The Stars Below Read online

  To Spencer and Collin, this series was always for you and so it is fitting that the final chapter is dedicated to the both of you. I love you and love that you both are READERS!

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  UNUS: At Last

  DUO: An Unexpected Ally

  TRES: Once More, the Bloody Prines

  QUATTUOR: The Rival

  QUINQUE: The Curse of Elythia

  SEX: The Past of My Future

  SEPTEM: The Dog in the Nighttime

  OCTO: A Visible Event

  NOVEM: Her, Finally

  DECEM: A Friend in Need

  UNDECIM: Light Not So Bright

  DUODECIM: A Dash of Hope and Trouble

  TREDECIM: The Problem of the Ring

  QUATTUORDECIM: Eon Redux

  QUINDECIM: An Old Friend When New

  SEDECIM: Colin Sonnet

  SEPTENDECIM: Full Circle

  DUODEVIGINTI: Stones in Water

  UNDEVIGINTI: A Time for Words

  VIGINTI: Nothing

  VIGINTI UNUS: The End of Endemen

  VIGINTI DUO: No Way Out

  VIGINTI TRES: Twining

  VIGINTI QUATTUOR: An Answer from Beyond

  VIGINTI QUINQUE: Beyond Words

  VIGINTI SEX: Grounds for Resistance

  VIGINTI SEPTEM: A Stranger in Our Midst

  VIGINTI OCTO: The Unmark

  VIGINTI NOVEM: Wand into the Water

  TRIGINTA: Empchon

  TRIGINTA UNUS: Elythia

  TRIGINTA DUO: The End of the Day

  TRIGINTA TRES: A Singular Request

  TRIGINTA QUATTUOR: John’s Incantation

  TRIGINTA QUINQUE: Reunited, Twice

  TRIGINTA SEX: A Memory from Metal

  TRIGINTA SEPTEM: The Ledger Falls

  TRIGINTA OCTO: The Other Armies

  TRIGINTA NOVEM: The Worst of Times

  QUADRAGINTA: The Tolling Bell

  QUADRAGINTA UNUS: As One

  QUADRAGINTA DUO: A Face Returned

  QUADRAGINTA TRES: What Archie Wanted

  QUADRAGINTA QUATTUOR: A Talk with a Fawn

  QUADRaGINTA QUINQUE: Return to Empyrean

  QUADRAGINTA SEX: All In

  QUADRAGINTA SEPTEM: The Ultimatum

  QUADRAGINTA OCTO: Back to the Beginning

  QUADRAGINTA NOVEM: Death Finally Comes

  QUINQUAGINTA: The Truth

  QUINQUAGINTA UNUS: Another Beginning

  A Wugmort’s Guide to Wormwood and Beyond

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also in the Vega Jane series

  Copyright

  “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”

  — George Orwell

  “Things may look different to you than they did before. I’ve had that experience myself. But don’t let appearances fool you. There’s only one reality.”

  — Haruki Murakami

  “Drinking a wind of danger new and deep, Staring on Vega with a piercing eye, And gather up his slender hooves and leap From crag to crag down Chaos, and so go by.”

  — Edna St. Vincent Millay

  I CRIED OUT, “RIGAMORTE!”

  My cast spell impaled the Maladon directly in the chest, cleaving it as though fine steel had been my weapon of choice. However, the incantation was far deadlier than even the purest of forged metals. He toppled forward to the dirt. He would never move again. He would never hurt anyone else again.

  I felt a smile creep to my lips at his demise.

  I did not like killing others. But I had no problem with vanquishing evil.

  Then I turned my attention to my remaining opponent. He was backed against a wall and was looking at me murderously but with an underlying expression of fear.

  He raised his wand and shot a spell at me.

  I flicked it away with a wave of my wand, the Elemental.

  He shot another spell at me and then another.

  I blocked them easily, almost casually.

  His wand now quivered in his shaking hand.

  “Who the bloody hell are you?” he screamed at me. “What the bloody hell are you!”

