:D

Finally, he descended into the old Medici palace’s chapel, only letting the protective cloaking field drop once the walls securely surrounded him.

Beaming, he spread his arms, ready to receive his fellow Stars. “I am here!” 

His flight-blurred vision cleared, only to reveal… nothing. The cavernous space of the chapel only echoed back his own words.

And the sound of a loose page turning. 

Sol walked toward the steady, calming light that radiated from an opposite corner. Cann sat alone, hunched against a wall in a way that couldn’t have possibly been comfortable for their wings and engrossed in a bound tome.

“I said,” Sol repeated, with greater enunciation, now that he spoke only to one fellow Star. “I have arrived!” 

“I can see that, my king,” Cann said mildly, without looking up from their book. “I heard you the first time, and knew you were coming well before then.”

He stiffened. “Did I fail to disguise my light enough?” 

“Oh no, it was more than enough for the mortals,” Cann said with a laugh, their eyes glowing with lavender flame to make the point. “But there’s no hiding from me.”

Sol sighed. He folded his wings back down and leaned against the pillar facing the other Star. “Where are the others, Canopus?”

Cann shushed him, impatient. “I’m almost done!” 

“Is it truly that riveting?” Sol asked flatly. “You read too much.” 

Cann didn’t give him the satisfaction of responding to the remark, or even acknowledging that they heard it. They simply flipped through the last fifty pages in the span of a few minutes and put it aside. Finally meeting Sol’s eyes with the utmost seriousness, they said, “No such thing as reading too much.”

“There is for you!” Sol argued. “You can know anything without lifting a finger. What use would you have for mortal books?” Absently, he picked it up, ready to cast it aside before the words on the cover caught his eye. It read, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres.

“For one,” Cann said, smiling, “It’s an invaluable resource on keeping up with the mortals. I know what I know, but it’s useful to keep a finger on the pulse of what they know.”

Sol found himself leaning forward. “And… what do they know?”

“It appears that one of them has taken a shot in the dark.” They held a palm out and produced a small pocket illusion; two spinning orbs, one large and golden, the other small and blue. “He has come to the revelation that the Earth revolves around the sun, not the other way around.” 

Before Sol knew it, he was perusing the book. The words blended together, but the diagrams scattered throughout held his attention. He vaguely remembered secret keeper al-Tusi and the rest of the observatory students in Iran shoving quaint pictures in his face, some near identical to the ones in this tome. Somehow, their legacy had carried itself to a mind several lands away.

“How did the astronomers of the caliphates never come to this?” Sol asked.

“A misguided question,” Cann said, ending the illusory demonstration. “You cannot judge them by the standards we have because of what we know, especially because they were brilliant on their own terms. I believe you would be better served asking why this man did make this departure.”

But Sol’s mind did not have the space to ponder Cann’s philosophical proposals. Basking in the satisfaction of finally having his centrality out in the open, no matter how fringe this mortal’s reach might have been, was too momentous to be disrupted by anything else. 

He caught Cann’s wry, knowing stare and tossed the book back to them. “As if I needed the humans to tell me what we’ve always known,” he said, trying his best to wipe the smile off his face. “Well, leaving that… why have I returned to an empty palace tonight?” 

Cann stood, smoothly snapping to attention. “Hauntings have decided, very unwisely, to camp outside the city walls. A show of force, I gather. The others have flown out to neutralize the flock.”

“All of them?” Sol asked, surprised. “Even Sirius?”

“Especially Sirius,” Cann corrected. “Vega insisted upon having him. You know how they get when the other side of fate’s scales tips even an inch downward.”

Sol nodded proudly. “North Star V never misses,” he said. “Still. How have they not asked you to join?”

“We aren’t that desperate just yet,” Cann said lightly. “Some blasts need to be held close to the chest.”

On cue, colorful flames lit up the chapel’s entrance. As Sol hastened to adjust his crown and take his place on the steps, Cann strode forth to meet the Stars. The group, freshly out of battle, frantically scrambled to make their various reports known. V shoved their way to the front of the group, buzzing with urgent blue lightning, but at the sight of Cann, considerably relaxed. 

Placing a sympathetic hand on Cann’s shoulder, V said, “I wish you only the absolute best of luck.”

Cann only blinked at them, confused. “For what?”

“My king!” Alpha Pavonis’ cry rose above the other Stars’ chattering, catching Sol’s ear. “May I have a word?” 

Before Sol could open his mouth, Cyon sprang to hold Alpha Pavonis back. “Oh, don’t you dare!” she yelled. “You do not get to skip your way directly to the king, Pav. This is unacceptable!”

The two continued to struggle against each other, the arguing punctuated by warning blasts. V turned to Cann. “Enjoy dealing with that,” they said. “I’m going to do away with the debris from the latest flock.”

“Wait, the latest flock? Vega!” Cann protested, grabbing for their hand, but V was too fast, making a quick exit in a flash of lightning. Cann gestured wildly in Sol’s direction. 

“Stars, silence!” Sol commanded. Instantly, the room quietened. Cyon had managed to pin Pav to the marble floor, before she was pulled to her feet by Sirius, who whispered calming words to her. Satisfied, Sol made his way down the steps. “Bring forth your reports one at a time.” 

“Affirmative,” Cyon said, dropping Sirius’ gloved hand and walking toward Sol. “You see, the matter at hand is that Alpha Pav—”

Sol held up a hand to stop her. “Now, if you will begin by recounting a fellow Star’s argument, I would rather hear it from the source themself.” He glanced at Pav, who was getting back on their feet. “The sky is yours, Alpha Pavonis.”

“Ah… thank you?” Pav stammered out. Quickly regaining composure, They stood tall and trailed their peacock hued robes behind them. “My king, as I’m certain you have gathered from the North Star’s words, we have not one Haunting flock on our hands, but a ready, almost endless queue. Every time we neutralized one at the walls, another rose to take its place. We slowed it down, and even then, Vega might meet another while they’re gone.”

“Are you implying we are low on firepower?” Sol asked. “Has Sirius’ deployment not eased any such concerns?”

“Yes, but—”

“Yes, and,” Cyon corrected sharply. “Show some respect.” Beside her, Sol could have sworn he saw Sirius grinning under the cover of his mask. 

Pav glared at the two, but went on undeterred. “Why continue the grueling task of taking them out one by one, when we have what it takes to frighten them off for good?”

They paused, as if their implication was obvious. Sol glanced back at Cann, who only shrugged. They were as confused as he was. 

“Explain yourself,” Sol said. 

“Why… we have you, my king.” Pav said. “If you send a warning using the most magnificent celestial body in the sky, they’d be forced to take heed, yes?”

“Sol,” Cann began, warningly. “This proposal is too ambitious for its own good.”

“You’ve spoken above your station more than enough, Pav!” Cyon piped up. 

“Sirius,” Sol said. “Please restrain your wife.” 

“Of course, my king!” Sirius’ constant flames brightened as he reached for Cyon’s arm. “Regardless, for the benefit of the court, Pav’s suggestion would be a severe violation of our arrangements with the Medici. Any unforeseen celestial events here will be seen by the entire population of Florence, and we could be—”

“Cyon,” Sol cut in, already tired. “Please silence your wife.”

“Heard loud and clear, my king.” But she was still glaring daggers at Pav, who was looking back at her with presumptuous, smug satisfaction. Sirius was barely managing to hold her back from attacking again.

Sol decided he had no time for this. “Cann!”

Cann stepped forward, wings and arms spread to usher everyone out of the room. “Say no more. Because no one here is my wife.”

“Your loss,” Sirius said, and collective airy laughter echoed around the chapel.

Sol let himself breathe, relieved by the tension dissolving. Sirius laced his fingers through Cyon’s and led her out of the room. The other Stars swiftly followed them, their conversations now far more lighthearted. Only Pav lingered behind, slow to budge. Sol took a tentative step toward them.

“That means you too, Alpha Pavonis!” Cann ordered, cutting any action short now that Pav had no choice but to listen. “Move!” 

“All of your concerns have been heard!” Sol promised the exiting Stars. “Allow me until the next sunrise. We will proceed only with what is best for you!”

“You heard him, next sunrise!” Cann repeated for emphasis. “For skies’ sake, don’t let me catch any of you out of your quarters before then. I will know!” 

Once everyone else left the hearing range, Sol sank into the altar seat, gripping the crown on his head tightly between his hands. He only had some hours to figure this out, and failures awaited him in every direction; which of them would be less shameful to bear? 

Cann cleared their throat. “Is everything alright?” they asked, the calculated performance of the king’s advisor flawlessly shifting to the softness of a friend. 

Sol tried to smile back, but it felt hollow. It always did when he was with Cann. And yet, even as he knew there was no use, he found himself saying, “Yes. Hauntings and mortals have never stopped us before. This is an inconsequential matter.”

Cann raised an eyebrow. They both knew full well nothing involving the sun could ever be inconsequential to Stardom. 

“I… must think this over,” Sol said. “Alone.”

“If you say so,” Cann said easily, no trace of accusation in their voice. Sol watched them gratefully as they marched out of the chapel without another word. He loved it when they played along this way; it almost lulled him into the false comfort of thinking something could get past their sharp, all-seeing eyes. 

With no one except his own light for company, Sol mulled over the decision, thinking about every angle hard enough for flames to rise his fingers, carelessly scorching the wooden chair. Skies above, fragile human furniture was a pain.

He stood, hating how he couldn’t even claim ownership to the walls around him. Resentfully, he let his gaze drift over the painted frescos surrounding him, scenes of mortal processions and hunts. He’d find the pomp endearing if it wasn’t so offensive right then. These were the beings he and his people had to hide from? When would they wake up to the truth that the Stars outshone them in every way?

Except… His stroll through the hall finally came to Cann’s forgotten pile of books. On top rested the one that spoke of the sun’s centrality. 

Some already had woken up, hadn’t they?

Coming to a decision, Sol walked out of the chapel, steps as delicate as air. He could not sit idly. The lurkers thought they were out of reach, with their clever queue rotation, but Pav was right; they’d run at the first sight of Sol. He weaved through the palace corridors and bypassed the nearest window in a flash of light. 

Veiling his fire as well as he could given the stark contrast against night, he fluttered carefully into the air. 

Lightning struck the palace roof; V had arrived, landing unsteadily against the rough masonry. Sol moved instinctively, backing himself against the nearest wall to hide. Did they have to return just as he was leaving?

“Vega?” Sirius’ voice floated in, his footsteps rushing to join them. “Did you manage the mess? The wall remains untouched, yes?”

Catching their breath, V laughed. “Managed,” they repeated bitterly, with a break in their voice that made Sol worry. Were they hurt? “Guess who came to taunt me when I went to clean up?”

Sirius sighed. “Another encampment?”

“I don’t know where they keep coming from! It’s as if they can’t leave the walls unoccupied for even a wingbeat, the stubborn fucks.” 

“We outdo their stubborness, then,” Sirius said, his voice far less confident than the words. Sol’s heart sank; his strongest soldiers were battling themselves to exhaustion, all for the feeble, sheltered minds of this city’s mortals. “We need a plan of action. Between Pav and Cyon, whom do you think—” 

“Stop,” V cut in, irritated. “Your nonsense infighting can wait until sunrise. We aren’t even supposed to be out of our quarters. In, now!” 

Their footsteps and further conversation faded. If Sol’s resolve ever faltered during his exit, this hardened it beyond return. The Hauntings’ intimidation tactic could not be allowed to stand anymore.

Letting the anger fuel him forward, Sol set a course straight for Florence’s walls.

The closer he flew to the edges of the city, the murkier the sky became. Too soon, every precious star adorning the cloak of night disappeared, and he had nothing to glance up at for strength.

Enough, he thought to himself, steeling his nerves. It is I who must give them strength now. 

The weight of the blotted sky burdening his every wingbeat, Sol arrived quietly to the scene of the northern gate. Below, three Hauntings lay in wait on burned grass. Sol didn’t know it was possible to make nighttime even darker; these sentient black holes masquerading as earthly creatures always proved him wrong. He set his feet down on the wall’s brick facade, stepped off the end, and let his light burst forth. 

“Leave these walls!” he yelled.

Immediately, high whistles rang out as the Hauntings rushed into formation. One of the quicker front soldiers, clam-like in shape, launched a black-stained pearl the size of a boulder. 

Sol braced himself, burning hands ready to intercept it… but the hit never came.

Just as the cannonball corralled to knock into Sol, he was on the ground, untouched, the pearl dropping unceremoniously a few feet away from him. The Hauntings froze, confused, inadvertently allowing him a moment to regain his bearings. 

Enough to see that the stained pearl now glowed lavender.

Keeping a flame at the ready to ward off the Hauntings, Sol looked up at the wall behind him and yelled, “Cann!” 

On command, a head emerged at the top. Cann peeked down. “My king,” they greeted, not bothering to sound the slightest bit chastened. 

“What are you doing here?” Sol asked. The clam Haunting unwisely decided to rush him. Sol’s flame cut him down in an instant. “Out of your quarters, at this hour?” 

“I could be asking you the same thing!” Cann swooped down at the last word, tackling both remaining Hauntings at once. “Did you think you could hide from me?” Even as they punctuated each word with a calculated strike, Sol got the feeling the anger in their voice was not for the creatures. “Or did you want me to graciously look away, as you crept off to this endless fight?”

Successfully, Cann brought a frail reptilian Haunting flat onto the ground. The companion, an armored, plump one, continued to trade blows with them.

Sol rushed to their side, knocking the Haunting off course with one fatal punch to the head. He shook off the flame, triumphant. “That will teach you.” 

“Sol…” Cann whispered warningly.

“Don’t… think this is over,” a new voice said, wet and halting. The clam Haunting was still on the ground, a hole burned into his weak internal flesh. That did nothing to compromise the smugness of his declaration. “You can’t take us all.”

Sol’s fist burned, but Cann touched his arm, silently telling him to save it.

“Wonderful,” Cann muttered. “Another entry in this queue will be here any moment.”

“Oh, don’t act as if this was wrong of me!” Sol shot back. “Would you rather I sat comfortably in the palace while this went on? Pav said—”

“Pav is a showboating windbag,” they said drily. “Why are we listening to them?”

“It is our only option,” he said. “These Hauntings need to be cleared out, and if the cost is some inconvenience to the mortals—”

“The cost is you, Sol!” Cann’s voice rose to a volume Sol had never heard before. Softer, they went on, “You don’t have anything to prove to mortals, or Hauntings… anyone.” Desperate, they reached for his hand. “The sun’s face is all the more precious because it’s our secret. Why would you throw that away?”

“Cann…” Sol’s words died in his throat. He never considered what he’d be giving away. Even if he frightened the Hauntings, what would become of the Stars if they were unveiled to the mortals thanks to his carelessness?

He was the center of the world. For the first time, he hated that truth.

A dark mist closed in, followed by quick feet hitting the ground. More Hauntings were coming. Sol’s heart raced. What was he going to do, surrender to the enemy, or betray the secret? He racked his brain, at an impossible loss.

Until he locked eyes with the Star beside him, and everything fell into place.

“Do you know what I’m thinking?” he asked.

Cann’s smile shone even brighter than their burning eyes. “I know everything.” 

Without having to say anything else, the two of them parted, Cann holding their ground against the incoming flock as Sol took to the sky. Trusting Cann to keep the Hauntings busy, Sol watched the horizon, waiting for the perfect moment. 

The smallest glimmer of the coming dawn’s fire was all he needed. “Now!” he yelled. 

