Hey guys! Finally got this sequel out. I hope all of my old readers (and obviously ever-continuing new) found this okay. So sorry I took forever to update! I was planning to give you guys this chapter for the holidays, and… well, I got caught up with school. Happy New Year! Here you go.
Oh, I should mention the POVs will switch mostly between Erik, Stark, and a mystery character I'm sure you'll be wondering about. Just remember that Starr is… yeah.
Erik
"I will love you forever, my Night."
I woke with a start. It had only been a reminder of that night, the second time I had lost her. The blinding flash of the Sacred Runes as she gave her life to obliterate the growing Dark forces. The memory had just been a dream.
But she was still dead. Killed by the ruined ex-High Priestess known as Neferet. I absently reached down and stroked her cat's unkempt silver-and-white fur. Aleu rarely did anything now that she was gone, unable to come back.
Spirits, I missed her. Forgetting her was like forgetting how to breathe.
Starr Lord. The one who I had been drawn to through Tracker instincts. The one who had already borne Marks and needed no more. The one who guarded the Sacred Runes. The Goddess of the Soul, Nyx's sister, Chosen of Chaos, who held my allegiance.
…The one I had failed yet again.
"Erik?" The human poked his head in. My stomach recoiled at the sight of him. He had been her best friend, once. Jet. "Are you okay?"
I emitted a wolf-like growl. Likos had been watching over me and taught me how to turn into a wolf at will, like she had done in the battle the 'ferret had almost/actually killed me. "What do you want?" I snapped.
"I'll take that as a no." He pushed aside the curtain that served for a door and walked in. "What's wrong?"
"You know damn well what's wrong." I shoved my head under the pillow to hide the tears misting my eyes, feeling my rage subside into sorrow. As usual, grief had a tendency to switch. "It's something that can't be fixed."
Luckily, he took that as a dismissal and retreated. Sometimes the elements that we were all close to in some way were no help. Aeras tortured me, hearing her voice on the wind. Piras was no better; when I saw fire, I could only think of her temper, so fierce yet so gentle, destroying and creating and protecting. Hudor and Gaea brought memories of the beach and the concert on said beach, where she had poured her loss into performing, only to have a miracle granted as I came back from the dead. And Pneuma was the worst. I had come back just for her, but I had lost her. I still felt her presence at times, which was none other than spirit's doing. I wished with my entire essence that she would come back, that one day I would wake up and find her with me again.
I was not the only one. Chaos had retired to Asteri's Shrine soon after her death. She had left a hole in her father that would never heal. Nyx and her other siblings, even Kalona (we had learned), were more subdued, never really getting involved in much of anything. She had left her mark on the whole of the Great Deities: None of the gods or goddesses wanted anything to do with the earth plane. The Otherworld was sealed off from us, as was the Realm of Dreams.
All because of the girl who fought through to so many hearts, including my own.
Shaylin, our Shaylin and not the Other created of her, poked her head in. "Erik?" she whispered.
I stretched languidly. "I'm not going to kill you, if that's what you're afraid of," I responded calmly, knowing even if I acted she would be able to see what I was feeling.
"Can I come in?" I nodded, and she took a few steps into the room. "You really miss her."
It was not phrased as a question, but I answered anyway. "Yeah. What do my colors show?"
"I try to block them out," she replied defensively. I shrugged. "Yours are changing. No, they've changed before she left, but now you're even more… murky, I guess. You are either confused or frustrated, or both." She frowned, looking puzzled.
"Sorry to disappoint you, but it's not–" A punch-like feeling in my gut shut me up.
Shaylin cocked a brow. "You have flecks of hope. What do you think you can do?"
"Nothing," I muttered, turning away dismissively. When she was gone, I murmured to myself, or to whoever was listening: "Starr, if there is any way to get you back, deities so help me, I will find it!"
I also knew Stark, no matter his Oath to Zoey, would help me. If we could find Kalona at a good moment, we would be the trio that Starr loved most – that Asteri needed to survive. Stark and I were once her sentries, Kalona often her mentor. She couldn't be dead.
"Wherever you are hiding, my beautiful Starr, I will find you with my last breath if I have to."
