Bright Star Book 2

She stared at those brown eyes that had captivated her for so long. Eyes that had smiled at her, laughed with her, seen her when it seemed nobody else had.

Eyes that she’d loved with all she was, eyes she thought she’d never see again.

And now they were looking back at her with an expression of stunned disbelief in them.

“A-Andra?” Talias stammered. “Andra, is that…really you?”

Andra looked briefly down at herself. She was clad in leather armor, remnants of dried blood still flecked on her boots, and her leather collar was gone.

Of course he didn’t recognize her. She hardly looked like the same girl she’d been the last time he’d seen her. She looked back at his familiar face and felt a smile forming on her lips.

“Yes,” she breathed. “Talias, it’s me.”

A ragged laugh broke from his lips and he surged to his feet, body lurching toward her. But he was pulled up short by the chain that Egan still gripped, binding Talias’s hands together.

Andra rushed forward, closing the gap between them, quickly gripping the shackles in each of her hands. Instinctively, she pressed the warm magic at the back of her mind into the shackles, demanding Talias’s freedom.

The metal yielded, clicking open and falling to Talias’s feet, leaving only Andra’s hands now encircling his wrists.

Talias looked down at where her fingers rested against his skin. “How did you… How did you do that?”

Andra laughed, a flush of pleasure creeping into her cheeks as he raised his eyes to hers again. “A lot’s changed, Talias,” she answered, surprised by the tremor in her own voice.

Her flush deepened as his eyes took her in, from her stained boots to her disheveled hair, now longer than before and streaked with sunlight.

His eyes rested on hers again and he gave her that crooked grin she’d always loved. “So it seems,” he said.

He slid his wrists from her gentle hold, bringing his hands around hers, gripping them tightly as he smiled down at her.

Andra tried to swallow the lump that had formed in her throat, but with no luck. A brief silence hung between them before she remembered something.

She jumped slightly, pulling her hands from his grip and plunging them into her pockets searchingly as words tumbled from her mouth.

“Oh, I still have… Where is it, where is it? I promise, I never took it off until right before—I never thought…”

Finally, her fingers closed around the band of braided leather, and she pulled it from her pocket, holding it out to him with a proud smile on her lips.

“I kept it,” she said breathlessly. “At Castigo’s. Across the wilderness and the desert. Here, with the Freemen. All this time.”

The smile he gave her stole the breath from her lungs. Talias placed his hand in hers, enveloping the bracelet between their skin. “You kept it,” he confirmed.

She nodded eagerly. Talias pulled suddenly on her hand, bringing her to him, wrapping her tightly in his arms.

After a long moment in his embrace, Talias pulled back, taking the leather bracelet from her hand as he did so. Without a word, he wrapped the bracelet around her wrist, just as he’d done what felt like a lifetime ago.

The memory of that moment flooded into Andra’s mind and heart—the fear that she would never see him again, the pain of losing all hope of a future she’d dreamed of. But here he was again, returned to her.

She felt the knot in the bracelet cinch firmly into place, and he gripped her hands again, bathing her in the radiance of his smile.

Kael watched the reunion silently, disbelievingly, his chest feeling hollow.

Moments ago he’d held Andra in his own arms. He’d laid his heart open to her, offered her a part of him he’d never given to anyone.

And he’d thought, for a moment—for one glorious, breathless, hopeful moment—that she might accept it.

And now, she was gazing up at someone else’s face, gripping someone else’s hands in hers. And that damned bracelet…

When she’d taken it off before the battle, Kael had thought it a sign that she was ready to let go of whatever still held her to her old life. But there it was again, encircling her skin as surely as her slave’s collar had once done.

The stranger’s hand—Talias’s hand—reached up to Andra’s face, cupping her chin as he leaned closer to her…

“Egan,” Kael snapped, his voice low, sharp, and hollow. “Take the prisoner to the council chambers for interrogation.”

Andra’s head jerked toward him in surprise, as if just remembering he was there. As if she’d entirely forgotten about him.

“What?” she stammered. “Kael, what— What are you doing?” She stepped toward him, but her body was still inclined toward Talias as she gestured at him, still speaking.

“Kael, it’s Talias. The boy I told you about. I know him, you don’t have to—”

Kael fixed her with a flat stare, gripping his hands firmly behind his back, desperately fighting the urge to reach for her, pull her to him, pull her away from this other man.

“He was with the Kingsmen, Andra,” he replied, cutting her off. “He’s one of them. He needs to be questioned.”

“No, I’m not!” Talias cried out, stepping toward Kael as well. Egan seized his shoulder firmly, restraining him, and Talias didn’t fight the grip. “I’m not one of them,” he continued. “I was—”

“Quiet!” Kael barked, slicing his hand through the air. A wave of heat burst from him with the motion, slamming into Talias, nearly knocking him and Egan to the dirt.

Kael froze. He hadn’t intended to release any of his magic with the gesture.