  I advanced on him. I was no longer smiling. My face was iron, my will the same.

  I said, “My name is Vega Jane. And I’m the last thing you will ever see before you go to your personal Hel, Maladon.”

  My wand moved so fast that he had no ability to block what I was about to do.

  “Rigamorte!”

  This battle was over.

  I looked around at the five bodies.

  They were all Maladons and they were all dead.

  They thought I was walking into a trap, but the trap was all mine, carefully conceived and flawlessly executed.

  As was my habit after battling these creatures, I confiscated all their wands and crushed them to bits with an Impacto spell.

  Killing had once been very difficult for me.

  Yet in war, you either killed or you died. And we were very clearly in a war.

  I was nearly eighteen now. I had been gone from my hometown of Wormwood for almost three years. It felt like three hundred.

  I looked around at the darkness of night. I was about five miles from the town of True, near a tiny village that I had used to set my trap for my enemies.

  I had brought no one with me for the simple fact that I needed no one else to do this. I preferred to rely on myself with tasks such as this one. That way I only had myself to worry about.

  Besides which, our numbers had fallen considerably, and I did not want to risk more losses if I could avoid it.

  War was not pretty or safe. People died all the time. That was why they called it war.

  I cast the Pass-pusay spell and tapped my leg with my wand.

  I was instantly transported back to my ancestral home, Empyrean.

  It looked just as it had when I had first seen it.

  Built of stone and wood, it was enormous and rambling, like a huge boat on land. To me it was also a pillar of strength and stability.

  And refuge.

  I passed through the front door and entered the massive front hall.

  All of Empyrean was immense and stylishly outfitted. The ceilings were twenty feet high, the rooms large enough to hold a hundred people easily. The stone walls were bedecked with the portraits of long-dead men and women, all of them powerful sorcerers and sorceresses. The furnishings were of the highest quality, and though many centuries old, they were in first-rate shape. The rugs were colorful and luxurious, so thick your feet couldn’t help but sink into them. And yet there were nooks and crannies throughout where one could find privacy. And peace.

  The entire property was kept sparkling clean by the staff, headed up by the suit of armor named Pillsbury.

  Empyrean was exactly the same, except for one thing: the occupants.

  It had started out with just me and my friends Delph, Delphia, and Petra Sonnet.

  And of course my faithful dog, Harry Two.

  Then we had found and recruited an army of fifty former slaves to help us fight the Maladons.

  And they had fought, well and good.

  But now nearly half of them were dead.

  Thus, the air of loss hung deeply over Empyrean, as did the smoky smell from the fires we conjured in the massive fireplaces. We had all trained together, lived together, eaten together and fought together.

  And, unfortunately, died together.

  As I moved through the front hall, Tobias Holmes walked in on one flesh-and-bone leg and a wood-and-metal one that I had conjured for him, to replace the leg he had lost to a Maladon curse. He was tall and good-looking,
with curly brown hair and an angular face fronted by two large and luminous blue eyes. He met me with a smile.

  “Good hunting, Vega?”

  I nodded. “It all went well, Tobias. Five fewer Maladons. How are things here?”

  “Petra just got back with Artemis and Regina. Miranda and some others are still out, but it was just a scouting expedition, as you know, so no worries there.”

  “And how did it go with Petra?” I asked, heartened by the fact that he would not be smiling if there had been another loss.

  “The mission was a considerable success,” replied Tobias. “The Elite Guard posted on the northern end of Greater True will have to make do without their guns.”

  I nodded and moved on.

  Pillsbury was the next one to greet me. His armor appeared to be, if anything, far shinier than when we had first met. He and Mrs. Jolly, the cook in the form of a broom, kept Empyrean running like a finely tooled instrument.

  “Delighted to see that you have returned safe and sound, Mistress Vega.”

  “Thank you, Pillsbury. Everything all right here, I trust?”

