Children with Stars in their Veins (Chapter 10)

a/n: hey, thanks for checking out Starry Veins! This is the novel I wrote for Round V of LMS, and it's still a first draft! While I don't discourage any feedback, I prefer not to receive feedback on grammar! I'm not polishing this draft up yet, so I'm not as concerned about editing. I am, of course, open to all feedback, but I ask that you keep this in consideration! Thanks <3

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[Mishal]

While Mishal certainly didn’t engage in the fanciful, unrealistic stories with no inherent value that Cassius adored, he’d read a few “adventure” novels in his time.

He had known that real adventures, real journeys, weren’t nearly as exciting as they were in such tales, but he hadn’t expected it to be so dreary. They rode on horses all day, until they came across one of the five-mile checkpoint fields that the industrial roads surrounded in a large circle, and then made camp for the night. There wasn’t privacy for anything, except when they arrived at the outpost towers. He might have been a little bit in love with the outpost towers.

It was still uncomfortable sleeping out in the open, in nothing but a sleeping roll, with the sky yawning overhead like some glittery abyss. And he loved the sky and seeing the constellations, making pathways in the stars.

He also rode all the time back at the Citadel, or at least, as often as he could. But now, riding for a week straight? His thighs hurt and there was a blister on his left heel where his boot rubbed his skin.

And the nervous mumbling ahead of him was beginning to drive him nuts.

The horse he was riding, a young palomino mare called Aphrodite, picked up a faster pace as soon as he nudged her with his heel. He ignored the questioning look that Isadora sent him as he left her side but heard the hoofbeats of her gelding pick up to follow him.

“I wish they made walls around the road.” The girl talking was one of the few people who was practised in magic, Kizia. She had studied the art of what was best described as “healing magic”, or rather, as close as you could come to actually healing someone with magic. “I don’t like looking out and seeing a tree I thought was there move in the middle of the night.”

Gracia, riding beside her, shook her head. “The lands shouldn’t bother us if we don’t bother it,” she said. “Don’t tell me Thom filled your head with frightful tales.”

“Everyone is talking about it,” Kizia defended herself with a frown. She glanced over, dirty blonde hair loosely tied back. It barely reached her shoulders anyway. “Hiya, Mishal. Isadora.”

“Hey Kizia,” he said, easing Aphrodite into a slower walk beside them. “What’s wrong with the Wilderlands?”

“Nothing,” Gracia interrupted. “Nothing’s wrong.”

He eyed the expanse of water to their left, that had been a meadow about half an hour ago. The lake glittered and winked under the bright noon sun, and his stomach tightened.

“I’m not paranoid,” Kizia said, resolutely. “People walk into the Wilderlands, they die. What if the road goes narrow? What if we encounter a place where there’s a crack? I’ve heard of entire villages being swallowed by mountains that rose from nowhere.”

He knew the stories about the Wilderlands, about all the increasing ridiculous and horrifying deaths and disappearances. He believed less then half of them, especially as much as the other four so often went off to play in the woods next to the citadel, but he couldn’t ignore the uneasy rippling through the crew.

Especially now, as they drew away from the citadel, and he could see first-hand how quickly and unpredictably the landscape around them became unfamiliar. A vine had sprouted from nowhere a day past, and almost grabbed someone on the edge of the road.

“The industrial roads were built for a reason,” Gracia said. “We’re safe as long as we stay on them. Goodness, if nobody could use them, all the kingdoms would be entirely isolated.”

“Not Heaven’s Keep,” Isadora pointed out. “They’ve got airships.”

He glanced back towards the two walking carriages. Steam sputtered out of the pipes like breath in the cold air, cogs whirring crankily as the four legs clacked along. They were older models, but it wasn’t like he had much else to base his experience on. He didn’t know how they might have improved or not. Maybe the newer models looked less like all their legs were broken as they moved, but then again, the automated system that allowed the movement wasn’t exactly muscle or perfectly melded machinery. Not with something like the bulbous, metal shell that sat atop it that was transporting their supplies.

Then he tried to imagine something ten, twenty, maybe thirty times bigger, and in the sky. It didn’t work.

“Do you think we’ll see one?” he asked. He didn’t want to keep talking about the Wilderlands. Even though they were perfectly safe, of course. They were fine on the road, nothing was going to jump out at them.

Most likely.

No, no, nothing.

“What? An airship?” Isadora glanced up as if expecting to see one overhead. The clouds were dense, save for the patch of blinding sunlight pouring through. The sky looked almost completely white. “I’m not sure. If we do, Ember would lose her mind. She’d be so jealous.”

His stomach twisted into a knot. “Yeah,” he said.

Isadora sent him a look, but he turned back to Kizia to ask her about extracting poison from wounds. Gracia mouthed her thanks over Kizia’s shoulder and spurred her own horse forward to catch up with someone else near the front of the caravan.

