Light of Stars [2]

Chapter Thirteen

♕ City of S̶u̶n̶ Smoke ♕

Her heart leaped out of her chest as she spotted the darkness in the city of sun. She was not sure if she could even keep calling it that, not when the sun had not made its way into the sky for months now. Vereena hid herself from the seemingly empty streets of her own home, forced to hide from the sight of anyone that could rattle her presence to the marked.

It was strange, concealing yourself from people that once were your own. Strange having to cover her skin, because the badges of honor tattooed in them made her too recognizable.

Vereena kept moving silently through the streets of Goldcrest. Arrows of moonstone on her back. Not in sight. Just close enough that she could reach for them in case things came to worse. Worse than they had gone previously.

She took a deep breath. The smoked up air making her want to cough, but it was air, better than anything that now covered Goldcrest's palace. Her home. The heart of her city. Barely moving, barely standing.

Her hands reached for the hood of her jacket, covering as much of her face as she could before she stepped inside the darkness. She needed to be a shadow, so she transformed herself to be one.

Vereena climbed up the side of the castle, careful to not make sound under any circumstances, tracing the same steps she had taken for multiple days in a row now. She moved as the wind increased, hiding the sounds she was not capable of disappearing. The window to the room was already open, as it'd been for weeks.

She rolled to the ground taking a second before lifting from the burnt floors of what once had been her room. She waited, completely still, her eyes locked to the door, waiting. Vereena held her breath, wanting to hear as much as she could from the outside.

For minutes she did not move, and then, when she was sure no one was near she walked towards the black door and carefully opened it, studying the hall to make sure it was empty before submerging herself into the halls of Goldcrest.

It was not the palace she remembered. Nothing was left of the white walls, the light of the halls. Nothing was left of the golden flowers around the ceiling. All was dark, all was as they had wanted. A copy of Blackstone, a mirror of their home. A sign of destruction, of what they had taken from them so easily.

There was no one inside, not as she ran across the halls, not as she reached the entrance, the staircase to the lower floors now covered in purple leather carpets, hiding the light of the stone underneath.

Vereena made sure to run down, and not stay in open sight for longer than a few seconds. At least the new floors disguised her footsteps perfectly now. As she hid herself in the darkest corner she could find, her eyes found the mural of Elliana. It was faint now, its previous color drained from the glass, but it was still there. She hoped it served as a reminder to the queen that the gods would never forget her treason.

She reached the doors of Asher's studio in less than a minute, and locked herself inside.

It was the furthest she'd gotten without feeling one of them near. Without hearing their laughter, their voices, without seeing their shadows following them around everywhere they went.

"Please please" Vereena muttered under her breath searching the desk for the carved stars of stardust they'd left here, Layla's stars that she'd painted with it, for only their eyes to see, stars they had not been able to retrieve.

Asher's study was emptied out almost completely, nothing remained of the warmth space he used to spend hours locked up in. It was empty, and she was running out of time.