Curse of the Stars Book 1

Epilogue

Epilogue

Crystal shards fell from the sky like thousands of snowflakes. They should have pierced and cut whatever they touched, but they drifted slow as feathers to the ground below, which lay crisp with more shards.

This is very strange weather. Fyran thought to herself as she stepped from one crystal to another. None pierced her or even grazed her skin. Little fractals of glass clinked as they fell upon each other so that the whole world sounded as if chimes were buzzing in different tones, or that people were clinking glasses at a party that had been muffled from all other sound. But it was strange, the gentle way in which the glass fell, like it was almost as light as air. The sounds that drifted up from it were very light and airy, soft almost.

Fyran beheld the sprawling towers of Sufta and how they glinted with the blanket of fragmented glass. It caught light like a flickering mosaic in the heat of the fire. Mist crept amongst the upper layers like a hunter on the prowl.

The city seemed all but empty as Fyran walked down the streets, glass crunching everywhere she went. That or the constant tinkling drowned everything else out. Still she walked, down streets, scattering shards, watching them slide like waterfalls off of the sloped ceilings.

And then she saw a dark form slip between two buildings before disappearing behind a third. Fyran stopped and crouched low to the ground, listening as hard as she could past the tinkling of glass. No...she could not hear anything but that. Not even a whisper. She could only hear her own breath as her heart began to quicken.

Then she caught sight of another shadow—out of the corner of her eye to the left. She slipped towards the shadow, grabbing a particularly sharp and large glass shard as she glided past. She already knew who prowled amongst this city. His city. The city who had invented a monster and made him their king.

"Leviathan." She breathed as she crept around the side corners of buildings and past overturned carts. How to take down such a horrendous beast? It wasn't as large as the legends made it sound, but perhaps that was the exact reason why she couldn't take legends at their word. Why they all fell into exaggerations of sorts along the way, through the centuries, the tales growing taller like flowers in a field.

So perhaps its scales would not be as tough as the legends claimed. And she had never seen him breathe lightning, not like the terrible powers he held in the scrolls written about him. So perhaps she was expecting far too much of a creature. And perhaps when the city saw for itself how easily defeated the dragon could be, they would stop believing in tall tales too.

She was close enough to hear it shifting now. She heard a great deal of glass scattering around the corner that she crept along. Another couple steps and it would swing into view. She took a couple deep breaths and tried to devise a plan. In the end though all she had was a glass shard, and the advantage of surprise. It would have to be enough.

She leapt.

...And ended up inside her grandfather's library. Fyran stared along the familiar oak shelves and the colours flitting in through the open window. The glass city had disappeared, replaced by the normal city views outside the windows. People dotted the streets and there was the normal hustle and bustle of everyday city life.

"Grandfather?" Fyran called hesitantly. Her eyes began to pool with tears. She hadn't seen him in so long! They had so much to catch up on.

"Over here, child." A voice trembled from the flight of stairs that led up to her grandfather's study. She had been in that room sometimes, it was where her grandpa did most of his work, as it was blocked off and secluded from the public part of the library. It was small and crowded, and absolutely packed from roof to floor with half finished projects.

Fyran almost tripped on the staircase in her haste to get up it, but then she pulled herself up short. There was something that wasn't quite right... Fyran tried to puzzle it out before she realized that the voice that had called down to her did not sound like Grandfather's voice at all.

Wary now, and still holding the glass shard, Fyran crept up the steps, as silent as her shadow. The door was open a crack but not enough for her to see who was inside.

Fyran's fingertips sought the doorknob carefully and made not a sound as she pushed it open a whisper and peeked through.

It's empty. She realized in confusion as she slipped inside. There was his wooden desk...and covered in open books. More half-finished books lined the shelves, and there was the mosaic yellow and green lamp that speckled the walls in a kaleidoscope of leafy patterns. It flickered with the fire it contained within. How careless of him, to leave that on surrounded by pages of old manuscripts? It almost made Fyran feel angry.

There was a feather pen laying carelessly there beside a sheet of paper, and a little dab of ink on the end, still fresh as if someone had been writing here recently.

"Hello?" Fyran called, turning in a full circle. There was no other way out of this room and there was no way for a visitor to slide in and out unnoticed—not when she had been at the bottom of the steps. She knew she hadn't imagined the sound...was the culprit hiding amongst the piles of books somewhere?

There was a slight hissing sound coming from behind her and she whirled around in fright, but there was no one. Just that lone, blank sheet of paper, hissing as if it had been lit aflame.

Curious now, Fyran crept along the outside of the desk until she came to stare down at it properly. The hissing faded abruptly and she looked around once more, braille creeping onto her skin.

"Hello?" She called again. "Anyone here?"

And then the page began to write itself.