Starborn Legacy (A Starborn Series prequel)

Prologue

At thirteen-years old, Audrey Wildes should have felt lucky to be burying her mother.

Thirteen years was far more than they were supposed to get together. Her mother, Astrid, had always told her daughter that every day they shared was a day of borrowed time. As it was, Astrid's bad heart should have killed her long before Audrey came into the picture. But it hadn't; not when Astrid hit — then surpassed — the maximum age her doctors had predicted for her. And not when she'd become pregnant either. Astrid's bad heart had even let her survive her daughter's birth — something no one truly believed would be possible — and all thirteen birthdays after it.

Maybe it was because her mother kept defying the odds that Audrey never really believed this day would come.

And so, as she helped lower her mother's shrouded body into a grave she'd also helped dig, Audrey felt anything but lucky.

Her grandmother said participating in their burial rites was an honor — that they helped to provide closure. So, Audrey participated. She helped wash her mother's body, and sewed the shroud, and dug the grave by hand. She picked wildflowers and herbs and scattered them on top of what remained of her mother's wrapped corpse. She did all of this, and waited to feel better. Instead, Audrey felt unmoored; like she was making a terrible mistake she could never come back from. Once the shroud was pinned, once the hold was dug, once the grave was filled, there would be no turning back. Panic rose in her throat as she and her fellow mourners began the terrible business of shoveling the displaced earth back into place. Why, she wondered helplessly, didn't anyone else seem to realize just how wrong this whole thing was? They were burying her mother — her beautiful, joyful, immortal mother.

But that was the problem: her mother wasn't immortal. She'd only seemed that way: ethereal and impossible in the eyes of her only child. And now, she was gone, and Audrey was alone.

Well, almost alone.

Stepping back from the edge of her mother's grave, Audrey looked over her shoulder. A breeze caught her hair, and between the dancing chestnut strands, she caught a glimpse of them. They stood, motionless, just within the thicket of trees that surrounded the graveyard. Unbeknownst to everyone except Audrey, they'd been there all along, watching the strange and earthly procession. Even from a distance, Audrey could feel the overwhelming grief that emanated from them. Still, she knew they wouldn't join them. They would wait until the other mourners were gone. Audrey just needed to be patient.

And so, she finished burying her mother, whispering a desperate apology under her breath with every shovelful of earth she tipped into the grave. Her arms ached from the effort, and beads of sweat slid down between her shoulder blades despite the autumn chill. As her mother's shrouded body disappeared beneath the dirt and the hole grew shallow, Audrey's panic and pain slowly gave way to nothing at all. No sadness, no fear: just a staticky numbness and a desire to be done, until finally, mercifully, they were.

The grave was covered, and Audrey's mother was gone for real. Some of the mourners spoke their final goodbyes, while others paid their respects silently. Then, like a bunch of balloons with severed strings, the crowd drifted away back into the world of the living. Audrey barely noticed them leave.

"Sweetheart?" Her grandmother's voice sounded as if she was speaking through water. Audrey didn't even register that the question was directed at her until she felt a warm hand lay softly atop her shoulder. "Are you ready?"

Audrey wrapped her arms around herself and stared down at the fresh dirt at her feet. "Can I stay a little longer?"

Her grandmother rubbed gentle circles into Audrey's damp back, just like her mother used to. The familiarity of it broke Audrey's heart all over again. "Of course, love. Do you want us to wait in the car for you?"