They reached one of the five-mile marker fields after darkness had begun to settle. They’d passed two as the sky had began to change, but Margaretta had insisted they keep going.

He was pulling the saddle off Aphrodite when Isadora approached him. “Stormy,” she said. “You know that I never spent time around horses like you or Alanna when we were back at the citadel.”

“You want me to take care of your horse?” he asked, setting the saddle down and rubbing a hand over the sweat that had turned Aphrodite’s back damp.

“No, I want you to show me how,” she said. “Thom’s been sweet enough to help this past week, but I want to learn myself.”

He grabbed a brush from his saddlebag and began to gently rub Aphrodite down to dry her. “Then watch me. I’ll help you untack yours after.” With his free hand, he pointed towards Aphrodite’s front leg. “Start there. Run your hand down her leg from her knee to her fetlock.”

Isadora pursed her lips. “Mishal.”

“Oh. Just— From her knee down.”

She crouched down and obliged. “All right. What am I doing?”

“Check for any warmth. I mean, beyond what’s normal,” he said. “If her leg is hot, it could be an indication of swelling, which would be bad. You know, like that time Ember fell from one of the towers and broke her arm.”

“I don’t feel an unusual warmth,” Isadora said, running her hands down Aphrodite’s leg several more times as if to be sure. “Do you want me to check all her legs?”

He nodded, and then frowned at the wet sand colour that Aphrodite’s fur had turned to. “Why were they even scaling the tower?”

“I’m still surprised your first question wasn’t how did Cassius manage to get to the roof.”

After Aphrodite’s fur was considerably drier, he showed Isadora how to pick their hooves and check for thrush. “Honestly, you can’t miss it,” he told her.

“Because it looks funny?”

“No, because it smells.”

By the time they finally sat down, there were four fires going that jumbles of people in no apparent fashion crowded around. Mishal sat close enough to Isadora that they were pressed together.

He was taller than her now. He hadn’t noticed before, but he did now. She rested her head on his shoulder and barely had to bend over.

“I miss them,” she said softly. Her hair was loose, and it looked like pale gold in the firelight. “It’s been a week, and it already hurts to be away.”

He didn’t know what to say to that, but it felt wrong not to respond. “Well,” he started uneasily. “It’s going to be like this awhile.”

“Thanks. Your empathy is touching.” She sighed. It wasn’t cold enough to fog the air anymore. “I know you’re right, I just loathe to be away from them like this,” she said, and shook her head. “They should have been allowed to come. It can’t be so dangerous that it was the reason Margaretta didn’t want them to.”

“Did you consider that the Guildmaster wouldn’t want a ten-year-old, a twelve-year-old, or Cassius on this kind of expedition?” he suggested.

Isadora snorted, but then said, “Oh, don’t be mean to him. You two are just different.” She fell silent for a time, and he thought that would be the end of their conversation. Then she shifted. “I suppose that, since Cassius just turned fourteen, which means both he and Rowan are, that Margaretta would have to allow both of them if she’d brought Rowan. And if she had brought Cassius…”

“Ember would have inevitably found her way along. Probably by stuffing herself in the walking carriage. And then Alanna wouldn’t stand to be left alone,” he finished. “And since my birthday is in less than a fortnight, I—”

She sat up and stared at him. “Your birthday is— You're turning sixteen in ten days! I’d completely forgotten, I’m so sorry. With all this excitement… I’m sorry.”

He shook his head and turned towards the flickering flames, warmed by it and the lull of conversation that surrounded them in the field. “Don’t be. It’s only a birthday.”

“Only a birthday?” she asked. “You’ll only be a year away from your coming of age.” She shook her head. “When did you get so old?”

“You’re older than me.”

Someone made a choked snorting noise from somewhere in their fire circle, as if mockingly, but didn’t make any comment. Probably someone even older than them.

Isadora turned towards the fire and rested her arms on her knees, chin in her hands. “I’m sorry you won’t get a nice celebration like Cassius.”

He shrugged, trying not to think about that nice celebration, and the connotations it had held. It wasn’t all that fair to have that kind of weight on an event that was supposed to be happy. It wasn’t fair to Cassius. He wished he’d said that.

“I don’t a fancy celebration,” he replied.

She looked at him. “What do you want?”

His stomach knotted again, and he stared into the fire. He didn’t feel so warm anymore. “Some hot food and a decent night’s rest.”

Isadora laughed and tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Don’t we all.”

It was when he was crawling into his bedroll that the lie began to press onto his chest like a weight. Isadora’s question began the echo through his head like a bell until it gave him a headache and he sighed as he stared up at the stars. The unspoken truth bounced around with it.

I don’t know what I want at all.

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