  “No problems, unless you count an oven reluctant to warm itself to the degree of perfection demanded by Mrs. Jolly. She’s making the loaves of bread for breakfast.”

  “I am amply confident that Mrs. Jolly will soon sort it out.”

  I proceeded up the stairs and down the hall to my room.

  Awaiting me there, as he often did, was Harry Two.

  He sat up on my bed and watched me with his mismatched eyes, one blue and one green. Part of his ear was missing from when he had saved my life, which he very often did.

  I rubbed his damaged ear and pushed my nose into his thick, soft fur, filling my nostrils with his scent. As bad a day as I ever had could be partially cured by this simple measure. My dog just seemed to calm me whenever I needed it.

  I undressed because killing blokes was a dirty business and I needed to wash up.

  Across my shoulders and down the backs of each of my arms was Destin, my magical chain, which greatly increased my physical strength and, more important, allowed me to take flight.

  I had magically embedded it into my body some time ago. I was the one who used it almost exclusively. And instead of wearing it around my waist, it seemed more prudent to make it a part of me. If others ever needed it, it was but a simple spell to free it from my skin.

  The links moved silently and fluidly as I rolled my shoulders to ease the tension there.

  I moved over to the looking glass and studied myself.

  I had grown to my full height now, my shoulders broad and my arms ropy. I ran my gaze up and down my frame. I had scars on my arms, legs and belly from Maladon strikes. And there was one at the nape of my neck that had very nearly done me in. I perhaps could have magically removed them, but I had chosen not to try. They were all marks of battle, and I wanted my skin to chronicle every one of them.

  There was another, more practical reason for retaining them. They all represented near misses at death. I never wanted to forget how close it was to me. To all of us here. We all carried the detritus of battle. This made us realize that we had to be perfection itself to survive.

  I examined my face closely. Though I hadn’t yet celebrated my eighteenth year alive, it seemed to me that I looked older. Far older. Tiny lines had whittled themselves around my eyes, forehead and mouth.

  I sighed. War certainly did not make one prettier.

  Next, I moved over to one wall and studied the marks I had placed there.

  I knew exactly how many of them were cut into the plaster.

  I raised my wand, and with a quintet of rapid movements, I added five more slashes to the wall, representing the Maladons I had discharged this night.

  I stepped back and surveyed the wall.

  It was simply rows of marks, yet each represented a life taken.

  I suddenly had to turn away before the sight sickened me. They were Maladon deaths, it was true, but they were still dead. And while I could smile when they fell at the tip of my wand, I would not celebrate their destruction.

  I washed, changed into my nightclothes and then fell asleep in my bed.

  In what seemed like minutes, but I knew was actually hours because the sun was well up, I heard the sound of a knock on my door.

  It was Delph, my best mate from Wormwood.

  He was very tall, and very fetching-looking.

  Delph was not magical like Petra and I. But he was a fighter still and had qualities, talents and skills that neither Petra nor I possessed. He was calm when I tended to be excitable, and thought things through in ways that I never could.

  “Pillsbury told me you were back, but I wanted to let you sleep.” He glanced at the wall. “How many?” he asked.

  I sat up, resting my back against the enormous wooden headboard. “Five,” I replied tersely. “Why?”

  He sat on the bed and scratched Harry Two’s ear.

  “You never really told me about Wormwood,” he said abruptly.

  This was not the first time he had said this. It might as well have been the hundredth.

  “I told you all you needed to know, Delph. It’s gone. They’re all gone. They killed everyone, including your father. I saw their graves. And as I told you, I buried Thansius.”

  “That’s not exactly so,” he countered. “They killed everyone except your brother.”

  “At least there was no grave for my brother. But, in truth, I have no idea if he’s alive or dead.”

  These words suddenly caught at my heart, and I had to look away from him. I had lost many friends in the war and that had hardened me. Yet John was my brother. John was my family.

  Delph stood. “But why would they take John, if that indeed is what happened?”