Andra stepped between him and Talias, her arms slightly raised as if to shield the man behind her from his view. “Kael!” she cried. “You can’t do this!”

His gaze narrowed at her, his blood beginning to boil hotter as she faced him down—all to protect the sandy-haired soldier at her back.

Andra lowered her arms slowly, and for a moment, he thought she would yield. But even as her arms came down, her chin lifted higher, and a resolve he rarely saw in the quiet girl sparked in her vibrant green eyes.

When she spoke, her voice was low, but there was no quaver in it. Only conviction. “I won’t let you.”

Kael stared at her for a long moment, the silence between them crackling with tension. It was as if the words spoken between them just minutes ago had never happened. Had she really already forgotten it all?

Pain and anger roiled in Kael’s chest, mingling with the deep grief that already lingered there. He felt his eyes burning and ground his teeth until his jaw ached.

Andra looked back at him, her expression of resolve softening slightly, turning to a look of pleading.

“Kael,” she breathed, and his name on her lips felt like a dagger in his chest. “Please, don’t do this.”

Kael looked away from her. If he gazed into those eyes for another moment, he was certain his heart would rip in two.

Instead, he fixed his eyes on Egan and the small group of Freemen that had dragged Talias to him.

“Take him to the council chambers for interrogation,” he repeated, his quiet voice brooking no argument.

Andra wheeled away from him, looking now to Egan and the others.

Egan and the other soldiers stood in silence, gazes moving from Andra to Kael and back again. Talias simply stared at Andra, a look of stunned adoration on his face. And Andra gazed right back.

But she didn’t. Her eyes remained fixed on Talias.

Finally, he could stand it no longer. “Very well,” he muttered gruffly.

Without another word, Kael turned on his heel and stormed away, refusing to look back as Andra rushed back into Talias’s arms.

The lake reflected the late evening sunlight as Talias lowered himself to the grass.

He could hardly believe that, hours before, he’d been battling for his life, certain he would die, terrified that he would have to kill someone else just to spare himself.

Everything seemed peaceful now. Even with the bustling of the Freemen in their camp across the field, the lakeside was quiet, the only sound the splashing of a green dragon washing the dust and blood from his scales.

Still, his disbelief at the sudden quiet around him paled in comparison to the disbelief at the young woman sitting beside him now.

He stared at her, taking in the leather armor where a ragged brown dress had once been, the sturdy boots that had replaced her thin slippers, the band of pale skin around her throat where her collar had rested for all the years he’d known her.

Could this really be Andra?

Then she turned her eyes away from the bathing dragon and looked at him, smiling. And he knew with certainty that it must be her. Only Andra had eyes like that. Only she smiled at him that way.

“I still can’t believe you’re here,” she murmured, shaking her head slightly.

“Neither can I,” he replied, leaning forward to rest his arms across his knees as his fingers picked at the grass. “I didn’t even know about”—he drifted off, hand circling vaguely in the air—“all of this,” he finally finished.

He gave her a lopsided grin. “So the interrogation begins, does it?”

Andra laughed quietly. “I did promise to get answers,” she said. Then, after a pause, she added, “But I also just want to know. What happened to you, Talias?”

The kitchen boy sighed heavily, looking away and out at the lake again.

“I was…summoned to Castigo’s palace,” he said slowly. “A lot of us were. Servants from the Hall, from all over, really. We didn’t know what for, but we were ordered to report to the Chief Judge.”

His eyes darted sideways at her, a small smile pulling at the corner of his mouth again. “I was actually excited,” he confessed. “I thought I might find a way to see you while I was there.”

He paused, drawing a deep breath, then went on. “But as soon as we set foot on the palace grounds, we had armor and weapons shoved at us.

“They said we were soldiers now, that we were to fight the men who’d tried to kill Castigo’s son.

A warm pressure on his knee made him look down, and he found Andra’s hand resting there. He smiled slightly, covering her fingers with his own before he went on.

“We got a little training. Not much, but some. Then they marched us down into these tunnels—dark, narrow, awful things. We marched in almost total darkness for… Gods, I don’t even know how long.

“The next thing I knew, we were being thrust out into the sunlight again, told to march on, told to kill anyone not in a Kingsmen uniform.

“I…I panicked, Andra,” he confessed, his voice catching, his fingers clutching tightly at hers. She gripped them back.

“People started dying. The screams… The blood… I-I didn’t know what to do. So I hid. I ran for the woods, and I hid until it was all over. And then I kept hiding.

“I was afraid to try to get away, because I didn’t know where to go. I was afraid to come out, because I didn’t know who might try to kill me.

“That’s when your soldiers found me. Still quivering like a scared dog by the stream.”

Andra was silent for a long moment, and Talias continued to stare at the grass in front of him, afraid to look up at her, afraid that her eyes would condemn him as a coward or a traitor or both. Her fingers tightened around his, and he forced himself to look at her then.

