Starbright (The Starbright Series) (23 page)

             
I moved to Seth’s side, desperate to fix the situation. The deadly blade I concealed against my thigh burned
and itched
with the desire to be used. Seth’s infuriated gaze settled on me and with a nod of his head, I followed him silently out the door.

             
“What do they want? I’ve n
ever seen them like this before!
” I demanded breathlessly.

             
The clear Nebraska winter sky sparkled with Stars from one horizon to the next
and the ice cold air was a fresh and cleansing
. I looked desperately upward
at the Stars overhead
as if they could feel my fear, wanting nothing more for them
to collectively light up together and
banish
t
he Darkness from this planet forever.
Death by a million suns seemed perfectly befitting for the evil lurking around this planet…. If only there w
as
a way to protect humanity at the same time.

             
I knew there was a
n infinite
battle to fight, a war that would go on until the end of time, but those were my friends inside, they were people I loved and cared for.
The Darkness had just made this personal.

             
“
I think they’re taunting you….” Seth confirmed what I feared.

             
A loud crashing sound resounded into the crisp, frozen n
ight
and I shuddered from all the possibilities that could be taking place inside.

             
“We need to draw them outside,” I announced, turning from Seth to unsheathe my blade modestly. It was smaller than ones I trained with before, just convenient enough to hide under a mid-thigh denim skirt and black leggings. Although I realized now how impractical the skirt was if
I
intended to take this fight to the sky.

             
“Are you ready to fight?” Seth asked calculatingly from a few feet away.
His eyes narrowed against me and I knew he was trying to decide if I was ready to face them or not.

             
“Are you ready to let this continue?” I countered, gesturing with my chin toward the sound of increased violence and mayhem.

             
“Are you comfortable in the sky?” Seth’s eyes blazed into golden beams of light and I noticed his hands twitching with the anticipation of battle.

             
“I’d do better on the ground,” I admitted. I could fly, or at least I h
ad flown before, but never in
battle, never when the l
ives of others depended on me.
Never when my own life depended on my ability.

             
“Ok, I’ll draw them out and herd them
behind that line of trees. I’ll be right behind them, but you’ll have to initiate contact. I’ll use light to get them out of the house, but hold off with yours until the very last second, otherwise they’ll scatter. Except that….”

             
“Except that what?” I prompted,
afraid I already knew the answer. Another crashing-breaking sound echoed into the still night around us and I jumped from the nerves skittering around my quickly heating blood.

             
“Except I have this bad feeling that they came here
specifically
for you….” Seth turned to me, placing a strong hand on my arm and squeezed. His golden eyes shimmered in the darkness and his body had a haze of light reflecting off the snow. “Stella, there are not enough to kill us inside the house, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more…. out there. Remember everything we’ve gone over in training. Do not get
distracted;
focus on the
constant
movement of your sword.”
             

             
I struggled to swallow but managed to nod my head so that he knew I understood.

             
“Ok, I’ll meet you behind the trees,” Seth smiled warily as if he had fought a thousand battles before tonight
.
“And Stella?”

             
I sucked in my bottom lip and waited for more instructions.

             
“I’ll be there to protect you. N
o matter what, I will be with you,” Seth squeezed my arm again and then jogged up to the house.

             
With the confidence I had in
Seth
I somehow willed my feet to move away from the
house and toward the tree line. I
sucked in a deep, frozen breath and pi
cked up my pace through the
snow covered field. Lincoln’s property was big enough that if we
could
get the Shadows behind the tree line, we would be out of sight from the house
and the party that was quickly
growing aggressively violent and
out of control
.

             
I picked up my pace and willed my jitters under control. I knew bravery and courage
stirred my blood, but this was my first battle, the first time I would use my powers in an offensive attack against the Darkness. Adrenaline surged in my heart and suddenly excitement pounded in my pulse, beating against my eardrums and throbbing in my throat.

             
I was a born
W
arrior, bred for this purpose. The Darkness belonged under my submission and the evil that haunted my friends deserved retaliation.

             
Behind the tree line I breathed deeply, quieting the brilliant glow of my true nature and readying myself for the attack. I focused on blending into the obscurity of the dark night, not that I wanted to be invisible, but the temptation to glow with the brightness of the sun pricked at the back of my neck. I closed my eyes for a moment, letting the frozen night settle over me.

             
I flung my arms across my chest, popping both of my shoulders into place and then I readied my stance and steadied my sword.
I swung it out in front of me, letting my hands remember the fluid motions
I had been practicing
and then stilled so that I would be prepared
for what would come next
.

             
The first s
hrill cry
sounded from near the house and I felt the presence of Darkness move toward me
like lightning
. Another screech piercing the quiet night and the hairs on my neck stood straight as I waited. Quickly the scent of sulfur
and burning flesh
filtered over me and I barely had a last moment to prepare myself before the shrieking Shadows appeared like a hundred bats startled from a cave.

