at the edge of death when we had left the village. Still, this much was clear. While he had done plenty to provoke my rage, his brutality could not obscure my own.
    On top of that, something else continued to plague me, something deeper than guilt. Fear. About myself, and my dreadful powers. The merest thought of them threw up a wall of flames in my mind, flames that seared my very soul. If I lacked the strength to keep my promise, would I use those powers or would they use me? If, in the grip of uncontrollable rage, I could destroy both a person and a tree with such ease, what else might I one day destroy? Could I annihilate myself completely, as I did my own eyes?
    What kind of creature am I, really? Perhaps Dinatius had been right after all. Perhaps the blood of a demon really did flow through my veins, so that terrible magic could rise out of me at any moment, like a monstrous serpent rising out of the darkest depths of the sea.
    And so it was, even in the new brightness of my days, that I remained troubled by the darkness of my own fears. As the weeks passed, my vitality, as well as my vision, continued to grow. Yet my unease continued to grow as well. I knew, down inside, that I could never put my fears to rest—until I somehow learned my true identity.
    There came an afternoon when I heard a new sound outside the window of my chamber. Eagerly, I moved closer. By stretching my second sight, I found the source of the sound, nestled among the boughs of the hawthorn tree. I watched and listened for a while. Then I turned back to Branwen, who sat in her customary place on the floor next to my pallet, grinding some herbs.
    “The cuckoo has nested in the hawthorn tree.” I spoke with a mixture of certainty and sadness that made Branwen put down her mortar and pestle. “I have watched her—seen her—sitting in the nest every day. She laid her only egg there. She guarded it from enemies. And now, at last, the egg has hatched. The young bird has emerged from the darkness.”
    Branwen studied my face carefully before responding. “And,” she asked in a trembling voice, “has the young bird flown?”
    Slowly, I shook my head. “Not yet. But very soon he must.”
    “Can he not . . .” She had to swallow before trying again. “Can he not stay with his mother for a while longer, sharing their nest for a little more time?”
    I frowned. “All things must fly when they are able.”
    “But where? Where will he go?”
    “In this case, he must find his own self.” After a pause, I added, “To do that, he must find his own past.”
    Branwen clutched at her heart. “No. You don’t mean that. Your life will be worth nothing if you go back . . . there.”
    “My life will be worth nothing if I stay here.” I took a step toward her. Though my eyes were useless, I probed her with my