He glanced down, only to realize with horror that he’d distracted Cann at a crucial juncture. A well-toned amphibian Haunting seized the opportunity, wrestling Cann to their knees as the force of the flock descended on them. Sol hovered uselessly on the spot, paralyzed by the sight, his eyes darting between the battle below and the sunrise. 

He could not fail. Not like this.

Then, the sky cleared.

A concentrated beam of lavender light had cut through an opening between the Haunting’s limbs and shot into the sky like a beacon. It reached its zenith and dispersed, sending a dome of thin, shimmering illusion descending onto the battleground. 

A curtain. They were safe from outside eyes.

Cann brushed their horrified assailants off and struggled to their feet. They looked up at Sol. “Do it!” 

The sun was now painting the sky red. Sol caught hold of its fire and, working like a strategically placed glass, focused its wrath on the toad Haunting who had led the latest charge. The skin ignited. High-pitched screams pierced the air, from the toad and the rest of the flock alike. Sol glared, unblinking, making his silent threat clear. The sounds faded mercifully fast into the distance as the Hauntings made their escape, away from the walls of Florence. Cann joined Sol in the air, wasting no time in putting distance between themselves and the retreating flock.

“Are there more coming?” Sol asked.

Cann briefly scrunched their face in concentration, then relaxed. “No,” they said, satisfied. “All of them are retreating.”

The weight of the sky seemed to be lifted off Sol’s shoulders as the two Stars made their way to the wall. They’d done the impossible, put an end to the endless fight. 

Sol landed on a higher palisade of the wall, and beamed at Cann when they followed suit. “Let it never be said you don’t deliver, Canopus.”

“Never be said?” Cann asked. “Even by you?”

The joke lacked their usual flair. Still, Sol didn’t let that chip away at the euphoria of a hard-won victory. “You’ll catch me saying no such thing.” He clapped Cann on the shoulder. “Truthfully, I don’t know how you—”

The force of the playful hit made Cann stumble a step forward. They caught themself in time… but that slight gesture shouldn’t have fazed one of his strongest Stars at all. Sol noticed too late that they were clutching their robes pointedly to the side with both hands, as if to cover something.

He stood at attention, now alarmed. “Cann…?”

“It’s alright!” they managed through shallow breaths, smiling so genuinely that for a moment, Sol fully believed the words. “We won.”

They collapsed at his feet, and the protective dome above faded to nothing.

“No!” Sol sank to his knees beside them. He turned them over to reveal viscous black staining their robes. The lead Haunting had poisoned them in the scuffle; it had corroded deep enough to graze their skin. He brought a flaming palm to the sizzling wound. Even in the warmth of his arms, Cann was shivering. Their eyes did not open. “Fight it,” he begged.

He couldn’t win this way. This cost was too much to bear. 

“Over there!” a voice called from the sky. V led Cyon and Pav to the wall, their excitement and relief palpable through the wind. As they flew closer though, V’s smile instantly fell. The three Stars landed on the top of the wall.

“Cann, you idiot…” V cursed under their breath. “What happened?”

“I used the sun to drive them out,” Sol said, not taking his eyes off Cann.

“Oh?” Pav asked, with barely restrained glee.

“But I made certain no one would see it.”

“Naturally,” Cyon said, pointedly glaring at Pav. “Because how thoughtless would the alternative have been, right?” 

Sol’s face burned with embarrassment. As if he needed to be told now.

“Both of you need to shut it!” V took it upon themself to say. “Make yourselves useful and get them to Sirius, before the Haunting venom spreads too far.”

The Stars gently pried Cann away from Sol’s grasp. Still continuing their debate wordlessly with their eyes, Cyon and Pav flew off, supporting Cann’s weight between them. Sol watched after them, only snapping out of his thoughts when V spoke.

“The old ‘illusion of safety’ curtain trick, yes?” V asked, impressed. “Why didn’t I think of that?” 

“Would it have ended better if you had?”

“Don’t say that, it ended well enough! If the Hauntings have even half a brain between them, you scared them off for good!” V argued. “And Cann will be fine. It’s Cann, for skies’ sake.”

“They better be.”

V sighed. “I’m going to clean up this mess.” They gestured vaguely to the fires and black puddles. “Go back to the palace. See how they’re holding up.”

Sol was off to the palace practically before they finished speaking. To mask his flight, he followed a sunbeam; it was, thankfully, much easier to disguise himself in the daytime.

He practically kicked down the ornate door to the chapel. 

“Come now!” Sirius was saying. His gloves were off, and his constant flames were uninhibited as he tried to hold a struggling Cann down to the altar. He was succeeding, but only barely; Cann almost matched his strength. “Would it end to you hold still for—”

Sol cleared his throat, and the two of them snapped to attention. “Everything is in order, I assume?” he said.

“Yes, my king!” Sirius said. “But I need to attend to them at least until noon. It’s simply Haunting wound protocol.”

Cann scoffed. “Spare me the protocol, Sirius. The poison barely even took.”

Sirius crossed his arms. “And whose fire is to be credited for that?”

“If I may,” Sol said, amused. “Sirius, allow me a word with Cann. Protocol will be followed unfettered after this.”

Sirius bowed his head and stood. “As you wish.” Leaning closer to Sol, he whispered, “Make sure to dedicate at least some of your time to telling them to stay put.” He vacated the chapel, leaving Sol and Cann alone and shutting the door securely behind him. 

“Ironic,” Cann remarked. “That he believes you can tell me anything about staying put.”

Sol didn’t return the humor. “Do not deflect from the matter at hand.”

“Oh, are we doing this? Fine,” Cann said with a roll of their eyes, like they were being asked to perform a menial chore. “Yes, I’m perfectly intact and will be back to fighting shape by next sunrise. No, the poison is not your fault, and if you even try to insist otherwise, you fundamentally misunderstand why I followed you. And don’t worry, as far as the other Stars will know, your unbelievably rash stunt did not happen, and the curtain was our brilliant plan all along.” They took a breath. “Did I miss anything?”

Sol stammered a few half hearted responses, having to give up in the end to avoid appearing even more foolish. He took a seat beside Cann. “I wish you would stop taking all the gravitas out of my heartstopping speeches,” he said finally, smiling despite himself.

“You are very predictable.”

Companionable silence overtook them. Sol draped a wing around Cann’s side in case the biting cold of the poison hadn't subsided. Cann did not pull away.

“It bothers you, doesn't it?” they asked softly. “That I can read your intentions like an open book, but you can never have that certainty about mine?”

“It would help,” Sol admitted. “If I knew you intended to take every hit at the wall…”

“You couldn't have stopped me,” Cann said. “No more than I could have stopped you from sneaking out.”

Another sunrise, another civil war threatens to take this so-called great city. This time it has brought a plague with it, weeding out people left and right. You would think this would be an inconvenient time to threaten upheaval. Unfortunately, you are intelligent and possess a working mind, far more than can be said for any of them. 

I would ask how you are doing, but given how much that question trips you up, I will ask what you are doing instead. How, exactly, have you been lighting up the hospital this past moon? Let me guess, there is—

Her voracious reading stopped short in the middle of the sentence when she smelled burning. Again. 

She stood, toppling too many of her herbal supplies in her rush to calm the source of the fire. Sticking her hand into the flame, she found the drenched wooden core beneath and grasped it. Slowly, but surely, the flames tilted toward her, having found a like-built entity. They settled into her hand and left only a charred stub of wood behind. 

Sunbulah breathed a sigh of relief. Crisis averted. 

The door burst open with a kick. “Where is the sandalwood?” 

She jumped, startled, stepping swiftly in front of the now useless stub. “Head physician Masarra!” She tried to laugh, but its shakiness betrayed her. “How timely of you to bring up sandalwood… you see, the tree it comes from—”

“I have no time for your nonsense experiments, Sunbulah,” he cut in. He smoothed back his frazzled hair and lunged toward the table before she could stop him. “Give me the—!” He froze, staring at the offending table, his hands splayed on its surface. “What…?”

“It’s my… nonsense experiments,” she said, unable to keep the bitterness from the last words. “I promise it’s alright, we can do without the sandalwood! I’ll mix you something else for… whatever you’re dealing with.”

“Whatever I’m…?” He blinked, incredulous. “Woman, have you been around a single person these days?”

“No?” she said, getting impatient. Masarra knew full well that she only ever spoke with him, and that she kept correspondence solely with her lover all the way in Byzantium. “That was the deal, remember? Are you telling me what your patient needs, or should I take a guess and cook up a surprise for them?” 

His ire, instead of comically growing like she expected, dissipated instantly as he rubbed his temples, defeated. Sunbulah began to worry. It was never a good sign if even the head physician had given in to hopelessness.

“Better to show you instead,” he said finally, walking back to the door. “Come.”

She blinked, confused at the conversation apparently having left her expertise. “But I’m not supposed to leave the—”

“Sunbulah, I beg of you,” Masarra said wearily, clearly not in the mood for arguing. “Do not make this harder than it is.” 

Swallowing her boiling questions, she fell into step behind him.

The first thing to strike her when she took her first step outside into the hospital ward was the smell. Her apothecary cabin’s eclectic scents of wood, herbs, and the occasional fire gave way to rank, putrid air.

Then, she saw the patients on the beds. 

They writhed, crying out with pain as the physicians worked to soothe their viscous blisters. Some retched into ready buckets. Even from afar, Sunbulah saw that many had fingers blackened, their flesh rotting. Hadn’t Arc mentioned Byzantium’s ongoing brush with an inconceivable epidemic? How had it made its way to Granada?

“Since when?” Sunbulah could only ask.

“Wake up!” he snapped, a little too affronted considering he was the first to suggest her permanent lodging in the apothecary. “The stars have cursed us and God wants us to repent.”

Sunbulah made a face. As if the situation wasn’t unpleasant enough, he had to bring up astrology. “God, maybe, but what do Stars have to do with this?”

“Put your faithless sacrilege aside for once. There is a plague!”

“Well then, this is where we part ways!” she bit back. “I presume there’s no good studying any plants in a plague-stricken land.”

He gaped at her in open mouthed disbelief. “You’d take flight from our sick frontier now of all times? Are the plants your only concern?”

“Yes!” she said, throwing up her hands in frustration. “That’s why you keep me here! Where did the sudden high ground come from?”

Masarra, ignoring her, ran toward a bed. He sank to his knees next to it and began to clean the infected hand of the young girl laying there, muttering words Sunbulah couldn’t hear. 

Tentatively, she stepped closer, and everything she intended to ask Masarra died in her throat. The girl was sobbing quietly, her face caked in grime, but she couldn’t even lift a hand to wipe it off. She was so small, bursting with potential for growth like a fresh flower… and this disease had wilted all of that out of her. 

Without thinking, Sunbulah imbued her hand with subtle, cleansing light. 

She touched the girl’s face, willing the mess away just as she routinely brought life back to flower petals. Wide brown eyes opened fully to stare at Sunbulah, equal parts awed and confused.

Sunbulah made the effort to smile, remembering Masarra’s lectures on the importance of gentle bedside manner. She’d always scoffed, in disbelief that Masarra had a gentle bone in his body, but here, she had to put her absolute best foot forward.

“You are small, frail, and painfully mortal,” she said. “Understand this to be true.”

The girl blinked, surprised. Masarra turned on Sunbulah, eye twitching with rage. “How dare—?”

“Thank you?” The girl forced out the words, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Finally, someone’s honest.”

Sunbulah laughed. “I say this so you can appreciate just how incredible it is that you’ve survived the affliction to this point. Give yourself credit, friend, you’re firmly rooted, and you have tough enough bark that has let you weather the storm for this long.”

The corner of her mouth quirked slightly. “I’m a tree?”

Sunbulah reached once more to push back the girl’s dirty hair, before Masarra caught her arm. She braced herself for admonishment, but he was still on his knees, looking up at her with urgent, piercing eyes.

“Save her,” he whispered. “Your herb knowledge is unmatched. Pay your dues to this land. Take up physician duty and save my daughter.”

“Your—?” She looked between the two of them. Of course. Now that the girl’s strikingly sharp eyes and sloping nose weren’t completely obscured, there was no denying the relation.

His expression made it clear there was no room for refusal; she could not take flight from this if she wanted to. But if Masarra expected a promise, or invocations of God, or whatever his idea of acceptable responses involved, he wouldn’t get them. Not from her.

“I’ll give everything I can,” she said instead.

The child, whose name Sunbulah learned was Hadija, was washed up in the pool promptly. On Masarra’s orders, she and her trunk of essentials were moved into her own ward, which just happened to be Sunbulah’s own apothecary room. As hard as Sunbulah tried to fight this, Masarra was adamant that the hospital was overflowing already. 

Masarra shadowed her anxiously for the first several hours, and only left begrudgingly for work. Truthfully, this worried Sunbulah; on ordinary occasions, she could trust him to be fastidious with not catching the plague himself, but he was too close to this one. She savored the few minutes she’d get without his frantic input.

Hadija blinked in and out of consciousness, always starting her waking spells by hurling into a container. Sunbulah swiftly grew accustomed to handling it.

She stroked Hadija’s back through the last heaves and peered over the rim of the bucket. Predictably, a crude shade of a rejected diet accumulated over a good few days was inside. Except this time, it was marbled with ribbons of red. “Blood,” she noted. “Not good. Are you squeamish?” 

Hadija gave her that slight muscle movement that passed for a smile in her condition. “I can’t exactly afford to be.” 

“Point taken. Well, unbalanced as your humors are, I do need to reach inside you to fix this,” she said. Hadija, unfazed, only nodded, and Sunbulah took that as her cue. “Hold still.” 

Carefully, she propped Hadija up and lifted her sticky, sweat stained shirt from her back. Keeping one hand to hold her steady, Sunbulah reached for a fine blade from the table and cut into a spot of clean skin. Then, quick as light, she grabbed a cup and placed its rim on the incision. Little by little, blood rose into the cup. Sunbulah counted the seconds. Hadija’s heart began to quicken. Sunbulah released the cup.

“It’s done,” she said quietly, guiding Hadija back to the soft mattress. 

“Wait,” the girl said, with a hesitant crack in her voice. “Can you… get my trunk?”

Sunbulah arched an eyebrow. It was an odd request, but she complied, keeping her senses sharp in case whatever was inside would give Masarra more cause to yell at her. She creaked open the lid cautiously. Inside, placed gently on top of all the extra clothes and essentials, were hand-stitched dolls.

“The one in white,” Hadija said softly.

Relaxing, Sunbulah handed the doll to Hadija and laid her against the pillow. “Rest now.”

She barely had to say it. The girl had already blinked back into painful unconsciousness before Sunbulah had finished her sentence.

Sunbulah stepped away from the bed and crossed the room to sit at her desk. In her palm, she summoned a steady flame near the cup, scrutinizing the blood. Like studying a blighted plant, she told herself, knowing full well it wasn’t like that at all. There was precious little in plants that Sunbulah couldn’t fix with a wave of her hand and a redirection of light, short of complete cremation. 

Humans, with their numerous interlocking systems and frustrating lack of receptors to light, were more complicated. It was grossly inefficient to heal them only secondhand through plants and changes to living conditions. Why couldn’t she directly forcefeed some light to Hadija and—?

Something bright inside the cup of blood caught her eye. A reflection of her flame, Sunbulah told herself, snuffing it out so it didn’t disrupt her observation. 

She put the cup down near the table’s edge, lowering her head to its level. 

Unblinking, she stared the sample down, not daring to touch it for fear of driving off the answer she needed. Just as she was about to give up and reach for her supplies… the spot of light returned. Its white glow was stark against the blood, impossible to mistake for Sunbulah’s green Star fire.

