Light of Stars [2]

Chapter Forty-Two

♕ Dancing Midnight ♕

Slowly out of the depths of darkness, Aubrette found herself floating in an ocean of stars. Floating over the clouds, no sunlight, no moonlight, all there was, all that could be, was an endless trail of stars rushing around her, traveling, falling to the earth, holding their center, shining brighter, turning off, disappearing from her view.

His hand intertwined with hers the only reminder that this was real. As real as anything else, not a dream, an illusion, not something she would loose after her eyes opened. Aubrette held onto him a little tighter as she looked down and saw nothing but dark, felt nothing but shadows far down below.

She looked at Dorian, whose eyes seemed the darkest shade of blue she'd ever seen, and felt a knot form in her throat as he looked around, overwhelmed by the world around him. His eyes shifting from one star to the next, a crease on his forehead, as if they all spoke to him, as if he could feel them all inside of him.

Aubrette placed her other hand on his shoulder, his eyes shifting back to hers.

"How" she said. Not knowing what else to say, what else she could say. "How, what..." she tried to speak. Dorian blinked.

"This is my blessing" he whispered. "I can bring people here, trapped them for as long as I wish too. I listen to their voices, I can feel their pain, if theres a star on the sky with your soul merged into it, I would be able to find you, up here." His voice dropped.

"Its beautiful" she said, staring around and not understanding how the sky could be this. How places with so much light could exist in a world so inherently dark. Her eyes glossed over. "How about a thought for a thought" Aubrette whispered, not sure if she wanted him to actually hear it at all.

Dorian stayed silent for a moment and then cleared his throat. "The night I found you in the cliff... I know you saw me staring at your star as a kid, I've been watching your star for a while, it has always been so distinct from the others I... that day I saw it, speaking so loudly it was as if you were yelling across the sky, I rushed up Gloas, thinking theres no way, no way you were in my side of the world, no way I would get to meet you, whoever you were. And there you were, staring into the abyss, blood spilling form your arm, a soul shouting across the night sky." Aubrette felt her breath caught inside her throat.

"Today is the first day I have smiled for longer than few minutes in months" she said, her voice wavering. "And I feel guilty that I was among strangers and not my own friends" She took a deep breath, trying her best for her voice not to break. "I don't feel deserving of happiness, not after I walked away from them, again. Even if the first time it wasn't conscious"

"I wish I didn't have to take part of the shift. Wish my life did not belong to Infernum, that the path of who I am supposed to be wasn't tied to any of this. Wish I could walk around my home and have something good to say about it, when all I can see is the places I've suffered in silence, the places where I lost a part of myself to accommodate for others."

"I'm afraid I will let everyone down, Sybilla, Vereena, Zander, Iz... they all expect me to rise up against my mother, and I promised them I would find a way for us to go back home and I do, I swear I will die fighting for them. But I'm just, how am I going to be able to look into my mother's eyes and stand up against her? How am I ever be able to be a ruler if all I can do right now is keep breathing?"

"The night we met, you saw me glancing up at the stars, no one has ever looked at me long enough to see how often I look up. Its my subtle way of reminding myself that I'm still here, alive, breathing, that what's happening around me is real and not something my mind has created to shield me from reality. It was my way of making sure you were actually there. That I wasn't dreaming."