SoulMate

Prologue | I've Always Wanted to Crash My Funeral

Note: This chapter also serves as the epilogue for the previous and first book in the series: CounterPart. If you haven't already, I suggest reading that first.

Four years ago...

Starflight was alone.

For the first time in his life, he was truly alone.

The night was shrouded in an eerie stillness as he stood at the edge of the gathering, keeping his wings folded tightly against his sides. The air felt heavy with sorrow, a thick blanket of grief that wrapped around every dragon in attendance. Today, even the land seemed darker, as if the flowers and trees themselves were mourning the loss.

Starflight blinked rapidly, but the tears still got to him, and he let them fall down his snout. Fatespeaker's laugh, her relentless optimism, her unwavering enthusiasm - how could all of that just be... gone?

He couldn't bring himself to look at the makeshift pyre, the place where they would send their final farewells. They didn't have a body: he assumed it would have been lost at sea. It was too final ... too real.

Instead, he focused on the murmuring of the other dragons around him. He could hear Tsunami's quiet sobs; feel the weight of Glory's sadness in her blue scales as she stood near the front; and even sensed the deep sorrow in Clay's usually warm gaze. Sunny was crying quietly into Squid's shoulder, - he remembered with a jolt just how close she and Fatespeaker had been.

But it was his heart that ached with a pain that felt like it would never heal. Fatespeaker was supposed to be the one who brought light to his darkest thoughts.

She wasn't supposed to leave him. Not like this.

He couldn't banish the tsunami from his nightmares.

"Starflight!" She'd yelled. "Go, FLY! Fly on ahead, I'll catch you up!"

He'd protested, told her he wouldn't leave her there, but she was insistent.

"One of us has to put an end to these disasters. One of us has to tell them, and it has to be you, Starflight!"

Though no matter how much he wished, he just couldn't be angry at Peril, knowing how she'd gone through so much pain and trouble. Fatespeaker would say she deserved happiness more than many dragons here.

Starflight's breath hitched in his throat as he forced himself to focus on the present. He had to honour her memory. He owed her that much.

He just wished he could've shown her how much she meant to him in the time he still had. In the end, he supposed it had taken them all losing everything to realise how much it meant to them.

Queen Glory stepped forward, her usually confident voice soft and solemn as she addressed the gathered dragons. "Fatespeaker was a light in all our lives. She saw the good in everyone, and she never gave up on those she loved. Er - even if they appeared to hate her. We gather here today not to mourn her passing, but to celebrate the joy she brought to us all."

Starflight closed his eyes, letting the words wash over him. Glory was right - Fatespeaker had always seen the best in everyone. Even in him, when he could barely see it himself. He clenched his jaw, trying to swallow the lump that had formed in his throat. How was he supposed to live without her? There was no-one else he wanted by side.

No-one else would fit. He only wanted her.

Suddenly what Peril said didn't feel ever so strange after all.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he almost didn't notice the rustling sound coming from the hedges at the edge of the forest. And when he did, it was immediately dismissed.

It's got to be the wind. Or some small creature. It's probably Nightstar, he thought miserably.

But then the rustling grew louder, more insistent, and Starflight's ears perked up.

The other dragons seemed to notice it too, their heads turned towards the source of the noise. Murmurs spread through the crowd, within a split second confusion had replaced the heavy silence.

And then, the impossible happened, and a dragon stumbled out from the hedges, her scales dirtied and battered, but unmistakably alive. Starflight's heart momentarily caught and before he knew it, he was stumbling head over heel, nonsensical gibbering pouring out of his open tap of a mouth.

"Fatespeaker?!" Starflight's voice finally came out as a strangled cry, disbelief and overwhelming relief flooding him all at once.

This was a hallucination. This could not be happening. This was HIGHLY STATISTICALLY UNLIKELY -

But true.

Fatespeaker dragged herself forward, her steps unsteady but determined. Her wings were tattered, and she looked like she'd been through a battle, but her eyes - those bright, beautiful eyes - were full of life.

"Didn't... think you'd... start without me," she panted, a weak but familiar grin spreading across her face.

Starflight couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. It felt like the world had stopped spinning, and all he could do was stare at her, at the impossible sight of her standing there, alive.

Tsunami was the first to react, rushing forward with a yell of disbelief. "FATESPEAKER, WHAT IN THE THREE MOONS HAVE YOU BEEN - WHAT THE - What - I can't -"

Fatespeaker winced as Tsunami nearly bowled her over with a hug. "Easy... easy," she muttered, but there was a laugh in her voice.

Starflight's legs finally obeyed him, and he stumbled forward, his heart pounding in his chest. He was terrified that if he touched her, she might disappear; and that that this might all be some cruel illusion. But when he reached her she was solid, real, and she looked at him with those same meadow green eyes.

"Fatespeaker," he whispered, his voice shaking. "I... I - we all thought you were..."

"Dead?" she finished for him, still grinning despite the exhaustion etched into her features. "Yeah, so did I for a bit there. But I'm too stubborn to die. You know that."

Starflight didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so he did both. He pulled her into a tight embrace, feeling the tears stream down his face as relief and joy overwhelmed him.

"You're alive," he kept repeating, as if saying it out loud would make it more real.

Fatespeaker leaned into him, her own voice choked with emotion. "I'm alive. I'm here, Starflight. Did ... is everything... is it all okay, now?"

"Yes. Yes!" He laughed, despite himself, feeling as if he could shine brighter than any star in the moonlit sky.

"Starflight."

He was grounded by her voice again, which sounded so grim and serious that there had to be something great she was about to say.

"It's not all okay. Not yet. There's - the time I was gone - I wasn't lost. I was imprisoned. The eleventh tribe, Starflight - it's real - the StormWings - and they're right here on Pantala!"