             
They swarmed over me,
breaking the tree line and poised for attack,
moving stealth like through the night sky if it weren’t for their pungent smell that infested the air around me.
There were obviously more Shadows waiting in the tree line. I froze, confused for a moment because Shadows did not make organized attacks like this. A
bright, golden light followed them and as their keen eyesight found me alone on the battlefield, I
pulled myself together and
released the inner most part of me, the goodness and light that violate
s
everything they are, a
nd became the Star I was born to be
.

             
The Shadows that were swooping down at me instantly retreated from
my light and
burned them
, but only for a minute
. The same way their ice cold evil tore at my flesh, my light injured them igniting the scent of more sulfur, more burning flesh.
Soon the little demons braved my burning glow and moved through the air to attack me. I twisted my wrist into a constant
unbroken
motion of attack, stepping forward through the snow and lashing out at the evil surrounding me.

             
I connected with the first Shadow in a sickening slice of demon flesh. The Shadows moved lithely through the air, so I expected their skin to be more wispy or…. cloud-like. But my weapon connected with actual flesh and as the blade sunk deeper into t
he Shadow, I was sprayed with
fowl smelling black goo. I shuddered violently, wiping at my face before lifting my sword again. The Shadow I struck did disappear into the night once it was successfully destroyed b
ut
hundreds more had filled its place
and I had to work to focus on anything but the rotting smell of slime covering my arms and face.

             
I swung out in dance-like movements, fluid and fast. I realized now why a longer sword was more practical, but worked with what I had. Seth was across the field, his body glowing in the night and moving nimbly with his efforts to kill. The inhuman screams squealed with each demon’s life and
the temperature of the winter night dropped drastically lower with their evil presence affecting everything around them
.

             
I was not without injury as the Shadows attacked from every angle, and every direction. Their ice cold tendrils cut away at my flesh from behind and my back felt as though I had been given forty lashes
medieval-
torture style. The backs of my legs
felt too exposed to the Darkness as
well, as
they were sliced and cut. The coldness of Evil seeped through my blood as my injuries remained untreated, but the warmth of the light inside me stayed the damaging effects and the adrenaline coursing through my boiling blood helped keep me focused and alert.

             
A guttural sound came from across the field and my eyes lifted off my attackers to Seth as he fought skillfully from a few yards away. My arms swung out in imperfect
and awkward
but deadly motions as I watched him take one demon after the other. His sword was smaller than normal too and so he was sprayed in the decaying ooze of
e
vil, the black tar-like blood spotting his ethereal glow as he lit up the sky around him.

             
I turned back to my opponents as they
lessened
their attack
, their efforts
futile against our light and our swords. Even as they attacked us the light from within us singed and burned at their flesh
, likewise my own skin, and blood felt iced over and slow from the damaging effects of their deadly flesh against mine
.
Still I fought on, counting each demon’s death as a victory.

Even though there had been hundreds of them, they never stood a chance against us; but blinded by bloodlust and
Dark
ness they attacked relentlessly and now they lay at ou
r feet fading into nothing
, their sticky black
blood spatter speckling the snow.

             
With one last, awkward plunge I finished off the last of the Shadows
near me
. I dropped my arm to my side and winced when the reality of pain settled on me. It wasn’t an effort that would go down in history books but I had survived my first fight. And I would live.

             
Seth still battled a dozen of the last of the Shadows and I decided to suck it up and help him, although he was much more practiced than me. His blade swung around him without pau
se or hesitation in beautiful graceful
motions, not letting one Shadow passed his defenses.
His sword instinctively
k
new when to whip around his back or plunge forward into the air surrounding him. My mouth dropped a little at the master-level of skill he seemed to command. He was
my
Warrior and nothing would get passed him.

             
I gave a heavy sigh
, not wanting to give up watching him to throw myself back into battle,
and took a step forward when something caught my eye. I swung my head to the tree line that hid our battle from the humans inside Lincoln’s house.
In the obscurity of darkness I thought I saw two shadowy figures watching us. I stared longer, waiting for the
apparitions
to disappear and if they
had been
Shadows they would have. But these figures stayed perfectly still, taking in our skill and watching Seth as he finished the last of the evil off.
A gray, fuzzy hue surrounded them and it was the only reason I could see them through the tree cover.
A shiver of
anxiety
worked its way from my toes to my hair line and I had just decided to pursue them when they stepped back out of my visibility completely.

             
I hesitated, watching
a
glint of gold through the thick forestry. It wasn’t a blinding
glow
or even a substantial light, it was the dim gold of light that had been hidden for
a very long time
, maybe
it had never shown correctly
.