Ashes of the Stars

By Elizabeth Van Zandt

Edited by Lauren Linkous

For Amanda, who was more inspiration than she knows.

And for Kris, who told me he’d never give up and neither should I.

Ashes of the Stars

Text Copyright © 2016 Elizabeth Van Zandt

Cover Art Copyright © 2016 Elizabeth Van Zandt

All rights reserved.

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part by any process without written permission from the copyright holder.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, dialogs, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

ISBN-13: 978-1532888311

ISBN-10: 1532888317

Chapter One

I was in a dark room. No, not just dark. It was pitch black; the kind of darkness that penetrated into your very being. It was the kind of heavy darkness where you couldn’t even see the nose in front of your face. Damp moisture clung to the air, stagnant and bitterly cold.

I could feel pain, but it was muted as if I were too weak to really pay it much attention anymore. I was hanging. My toes barely scraped the ground below and I couldn’t figure out the texture of it: was it stone or dirt or even wood? I could feel thick, heavy manacles as they cut into my wrists. I felt sticky as if the moisture in the air wouldn’t allow my wounds to dry and scab. I couldn’t even tell how many wounds I had, my entire body felt
something
like the dull pain of the uncaring. The one thing that I didn’t feel was fear. I felt loss and sorrow, I felt disconnected, but I didn’t feel fear.

When I woke up I felt it. Fear was like a hard knot in the center of my chest and heat that blossomed throughout my lungs. I sat up in my sleeping bag on the cold ground. The bitter chill in the air prickled on my bare arms as I pulled my torso free from the thick and soft makeshift bed. The white of the sleeping bag was bright in the darkness, I didn’t see the darkness at all now. I knew that it was still nighttime, but having woken up from such heavy darkness made the dark of night seem like midday.

“Are you okay?”

I turned towards the deep, thick-sounding voice. He spoke quietly but it seemed so loud after such a heavy and quiet nightmare. I was used to nightmares, and
he
was used to my nightmares, I had them every night.

I nodded quickly, a brain-rattling bobbing of my head. I was grateful that it was warm inside of the tent because my quick, panicked breaths couldn’t be seen in the chilled air around me.

“Same dream as always?” Finn asked. His voice was as familiar to me as my own, I’d known him my entire life. He was my best and only friend. Only then, in the calm of night, would he dare to comfort me.

“No,” I whispered. My voice sounded harsh even to my own ears; my throat felt dry and scratchy.

As if knowing what I was thinking, Finn wordlessly held a canteen towards me. I took it with a grateful nod and swallowed a big gulp of the icy water. Once I’d downed half the canteen, I handed it back to him and wiped at my mouth with the back of my hand.

“Tell me about it,” He said as he recapped the canteen without drinking any water. He didn’t look at me, but I kept staring at him. He was a big, burly man whose mass dwarfed nearly everyone around him, especially someone as tiny as me. Finn had light brown hair he kept so short that he almost appeared bald. In the dark his eyes just seemed black though I knew they were hazel.

“I’m fine,” I shook my head as I looked away.

“Aili,” Finn chided me.

I rolled my eyes but said nothing as I climbed the rest of the way out of my sleeping bag. I wore a white tank top that was sticking to me slightly from fear sweating, and a tiny pair of white underwear. I felt no embarrassment at my lack of clothing, not with Finn.

“Round up the troops. I want to get this over and done with,” I told him.

“Yes, Captain,” Finn grunted. I hadn’t noticed until Finn stood up, but he was fully dressed, save for his parka. I ignored him as I pulled on a pair of white thermal pants. The fear was still knotted in my chest but now that my breathing had slowed it was easier to ignore it, pretend it wasn’t there. I didn’t know how I would ever function if I hadn’t learned long ago to pretend that emotions weren’t even hard-wired into my DNA.

The world was on fire. I could hear the crunch of ice beneath my feet, could feel the roaring of the bitterly cold wind as it dried out my eyes. Even with the stars hidden behind a heavy cloak of clouds, I could see the snow and ice covered tundra that surrounded me. I could smell the rancid scent of blood and burning flesh mingling with the husky, slightly sweet smell of burning wood.

