Starbright (The Starbright Series) (14 page)

             
Not that I wasn’t still a little freaked out by my future…. but at least the Elders had faith in me.

             
I
knew Seth was chosen for the same reason, but his parents had been killed when he was still young
, probably in battle
. Celina and Micah still had responsibilities to their battalions, and although they were allowed to fight together, they could not stay on
E
arth for long periods of time without being
called back to fight. That was something
Seth and I
would never experience,
we
would never be called from this planet, never fight amongst
our
fellow Stars, never feel the
emptiness of space or the thrill of battle formations.

             
But
we
did have hope. Hope that the forces of heaven would stand against the evil of hell and win; that
ou
r fellow Stars would light up the universe and keep the
D
arkness at bay and that the Fallen would not get the chance to turn this planet into a desolate feeding ground like every other planet that on
c
e inhabited the expanse of space. Only
E
arth remained. And only
Seth and I
had been charged to protect it on the frontlines of battle.
 

             
“What are you thinking about?”
my mom
interrupted
my
thoughts and pulled
me
back to the kitchen.

             
“What it will be like to be the Protector,”
I
mumbled truthfully.

             
“Sit down, we need to talk about that,”
my dad
directed, putting a strong hand on
my
shoulder.
I sat down next to my mom, while my dad
took his seat at the head of the table. Seth and Jupiter sat silently across from
us
, waiting patiently for the conversation to begin. “Seth, it’s good to meet you by the way,”
my dad
reached out a hand to Seth and the two Warriors met with hands clasped tightly against each other’s forearms. “I’m Micah, and this is my wife, Celina.”

             
“Pleasure to meet you,” Seth replied respectfully.

             
“We were just talking about your futures,”
my dad
confessed, looking at Jupiter before continuing. “What happened with Nisroc and Sidra was unexpected. The Elders are…. concerned that there is a spy in their midst. Besides the Elders themselves and Jupiter, no other Warrior or Star knew the whereabouts of their hideout, not
even the Stars closest to Earth
.”

             
“
Callisto,” Jupiter spat and it sounded very much like a curse word. “
Then it is what we suspected, a spy is the only reasonable explanation,” Jupiter
growled.

             
“We cannot be for sure, but yes, it does look like that. It would ex
plain how they found Stella too,”
my dad
finished gravely, glancing at
me
with the regret only a father c
ould
hold.

             
“So, what is the plan?” Seth asked, more meekly than
I
had ever heard him talk. He lifted his eyes to meet
mine
and they were etched with concern. This wasn’t how things were supposed to happen, or how the Elders planned
our purpose on E
arth.

             
“To stay put,” Micah said firmly, which caused every eye to turn to him. “The Elders have decided that to move Stella now would be a sign of weakness. She has not received the fullness of her powers yet, but she is still a threat to the Darkness. If we move now, there is no guarantee they won’t follow us and we have built lives here, this is the fulfillment of the plan, we cannot give up on it now. Seth, you and Jupiter will move here too and we will finish your training together. You might have already guessed this part, but it’s
more
crucial than ever that you two stay together and learn to fight together and protect each other. Until Stella
and Seth turn
eighteen, the Elders have sent a replacement Star,
Serena
and her Warrior, Nathaniel. They will carry out your duties until you two finish high school and Stella receives the last of her abilities at eighteen.”

             
“But what about-
“I
jumped in impatiently
.

             
“We’ll keep them safe,”
my
father comforted
me
, knowing
I was asking about the people living near us
. “The Darkness knows where you live now, but you will be protected.
Serena
and Nathaniel will always be near, and your mother and I have been relieved from our posts for now. We aren’t going to leave you anymore.”
My dad’s
eyes darkened with determination and
I
knew better than to argue with him.

             
I
worried about
my
friends, about the innocent people living in this area, but
my
father was right. They would be protected, possibly more so now than they ever were before.

             
“And we will start training right away,” Jupite
r offered, but I didn’t think he was trying to comfort me
. “Of course, we will have to figure out living arrangements. Surely there is something
around here for us to procure. Maybe even in town?” he continued, the word “town” coming out of his mouth dripping in heavy sarcasm.

             
“Absolutely,”
my dad
agreed, “although you will probably do better to find a place out here. You c
ould
use several acres of property to train on. In fact, I know of a place that is for rent not that far from here. I’ll call the owner now, and see if it’s still available.”

             
M
y dad
and Jupiter stood up from the t
able to follow the lead on
possible housing.
I
looked at Seth who was deep in thought and wondered what life would be like now.