She stifled a gasp as more little white flames emerged, floating in the liquid as if trying to burn the disease out of existence. This girl didn’t just have her mortal bodily system fighting the plague; purifying fire, a generations-old gift from the Stars, ran through her veins. 

Hadija was a witch.

At the least convenient time possible, Masarra burst in, yelling, “Have you done anything of use?”

Sunbulah swiftly hid the cup and shushed him, tilting her head in the direction of Hadija, curled up in bed. “Her sleeping is out of balance as is,” she whispered. “At least let her have the few scraps she can manage.”

He stood up straight, his arms crossed. “Watch your tone, Sunbulah,” he said, quieter but with no shortage of his usual displeasure. “She’s still my daughter.”

“Your daughter who has a week to live, remember?” 

“Don’t mock me, woman. If you want to live, you have no choice but to ensure her survival!”

Sunbulah bit her tongue. It was odd, how quickly he discarded all the rhetoric about the plague as God’s punishment once it affected his own. “Listen,” she said wearily, “you don’t have the slightest clue what she’s going through. If you did, you’d have taken care of it without asking for more than a few herbs from me. You’ve already tacitly admitted I’m right for the job, so would it kill your pride to hand the reins over to me?”

“My pride is not the matter at stake and you know it,” he said coolly, striding forward and pressing the crate shut. “You are a liability. Skilled in one area, granted, but a careless accident waiting to happen regardless. I don’t intend to put my child in harm’s way. From you, or the plague.”

She looked away, mortified, fighting to keep her face stable. It was less the man himself and more who he reminded her of that threatened to expose a nerve; hadn’t she heard almost that exact combination of words from the sun king Sol, numerous times? The last thing she wanted to do was prove him right. 

Composing herself, she gathered the courage to say the next words. “Then you’ll be happy to know I’ll be out of the hospital for a few days.”

“Out of the question!” he sputtered. “Your insubordination is reaching untold limits! The arrangement—”

“Is rendered moot now that her life is in our hands, no?” she said, not looking for an answer. “I’ve run out of the most crucial supplies, and I intend to leave no stone unturned.”

He stepped forward, close enough to remind her that he towered over her considerably in height. He, a mere human, posed no threat to her physically, but the way he glared down at her was enough to make her freeze in place; this was not the first time she’d served a taller man with the intense disapproving glint in his eyes, and in the moment, it did not matter that Masarra was nowhere close to Sol in terms of power. Still, she didn’t break her gaze, even as her knees began to tremble. 

Giving in, he sighed. “For your own good, you cannot leave. I’ll see what I can do about your supplies, but you need to stay put.”

Unbelievable. “You’ll trust me with her life, but not with a trip outside,” she said flatly. “You’re the smartest man in this hospital, and even so I wonder if you hear yourself sometimes.”

He rolled his eyes. “Come now, you always blow everything ridiculously out of proportion…”

Masarra, to his credit, left quietly as smoothly as he entered, but not without casting a few warning glares at Sunbulah. He would return without warning like he always had. He hadn’t forgotten he was technically her superior; it had simply been put aside when Sunbulah became the only one he could rely on. 

Hadija stirred in her sleep, and Sunbulah let herself breathe; at least the argument didn’t wake her up. 

She sank into her chair, frustrated, angry, and at a loss to whatever to do next; she’d never truly been in a position where safety or restraint were high priorities. Now, there was the balancing act of curing this child under her care without giving any indication that anything unusual marked either of them. She reached for Arc’s letter and read through the rest of it; civil wars, building fortification… he was out there doing things, while she wasn’t even given the liberty of leaving this one room.

This would be when she rummaged through her stock and experimented, but she was out of every herb that would be safe to expose in front of a dying child.

So, she did the next best thing; she grabbed her quill and started a new letter.

Arcturus, always the entirely figurative light of my life,

You know I say this with the utmost affection in my heart, but how in the skies do you expect me to believe your distaste for the mortals when you diligently guard their every edifice? If you despise them that much, I do not see you committing. 

Still, you do manage, clearly. If I can be disgustingly vulnerable for just a moment, Arc, I envy your ability to draw a sharp distinction between our worlds. How easy it is for you, to speed through time, fortifying Constantinople’s walls by day, fighting creatures of darkness by night, and always reporting well-gotten results to our king. Regimented, direct, without unnecessary flair… everything I adore about you; skies know our fellow Stars could learn a thing or two from that. 

No such neat demarcation has been possible for me. The world is a forest, richly populated and crawling with interlocking life forms, all placed ahead for exploration. Decay, predation, the stubborn persistence of life; name one thing here that is constrained to one world and not the other? Mortals act as if they are the only thinking beings here, as if their pain is unique, unmarked territory. I suppose in that way, they are not so different from us. I already hear your undoubtedly furious response to the contrary.

I lose the thread; what else is new? This is all to say, the plague you mention has made it to Granada. None of my wandering studies have prepared me, and although one moment longer in this limited apothecary might eat into my mind for good, I’m not sure about my capability for the task ahead.

You are no longer my only company here, but still. Send your advice and refreshingly direct criticism my way. With love…

Hadija stirred awake. Quickly, Sunbulah signed her name, folded the letter closed, and burned the seal on it before the girl’s heavy eyes regained their faculties. Thankfully, Hadija’s first glance was at the door, then at the closed crate, and only lastly at Sunbulah. 

“Was my father here?” she asked.

Sunbulah laughed bitterly. Now was as good a time as any to begin packing for the trip. “He cannot go more than an hour at a time without breaking down my door.”

She shifted uncomfortably on the bed. “Is it true? What he keeps saying?”

“About you not having long unless we work inhumanly hard? I’m afraid so.”

“Not that,” Hadija said, too flippantly for a girl speaking of her incoming death. “About… God, and punishment, and something about stars…”

Sunbulah scoffed. “You really shouldn’t take everything he says to heart. He doesn’t know as much as he thinks he does”

Clearly unconvinced, she held the doll in white close to her chest. “He knows… most things,” she argued feebly. “I just want to know what I did wrong. For this to happen.”

Putting the last of her traveling gear in her bag, Sunbulah turned her full attention to the patient. “Why would you believe you’ve done anything wrong?”

But Hadija curled deeper into the covers, preoccupying herself with the doll’s hair, and Sunbulah had no desire to disrupt that fleeting moment of comfort. So it was settled; there would be no confessions tonight. 

“Well, then.” Sunbulah cupped the girl’s sunken face in her hands. “Good night.”

Just as she cleansed the girl’s face of grime before, this time, she summoned warmth in her hands, easing away the last block keeping Hadija lethargically awake. If everything went as planned, this would last longer than the short, troubled bursts of sleep she’d been suffering from. Once Masarra inevitably caught wind of Sunbulah’s escape, he could easily send someone who wasn’t a ‘liability’ to take over.

“I’ll be back,” she promised the sleeping child, slinging her bag over her shoulder and walking out.

Sunbulah counted on the staff’s fatigue, and her own subtle manipulations of light to mask her exit. When at long last she slipped out of the hospital through the back door, she was greeted with a dead, starless night. Anxiously, she rolled the letter to Arc in her hands, and had to pay special attention to make sure she didn’t accidentally burn it; given the precarity of the plague, her chances of finding a messenger were not great, but she had to hold on to this singular thread of certainty that remained hers. Sad as it sounded, she’d put her apothecary post at stake, so he was all she could count on to last the week.

She scrambled into an unassuming corner and scanned the area for onlookers. When clear, she spread her wings and took to the skies. 

She repeated the three items she was out for in an oddly comforting rhythm under her breath. Oranges, hyacinths, sandalwood incense. Easy, basic, effective… and, by her calculations, the very narrow slice available to her under a strict deadline.

It was a short flight to the nearest fruit orchard. Very proud of securing her first find already, Sunbulah dived into the trees. 

She moved too fast, and couldn’t stop her descent in time before she crashed through a patchwork of branches, full wingspan, latent flames and all. Her cries were lost to the stray pieces she swallowed, and she fell face-first onto the moist orchard soil. 

Still, in the end, she was surrounded by a heap of fallen leaves and fresh oranges. She laughed, holding up the nearest large beauty. “I still win!”

She spoke too soon. Along with the still falling debris, a screeching bundle of feathers swooped down, piercing her find with its accursed claws and pulling hard. Determined not to lose this easily, Sunbulah held fast, fighting the eagle owl’s iron grip.

“Claws off, fiend! It’s mine!” She yanked her hand back forcefully enough to catapult the owl away. The orange was still in her hand. She cheered, but stopped short when she realized the owl hadn’t flown off. 

It had fallen to the ground a few feet away. And it wasn’t moving.

Sunbulah cast the fruit aside and inched carefully toward the owl. She reached a hand forward to inspect, but when it flinched from her touch, its wing shifted ever so slightly enough to reveal an underside of charred feathers. Had she burned the poor thing on the way down?

“Oh, skies above, no…” she said softly. She gathered up the whimpering owl in her arms, using one hand to hold the wing still while the other shone a light on it from behind. Bones were broken. “I’m… so sorry.” What else was there to say? 

She couldn’t fix bones as easily as stems, but she could do the next best thing. Grabbing a loose branch from the ground, she imbued it with green light, resuscitating its dead cells and growing it as she wished. Soon, it was the perfect splint to hold the wing; she grabbed some twine from her bag and tied it securely. 

She glanced back at the fallen oranges. "You shouldn't really be eating these, all things considered. Why...?" She trailed off. The remaining glow of the splint gave her just enough of a view of the bird's insides to know that the liver was not in its best condition. Without further question, she rolled the oranges toward the owl. “All yours.”

Round eyes stared up at her, confused.

“You're hardly the most unusual patient I've had. And I can still fly for more fruit,” she reassured him, flapping her wings. “A little hard work has never hurt anyone.”

Satisfied, the owl began to peck at the new meal. 

Sunbulah flitted between the patch of trees, scrutinizing the oranges under her green light and pocketing the ripest looking ones. Hadija couldn’t eat much under the plague, so her best bet for a healing diet was lots of citrus and water. She grew so focused on having her best pick, the blasts eluded her ears for far too long.

Shots rang out, closing in with each successive blast. Sunbulah turned, only to see a chain of violet sparks was heading right for the defenseless, feasting owl.

“No!” She darted into the line of fire, speeding up the growth of the seeds she sent below so young trucks sprang up as a barrier. She couldn’t see the owl anymore, but she heard confused hoots from behind her; he was safe. 

Ahead of her, a horse’s hooves pranced forth. Riding on top of the black steed was a tall woman, glowing with violet light, eyes hard as she searched for a target. “Where did it go?”

Sunbulah stood at attention and held a flame out to greet her fellow Star. “Good evening, Aliya!”

Aliya blinked, as if trying to parse an unfamiliar presence, but then broke out into a smile. “I thought I recognized the screams from somewhere!” She dismounted, and before Sunbulah had the chance to respond, she grabbed her by the shoulders, inspecting her for damage. “No one in their right mind would be out in the woods in the dead of night. Where is the Haunting who attacked you? Are you being held as bait? Dubhe and Al-Qai’d are in the air, should I tell them to blast—”

“There was no Haunting!” Sunbulah assured her quickly. Reaching behind the tree, she let the owl climb onto her arm. “See? We were both on a hunt, and I let it have my share.”

Aliya, perking up at the word ‘hunt’, said, “Skies above, small planet, so are we! What are you out for? Did you find a Haunting hideout in this orchard? Or a place for a secret watchtower, or—”

Sunbulah held the bulging bag toward her. “Oranges!” 

“Ah.” Aliya’s face fell. “And that means…?”

“Well, a diet of citrus can keep consumption clean and free of the spreading black plague. I also need hyacinth flowers and sandalwood, to ward off what’s infected my patient already, and keeping it simple is my best hope right now, because I’m actually not supposed to be out, you see. Speaking of the plague, have you been taking care of your horse’s intake lately?”

“That’s nice, dear,” Aliya said, patting Sunbulah’s shoulder, clearly having stopped listening once the conversation ceased to promise her anything. She returned to mount her horse, shooting a chain of blasts into the sky. “All clear, you two!” she yelled to the sky.

Sunbulah flinched as it burned through the topmost branches. “That’s a good portion of the yield gone.”

Aliya shrugged. “The mortals will survive.”

“Actually, they have less of a chance of that without the fruit. Because of the plague, they’ll have to make more use of the harvest than usual. Many physicians will be recommending—”

“Sunbulah,” she cut in, smiling in a way that was at odds with the tightness in her voice. “I get the picture.”

Do you? Sunbulah wanted to ask, but before she could open her mouth, two more large holes were burned into the canopy. The owl jumped, startled from the sudden entrance, and she had to hold him steady before he could hurt himself. The two Stars who were speeding downward could have simply used the hole Aliya had already made. Sunbulah decided against pointing that out. 

Al-Qa’id, small, quick, and sparking with excited lightning, scanned his surroundings with a wide grin. It dissolved into a frown when he saw nothing to fight. “Where’d it go?”

“It was never here,” Aliya said. “False alarm.”

“Slippery little things,” Dubhe said, balling her fists. “This is dangerous.”

“Did something happen?” Sunbulah asked. “I mean… why the hunt?”

Dubhe and Al-Qa’id, noticing her presence for the first time, looked at her incredulously. “What rock have you been living under where the king’s alerts don’t reach you?” Al-Qa’id asked. Dubhe nudged him pointedly to shut him up.

Sunbulah’s face flushed with embarrassment. “The hospital.” 

As if she needed the reminder that the king had walled her out of any tasks after she and Arc found different posts. Silence followed, only broken by the owl rubbing up against her. The three siblings seemed to carry their own silent conversation solely through knowing glances and vague gestures. Sunbulah instinctively reached for the rolled up letter in her bag. Why was there only one Star she was able to talk to without making a fool of herself?

“Tell you what,” Aliya piped up. “Since you’re out already, you might as well tag along. We’ll complete our mission and you can…” She paused. “Collect your fruits and branches?”

Dubhe made a face. “Collect what?”. 

She went on, “And you can hand your letter over to Alhambra witches when we’re done! They’ll deliver it for you.”

Sunbulah snapped at attention. “There’s witches at the palace?”

“Where else would they be?” Aliya shifted on her saddle, making room for Sunbulah. “Ride with me. You must be out of practice from all that time cooped up with the sick earthlings.” 

Aliya’s siblings laughed quietly at some shared joke and set off into the sky. Sunbulah's mind went a mile a minute trying to process this seemingly very simple choice. Aliya was offering her the solution to everything; a quick ride for her search, a way to Arc, and a possible path to restoring her image with the king? It was perfect.

Too perfect. 

Something about where the offer came from, with Aliya’s syrupy tone and her siblings’ incomprehensible communication, put her on guard, even more than she was with the mortals she had to hide from. 

Then, she remembered Hadija. Even if Sunbulah saved her life, without the Alhambra witches, she’d never know how to make sure it stayed safe. That tipped the scales to her decision. 

As soon as she climbed onto the horse, it took off out of the woods. 

Sunbulah positioned herself with her back against Aliya’s, growing and molding branches into a secure perch for the eagle owl. She hung it against the saddle and carefully let the bird climb off her arm. “Alright?” 

The owl chirped affirmatively, with such genuine satisfaction that Sunbulah couldn’t help but laugh.

“Wouldn’t you rather cage it?” Aliya asked, a small laugh in her voice.

“He’s injured. He doesn’t need a cage, just a place to rest where he won’t die.”

“Huh,” she said, and Sunbulah sat straight up. Aliya’s tone was thoughtful, but in that maddening manner where there was no way to know what the thoughts were. “You… get a lot of practice on birds at the hospital?” 