Though my back was toward the newly burning town I could still see the shadows cast by the flames reaching the two-hundred some odd feet I stood away from the town. I could still hear the deep, booming voices of men fighting, the high-pitched shrill shrieks of terrified women, even the crying of children. I closed my eyes and exhaled the frosty air from my lungs through my barely parted lips. With eyes closed I could still see
everything.
The snow drifted across the icy plains as the wind gusted back and forth. I swayed gently with the wind, letting my body be controlled by the world around me.

I let my mind wander back to the town behind me. I could so easily picture the camouflaged soldiers wearing stark white to match the seemingly endless frosted world around them. I could so easily picture the inhabitants hiding beneath their furniture and being stolen from their homes. I saw the torches as they were placed carelessly against the buildings, the flames burning hotter than the snow was cold. There had once been a time where it was I running rampant through these towns; the blood never washed off of your hands. War was just an excuse for murder.

As always, I didn’t know what I was doing here. The world seemed to call out to me, pleading with me to stop the chaos. Even before the old world died there was nothing but war. It ravaged the land as mankind fought for property, freedom, and resources. And despite all of the warfare, the world didn’t really know anything of blood because it just kept on turning. The ground beneath our feet stayed the same and the sky above lightened and darkened with time. All the world knew was continuation. It was every man, woman, and child that really knew blood and the power it held over us all, and blood was all I knew. And as the war raged on, the universe called out to those with power but we couldn’t stop. We could never stop.

I could hear the sound I’d been waiting patiently for. I knew they wouldn’t see me, they wouldn’t expect anyone to be hanging back. In the chaos of the burning, bleeding town they wouldn’t have noticed a Captain missing from the Legion’s ranks. I crouched down low to the ground waiting, listening. I could hear the crunch of ice, stiff-soled boots dragging the ice and snow with each step. I could hear them getting closer and I lifted my mask over my nose and mouth to hide the white puffs of breath leaving my body.

“Shh, they’ll hear us,” A woman hissed quietly. I could hear the sorrow cutting through her tone, she’d lost a lot tonight.

“They’re all behind us,” A man growled back at the woman, confirming what I’d thought. He said her name but I intentionally blocked it out.

“Where will we go?” The woman sobbed. I couldn’t feel sorry for her though my heart instantly panged with guilt. I took a deep breath and willed my heart to slow down, to feel the calmness that my muscles had already relaxed into. I stopped listening to their conversation and focused on their footfalls. There were three of them only I never heard a third one speak. His footsteps weren’t quite as heavy as the other two but he dragged his feet more and I knew it was a boy from the way he walked. There wasn’t really a science to it, I couldn’t tell you how men step differently than women, I just knew. It was a subtle nuance.

I could tell that they were getting closer. Their footsteps were louder and I could smell the smoke from the town clinging to their clothes. Smoke smelled differently on clothes than it did in the fresh, open air; it smelled less sweet as if maybe cloth soured its scent. I spared a single moment to think of my team in the burning town and hoped that they had all been trained well enough to stay alive.

I finally opened my eyes and looked over my shoulder. I could see the trio walking diagonally away from me, towards the north. It was warmer there. The ice and snow melted into desert and then it turned into jungle. It was far prettier there with the bright splashes of color, but I was too used to the cold to handle the heat and humidity that came with the territory.

The trio wasn’t wearing all white like Legionnaires. They were heavily outfitted in thick clothes but they were dark clothes, they weren’t trying to hide. I couldn’t place which of the trio was the boy by sight, they all seemed to be about the same height. So maybe he was closer to being a man than a boy, barely younger than me.

I took a deep breath and then released it. I couldn’t think about what I was going to do or else I wouldn’t be able to do it. I could feel the power building in my muscles, could feel the vibration of energy as it thrummed through me. I could feel my heartrate pulsing rapidly with adrenaline as I built up to a burst of motion; I pushed off from the ground and sprinted the short distance to the purported enemies. I could hear the wind rushing past my ears, could hear the heavier crunch of ice beneath my feet. Though I was normally silent and stealthy, it was impossible to be quiet when ice crunched beneath even the lightest of steps.

