Light of Stars [2]

Chapter Sixty-Eight

♕ Rain of Feathers ♕

The fire burned all through the night.

She had felt his arms wrapped around her, holding her together as her hands reached out to Phoenix pouring starlight onto her body, a string of light trying the two of them together. She had felt him hold her even as the earth tremble and the shield wrapped around them faded away, the fire falling from the sky brushing their skin every once in a while, yet neither had wavered. Nor had Pheonix, who had not made a sound, not of fear or pain, as she had spread her wings wider and wider, covering as much of the red moonlight as she could. Aubrette could still feel the tears sticking into her face, that had falling into her cheeks continuously for hours.

Moonlight haunted her in bright red colors. Moonlight, that had always represented the best of the world. Moonlight that was forgiveness, shelter, a keeper, a goddess, a healer, a mother. And now... now moonlight was hellfire itself. It was ev evilness and tried and nightmares. And yet in a strange way, she could still compare it to the wrath of a mother, punishing their children for their misbehavior.

She had felt his arms wrapped around her, and had wanted to hold on for much longer, but with Phoenix blocking the light she was draining far more rapidly than she had hoped she would. Her hands wavered, the both of them sent flying back. Dorian's grip on her torso the only thing keeping her from rolling down onto the void. Her eyes had tried to remain open, as if the sole act would make her stop what she knew would follow. If she did not sleep perhaps the rain of feathers would be nothing but a dream in Sybilla's mind. And yet, her eyes closed.

She had felt his arms wrapped around her, felt them as they slightly let go, and the world had faded into nothing around them.

The sky had shifted now, the red diminishing to a soft pink morning sunlight, pouring into her skin as if to heal all of the parts that had been burned and ripped through the night.

She had fallen. Had felt him hold her even as the two could not remain awake for any longer. She was drifting away, trapped in a jail of memories from which she could no longer distinguish reality. She coughed, and red came out. It took everything inside of her to not let her forceful breathing choke her up, to not let it get a thigh grip in her throat and trap all the air inside. She turned to sit on her knees and hands, keeping her head looking down in the ground and waited to feel the nausea settling in her stomach, hoped it would come up to her mouth. Time passed, there was no way for her to tell how much time and she could slowly feel the tightness on her chest fade away and new air travel down into her lungs allowing her to breathe completely again.

When morning came, truly, brightly, and she saw the rays of sunlight shining through the clouds of the void's sky, Aubrette started to feel her skin heal from the burns the rain of flames had left on her arms, her face, her legs, her fingers.

She tried to stand, to gather enough strength to look around for her, to be able to think hard enough through the incessant pounding inside her head, but there would have been no point, no point as she saw the thousands of feathers floating on the sky over them, falling slowly into the ground of the pit, covering the surface completely. Feathers that had broken off from the wings that had protected them. Feathers that could only mean one thing.

Her eyes opened completely as she noticed the color in them, red and black. Her hands started shaking as she reached to grab them, her fingers brushed the ground and it felt cold underneath her skin. The contrast from how it all had felt before was unbearable. She could feel her eyes burning from holding back the knot in her throat as she understood how it all felt, how it all looked.

The two of them were the only breathing things in a graveyard of blood and feathers.

Her eyes turned to watch him as the thought entered her mind, afraid that she might be mistaken and he was not one of the things, but when her eyes spot him she could see him slowly moving. Dorian stared awake, pushing himself from the ground much more easily than she had. Feathers that had started covering his back fell as he sat up, his forehead creasing as he tried to understand what it was, where he was. She looked down, watching the burnt edges of the feathers making them all look covered in snow.