“Oh, no!” Sunbulah said, brightening. “Only humans! Sick, injured, mad, you name it!” 

Aliya turned her head ever so slightly back. “You don’t say…”

“I do! Though, I don’t actually spend that much time around the patients,” she admitted. “This is my first one. The head physician will have my head if I don’t save her. And you know it’s important because he let me see her at all! Usually he wants me to never even set foot out of the apothecary. I’m not even supposed to be here now!”

“I see,” she said. 

Sunbulah arched an eyebrow. “You do?”

She laughed. “Well, no. But… it’s intriguing, I suppose. You’re a Star, above this man in every sense of the word. Why are you answering to him?”

And so the horse dutifully carried them through the hills, and Sunbulah let her guard down in the face of Aliya’s questions. She had found Aliya attractive a long while back; who wouldn’t, with that winning smile and knowing glint in the deep blue eyes? That had only lasted until Aliya opened her mouth, and the million undertones to her every sweetly spoken word became too much for Sunbulah to keep up with. 

But this new, genuinely curious side to Aliya? Sunbulah reveled in how intently the other Star listened; being able to give information away for once instead of relentlessly hunting it down was a treat too rare to pass by.

She was in the middle of reciting the Compendium on Simple Medicaments from memory when the smell of fresh floral goodness stopped her. “Finally!” She clambered off of the horse, stretching her fingers in preparation to dig the hyacinths free. “Aliya, can you call the others down? All four of us can work faster, and I can go back with a full stock and make Masarra eat his words!”

“Oh, Sunbulah,” Aliya said with sudden, grave sadness, pointedly not signaling for the others. “You’re brilliant. That mind of yours runs a mile a minute and accumulates so much knowledge…” The compliments began to unsettle Sunbulah. The countless layers to Aliya’s speech returned. “But you still haven’t figured it out, have you?”

Sunbulah, already on the ground with her fingers digging through the soil, didn’t dare to meet Aliya’s eyes. “Figured out what?” she asked, uncharacteristically worried that she didn’t want the answer. 

“You’re not that man’s herbalist, or physician, or whatever else he’s told you,” she said evenly. “You… are his patient.”

Sunbulah breathed out a laugh. It was all some absurd build up to a joke. “Don’t be ridiculous.” Too forcefully, she released the hyacinth’s roots and yanked out the bulb. “I’m a Star. He’s never had any cause to think me sick, or injured, or—”

“Mad,” Aliya cut in, the single word carrying the force of a thick tome to the head. “Are you sure about that last one?”

She gripped the bulb tight in her fist. The deal, she wanted to protest, before remembering when he’d first found her. After she’d burned her own cabin.

She’d never assumed any intentions he hadn’t stated. Why would she?

“An easy mistake to make,” Aliya went on, undeterred. “You’ve always talked back too readily, been outright incapable of picking up the most basic conversational hints, and every thought you have leads back only to the century’s chosen obsession.” She took a breath. “And most damning of all for these humans? You take the form of a faithless woman unfit for polite society. Why do you think the physician was so adamant you never leave his sight, or interact with anyone outside of your ward? He was studying you, and he knew exactly what he was doing. You can’t aggressively explain your way out of this one, dear.”

Ward. Not even her beloved apothecary remained untouched. By now, the stalk and bulb were hot ashes in Sunbulah’s hand. “You show yourself as a woman too,” she countered weakly. “You ride a horse.”

Aliya stepped forward, wrapping her arm around Sunbulah’s shoulders. “I, unlike you, have the good sense to follow the code of conduct in my limited time around humans. It’s like the king says, hiding ourselves is not only about our powers. It’s about keeping ourselves safe.”

She stiffened, her face growing hot at the mention of Sol’s name, and lost the battle with her tears. “Don’t.”

“Sunbulah…”

“I can pick up hints.” She wrenched herself free. “None of my life ever concerned you before I foolishly gave you a weakness to pull at. Is this just one more humorous anecdote to laugh with your siblings about? Or do you plan to tell Sol? Like he needs yet another reason to lecture me, very loudly, about my conduct?”

A flash of hurt crossed Aliya’s face. Sunbulah no longer trusted it. “This is for your own good! Come to Alhambra with me and my siblings. Next time I see Arcturus, I can even—”

“Stop making yourself out to be the one saving me!” she shot back. “I didn’t need it back in the forest, I certainly don’t need it now.” 

She flew off, not caring what direction as long as it was away. Tears blurred the sky ahead of her, but for the first time, she saw everything with paralyzing clarity. Not even this strand of fulfillment she’d found at the hospital had meant anything.

Taking shelter at the top of the first oak she found, she sank into the embrace of the branches and shaped herself a small nook. The warm, familiar feel of bark and leaves surrounding her brought back enough of her senses that she could let herself think again.

Which, considering her circumstances, was a huge mistake. 

For once, she hated the evidence-based workings of her mind, because there truly was no way to delude herself into thinking Aliya’s ultimate conclusion was wrong. Not only was it supported by every newly tainted interaction she had with Masarra, but she was no more equipped to contest Aliya’s observations about society than Aliya would be to speak about prophetic medicine.

“Do you think I’m the problem?” she whispered idly into the branches, only daring to say it out loud because here, she wouldn’t have to hear an awkward, socially polished answer. Or any answer at all. 

Wingbeats sounded nearby. 

Sunbulah froze with alarm, but then she heard the screech. 

Giddy with relief, she parted the leaves and began to climb. She emerged above the tree, right in time for the eagle owl to land on her outstretched arm. “You’re healed!” She marveled at the completely intact wing he was showing off. The splint was still there, but it was glowing green; not even the faintest suggestion of the deeply charred feathers remained. “I healed you? How in the skies—”

The eagle owl burbled impatiently, pecking her. Only then did she see the hyacinth stalk he was holding in his beak.

Her smile fell. She pulled the splint’s knot open. “I’m… unbelievably flattered you thought to look for me when you should have been flying free. But I don’t believe I’ll be needing this any longer.”

The eagle owl solemnly placed the bulb on a nearby nook… only to peck her arm, more forcefully this time. 

Sunbulah forced her fire to not react disproportionately to the tiny attack. She settled back against the branches. “I was held at the hospital under false pretenses,” she told the bird, hating how pathetic the paper-thin cover sounded in hindsight. “Masarra thinks me mad. Sol wants me completely out of sight and mind, or I might blot the perfection of his Stardom. I’m a pitiable curiosity for Aliya and her siblings. You tell me, friend. What am I even here for?”

He hopped off her arm and retrieved the hyacinth. Then, he opened his beak, dropping the stalk.

“No!” Sunbulah scrambled after it, just barely catching it between two fingers. The bird made a repetitive, joyful noise from his throat. “I don’t know what you’re trying to prove! The only reason I was after this was for…”

Hadija, she remembered.

Even if Masarra trusting her with his daughter was as meaningless a gesture as all the easy herbalist labor he’d made Sunbulah perform… she’d disobeyed him so thoroughly. His approval was never why she was doing this, was it?

Sunbulah sat up, a lump in her throat at the thought of that little girl, fighting for her life against certain death. The girl who Sunbulah almost abandoned on a whim.

No more.

The eagle owl settled on her shoulder as she placed the stalk in her bag. “Two out of three rudimentary remedies isn’t bad, right?” she asked. “Who am I fooling, of course it’s bad! They’re rudimentary, that’s the point!” 

The bird bumped against her cheek. She stroked the feathers on his soft head. 

“But two is better than none, isn’t it? Thank you for everything…” She racked her brain for something to call him, when her hand found the unsent letter in her bag. She took it out and held it to her heart, deciding there really was only one name to give her prickly, refreshingly forthright new friend. “Little Arc.”

The sun peeked over the jagged horizon. Sunbulah squinted in the new light, daring the new day to throw whatever it had her way. She could take it.

The two of them left the perch of the treetop behind and took to the skies. 

By the time they returned, the sun had climbed higher, but the atmosphere above the hospital was gray, more dismal than ever. Sunbulah had no more time to waste. She launched Little Arc into the air and dimmed her own light; she would enter the same way she’d left. 

When she crept into the strung-out infirmary, she expected a lot more eyes out for her. In reality, that was Star-like wishful thinking. The preoccupied staff ran ragged, most stretching themselves between two or three patients by necessity; far more had come in during the night. 

Sunbulah’s light flickered, threatening to reveal her in an outpouring of care. She now saw a face, a life in every suffering body there. A life no less full than her own, and certainly deserving better than being reduced to a diseased body… or mind. She vowed to never let her own immortality blind her to the value of a full life. She was a healer, whether the Stars and Masarra thought so or not.

Give yourselves to me, she wanted to beg them all. Let me help.

She chided herself for losing focus so easily. One at a time. Setting her eyes on her beloved corner room, she weaved through the crowd, a knot twisting in her heart from every single one she had to brush past. 

At the end of the hall, a few men gathered outside Sunbulah’s room, Masarra at the head, barking orders as the other forced tools into the door to pry it open.

Whatever was happening, she needed to change direction. 

She backed into the nearest wall, finding the nearest window with a fumbling hand and slipping out of it. Outside, she didn’t have to search for the window to her room; the homegrown climbers lining it marked it clear as day. 

She sneaked inside, and was immediately met with a soft projectile launched at her face. The doll clumsily hit its target and dropped to the floor.

“Oh,” Hadija squeaked out, sitting upright on one end of the bed. “It’s you!” 

Sunbulah tossed her back the doll and glanced at the large trunk, which had somehow moved just conveniently enough to barricade the door shut. “How did that get there?”

Faintly, her eyes flickered with silver light. “I moved it,” she said too quickly. “Didn’t want to get it dirty.”

“And you won’t get up to open the door for your father, because…?”

“Well, you were gone, and he would move me if he knew! Couldn’t you have…” She clapped a hand over her mouth.

Quickly, Sunbulah replaced the bucket. Then, she marched up to the blocked door. She kicked the trunk aside in a burst of strength, and flung the door open to dumbfounded men and a very stunned Masarra. “You are making the child’s rest exceptionally hard,” she said.

The rest of the men drew back, averting their gazes. Sunbulah could only imagine how she looked to them, hair scattered and eyes wild. 

Masarra stood firm. “I need to see her.” And you, she could almost hear him say.

“Right now?” Sunbulah asked. “She’s vomiting into a bucket, and would really rather you don’t. Either you can stand there and mutter about retribution, or I can make her a meal and treat her tumors. Which sounds better to you?” 

The man still towered above her, glaring forcefully, but made no move to push his way in. She’d won.

“Now,” she said, smiling sweetly, “Please leave my ward.” 

Emphasizing those last two words, she made sure to look Masarra in the eye. Tempting as it would have been to scream at him, or watch him reckon with how she was capable of figuring it out, Sunbulah simply shut the door in his face, refusing to entertain his surveillance. She had a job to do.

At her desk, she emptied out the contents of her bag. After applying the hyacinth between Hadija’s fingers, she finally found a ripe silence to fill as she prepared the citrus meal.

“Hadija,” she said, trying to tread carefully for sensitive information. “Have you ever felt… different, from other kids growing up?”

“What?” she asked, her energy already draining.

“I mean…” She trailed off. How was she meant to make this line of questioning sound even remotely sane? “Like… something boils your blood hotter than others, and you can do things never before seen, but no one else can understand, because you barely know yourself. As if something affects you, specifically, and the flesh prison you inhabit seems to have a mind of its own?”

Hadija turned her gaze to the table, and Sunbulah could have sworn she saw a spark of panicked hope in her eyes. Just as quickly though, she breathed out a laugh. “That’s just what it’s like to be a girl.”

That made Sunbulah stop cold and absently pinch into the orange. She was an immortal Star with no inborn concept of the idea, but for the longest time, she’d considered herself a woman in every way that mattered. She’d never stopped to unpack what that meant; wasn’t it a descriptive category, no different from how a plant could be described by its bearing of seeds or spores? What was she missing?

Hadija cleared her throat painfully. “So… did you have a point?”

Sunbulah shook off her thoughts and crossed the room halfway to the bed. “Your remedies will take time.” She kneeled down to be at eye level with Hadija. “Just… take care of yourself. And if there’s anything at play here, no matter how awkward or unbelievable, you can tell me. I’m open to more than you think.”

A long silence followed. Sunbulah held a few slices of orange out, but Hadija was looking everywhere except at her.

“I didn’t move the chest myself,” she said quietly. “Or… I did. Just not in the way you think.” 

Sunbulah nodded. “Go on.” 

Hadija sighed deeply and pointed her hyacinth laden hand forward. A blinking white glow surrounded the slices Sunbulah was holding out. Slowly but surely, after dropping three pieces first, she managed to levitate one toward herself. 

Sunbulah smiled triumphantly. “Well.”

“You can’t tell anyone!” Hadija insisted through a mouthful of orange. “Not even my father. I don’t want to end up like—”

“Like me.”

“What?” Her eyes widened. “Of course I want to be like you! You’re clever, and brilliant, and you don’t let anyone tell you what to do…”

“I’m also locked in a room I’m not allowed to leave, and generally considered too unstable to be around the decent God-fearing populace,” she added. “Work out for yourself why that is.”

Realization dawned on Hadija’s face. “But you don’t seem… that can’t be true! He must have made a mistake!” 

“Even if he did, I have my own secrets. Let’s keep this one between us too.” With one wave of her hand, a stray orange seed on the ground sprouted a sapling. 

For good measure, as if having smelled potential oranges from outside, Little Arc hovered outside the window, rapping at the glass with his beak. Sunbulah prepared for horror, for the evaporation of all the confidence she’d earned.

But Hadija stared at it with awe, hugging her doll close. “You can do anything.” She focused on another seed, knitting her eyebrows close, but only succeeded in burning it up and running out of breath. 

Sunbulah sprang forward to catch her before she fell off the bed. They sat, Sunbulah holding Hadija the same way the girl held the doll. Both sick, with secrets that couldn’t leave the room, finding inexplicable solace in seeing even a fraction of themselves reflected in a smaller, far more perishable girl. What would become of them in this world?

“I can’t do anything,” Sunbulah admitted solemnly. “I cannot heal you, or the other people out there. I couldn’t even find all I needed to start with you. I’m out of sandalwood.”

Hadija blinked at her, the silver glow returning to her eyes. “No, you aren’t. There’s some on the table right there.”

Sunbulah laughed bitterly. “Burned. Of no use unless I can somehow bring it back to—” Her eyes wandered to the window, to Little Arc, and she grinned as an idea of the insane variety hit her. If she healed the owl’s wing by accident, surely she could undo this damage too. “Wait here.”

She placed her hand on the ashy stub, let the green light seep out of her hand… and did not falter this time. Sol, Masarra, and Aliya’s disapproving judgment all disappeared when she looked back at Hadija; the trusting gaze of a vulnerable soul under her protection was all she needed.

In a burst of light, the original block of sandalwood was not the only thing that had been restored. Somehow, she’d rooted a small tree into her table. The scent wafted through the air, grounding her success into tangible reality.

She let out a disbelieving laugh, turning back to her patient. “Now. Let’s burn it properly this time.”

 Two months later, Sunbulah had treated far more than one victim of the plague, and had incidentally accumulated enough goodwill to transcend Masarra’s initial label. She and a much healthier Hadija walked into the royal fortress of Alhambra, and were met with a wonder previously conceived of only in wild imaginations—people exactly like them. 

Sunbulah knew the witches they found weren’t Stars in any sense, but they laughed with her like friends, listened to her like enraptured students, and explained the workings of their world like generous hosts. 

Best of all, they were all curious skeptics, asking incessant questions until they got exactly what they wanted. Her kind of people.

