Starborn. Katie MacAlister

of fear through me, gripping my belly with a cold hand; from the light that illuminated the length of the crypt came the slowly emerging Eidolon, members of the thane’s company. Men and women who had fought two thousand years before, arcanists and soldiers and wielders of magic long since lost to our kind, all formed wispy grey figures. The stone ribs of the crypt were visible through their bodies as they started forward.

      Toward me.

      “Kiriah’s ten toes,” I swore under my breath, and spun around to run for my life.

      A war cry rose from behind me, echoing down the long hallway and catching me as I was partway up the thirty-nine steps that led to the cellar under the tower of Kelos. I didn’t dare glance behind me to see how close the spirits were, having had ample proof from my brief skirmish with the thane to know that spirits can move very quickly when they choose to do so. But a cold breath seemed to touch the back of my neck when I reached the door. I sheathed my swords and yanked open the portal, then slid through the opening, slamming it shut just as the nearest spirit swung his sword.

      Panting so loudly that I couldn’t hear anything but the beat of my own heart, I clutched the circular iron link that served as an anchor for a chain that normally stretched across the door, holding tight in case the spirits tried to follow. The runes that had been engraved into the iron bands that crisscrossed the door flared to life with a dull white glow, then faded. I tried to catch my breath, well aware that my hands were shaking. After taking a moment to control myself, I wound the chain through the anchor, and locked it into place.

      The captain of the guard was waiting when I turned around, his arms crossed, a slight smile on his lips. I relaxed at the sight of him, one part of me marveling that I had grown so comfortable with the spirits—the captain included—who resided above ground in Kelos, although they were often a trial to Hallow, they had given me no problems.

      Except for the captain, who took offense over the fact that the first time we’d met I had separated his ghostly head from the rest of his body. It had taken him a good hour to generate enough power to become corporeal again; a fact that almost a year later, he still held against me, often setting me difficult challenges to overcome.

      Like the Eidolon. With the memory of just how close my escape had been, I glared at the captain.

      His smiled broadened.

      “If Hallow wasn’t busy trying to find those blasted moonstones, I’d so tell him you set me up,” I informed the captain, handing him the key to the locks.

      His eyebrows rose. “I take it that you had no luck?”

      “No, I didn’t. Why didn’t you tell me that the spirits down there were Eidolon?”

      His smile became even bigger. “You said you wished for more practice with your swords than my soldiers offer you. Who better to hone your skills that the most feared warriors of Alba?”

      “The thane I could handle…mostly…but there were hundreds more of them that came pouring out of their resting places,” I said, with a glance back at the door. I hesitated before climbing the second set of stairs. “Er…you’re sure that’s going to hold them? They were more than a little annoyed when I fought their king.”

      “Oh, the door isn’t scribed to protect us from the Eidolon,” the captain said blithely as he preceded me up the stairs. “It’s to keep other spirits from bothering them.”

      “It just keeps the spirits out?” I shook my head. “That makes no sense. If they wanted to remain solitary, why wouldn’t the protection extend to keeping everyone out?”

      He paused and cocked an eyebrow at me, a gleam of amusement in his faded eyes. “No mortal would be foolish enough to annoy an Eidolon. I assumed you knew that.”

      “Oh, you did not…gah!” I said rude things under my breath as the captain marched upward, but at the same time, I felt twitchy until we emerged into the open, climbing out of the cellar of an outbuilding next to the master’s tower. I turned my face up to the sun, and sent a query up to the goddess, but other than a slight warmth that was my awareness of her, Kiriah seemed to keep her blessings from me.

      My heart fell. It seemed that every day since the battle that ended with my channeling Kiriah herself, I had been more and more removed from her. One day, the paranoid part of my mind whispered, one day, she will refuse you altogether. And then where will you be? “Useless. Wholly and utterly useless…” I answered the insidious whisper.

      “You think so?” The captain paused and made a show of turning back toward the stairs. “I can have the lock and chain removed from the door if you wish to confront the Eidolon again, although I can’t say I recommend such an action.”

      “No, I wasn’t talking about the Eidolon. I meant…oh, never mind.” I pushed my misery down into a small ball of worry and walked past the captain. “Although, you could have told me that the thane himself was down there. Yes, I know I said I wanted practice fighting more adept opponents, but next time, let me know that I will be fighting against a king and his entire company.”

      The captain shrugged and strode next to me when I went to the stable yard, where there was a pump. My throat was parched from the airless, dusty environment of the crypt. “It does little good talking when the Master won’t listen to what I have to say.”

      “Hallow is very busy trying to locate the moonstones. The two he hasn’t found, that is.” I splashed my face with water from the pump, then took a long drink, washing away not just the dust, but the panic that had filled me in the crypt when faced with the knowledge that I was in over my head.

      “So he repeatedly tells me, when he deigns to notice me, that is.”

      I frowned down at my hands holding the metal drinking cup that hung on the pump. If I’d had my lightweaving abilities in the crypt…if Kiriah had not turned deaf ears to my pleas…if I had been more adept with my swords, then I wouldn’t have run from the Eidolon.

      “Which isn’t very often. ‘You are naught but a spirit bound to this place,’ he said to me the other day, just as if the captain of the guard of Kelos has no power of his own! I have served seven masters, and I will serve seven more before I pass into the region beyond this world.”

      “Mmhmm,” I said absently, then filled a bucket and hauled it over to where my mule Buttercup dozed in a small paddock. She rolled an eye toward me to see if I had any treats, looking disappointed when I merely filled her water tub.

      “He treats me as if I am nothing but an annoyance, and yet I have done my best to serve him.” The captain’s voice was filled with pique.

      I was well aware that he disapproved of Hallow almost as much as he did me, but there wasn’t much I could do about that even if I had the time to act as peacemaker. “I’m sure he’s very grateful you keep the spirits here in order,” I murmured, wondering how best to tell Hallow that my expedition to the crypt had been useless. Not that he had truly believed Exodius, the former Master of Kelos, had hidden the precious moonstones there, but still, it was one more setback. If we didn’t get those stones, we couldn’t rescue our friend Deo and his mother, Dasa.

      And the guilt that plucked at me over Deo’s plunge through the portal to the shadowland of Eris made it imperative that we find a way to save both of them.

      “I do more than simply keep the denizens of Kelos in order,” the captain said with a snort. “I am a guardian, protector of the knowledge of Kelos. To me, the Masters impart their most valuable secrets, knowing I would protect and keep them until such time as they are needed. And that time is now.”

      He followed when I headed toward the tower that was one of the few standing structures in Kelos. Once the famed center of learning for arcanists all over Alba, it had fallen into ruin; most of the buildings having collapsed into piles of rubble and stained bricks. Of the beautiful silver domes, pierced with the shapes of stars, planets, and other heavenly bodies, nothing remained but tales of glory days in the books found in Hallow’s library. Now, the same grey dust that made up the ground seemed to gently envelop everything