             
“Seth, have you ever been to public school before?”
my mom
asked, breaking the settled silence.
             

             
“Not properly,” Seth admitted, shrugging his shoulders. “Jupiter taught me at home.”

             
“Well, you’ll do fine,”
she
reassured him. “Mead has a small high school and
it’s easy to navigate.
I’m sure you’ll have no trouble fitting in. Don’t you think, Stella?”

             
“Nope, no trouble at all,”
I
laughed, appraising Seth’s perfect features again and thinking about the poor female population at Mead who would have to put up with an
A
ngel among them on a daily basis.

             
“And Stella knows everybody, she can help you make friends,”
my mom
continued, a small smile playing at the corner of her lips as her thoughts went in the same direction as
mine
.

             
“That’s because everybody knows everybody,”
I
reminded
my
mother dryly. Small town life did not exactly grant anonymity and in a town with little more than five hundred people, it was hard to
not
get to know everybody.

             
“That’s true,”
she
sighed as
she stood up from the table. “And that reminds me, I’m in charge of the bake sale for this Friday night’s games.”

             
“We just got back from a mission,”
my dad
reminded her as he and Jupiter reentered the kitchen. “Why don’t you take tonight off from Booster Club duties? At least wash the blood off your hands before you attempt an apple pie,” he joked. 

             
“I don’t have any blood on my hands,”
my mom
swatted at her husband, laughing along with him. “And you know they stopped letting me bake a long time ago! I just have to make sure everyone else is bringing something homemade.”

             
“From fighting to organizing farm-wives, are you sure you’re ready for this kind of life, Seth?” M
y dad
turned his twinkling blue eyes on
my
Counterpart, more worried about him dealing with human life than the forces of Darkness.

             
“I’m not going to have to organize bake sales, am I?” Seth choked out, half panicked.

             
“Only if you want to,”
I
laughed.

             
“I won’t. I won’t want to,” Seth assured
me
, a slow smiling turning his lips upward as he
realized my dad was joking
.

             
“Well, if you change your mind, just let us know,”
I winked at him, the second wink in my life ever. What was wrong with me! Why did Seth being around make my eyes all twitchy?
“Ok, I need a shower!”
I
announced, stretching
my arms over my
head.
             
“And we are going to go look at this property,” M
y dad
announced, concluding that their meeting was over. “Do you want to come Seth?”

             
“Do I have time for a shower?” he asked.

             
“A quick one,” Jupiter offered, sounding very parental. “And Stella, you should know, training starts tomorrow morning. You need to be down here by 6:30 and we’ll make good use of your father’s fields.”

             
“Sounds fun,”
I
replied, not really sure if
I
was excited or terrified. A part of
me
longed to learn how to wield weapons and answer the innate call inside of
me
to fight, but the other part of
me
, the part that was raised in a human world and was already wary of Jupiter’s gruff demeanor, wondered exactly what
I
was about to get
my
self into.

             
“It will be fun,” Seth encouraged
me
, noticing the apprehension work its way across
my
forehead. “Weapons are the best part of this whole thing.”

             
“I’ll take your word for it,”
I
smiled down at him, feeling relieved that Seth would be there with
me
.

             
I
walked upstairs putting aside
my
fears for tomorrow and sent a quick text to Tristan telling him he could come over after all.
I
had expected more information to be covered in
our
meeting, but
I
wondered if
my
parents and Jupiter kept it short because there wasn’t much more information than
what we covered
.

             
A spy had worked their way inside the Council of Elders before, but not in a very long time, several dead planets ago if
I remembered
right. It was hard to imagine now though, with all of the security precautions and the way the Elders kept tabs on their current army, how a spy could slip past their wall of defenses. It would have had to be someone embedded deep inside their ranks for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. And they would have had to be very patient to wait all this time.

             
I
wondered why now though? Why would they attack Sidra now? And if they killed her, why hadn’t they gone after
me
the same way? Even if they were unsure if
I
was the next Protector, a human life meant nothing to them, why hadn’t they just killed
me
to be safe?
             
There were more questions than there were answers, and
I
had to trust the Elders to get to the bottom of this quickly, even working with a spy amongst them.
I
shuddered at the thought of not feeling safe anymore. Could
I
trust a compromised board of elderly
A
ngels?
I
didn’t have much of a choice, but suddenly their lack of interest in how
I
was raised became a concern. Maybe it wasn’t so much that
my
parents were doing things right after all, but a concentrated effort by the spy among the Elders to keep
me
unprepared.