She took a stray leaf out of her hair, intending to show a group of women exactly how to feed light in a way that made it grow. "Like this!" Just then, she felt someone tap her shoulder. 

“I see you learned how to hold a conversation,” Aliya said. 

Sunbulah smiled, turning to look at her. “All I needed was people willing to listen. Strange, how hard that’s been for most I’ve met.” 

Aliya didn’t smile back. “We need to talk.” 

“Do we, now?” Sunbulah glanced at Hadija. The girl was sitting on nearby stairs, with a doll in one arm and Little Arc perched on the other. A few women sat around her, talking with her like they’d known each other their whole lives. She’s in good hands, Sunbulah decided, and nodded to her audience as she tossed the leaf. They descended on it, fighting for the chance to try out the spell. “Practice on your own!” 

As soon as the two of them had reached the greater hall, out of earshot from the witches, Aliya said, “It surprised the king a great deal, when we were forced to report to him the news that you, of all Stars, had a more successful few moons than us combined.”

Sunbulah blinked. She hadn’t even known there was competition, let alone one she was ahead in. “But you were going on hunts. What became of that?”

Aliya snorted. “A misunderstanding. There had never been any Haunting threats.”

“Excuse me?” 

“Arcturus mentioned a ‘black plague’ in his reports,” she went on. “You know how unreliable messages can get. It was hardly a leap from that wording.”

“I’d told you about the plague!” Sunbulah said incredulously. Right as it left her mouth, she realized. “You weren’t listening then, were you?”

Aliya drew in a sharp breath. “Now, don’t start lecturing me about that little mistake. Believe me, Arcturus hasn’t let me hear the end of it. I’m regretting everything that transpired already.” Before Sunbulah could decide whether or not that was an apology, Aliya shoved a paper into her hands. “For skies’ sake, tell him you’ve graciously forgiven me. It’s my only hope of staying, and my horse does not travel overseas.” 

Aliya ran off to join six of her siblings at the end of the hall, leaving Sunbulah with the bizarre position of having influence over decision making. 

She unrolled the letter, slowly, with a smile on her face and no flame in sight.

The desperation with which she’d always devoured Arc’s letters was absent. For once, she didn’t need to hear from him; she wanted to. 

Wasn’t that, in the end, the peace of mind that had evaded her for so long?

As she read, it occurred to her that she was moving, walking back to the witches. After that, she’d be healing at the hospital, and teaching Hadija. She’d gone from being an unknowing captive to having all these like-minded souls at her behest.

If Stars ever slept, this would have to be a dream. 

“That one has won every race these past several weeks now.” She gestured to the affronted amir, his screams drowning out even the fallen one as attendants came to his aid. The last centuries had taught Yamna that the rich ones whined incessantly about even the most minor of grievances. “He needs to be humbled.”

“Do you truly have nothing better to do?”

She sighed, sitting back. “Not since the last execution.” Her assumption had been that a sultanate formed by ambitious slave soldiers would be endlessly stimulating, and it was proven wrong long ago. All the stories from the sun king and other fellow Stars over at Iran made her jealous; they lived near all the action, while all she and her brother got to have these days was covert attendance at parties. Still, she’d learned to make her own entertainment wherever possible. Turning to Jabbar conspiratorially, she said, “The week-long hunt starts shortly. Anyone in particular you want to unleash an ostrich onto?”

He scoffed. “Sister, please. I am a captain, and I have much more important—”

“Oh, I understand,” Yamna said, a smile playing on her lips. “Of course, this means I’ll have gathered up more activity to report to the king. You can proudly say that while I was doing all this, you just sat there, refusing to engage. I’m sure he’d love that.”

Jabbar’s eyes narrowed, sudden competitive fervor lighting them up with blue flame. Conjuring a glowing hunter’s net in his hands, he opened his wings and took to the air. “Excuse me while I set the trap.”

Yamna laughed, calling after him as he flew off. “That’s more like it. Show them the real hunter’s spirit!” 

She meant to simply unleash the unique chaos of Jabbar’s attempts to show off, sitting back and enjoying the resulting mess from a distance, but truthfully, the curiosity was irresistible. He could go and rile up the prey all he wanted; Yamna would take the first step in knocking the hunters off their pedestals. She took off, and the sand blowing in her face was a small annoyance compared to the triumph of finally getting her brother to do this with her again. He was getting too up in the clouds about being the constellation’s captain lately, and she resolved to remind him he still wasn’t above having fun at the mortals’ expense.

She touched down near the paddocks, wedging herself behind a nearby strip of date palms. For once, she resented her stout, muscular form, good for everything except stealth; even vanishing her wings did nothing to help her hide convincingly. 

Surveying her marks, she resisted the urge to gush with excitement about the sheer wealth of potential practical jokes available to her. 

Should she release the precious falcons into the air? Let the gold-adorned dogs or the trained cheetahs out? Disrupt the tent building activity taking place around the preserve? Perhaps she could even steal crossbows and wait for the amirs to fight about it amongst themselves.

The majordomo entered, calling after the hunters, who all stood at attention. He carried a sack of blowguns. Perfect, Yamna thought, thanking the skies above for this glorious opportunity. The man left the sack on the ground, bowed respectfully, and made a swift exit as all the hopeful hunters descended on it like hawks. 

Yamna tapped her fingers impatiently on the palm’s trunk, waiting for them to disperse. They were taking an ungodly amount of time, examining the make of the guns as if they were samples of fine wine. 

Fortunately for her, when they did abandon the sack, they were too distracted arguing amongst themselves, measuring extremities under the veneer of respectability. 

They left the door right open for Yamna’s entrance.

In a blink, she rushed to the sack and retrieved one of the spare blowguns. She rolled the accompanying clay pellets in her hand; she could make this work. Counting on all the large animals at the edges of the paddocks to conceal her, Yamna took in her marks. Who was going to have the honor of being the first target?

“Back to the tents. Now.” 

The genuinely threatening tone caught Yamna’s ear over the sea of overly saccharine, passive aggressive mingling. A cheetah growled in response to whoever spoke those words. 

“And if I say no?” a woman’s voice challenged, low and lilting. 

Yamna perked up, at attention. This, she had to hear. 

She peeked over the horse’s behind blocking her vision, just enough to catch sight of the man and woman in question. The woman, every bit as maddeningly serene as her voice, held the cheetah back, meeting the man’s eyes with the unspoken implication that it was entirely his luck that she didn’t let it pounce. 

The man, a nondescript amir who looked exactly the same as the rest of his ilk, didn’t seem to catch the subtlety at play in the fog of his obvious insecurity. “Malak,” he said, the name familiar and disdainful in his mouth. “I entertained your fantasies up until here. I believed you’d see sense once we reached this… frankly ridiculous excursion.”

“Ah, so keeping me from this is out of care for my welfare now?” she shot back. The cheetah purred with agreement.

He shook his head. “Deny truth all you want, but don’t ask me to indulge this.”

And just like that, Yamna’s buffet of choices narrowed to one insufferable man. She balled a clay pellet in her fist, imbuing it with red hot energy from the flame that made up her entire being. With a few swift motions, she loaded the blowgun, and aimed for his shoulder.

She shot. The pellet-sized explosion hit right on cue. 

“Who dares?” someone screamed, and another responded, “Save them for the birds!”, while another with slightly less skewed priorities yelled for a physician.

The shock gradually turned to a blame game as everyone scrambled to figure out who had enough of a petty grudge against the amir to waste a pellet. As Yamna took off, away from the admittedly tantalizing scene, she cast one last glance back. To her relief, Malak was safely being escorted away.

Then, she saw the man himself, and wanted to slap herself. She had not, in fact, hit his shoulder and ruined his chance to hunt like she wanted. The shot grazed the back of his turban instead.

Well, she couldn’t win everything. 

Once again, she took to the date palms, this time perching on one’s canopy for a better vantage point on the paddocks. The chaos had settled, and the crowd was several bodies lighter; everyone except the most foolhardy of hunters, surprisingly including Yamna’s victim, had fled to the comfortable tents.

Before she had the chance to search for Malak, a blue filter overtook her vision. 

A net dropped over her and pushed against her side, knocking her toward the ground. Her wings were snagged too, leaving no chance of resistance. 

“Jabbar!” she protested. “I was watching the mortals scatter like ants! That’s always the best part!”

He dissolved the net into thin air, grabbing her arm and hauling her to her feet. “Shame on me for assuming you’d stay put,” he said, but the mask of annoyance wasn’t enough to hide the restrained laugh. “What did you do?”

“Shot a man who had it coming,” she said breezily. 

“Right,” he said, unconvinced. “How badly did you miss?”

Yamna punched his shoulder, refusing to dignify that with a verbal response, even as her face burned with embarrassment. She would submerge herself in the Nile at night before she admitted he was right about having better aim than her. “Forget that. What did you do?” She rubbed her hands together in excitement for the answer, small sparks bursting at her palms.

“Managed to lay traps on the fringes of the preserves before having to stop,” he said. “I ran into the sultan. He wanted to speak to you.”

She made a face. “Skies above. That barely formed child?”

The clop of horse’s hooves announced a new arrival. “I am no longer a child, Yad al-Jawza.” Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad gracefully disembarked from his mount. From his gait, it seemed as if he’d come into his own as a young man, but Yamna privately thought he still looked woefully undercooked. She was further vindicated when, obviously unaccustomed to having to function without a go-between, he reached for Yamna’s hands and wisely stopped before going further. “I don’t believe we have been formally introduced.”

“We have,” Yamna pointed out. “You just happened to be a hatchling at the time.”

His face hardened with defensiveness, reminding Yamna that he was in fact a man with a chip on his shoulder about having something to prove. Disappointing. She missed the precocious child, in over his head as he was. “You’ll find that much has changed since then.” His attention shifted to the nearby paddocks. “I assume you caused this havoc?”

Yamna stiffened. She had not been expecting to get caught.

Jabbar stepped protectively in front of her. “Great sultan, I hope you don’t presume to charge my sister with—”

The sultan held a hand up to stop him, without breaking eye contact with Yamna. “Who did you hit?” 

The posture broke any tension Yamna might have felt; how was she supposed to feel intimidated when she easily towered above the man? “The one accompanied by his wife and a cheetah,” she said without hesitation. “Honestly, if I hadn’t done it first, the creature definitely would have. And I wouldn’t overlook the wife either.”

Jabbar sighed, realizing there was no use defending the guilty. “Why do I bother?”

“Hossam, then,” the sultan said thoughtfully, clearly having stopped listening at the man’s description. “Yes, I have suspected. A particularly troublesome one.” 

Somehow, Yamna didn’t feel as if the suspicion was in her direction. Jabbar looked at her, just as confused.

“These last two reigns have barely been my own. Still, rest assured, this one will mark history.” Remembering the Stars were his audience, he said, “My predecessor’s execution was only the beginning. If I allow you free reign to inflict what you wish upon the amirs during these hunts, do you believe you can… clean out my court?”

Jabbar scoffed. “With all due respect, we don’t merely exist as tools for your mortal politics and—”

“We wholeheartedly accept, great sultan,” Yamna cut in. Here was an excuse to have all the fun she wanted with these pompous amirs, handed on a silver platter. Why shouldn’t she take it? “When do we begin?”

The sultan stared at Yamna like he didn’t quite know what to make of her, then turned to address Jabbar, because apparently his opinion was the important one at play. Typical. “Rijl al-Jawza, I assure you, this will benefit you as well. Your—”

“Save it,” Jabbar said coolly. “I’ll defer to my sister here, thank you.”

Yamna smiled. It was moments like these that made her certain she would scorch the very skies for her brother. “Let Orion’s hunt begin!” 

Without further ado, the siblings took to the air, laughing and kicking up a small sandstorm in the faces of the sultan and his horse.

As soon as they ascended beyond the clouds, the air cooled between them in the absence of the need to perform. Falcon cries echoed from every direction. One almost flew right into them. Yamna let it perch on her arm.

“Thank you,” Yamna said to her brother, stroking the falcon’s head. “I’m… sorry I got excited. I know you had your reservations, but…”

“Sultan or not, he had no right to supersede your acceptance that way,” Jabbar said. “I doubt he even has the facts straight about our ranks. Who does he think he is?”

“A man,” Yamna ventured. 

“Exactly! A mere man! Why would—” Jabbar trailed off, realization about what she truly meant dawning slowly on his face. He sighed, exasperated; he tended to forget such matters entirely, treating them like an inconvenient reminder when brought up. Yamna honestly envied him. “Humans and their ridiculous divisions of sex…”

“Jabbar,” she said, amused. “We’ve taken on those divisions as well. We call each other sister and brother, for skies’ sake.”

“Not all of us have taken the easy way out. The North Star outright refuses to, and they’re in good company. Besides,” he said with a teasing smile, gesturing vaguely to Yamna’s whole form, “tell me what about any of that signifies a woman in any mortal’s sense of the word.”

She let the falcon go free and pulled her military coat tighter around herself, glaring. So what if she preferred it this way? After all, so-called women’s clothing was much better admired from a distance. Preferably on a different beautiful woman. “It signifies so in an immortal’s sense of the word,” she said. “And by an immortal, I mean me. It’s my word.”

Her brother nodded sagely. “The only word that matters.”

She laughed. At least human men’s narrow-mindedness gave her and Jabbar a common enemy. Now he had no choice but to take part in the game out of sheer contrarian spite.

The two of them touched down in the shrubs lining the hunting preserve. 

Predictably, a ready net had materialized in Jabbar’s hands before Yamna could even close her wings. Forging ahead toward a clearing with obvious purpose, he said, “This way!” 

“Oh?” Yamna followed, her curiosity piqued. “Why that direction in particular?”

He laughed, confirming her hope with a wink. “A good hunter always knows when his trap is sprung.”

They barrelled through the thicket, stopping short when a gaggle of amirs’ screams reached their ears. With a light touch of flame, Yamna burned away the leaves obscuring her vision and peeked out her makeshift window. Ahead, a glowing net, hanging securely from branches above, had hoisted three men into the air. Two ostriches on either side tossed the swinging net between them, a different cry ringing out with each hit depending on which man was the current victim.

As if that wasn’t delightful enough, for a split moment, Yamna caught sight of a burned turban. Hossam was one of the men inside. This was everything she wanted.

Yamna looked between the sight and Jabbar a few times, impressed and baffled. “You did not.”

He shrugged, but there was a glint of pride in his eyes. “Who else could?” 

“I thought you didn’t want to,” she said without thinking, and immediately wanted to smack herself for how pathetically wounded her voice sounded. When Jabbar looked back at her, his face creasing with concern, she forced a sardonic laugh into her next words. “I mean, I thought Orion’s illustrious captain was too good for fun now.”

He elbowed her playfully. “I thought so too. Then you dragged me into this.”

Yamna wanted to cry. Ever since the rest of their constellation scattered towards their own tasks, Jabbar was all she had. Him avoiding time with her in favor of appearing serious and competent for Stars that weren’t even there with them… stung in a way she could never quite figure out how to say out loud. She could have, right then.

“You were going to rust uselessly if I didn’t,” was what she said instead. “Idiot.”

He rolled his eyes, the smile not leaving his face. Then, he reached within the folds of his outer tunic and pulled out a crossbow. He notched the arrow and handed it to Yamna. “Do you want to end their misery?”

“Where did you—”

“The sultan had to approach me without his procession in tow,” he said. “Should have kept a closer eye on his stuff.”

Yamna mentally rescinded every comment she’d made about her brother becoming boring. Eagerly, she swiped the crossbow. Taking the arrow’s end in her fist, she added her own personal touch to it. She positioned the weapon and aimed. 