The group was so immersed in their conversation, which I could only hear buzzes of, that they didn’t hear me approaching until it was too late. My muscles reacted almost involuntarily as I grabbed the hilts of my twin swords. I once thought that the scraping of metal as swords left their sheaths was an annoying sound akin to teeth grinding, but it became my personal music. The
schling
of the swords alerted the three, although by the time I heard the woman gasping, I was already thrusting my swords forward.

The sharpened steel of my blades sliced through cloth and skin. I could feel a slight hitch as I tried forcing my blades through the bone and hard cartilage of spines. After the initial snag, my blades kept going through the spinal cords at the back of the neck of the two people standing on the outside. The one in the middle, the boy, spun around to face me as I was pulling my swords free from who I assumed had been his parents. The boy’s face was pale, his eyes wide with shock and his mouth hanging open.

“Please,” He begged. I was certain that the tremble in his voice was from fear but it could’ve also been the cold. He took unsteady, slow steps backwards and held his hands out in front of his body as if to stop me.

“I’m sorry,” I said coldly. I advanced on him faster than he could back away from me.

“You… You’re not sorry!” He cried out, his eyes darting back and forward between his parents. They had fallen face-down in the snow and I could see the blood seeping out of their throats. It was thick and dark while it was still warm but it turned the white of the snow into an unnatural shade of pink. The snow hissed and steamed as the blood drained onto it.

“You’re right,” I narrowed my eyes at the boy and brought my right hand up quickly. My sword easily sliced through the thin flesh. It wasn’t the nicest way to die; the boy stared at me in horror for a moment before he dropped to his knees in the snow. Though he brought his hands up to cover his throat, blood poured freely through his fingers. He gurgled as he tried to take in air.

I looked away from the boy and let my cold mask slip away for just a moment. I could hear footsteps pounding their way towards me from the town and I knew instinctively that they were my soldiers. I could feel hot tears brimming in my eyes so I closed them quickly, warring desperately inside with the many parts of me that
did
care. I wished I could’ve let them go, the small family, but one of my Legionnaires could’ve seen.

“Captain!” A man’s voice called out as the pair of crunching footsteps ran closer. “Captain, I’m so sorry! I didn’t see any runaways!”

“Yes, that’s the point of me standing outside of the town,” I said under my breath. I wiped the flat sides of my bladed against my stark white pants. The blood stood out drastically though I didn’t care much for the state of my clothing. These blood stains would never leave me anyway.

“We’re almost ready for your inspection, Captain. What should we do with
them
?” The second soldier asked me. It was a woman and though I knew both of their voices, I refused to think their names. Out here, on missions, we were all murderers, and I didn’t know if I would be able to survive if I thought of them as people.

“You
burn
them,” I hissed at the pair. They were splattered in blood, one of their uniforms had a dark burn mark in the sleeve. I couldn’t tell if the battle had been an easy one for my team.

I rolled my eyes at the soldiers as if they were morons. “Are you
new
or something? You should know what to do by now.”

“Yes, Captain. Sorry, Captain,” They said in unison.

I turned my back on them as they lifted the dead weight of the mother and father. Someone would come back for the boy. I closed my eyes and took a deep, shaking breath. I easily recalled the boy pleading for his life, his wide and frightened eyes. I could see from the light in his eyes that he hadn’t even considered what life would’ve been like had I let him live. After I had killed his parents, there wasn’t much of a life left for him. I wanted to think I’d done him a favor by killing him, but I knew those were just words to falsely comfort myself. I’d done my duty and nothing else.

“Tell me about it. Maybe something’s different this time,” Finn said quietly. His voice was hushed like all voices are in the middle of the night. We were still a day out from our home city and I’d woken up in a panic from my usual nightmare.

“It’s not,” I said gruffly with a sigh. I freed my arm from my sleeping bag and ran my palm roughly over my face. While I stifled a yawn, I pinched the bridge of my nose between my fingers and kept my eyes closed.