  I rose from my bed and faced him from a foot away. Though I was tall, Delph was six and a half feet high, so he towered over me. “You’ve asked me that before. And I’ve asked myself that a thousand times, Delph. I keep coming up with a thousand different answers.”

  Delph said, “It would make sense in one way.”

  “What way?” I said bluntly.

  “Well, at first I thought they might be using John to hold over your head, you know. If you don’t surrender, they’d hurt John. But they haven’t done that, Vega Jane, though they’ve had ample time. So there must be another reason.”

  “Such as?”

  “Morrigone was teaching John back in Wormwood. She’d taken him under her wing, so to speak, because he was so smart and all with books and such.”

  “I told you that. But it was terrible stuff that she …”

  My voice trailed off, and I looked in horror at Delph.

  “Are you saying that they took my brother to … to …”

  I couldn’t say it. Not for the life of me.

  “To maybe make him into a Maladon?” said Delph. “A right powerful one. Judging by what a sorceress you are, I ’spect that John might make an equally powerful sorcerer.”

  “But why just John? Why not take all in Wormwood for that purpose?”

  “John was so smart, Vega Jane. And … he seemed to like … you know …”

  “You mean he liked all those horrible things that Morrigone was teaching him?” I said stiffly.

  “Well, you told me that yourself.”

  “But, Delph, he was just a little boy. He didn’t know any better. He liked to fill his head up with … stuff,” I finished quite lamely. In my mind’s eye, all I could see was a little boy with feet too large for him shuffling along while holding my hand. I would pick him up every day after Learning, and I would bring a snack for him because he was always hungry. My brother had been painfully shy and kind and bighearted. I knew that he had changed while with Morrigone, but my most lasting memories of him had always been as a shy little boy holding my hand.

  Delph interrupted my thoughts. “Well, he’s not a little boy now. He’s very nearly fifteen. The same age you were when you ran away from Wormwood wit
h me.”

  This was absolutely correct. Indeed, John was far closer to being a man now than he was to being a boy.

  If they’d captured him from Wormwood, my brother would have been with the Maladons for quite some time.

  “You’re right, Delph,” I said contritely. “He is a man by now. I just don’t know what sort of man he is.” I felt my lips begin to tremble and I turned away from him.

  An instant later I felt Delph’s large arm around me, squeezing me to him.

  In my ear I heard him whisper, “It’s okay, Vega Jane. We’re going to find him. And … and regardless of what sort of shape he’s in, we’re going to bring him back to what he was.”

  “You … can’t know that,” I said haltingly.

  “But I can promise to do all I can to make it happen.”

  I turned and looked at him, touched his cheek with my hand. “You’re my best friend, Delph. You always have been.”

  He smiled. “You were the only friend I had, Vega Jane. And a ruddy great one you are.”

  He got that certain look in his eye that I well knew. In fact, I’m sure I had a similar look in mine.

  Our lips instinctively found each other, and we kissed. I felt his arm circle my waist and squeeze gently. I ran my hands over his broad shoulders. I had to stand on tiptoe to do this.

  When we separated, my eyes were heavy and I could see his were as well.

  His arm lingered around my waist, and I placed my hand on his chest.

  “You had better go,” I said, conscious that I still had my nightclothes on. “I … I can smell food downstairs. You must be hungry.”

  “I am, Vega Jane,” he said, staring directly at me. “But I’ll go have my meal.”

  As soon as he said the words, his face turned crimson and he started to stutter, as he once had back in Wormwood.

  “I-I m-m-mean …”

  I put a calming hand on his arm. “I know exactly what you meant, Delph.” I spun him around and gave him a hard push to the door. “Now go eat.”

  After he left me, I sat back on my bed and tried to catch my breath, which had suddenly abandoned me. The only thing I seemed to be able to think of was Delph with his arm around me, looking at me as he had.

  Later, I walked down to the kitchen and had my breakfast. It had been a long night, and the few hours of rest had done nothing to ease my lethargy. But I had no time to be weary.