When she made to shoot, she underestimated her strength. 

The arrow flew unscathed. Its bow wasn’t too lucky. It cracked from the force of her grip. Wood splintered in her hands and fell to the ground in useless, charred pieces. Jabbar pulled her back into the shrubs before she could reach to salvage something.

The explosion she’d stored in the arrow went off and the men screamed, falling to the ground with a too-loud thud. 

Yamna dared to peek. 

She hadn’t just hit the branch she aimed for; she’d toppled the entire tree backwards. At least the ostriches had escaped.

“Good work,” Jabbar said flatly.

She shoved him in retaliation. “Well, it covered for us, didn’t it?”

Hossam shoved the other men off of himself and struggled to his feet. “Did anyone maintain this preserve?” he yelled to no one in particular. “Trees falling everywhere. Unacceptable.”

Yamna smiled smugly at Jabbar. See?

One of the men cleared his throat apprehensively. “I believe the ostriches went that direction, my lord.”

“To hell with the ostriches,” Hossam shot back. “And with this so-called sultan. Were it not for my unwanted company, I would have finished him off before this poor excuse for a game began.”

Yamna froze. Beside her, she felt her brother tense with sudden focus. Was this…?

“You cannot still be considering this plot,” the third man objected strongly. “After Baybars’ execution?”

Hossam scoffed. “The cowards who were scared off by that stunt didn’t have what it took to begin with. I refuse to let this man under my skin with his overcompensation.” Promptly, he proceeded to walk backwards into a loose branch and fall flat on his face. Waving off his men’s attempts to help, he said, “One way or another, I will end this hunt prematurely!”  

The half-hearted hunters scurried away toward the wildfowl that they lost. As soon as they were out of sight, Jabbar seized Yamna’s shoulders, unmistakable urgency in his eyes.

“We need to nip this plot in the bud,” he said.

“Why?” Yamna asked. The news was shocking, to be sure, but she had no attachment to the sultan. All of these nominally powerful men blended together in her mind. “Let him do it, I say. Either way, it will be fun to watch.”

Jabbar shook his head. “At least this current fool on the throne knows us and is a reliable secret keeper. Can you say the same for anyone who’ll usurp him? The lack of a succession line guarantees us nothing!”

She cursed under her breath. Out of every possible thing Stars had to worry about, humans’ political instability was the most annoying. She could handle skirmishes with monstrous Hauntings or devastating floods any day of the week, but she could not explode her way out of a succession crisis. 

Or at least, she’d never tried to. Yet.

Oblivious to her thoughts, Jabbar scanned their surroundings. “I’m going to keep the conspirators occupied and see if they’ve got anyone else involved. Hossam made it sound like most of the coterie wouldn’t be, but it can’t hurt to make sure.”

Yamna stood. “I’ll come with—”

“No!” he shot back, so adamantly it made her flinch. Instantly though, the flame in his eyes faded, and he went on, softer, “Yamna, I didn’t mean…”

When he reached for her hand, she pulled back, plastering on a smile. “It’s fine,” she said, even as a break in her voice betrayed her. “I’ll let you take this, captain.”

She took off, because the last thing her brother needed to worry about right then was her inconvenient emotions. If he knew how she felt, he’d either give in despite being right, or he’d stay to make her feel better. 

Neither could happen right then, Yamna decided; she was not going to ruin more than she’d already had. 

As the sun began to dull, she landed where the falcons circled, near the ground populated with extravagant tents. Taking a deep breath, she closed her wings and left the safety of the palm trees. If she couldn’t do anything useful in Jabbar’s stealthy and serious mission, she could at least be mindlessly entertained with the nonsense in the tent quarters. 

She’d be here for a whole week. This was how far she’d fallen.

In the midst of feeling sorry for herself, Yamna didn’t see the cheetah before it tackled her.

She proved too heavy to instantly knock to the ground, but it didn’t do her any favors; the surprise was enough, and she was too preoccupied trying to keep any spontaneous fire at bay to focus on her balance. The cheetah pinned her to the ground and bared its teeth, growling.

Yamna spat loose sand. “Can we not do this now?” she asked the cheetah, tired and unfazed.

It stopped growling and stepped backwards, its gold eyes blinking in confusion. It hadn’t released Yamna just yet; she’d just gone from intruder to curiosity.

“You must forgive Hurairah. I asked her to guard the tent,” a new voice floated in, bemused. A woman walked out of the nearest tent. Malak, Yamna recalled. “Get off of the nice lady, beloved!” 

 Hurairah finally left Yamna alone to return to Malak, and Yamna was left on the ground, blinking. Had she just been called a lady, and a nice one at that? There was no telling what would come next.

Malak helped her to her feet. “She’s still staring,” she said, tilting her head in the direction of the cheetah. “I believe she likes you.”

“Flattering. I wonder why,” Yamna said, knowing exactly why. Night was setting in, and cats always did tend to be more perceptive to Stars’ light around this time. “How are you enjoying the hunt?”

Malak’s face scrunched with irritation. “Please. Genuine enjoyment for me might as well be a crime.” 

She laughed bitterly. “You and me both.”

A spark of interest seemed to wash all of Malak’s boredom away. She met Yamna’s eyes with an odd sort of hope, as if she was looking for some of her own discontent mirrored. “Are you… here with anyone?”

“My brother,” Yamna said automatically. 

Malak’s gaze remained steady, hungry for more. Skies above, Yamna thought, trying not to panic. If she couldn’t manage stealth in the hunting grounds, how was she meant to do so in a conversation? 

Carefully, uncharacteristically testing every word in her head, Yamna went on, “We’re here on the sultan’s request. My brother’s an incredible hunter, and I misfire every weapon I touch. As much as I’d love to be out there, you can see why I’ve been made to retreat.” She paused. Was that everything? “And, well…” She gestured vaguely at herself. “You know how men are.”

There, she thought, satisfied with herself. Enough of the truth to say comfortably, and vague for plausible deniability at the same time.

Malak nodded, fully on board. “Do not get me started. My husband is out hunting, and I’m left here.” On cue, the cheetah smacked her head against Malak’s leg, making her laugh. “Oh, I didn’t mean it like that, beloved. You know that.”

Yamna watched the woman fawn over the cat. The silk mantle draped flawlessly around her, and she carried it as effortlessly as if it were part of her own flesh. Malak seemed so much freer, less on-defense now than she was back at the paddocks. Fighter that Yamna was, she couldn’t help but tense up; this was too intimate for her to bear witness. She was not used to seeing humans letting down their walls of pomp and performance.

This woman must be guarded, she thought. Most of all from that unbearable man she has to call her husband.

Her husband… the conspirator she and Jabbar were meant to clean out.

The instant Yamna remembered the mission, her mind burst with glorious clarity.

She was going to make herself useful, and she was going to do it without collateral damage. This challenge would be conquered swiftly.

Yamna cleared her throat to get Malak’s attention. “This would be when I take my leave, my lady. Do you know of any spare tents I can use until my brother returns?”

“Nonsense!” Malak said, reaching for Yamna’s hand, smiling widely. “I wouldn’t dream of subjecting you to the…” She bit her lip, searching for a polite descriptor. “...various characters who saw fit to trail this hunt. You’re staying with me.”

“My lady—”

“Stop.” She held up a palm. “I won’t hear a word otherwise. And for the love of God, the name is Malak. Call me as such.”

Yamna smiled, and she didn’t have to fake it this time. This was starting off even better than she’d thought. “As you wish, Malak. Please, lead the way.”

Malak bolted into the tent, dragging Yamna by the hand. Yamna let herself be led forward, but she made it only one step inside before her feet touched carpet. Lush, very flammable carpet. 

Bury the fire, she told herself, trying to repress it even though it was a laughably contrary instinct for a Star. Bury it deep, deep down.

Malak let out a cry of surprise and abruptly dropped Yamna’s hand. Concerned, she touched her face. “Friend, you’re positively feverish!”

“Am I?” She scrambled for an excuse that wouldn’t get her cast out of the tent; she was too close to be pulled away now. “I’m… simply adjusting to Cairo’s weather. This is nothing to worry about!”

Malak sighed. “Of course. You’ve been out all day, haven’t you? I’d have assumed the sultan would at least given you and your brother a proper welcome before hoisting this task on you.” She looped her arm through Yamna’s and led her, more gently this time, to a spread on the ground. A lead platter sat there, a lavish mutton dish inside with a piece of fresh bread. Two golden goblets were placed on either side. “Eat. You need it, and I’m certainly not passing up the rare chance at a meal with someone tolerable.”

At her insistence, Yamna sat, racking her brain for the appropriate way to act; it had been far too long since she had to consume a human meal. As if that wasn’t enough to worry about, Malak unwrapped her head covering, her tied-up tresses falling to her waist like midnight waves. She was looking at Yamna expectantly. Clearly, the guest had to eat first.

Yamna tore half of the bread for herself, a safe bet on a fair share. 

Then, she wrapped it around the portion of meat, and bit down on the meal with full force. Malak was staring, her eyes wide and her hands over her mouth. Skies above, why was she staring? Yamna blinked, her mouth full of food that she couldn’t prevent in time from instantly burning. 

Malak burst out laughing. “Right. I should’ve realized.” Her gaze swept keenly over Yamna’s form, an approving smile blossoming across her face. “You didn’t achieve that… impeccable physique by shying away from food.”

Yamna swallowed, relieved and oddly pleased by the compliment. “Yes,” she said, even though she hadn’t eaten in the last century, and for the life of her, she could not understand humans’ inexplicable push-and-pull with their source of sustenance. Why would consuming less of one’s life source ever be considered a virtue? Light was the closest thing the Stars had to an equivalent; no one in their right minds would think to deprive themselves of it. 

“Oh, wait!” Malak grabbed the remaining piece of the bread and imitated Yamna’s haphazard method of wrapping it around meat, bubbling over with infectious laughter. She attempted to stuff it in her mouth in one go, but had to settle for a quaint, human sized bite from the top instead. That didn’t seem to deter her enthusiasm for even this quiet act of rebellion. “Lovely.”

With gleeful abandon, they devoured the platter clean and didn’t leave a single morsel to spare.

The two of them were lounging on the carpet, indulging themselves with the beverages and exchanging stories of travel, when a scream sounded outside the tent, followed by Hurairah growling. Malak’s face fell, the brightness of the past hour vanishing as if it had never been there. 

She cast Yamna an apologetic look as she donned her covering. “He’s back.”

Yamna perked up. The target. She could start learning how to end him now. She followed Malak outside. 

“Leave him alone, beloved,” Malak called out, and it might have been the most half-hearted, toothless reproach Yamna had ever heard, second only to the way Jabbar scolded her for exploding people who beat children. Hurairah obeyed, without taking her eyes off Hossam.

The man struggled to his feet, dazed. Yamna noted with amusement the net burns on his outer garments. “If you don’t get that accursed animal under control, woman, I’ll—” He seemed to notice Yamna for the first time, and reached for the sword at his belt, eyebrows furrowing with anger. “Who are you?”

Yamna couldn’t muster a reply at first, until she realized; he was mistaking her for a man. The child sultan had made the same error when she first appeared to him, simply because of her cropped hair and dressing; and here, she’d thought humans got wiser with age. “This is immensely improper behavior, you know,” she said.

Hossam froze at the sound of her voice and sheathed the sword again, now more confused than angry.

A shadow of a smile returned to Malak’s face. “Yamna here is my friend. She’s kept me company in your absence.”

He was already shoving his way into the tent, muttering something about Malak’s choices in company. Yamna took this as her cue to leave and reconnect with Jabbar, but Malak held her back.

“Stay,” she whispered. “Please.”

“I plan to,” Yamna said truthfully, savoring the look of relief that crossed the other woman’s face. “I must meet with my brother first.”

Malak nodded gratefully, turning to go back inside. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

Hurairah grumbled, making her displeasure known as soon as Malak was out of earshot. Sympathetically, Yamna patted her soft head. “Sooner than you think,” she promised.

After making sure every hunter had taken refuge in their tents, Yamna opened her wings and set off into the night sky. Jabbar sat anxiously on a cloud nearby, waiting for her. 

“Yamna!” He took a few tentative wingbeats toward her. “I’m sorry, you know I never wanted to—”

“Oh, shut it.” She shoved him playfully, sending him flailing about in empty air for a moment before he steadied his flight. “You can have your serious missions, and captain duties, and whatever, they’re all yours. I’ve found some new entertainment in the tents.”

“You… have?” he asked, with inexplicable disappointment. The tone gave Yamna pause. Shouldn’t this have made him happy? “With what?”

“Not so fast, dear brother. If I tell you now, it will only distract you.” 

“But—”

Before he could continue, she cast an explosion at him, which he easily countered with a protective net of his own. 

“Fine!” he conceded. “Keep your secrets. Have a good week, I suppose.”

Yamna folded her arms and nodded, satisfied. She would have a good week, and get the stupid conspirator out of their way as she did so. “Nice work today,” she told him. “I saw how much you managed to bust him up when he returned.”

He perked up. “Really? If I keep it up, would the king be impressed with me?”

“I’ll make sure of it,” she said, and resolved silently to follow through. After all, Jabbar didn’t know it, but he was going to make this much easier for Yamna; in every way, this would be a team effort. 

“Alright,” he said, quietly, as if he couldn’t believe his luck. Yamna looked at him curiously. In what world would he think she wouldn’t even do that little for him? He caught her eye and straightened up. “I should go back to the preserves and… set up for when they leave after Fajr prayer.”

He bolted away before she had the chance to press further into the strangeness of leaving so early. There were several hours left before Fajr; maybe he simply didn’t want to be around her when he had to take care of work.

That’s fine, she reminded herself. I have work too. She dived, returning to the tent grounds.

As the week went on, Yamna learned a great deal from witnessing Hossam and Malak’s daily life up close. 

Malak was a different person depending on proximity to Hossam. The iron core beneath her lovely silk garments and the sharpness in her eyes was a constant, of course, but when she was alone with Yamna, whom she had known for only a few days, she was all smiles, loose and carefree. 

Around the man she’d been spending her life with, the defenses went up. She spoke as if on trial, and he belittled her every happiness; the one bad time Yamna had observed on the first day seemed to be their norm.

He annoyed Malak, that much was clear as day. Yamna would be doing her a favor by taking him out. 

Or at least, that was what she told herself, every subsequent sunrise. The reality of the days involved much less watching for Hossam’s weaknesses and more… warm mundanity with Malak. Sharing meals, walking Hurairah, relaxing in baths… all of this they did while Hossam was out. He was the subject graciously sidestepped in conversation, never mentioned by name, lest the acknowledgement shatter the joy.

On the fifth day, it hit Yamna all at once; she was no closer to ending him. Once more, she’d neglected the seriousness of a mission for… what? Useless play?

Malak jabbed her in the side with an idle foot, sprawling across a ridiculous amount of pillows. “What are you afraid of?” she asked, casual as ever.

Yamna puffed out her chest. “Never in my long and storied life have I been afraid of anything.”

“Really?” she asked slyly, clearly pleased in meeting this challenge. “Your silence and fidgeting today says otherwise.” 

Yamna threw aside the pillow she’d already ripped to shreds. “So?”

“So, I want to know more. Even if we ignore right now, surely you don’t expect me to believe you’ve always been this perfectly sculpted, absolute marvel of a woman who could kill a man with a glance?”

If only killing a man with a glance was accepted behavior at the moment. “Trying to flatter me into confession, are you?”

Malak inched closer on the mattress. “Is it working?”

