Starflower by Anne Elisabeth Stengl
A NOTE TO THE READER
STARFLOWER TAKES PLACE more than sixteen hundred years (as mortals count time) before Heartless. There are dramatic topographical differences between the Near World of Starflower’s day and that of Una’s, and some characters, though living, are not yet who they will become. Even the Prince of Farthestshore is known by another name. . . .
PROLOGUE
ONCE UPON A TIME, great Etalpalli, the City of Wings, was ruled by a Faerie queen. Her name has long since been forgotten. What is remembered are her youth, her beauty. Her hair was bright as the sun and no less vibrant than the feathered wings sprouting from her shoulders.
She was young when she came to the throne, and her heart was tender and full of love for her people. They flocked in the air, their wings a garden of many colors, and lived in the green-grown towers of Etalpalli. In those high places, they found it easy to hear the voices of the sun and the moon singing and would sing back in joyful echo.
Once upon a time, the City of Wings was a peaceful demesne full of life.
Now it burned.
———
Hri Sora sat up, choking as though she’d swallowed her own tongue. Poisonous fumes filled her lungs. Surrounding her on all sides, towers of fire issued thunderheads of black smoke. She stared about, unblinking. Ashes and flying embers lashed the air, but these could not hurt her. Her thin face and form were those of a woman. But her yellow eyes betrayed her true nature.
The Dark Father stood with his back to her, a shadow, like smoke himself. At first, she thought he must be unaware of her presence. His head turned this way and that as he appraised the inferno surrounding him. The searing air shimmered red. Flames licked at his long black cloak, but it did not catch fire.
Hri Sora staggered to her feet, clutching her stomach. Her body was hollow and cold inside. She wondered if she should speak or back away, avoid the Dark Father’s gaze. But he settled that question by addressing her first.
“That, my darling, was quite the tantrum.”
She blinked at his broad back and said nothing. He did not seem to expect an answer but shook his head and continued, “Dear, oh dear. I wondered if I should say something to you when you started . . . remind you of those vows you made long ago. ‘I shall never return to Etalpalli!’” His voice became a high, unflattering mimic of hers. “‘Though I die, the City of Wings will live forever.’ Such a fine sentiment. I’m sure you meant it at the time.” He shrugged.
Hri Sora whirled about where she stood, dizzy with emptiness. Her eyes widened as she looked again at the towering flames, hundreds of fiery tongues tasting a blackened sky.
“No,” she whispered.
“Oh yes,” said her Father. He turned to her. The heat in the air rose so strong that the edges of his cloak floated up behind him in a dark swirl. He was more than seven feet tall, and his skin was white, stretched thin over a skull of black bone. He smiled, his fangs gleaming dully in the firelight. “I’m afraid it’s true. You, my sweet, came blazing out of the Near World straight through Cozamaloti Gate and set fire to your own city. Do you not remember?”
Somewhere amid the roar of the flames came the deeper roar of a tower crumbling. Hri Sora gasped and clutched her head in her hands. “I did this?”
“Do you doubt it?” Her Father chuckled, rolling his eyes to the burning heavens. “You, who once boasted to me that your fire was greater than my own?”
“No,” she whispered. Then, her voice a hoarse bark, she screamed. “No!”
She tried to walk, to run, but her feet betrayed her, and she collapsed on her hands and knees. The hot embers covering the streets should have burned her skin, but they did not, for she was a dragon, and this was her own fire. Rather than burn, they warmed her, bringing slow clarity to her addled mind.
Etalpalli. Her city . . .
Her Father laughed outright, the rumble of his voice itself like flames. Then he moved to stand beside her but made no offer to help her to her feet. Instead, he took another slow spin, as though he could not get his fill of the destruction.
“I will give you this, daughter. Not once have I seen any of my children burn so brilliantly before. You always were special, weren’t you? My firstborn!”
She could not make herself rise but remained on all fours like a crawling beast. She, who had once flown to the highest vaults of heaven, into the presence of Lady Hymlumé herself! To what depths had she fallen? Closing her eyes, she strove to remember.
There had been the pure, hateful, cleansing light of the moon shining in her face. She had unhinged her jaw to swallow it whole—the light, the song, everything. Then came that horrible moment, the tearing across the center of her soul, deep into the core of her fire. The moment when her wings had been stripped away.