Her green eyes were soft and understanding on his face. “You did the right thing, Talias,” she whispered.

A small amount of relief bubbled inside of him, and he forced a tight smile at her.

A thoughtful expression came over her face—now marked with freckles she hadn’t had before—and she looked down, brow furrowing.

“But that means…” she said slowly. “The men that we killed…they weren’t all Kingsmen. Not really. They—they died for something they didn’t believe in. Something they didn’t…didn’t even know existed.

Andra pulled her fingers from his, pressing the heels of both hands to her eyes as she let out a quiet groan.

Talias inched closer to her, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t even truly understand what was going on.

All he knew was that Andra was here again, and that was all that truly mattered.

“When I was with the Kingsmen, they told us about the attack on the manor. I asked about you. They said a servant girl had disappeared that night and wasn’t seen again. I was afraid they’d taken you—afraid they’d killed you.”

Her explanation was cut off by a rushing of wind that flattened the grass around them as an enormous shadow passed over their heads.

They both looked up to see a violet dragon—smaller than the others he’d seen here, but enormous nonetheless—winging down upon them.

Andra stood as well, though much more calmly, and smiled at him a little before turning toward the great violet beast.

The dragon lowered its head, making a quiet thumping sound in its throat. Andra’s smile brightened, and she took the creature’s snout between her hands, stroking the beautiful scales.

Something seemed to pass between them in the quiet that followed—something that Talias had seen pass between dragon and Rider many, many times in his years at the Hall of Riders.

Talias started. Of all the unbelievable things that had occurred in the past twenty-four hours, this was by far the least believable of all. But there was no denying it.

There was a bond between Andra and the dragon. The bond of a dragon and Rider.

“A-Andra?” he stammered. “Is that…? How did…?”

She laughed quietly at his unfinished questions, still stroking the dragon’s scales as she looked at him and said, “It’s a long story…”

It was time for the Freemen to move on.

There was no doubt that the Kingsmen knew their location, and even less doubt that they’d strike again—and they were unlikely to underestimate the rebels a second time.

With blood still staining the soil, and the glass monument flickering with Tiri’s flame at the edge of the sand, the Freemen began packing what they could.

They didn’t yet know where they were going. They didn’t know what they were doing next.

Despite the fact that they’d won this battle, the Freemen had suffered severely. Their camp destroyed, a large number of their supporters dead, their base compromised.

It felt to Andra as if they were starting over, and she could see in the slump of the many pairs of shoulders below her that the rest of the Freemen felt the same.

She sat perched on Tiri’s back as the dragon shuttled crates of supplies to the wagons that waited along the edge of the desert.

As the dragon carefully lowered her latest batch of cargo onto an empty wagon, the soldiers below looked up at Andra and smiled, lifting their hands in gratitude.

“Thank you, Rider!” a voice called up at her.

Andra cringed at the word. The Freemen had been calling her that since the battle had ended. She’d asked them not to, but the title still followed her through the camp as she and Tiri aided in the preparations.

As dear as Tiri was to her, as much as she wished to never be parted from the dragon beneath her, the word chafed her like ill-fitting armor. She was no Rider. Not really.

Talias, for his part, seemed to understand what nobody else did—she wasn’t truly bonded to Tiri, she bore no Rider’s mark, so she wasn’t a Rider.

As someone who’d lived his life among Riders, he understood the importance of that bond, just as she did.

But the rest of the Freemen… They persisted.

Tiri and Andra flew back toward the camp, and she leaned forward on the dragon’s neck, peering down at the soldiers who hurried back and forth beneath her.

Her eyes found Kael almost immediately, wrapping swords and unstringing bows for transport as he simultaneously gave out orders, his voice clear and crisp above the din.

He hadn’t spoken to her since Talias’s arrival the previous day, but she supposed she couldn’t blame him. He was the Freemen’s leader, after all. They needed him now.

Talias’s arrival had pulled her so quickly out of that moment with Kael that it hardly seemed real—like being yanked suddenly out of a dream, only a few precious images lingering in her memory.

But the ache those words had left in her chest felt real enough. Kael loved her…

And Talias…

She pulled her gaze away from Kael’s dark hair and scanned the crowd, finally finding the mop of blond hair she was seeking.

He was not among the Freemen, but alone, beside the smoldering coals of the fire, turning several hocks of meat on a spit.

The others seemed to skirt around him, giving him a wide berth, save for one elf who remained nearby, watching him warily.

Andra felt an instinctive urge to go to him, to work beside him as she’d done for so many years. Talias was the boy who’d understood the meaning in her unspoken words, who’d protected her whenever he could.

He was the boy who’d told her to spy on the Pairing—the entire reason she had any sort of connection to Tiri at all. Talias was a part of her, and had been for years.

Gazing down at Talias, her fingers wandered to the leather encircling her wrist once again.