“Almost,” she admitted. And so, like she had with every question thrown her way, Yamna played the game of dressing truth in human skin. It was always more convenient than lying. “I earned the spoils of every game I’ve played fair and square. I didn’t start out like this, I made myself so because I was bright and unstoppable and… I just could. I’m an asset to the ruler of my land, and my brother knows it.” This hung in the air. She hadn’t seen him all week except for in short glimpses. He was always so busy with the mission. “I hope he doesn’t take it to heart.”

“He shouldn’t,” Malak said. “You’ll both be on your way as soon as this hunt passes, nothing soured.”

The next question, Yamna didn’t meticulously polish. Raw and unfiltered, she asked, “Where will you be? After—”

Malak placed a finger on Yamna’s lips. Their eyes met, and they were close enough together that Yamna knew she wasn’t the only one heating up. Oh, she realized, comically too late. She’d done this a little too well. Yamna leaned down enough for Malak to eagerly make her move.

Their lips collided. Malak, determined, held fast, practically scaling Yamna’s body to deepen the kiss further. Yamna kept a hand on Malak’s back, pulling her in closer; suddenly, keeping the explosions at bay was second nature, because in that moment, they were not Yamna’s greatest pleasure. This was.

They parted for breath only when Malak toppled them over onto the mattress.

“You,” Malak managed between breaths, still on top of Yamna, “light fires within me. A force of nature, you are.”

You have no idea. Yamna reached up to pull a strand of hair away from Malak’s eyes. She wanted that smiling face before her in all its glory. “Look at you,” she said admiringly. “Such brilliance, and all of it waters down in other company. What are you afraid of?”

Hossam’s voice yelled outside, drawing closer and shattering the scene.

“That,” Malak answered softly, instantly moving to smooth out her hair and dress. 

Yamna bolted upright with a start, and not just because of who was coming their way. “What did you say?”

Malak flinched, avoiding her eyes. She hadn’t misspoken, then. 

“You’re afraid of him?” Yamna pressed. All that shameless rebellion, then… what for? “You know you can—”

The tent entrance parted and Hossam stormed his way in. “Five days,” he said between heavy breaths. His clothes were blackened in impressions of Jabbar’s nets. “Several men lost in the maze these preserves have become. And not a single worthwhile kill to show for it!” He rounded on Malak. “You. Make use of all the space you and your beast have been taking up. I need some relief.”

Yamna clenched her fist, sparks coalescing within. She could end him now. 

For a moment, Malak held her gaze. Then, she turned to Hossam, resentment burning in her eyes. “You can’t get this… relief elsewhere?”

He laughed humorlessly. “You are the only wife who insisted on coming along. Who else would it fall to?”

The unabashed crass speech, in front of a third person no less, was unbelievable. Then again, Hossam stopped seeing Yamna as a person the very second he no longer perceived her to be a male threat. Resigned, Malak looked to Yamna. One word, Yamna thought, trying to convey it with her eyes. One gesture from you and he’s dead meat. 

“Go,” Malak said instead. 

Stunned, Yamna walked out. This time, Malak hadn’t begged her to stay. What else could she have done? 

So much, she reminded herself. I could have—would have done it all. I lost my nerve when it counted most.

She lingered outside the tent, listening. It started with argument, the louder voice dominating like it was his right until the lower one snapped under the pressure and dared, for a few words, to match its volume. Dead silence, and then…

The tent’s hide only barely muffled the discordant sounds of pain that followed. 

Yamna stared at empty space in the unforgiving night sky, thinking for the first time since the week started something other than the game. This was why she’d contented herself with witnessing only the humans’ fumbling, overdressed public selves; what lurked behind closed doors was too dark, too at odds with the fun she wanted to have, and not everything she found distasteful in this domain could be swiftly humbled with an explosive practical joke.

She came to a startling conclusion; she would not kill Hossam. 

Neither would Jabbar, and certainly, nor would the sultan. None of them had earned the spoils of this particular hunt.

 She looked to the sky. “Next sunrise,” she resolved, waiting every drawn out hour for the king’s sun to bestow upon her the strength she was going to need.

Finally, the time came. 

The men filed out of tents to congregate for Fajr prayer, and Yamna wasted no time in bolting toward the tent. Fortunately enough, Malak was already outside, putting out a piece of dry meat for Hurairah. 

“You aren’t praying?” she asked.

Malak jumped, surprised, but the relief on her face could have melted mountains. Yamna didn’t miss the difference in the way she wrapped her head covering, so it covered more of her face than it usually did. What she’d heard in the tent last night made it easy to guess why.

“It’s my… monthly exemption,” Malak said with a wry smile. Yamna thanked the skies above that Stars didn’t have to deal with the counterproductive mess of periods. “I suppose I’m impure in more ways than one now.”

“And all the better for it,” Yamna said. “I believe so, at least.”

“Your word is worth more than any other.” Then, the smile faded and she said, softer, “I told you to go. You likely get enough grief as is for existing, and I—”

“I will go,” she promised quickly. “But first…” From the folds of her outer coat, she produced a blowgun, handing it delicately to Malak. “Follow the hunt. Stay unseen, the way you’re so adept at doing so. There is only one… particularly potent pellet. Save it for the beast whose blood you know deep down you’re justified in spilling.”

Malak took it carefully, her expression unreadable, and Yamna wondered if this had been the wrong move after all. “Tell me,” Malak said slowly, stroking Hurairah, who was rubbing against her leg, “how something said to be impure has brought me nothing short of an angel.”

“I’m no angel,” Yamna said. “Merely a fellow woman who wants you free.”

“Stay?” It was no longer a desperate cry for company. Just a question. A request.

“You don’t need me to,” she said, pleased. “Not anymore.”

When the hunt left, Yamna trailed them from the sky. Naturally, she found her brother in the preserves without having to look too hard. His hair, frazzled, stuck out in every direction, and even the ready net in his hands was misshapen.

“You’re here!” he cried out. Yamna braced herself for the captain's reprimand. “Thank the skies… do you know how hard it is to keep these men preoccupied? I can do nothing without you, Yamna, I need you! I need your misfired weapons, and first resort to violence, and—”

The initial shock of the admission hit Yamna like a flood; it was so strikingly mirrored with her own innermost feelings. Once it faded, Yamna shot forward and enveloped Jabbar in a hug. “None of that will be necessary,” she promised. “The mission is over.”

“Wh—” He tried to break free of the hug to look around, but couldn’t shake Yamna’s iron grip. “What do you mean? What did you do?”

“Nothing!” she answered happily. “That’s the remarkable part.”

With impeccable timing, a bang resounded a few thickets back, followed by glorious, disgustingly familiar scream. Laughing, Yamna grabbed her brother by the hand and flew in the direction of the noise.

From the green canopy, they could make out a woman and a large cat, calmly and precisely smoothing over a patch of ground that was slightly off-color, like it had been dug up.

Crimson liquid mixed with the raging embers of Yamna’s magic, scattered throughout the scene as a lovely garnish. The gun had worked. 

Malak turned her gaze to the sky, mouthing a silent yet treasured, “Thank you.”

That smile alone gave Yamna such immeasurable satisfaction, she didn't even care that she hadn't seen the man die herself.

“This was your new entertainment?” Jabbar said, his voice heavy with incredulity and awe. “You are truly unmatched.”

Except even the grandest flights rested on the premise of a zenith… and its aftermath. Finally, air thinned to nothing, and Earth below seemed a faint suggestion of matter. The time had come. Waqi slowed the frenzied movement of their wings.

They took a deep breath, savoring the moment. “Here it comes.”

Then, they let themself fall. 

The air just barely carried the sound they let out, halfway between a laugh and a scream of delight.

This was their favorite part. They would never admit it on the ground, where every part of them itched to fight the atmosphere with their wings and fly, however high the day would let them. Many times, they’d said to other Stars that they’d happily give up immortality if it meant they could fly for the rest of their existence, and the sentiment was barely a joke. But the fall? They lived for it, and the air as they burned their way down was the sweetest they’d ever taste.

Clouds faded into view, gray and rumbling, preparing to unleash a deluge onto Iran. Waqi’s fists heated up, glowing with ready blasts; they could not let this unacceptable weather stand. 

They plunged into the mess. When fog took over their vision, they pivoted sharply, punching at the nearest storm cloud. The lightning crackling inside was no match for Waqi’s own strikes of energy. They cut through the surrounding air in a wide arc, so swiftly that the clouds vanished with a whimper.

“You tried,” Waqi said, laughing to themself as they took off to vanquish the brewing storm from the rest of the sky. 

They moved with instinctive ease when they shed their corporeal form to become a merciless blue lightning bolt. It was less satisfying than punches and blasts, but it killed every threatened storm before it got the chance to materialize, all the while keeping Waqi hidden from any onlooking human’s eyes.

Of course, the tactic traded away precision for raw power. 

They didn’t process hitting the wrong target until the voices rang out. 

“Waqi!” Dhanab yelled, halting the excitement with a start. “What in the skies did you do that for?”

Waqi shifted back into their usual form, steadying their flight with their wings and blinking the scene before them into clarity. Their Star friends Dhanab and Taira hovered in front of them. Dhanab was scrambling to cover her head. Taira had stopped midway through braiding Dhanab’s hair, barely containing laughs. 

Slowly, Waqi turned around. Remnants of lightning floated in empty air, having burned a hole in the white cloud structure around them. They’d destroyed a Star lodging. For the third time that week. And this time, they didn’t get to pretend they were heroically fighting monstrous Hauntings, because this was nothing but a cloud punching spree.

They faced their friends with a sheepish smile. “I’ve interrupted something, I gather?”

“I’d say so, yes,” Taira said lightly, at the same time as Dhanab muttered, “Not the first time.”

“In my defense,” Waqi began. “I had—”

“North Star duties,” the two finished in unison.

Waqi looked away, sighing. There went their excuse. “I don’t suppose you’ll allow me to make it up to you?”

A scheming smirk crept across Dhanab’s face. “Taira?”

“Hm.” Taira stretched and cracked her joints in preparation. “Since you've so kindly offered...”

Waqi had barely enough time to summon a defensive forcefield when Taira shot toward them with unbelievable speed. She tackled them off the cloud’s ledge. Waqi fought to keep their flight steady among her unpredictable movements and countered her every hit. Laughing all the way, they tumbled wherever Taira wished, because as strong as a flier as Waqi was, they only fought the air; Taira held it at her command. 

“Unfair!” Waqi protested, pushing Taira’s voluminous wind blown hair away from their own face. “I’m taking this up with the king!” 

“What’s the matter?” Taira said, between laughs. “Holding back so I’ll be taken off guard by your next move?”

Waqi caught her next punches, holding both of her hands in place with a surge of lightning. They grinned. “You know me too well. This is a tactical liability.” 

She cried out as Waqi seized her hair and flipped her over their head. As soon as they readied their next blast, their arm locked up, illuminating with a silvery blue glow. 

The rest of their body followed. Taira also froze. The two Stars’ descent had been halted by a joy-killing outside force.

“Dhanab!” Waqi yelled to the sky. “It was just going to get good!” 

Taira snorted. “For you, maybe.”

Dhanab swooped gracefully down from above, landing only a few feet below without breaking her telekinetic hold on the other two. Waqi gaped. Were they that close to the ground already? 

“Do you want to let all of Maragha in on the secret?” Dhanab asked, gesturing frantically to the town behind her. 

“Oh, we’re in trouble now?” Taira asked.

“You will be, keeping this up,” Dhanab said. “Two wild winged beasts screaming and clawing at each other is hardly discreet.”

Waqi raised an eyebrow. “And two wild winged beasts suspended in midair by a third, decidedly more stuck-up winged beast… is?” 

Dhanab opened her mouth to argue, then shrugged. “Point taken.” With one wave of her hand, the glow faded, and Waqi and Taira collapsed in a heap on the ground. 

Waqi brushed themself free. Dhanab pointedly looked past them in favor of helping Taira up. Only Taira.

“The disrespect,” Waqi said with mock offense, forcing themself to their feet. “This is how you treat your North Star?”

Dhanab smiled sweetly. “I wouldn’t dream of insinuating the North Star could possibly need my help.”

Waqi rolled their eyes and shifted their attention to the sky. At least from here, they could check whether they’d succeeded in averting the storm. They expected to see clear blue conditions, plagued by a few maddening remnants of a storm they happened to miss. Instead they were met with… a sunset. In the distance, the town of Maragha seemed to come alive, suddenly bustling with movement.

“Oh no,” Taira said quietly behind them.

“I know,” they agreed, exasperated, glaring at the accursed observatory on a nearby hill. “Now we’ll have to listen to the evening prayer.”

“I like the sound of the prayer,” Dhanab said quietly.

Taira shook her head. “It isn’t that! The sun set too early.” Oh, Waqi thought. They’d assumed they simply lost track of time once more. “Waqi,” Taira said, all humor gone from her voice. Disoriented by the sudden change in mood, Waqi turned to face her. “This is a whole hour early.”

Dhanab’s eyes widened. “An hour? Did the king tell you anything about this?”

Waqi laughed, but their voice shook with uncertainty. “There you two go, taking everything the sky does so seriously…” 

“Even if we didn’t, the humans would!” Dhanab argued. “Especially here. Their prayer relies on this, you think they won’t look into the situation? And if they look too deep, they’ll find us, and then the secret keepers might tell on us too, and—”

“Dhanab.” Taira wrapped an arm around her. “Slow down. Breathe.” She looked to Waqi for support.

 Their words caught in their throat. Skies above, they had not expected a morale strengthening task today. “I’ll… speak to Sol,” they blurted out, “and get this all sorted! He’ll play some trick of sunlight, hide the irregularity. This kind of thing is easy for him! It will be fine.”

The Star king’s name seemed to put the two at ease. Yes, Sol would fix this, and Waqi would have free reign to make fun of his overly dramatic success speeches to his face afterward. That was how this was supposed to go.

“Before that,” Taira piped up, “maybe we can go and ask director Tusi’s minions what they think is happening.” She tilted head toward the observatory. “To see how much damage we’ll have to undo.”

Waqi made a face at the thought of vanishing their wings. “Go and ask. In the guise of a human?”

“As a man?” Dhanab added, equally offended. “No, thank you.”

Both of them stared at Taira. She sighed, closing her wings and gathering up her long cloudlike tresses. “The usual, I see.”

“Don’t act as if you don’t like it,” Dhanab said.

Taira winked at her. “I let you off the hook only because you’re too beautiful to pass as a man.” 

Dhanab flushed, but got to work on tearing a section of her own outer robes, wrapping it around Taira’s hair as a makeshift turban.

“You could just give over your scarf,” Waqi pointed out.

“Waqi, please!” Dhanab said, scandalized. “I am not going to stay out here uncovered!”

That sounded absolutely ridiculous, but Waqi chose not to argue. They never did see the point in bothering with matters of earthly conduct, when by all means the Stars were meant to live above them all. This is why they could never stomach any task that involved walking among humans. Their status as North Star, Stardom’s first line of defense, would surely get lost among the endless customs and rules that every other little kingdom offered a different version of. Such a life was inconceivable.

Still, they noticed that Dhanab was pointedly trying to avoid being perceived with torn robes. Wordlessly, they walked in such a way to conceal her from any passersby’s view, keeping a low profile as they trailed Taira.

Not that Taira made it particularly easy. 

With a skip in his step, Taira closed in on the observatory hill at a quick pace. Too quick. The other two almost struggled to keep up and stay hidden at the same time.

“What’s his hurry?” Waqi whispered to Dhanab.

“You know Taira,” Dhanab said. “At least he hasn’t resorted to flying. Yet.”

Waqi and Dhanab stopped at a distance, hanging back as Taira went on. He reached the entrance of the central observatory tower, greeting the two workers outside like old friends. One of the men straightened up to receive the new company, while the other remained pointedly occupied perusing an astronomical manual.

“Peace be upon you, brothers!” Taira said. “I could not help noticing that the sun has been down for several counts too far, and I have not heard the call for Maghrib yet.”

“Upon you be peace. I do not know what to tell you, Al-Ta’ir,” the attentive man said, his tone apologetic, as if he was fully ready to take the blame for the heavens breaking an otherwise flawless pattern. “Sirvan and I have been in conversation all day, and we haven’t yet reached an impasse.”

“Forget this pretense, Payam. Tell him like it is!” the other man, Sirvan snapped. He rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration and, without warning, shoved the manual in Taira’s face. “Look at this!” 

Taira stayed silent for too long. “Yes,” he said, purely to appease the worker. “This is… most irregular.”

“Irregular,” Sirvan said with a bitter laugh. “For all our lives the sky stays constant! Predictable! ‘Study the heavens,’ Tusi tells us, ‘Mark prayers as God commands!’ How were we meant to know the sun can set anytime!”

Waqi rolled their eyes. Humans truly believed their neat tables could map the skies out to the letter. As if the Stars had nothing better to do than move in strict patterns for their convenience. An impulsive lightning blast threatened to break free at their fist. Dhanab touched their hand, stopping it right there.

“I believe I should call out Maghrib now,” Payam said carefully. “The people will be concerned.”

“Concerned?” Sirvan said, baffled. “This is unlike anything we’ve seen!”

Taira wisely saw his exit. “Thank you, brothers,” he said, though Sirvan’s diatribe about the fundamental principles of the sun’s movement drowned it out. “I trust your decision, and eagerly await your call.” Meaningfully, he caught Payam’s eye at the last word.

With that, Taira left the scene as swiftly as he’d arrived, regrouping with Dhanab and Waqi. 

“Overreacting scholars,” Waqi said. “This is probably nothing!” 

Taira ignored them. “Payam is the muazzin. I’ve dropped as many suggestions as it’s appropriate for me to do. I think we’ll be in the clear, if he can get his volatile brother calmed or distracted long enough to call the prayer.”

“I hope he does,” Dhanab said softly.

“That’s all we can do for our coverup on the human side, but we’ll stick around just in case.” Taira turned to Waqi. “The rest is up to you. Ask Sol what’s going on. He’s the only one who can make this seamless.”

Waqi nodded. This, at least, they could do. Leaving their friends at the hill, they crept a safe distance away from wandering townspeople’s eyes. 

Then, they opened their wings and shot off into the early night sky. The air was clear, carrying that sweet tropical taste that came only when the dark settled and—

Focus, they reminded themself, shaking off the intoxication. This flight had to be short, direct. Purely economical. 

They ascended just enough for their head to peek through clouds.

Waqi looked around, and almost didn’t recognize Sol’s home at first. They were so used to the sight of extravagantly piled clouds, reflecting sunlight with infuriating perfection, that they only processed the black clouds in front of them as an incoming weather disaster.

Somewhere on the way to destroying the storm, they realized it floated where their best friend’s home should have been.

“Sol?” Waqi’s voice broke embarrassingly at the call of his name. 

Any moment, the only part of them still clinging to hope insisted. Any moment, Sol would fly out, laugh triumphantly about his incredible unexpected practical joke, and fix everything.

No answer came.

Waqi rammed themself into the mass of black clouds, their mind racing. The structure fell apart pathetically, the only sign of Sol’s brilliant presence being stray plumes of flame. Actual flame. Not the inviting light that always decorated the king’s home. 

Waqi emerged on the other side into empty air. The home being deserted, leaving only storm clouds and flame, and whatever the early sunset was… 

All signs pointed to a struggle. 

Waqi glared at the remnants of black smoke around them with newfound hatred. This was no longer annoying weather. It was the herald of the enemies—assassins—who took Sol away… and after seeing it, Waqi was sitting here, staring into space like an idiot.

They needed to act now. In a flash of blue lightning, they dived, right back to the spot where they left their friends. The grass beneath them caught fire as the shock of the ground returned them to their corporeal form. Before they had time to breathe, someone grabbed their shoulder.

“Careful! You’ll—” Dhanab’s usual chiding stopped short, and her face softened into concern. “What happened?”

Waqi tried to contort their features into something less alarming. Judging by their friends’ confused glances, it did not work.

“What did the king say?” Taira asked. “He didn’t deny the request, did he?”

A laugh, clipped and shaky, escaped Waqi’s throat at the question. “It’s a hard thing even for him, to deny something he hasn’t even heard,” they said. “Something broke into his home. Only storm clouds remain there.”

A shadow passed over the other two’s faces. Taira took a deep breath. “Please don’t tell me…”

“Hauntings?” Dhanab asked, her voice small. It was barely a question. 

“Listen to me,” Waqi said, grasping her hand, suddenly emboldened by their friends’ clear panic. Waqi couldn’t afford to be scared when they had other Stars to worry about. “No one can hear of this. Not until we get to the bottom of it.”

“Waqi,” Taira said. They couldn’t help but flinch. They hated when all playfulness faded from her voice like that. “This isn’t some accidental cabin fire we can just pretend is an act of nature. This is an attempted Haunting assassination, and if those monsters even got to the king, what chance—”

“They didn’t get to him!” Waqi snapped. “It’s Sol! Skies above, will you have some faith? For all we know, he reduced them all to ashes and is just… hunting for a new home. Or better yet, for the assassins’ allies.”

This half of North Star duties, the one which was conquered by words rather than fire, never came naturally to Waqi. Yet, often, they found they could simply speak anything into existence, and if it softened even a single line of worry on a fellow Star’s face, it would do the trick. For better or worse, Waqi held all the cards here. They knew Sol better than anyone; whatever they said about him, the other two had to take it by necessity. 

Waqi needed to take it too. It was all they had.

“You’re right,” Dhanab said, mercifully. “Yes, that must be it!” 

“So, all we do is track him down. It’s the same plan as before… just with this extra step.” They spoke feverishly right as the words came to them. “Taira. Those trails of dark smog from Hauntings are left in the sky for hours after the fact, are they not?”

Taira nodded, a hint of her usual laidback confidence returning to her eyes. “If the monsters escaped—”

“There’s no way in hell Sol would let them go free without pursuit,” Waqi finished. They braced themself for flight. “Lead the way. We’re right behind you.”

And so, the three Stars took to the skies. They cast jokes and idle conversation between themselves like playing balls, masking any unwanted urgency. The premature night hung around them heavily. Even as they followed the sickening, viscous Haunting trail, no one dared to suggest the unspoken; that the king was likely in danger and it may be up to them to save him. Sol was supposed to save them, not the other way around.

You’re fine, Sol, Waqi thought to themself repeatedly, reassuring their own mind and daring their friend to meet the challenge. They need you to be fine. You can give them that much.

Give me that much.

When the trail ended its forward snaking in the sky and dissolved into fog, Taira began to descend and the other two followed. An expansive lake awaited them below. It boiled furiously, despite the cool night, sending warm air towards the Stars.

“Here we are,” Taira whispered. “Now, either the Hauntings show themselves, or Sol comes out… let’s hope we don’t have to do something drastic.”

Waqi strained their eyes to see the lake past the fog. Why was it boiling? “I swear… why can’t we just—”

“Don’t summon a flame,” Dhanab warned, reading their mind. “Wait for it.”

“Wait?” Waqi shot back, incredulous. “For them to—”

Something shot out of the lake. One projectile gave way to several, piercing the silence with the high whistles of Haunting laughter. The fog stopped the Stars from seeing the attack, but they all heard it, and knew the lack of light would not let them dodge. Taira screamed as a Haunting assailant tackled her into the darkness.

“No!” Dhanab instantly moved to follow Taira’s faint white flame. 

Waqi prepared a blast. “Leave it to me!” 

Dhanab blocked their path, taking hold of their shoulders. “I’ve got her. You should look for the king.”

Look for the king. Waqi knew what she meant to say, but they resented the wording anyway. It was far too close to acknowledging the danger they’d so carefully chosen to downplay. Still, she stayed, her gaze lingering on them with clear anxiety. She wouldn’t go without their express order.

“Go,” Waqi told her. “Do… whatever it is you were already going to.”

She smiled, relieved. “North Star duty!” she called out encouragingly, flitting away to Taira’s aid. 

Dropping every precaution about stealth, Waqi lit themself up in a burst of blue flame. The fog lifted. Finally, finally, they could see their attackers, scattered in midair and on the banks of the lake; without the cloak of darkness, the Hauntings carried forms befitting creatures of earth, except far too big, and closer to humans in terms of gait and clarity of disruptive purpose. This assortment of aquatic bait froze in fear at Waqi’s explosion, even the overgrown shrimp that had Dhanab and Taira locked in battle. Waqi relished the look of shock on the monsters’ faces. Clearly, they hadn’t been expecting the North Star. 

Just as quickly, they recovered with shrill battle cries, and the inky fog wafted into the air once more. This time, Waqi was ready.

They shot lightning indiscriminately, warding off the first few human-sized black crustacean Hauntings that leapt up at them. The flame stayed steady all the way, keeping their sight clear throughout every scuffle. The effort of keeping up defenses still remained a liability. They could not take in a single iota of their surroundings if every moment was punctuated by a strike at the relentless Haunting flock.

“Clear me an opening!” Waqi yelled to their friends.

Practically before Waqi finished speaking, it was done. Dhanab seized telekinetic control of the flock’s edges, and Taira sped to take out anyone who dared step into Waqi’s radius. 

With newfound freedom, Waqi began a swift descent… and it allowed them a crucial glance at the mysteriously boiling lake.

A golden light flickered beneath, its glow coloring fire into the angry waters.

Sol.

Waqi didn’t think. They dove headfirst, the fall heating up their every inch. Hauntings cried out, attempted a poorly thought out deflection, but Waqi’s fire now radiated fatally. Just try it now, they dared the assassins. Naturally, not a single one met the challenge.

The saline water greeted them all at once. 

Any numbing power it might have had over Waqi was warded off by the burning field surrounding them. They had bigger concerns.

“You came,” said an unmistakable voice behind them, with a tone of never having expected anything else. “My one and only North Star.”

Waqi turned sharply to look at Sol, relief and frustration warring within them for the chance to guide their response. Neither got the chance, because an ink-black current hit them instead. 

The staggering force threw them back, until they wedged their feet against the lake floor and opened their wings. They summoned a field of energy, protecting them from the onslaught. Waqi stepped forward, fighting the water with all they had, and broke into a run. The Hauntings they rammed into crumpled at the slightest touch of fire. 

Waqi had help down here too. Sol’s pillar of flame, emboldened by the new arrival, burned brighter, working with Waqi’s to purify the waters. When the blackness cleared, the piscine Hauntings that cast the torrent at them instantly skittered away from fear. Good.

At long last, the sunny glow was uninhibited. Every malicious assassin who stood between Waqi and Sol had been vanquished. As for Sol himself, his wings had been folded down and forcibly fastened to a rock formation by the Hauntings’ signature viscous ink. His brilliant golden locks, plumes of flame that had been boiling the lake from underneath, finally settled into soft waves. Despite the tired, sunken shadows beneath his eyes, he beamed at his friend like nothing had happened.

“I take it you have questions,” Sol said, calm as ever.

“Oh, you don't know the half of it. Hold still!” Waqi struck Sol’s restraints with lightning, setting his wings free. Sol stumbled forward from the sudden unshackling, and Waqi moved to steady him. “Do you need a moment?”

Any sign of weakness faded as his eyes flashed with clear offense. “Who in the everloving skies do you think I am?” 

Waqi laughed. There he was. “I was only making sure. Come on!” 

They seized his arm, guiding him to the surface until his wings recovered enough to pull his own weight. Waqi made it to the surface first, taking in the taste of pure wind and then turning to help Sol onto solid ground. A clear night sky shone above them, decorated with stars, free of any fog. The smell of charred flesh and the odd black puddle on the bank were the only signs that Hauntings had even been there.

“Well done,” Sol said, finally allowing Waqi to unclench their muscles. He’d said the word, so the fight was over.

A short distance away, Dhanab stood over Taira, no doubt fussing endlessly over every minor scratch Taira had sustained during her scuffle with the shrimp Haunting. All the while, Taira stared at her, smiling like she’d won something beyond the fight, not making a single move to stop her. Waqi rolled their eyes fondly. Those two could accomplish untold feats exemplifying every Star ideal, and still act afterward more like illicitly close adolescent human girls.

Sol strode toward them. “I see I have you two to thank for this infestation’s defeat.”

Dhanab jumped to attention, rushing to adjust her scarf. “My king! It is… an immeasurable relief to see you again.”

He laughed good naturedly, extending a hand to help Taira to her feet. “Are you alright?”

She took it. “That shrimp was far sturdier than he looked.”

“You must forgive me for the confusion this must have caused,” Sol said, and Waqi made a considerable effort to not bite back in the presence of their friends. “As valiantly as you fought, I never like having to send you all into Haunting territory.”

Taira scoffed. “You didn’t need us, my king. We all saw how you boiled the lake. Waqi told us on the way you were probably destroying them already, and they were right!”

Sol turned to Waqi, an unspoken question in his eyes. Waqi met his eyes meaningfully. Later, they tried to tell him.

Dhanab cleared her throat. “There’s still the matter of… the early sunset,” she said, thankfully changing the subject. “The humans were very shaken up.”

“Ah,” Sol said, glaring at the sky with truly personal resentment. “An unfortunate side effect of my… divergence, after the assassination attempt.” He stood up straighter. “No matter. The irregularities will be smoothed over by next morning. And our North Star here can convey the desired story to the secret keepers.”

“What?” Waqi protested. “Please don’t make me talk to Tusi again! He’s insufferable!”

The other three laughed, because Waqi’s misfortune was the joke that united them all. Some friends, Waqi thought, though they couldn’t stop their smile. 

Taira stretched out her arms. They cracked painfully, sending out sparks, but she pretended not to notice. “Well, that’s taken care of. I should check Maragha’s parameter for any runaways.”

“Absolutely not,” Sol scolded. “Dhanab, get her straight home and make sure she doesn’t set a single wingbeat out until next sunrise. This is an order.”

Already at attention, Dhanab grabbed Taira’s hand and spread her wings. “Yes, my king! Let’s go, Waqi.”

“You two go ahead,” they said, mustering all the cheer they could. “I need to speak with the king.”

It was a common enough request that the two didn’t think twice about. Waqi watched as arm in arm, Dhanab and Taira took off into the sky, chattering between themselves about plans for the next day. 

Once they were sure the two were out of earshot, Waqi punched Sol in the face.

Sol, naturally, barely flinched. “And here I thought you’d be the bigger Star about this,” he said flatly.

Waqi swung another fist, overflowing with everything they’d been holding back. “The bigger Star? You—” They pointed an accusing, lightning infused finger, giving up all pretense of being the unbothered North Star. “—scared the absolute shit out of me, you know that?”

Sol sighed. “Of course. I realize it was not ideal, but—”

“I had to tell them you were fine.” Breathlessly, they laughed, because the absurdity didn’t let them react any other way. “I mean, even after the sunset, I’d seen the state of your home. And I had to look them in the eyes and tell them you weren’t in trouble. And all this time, the Hauntings actually overpowered you, imprisoned you in a fucking lake? They could’ve hurt you, or worse!” 

“They could have done no such thing,” Sol said, so emphatically that it actually gave Waqi pause. “I was in no danger. I knew you’d come.”

“Oh, please…”

Sol took their shoulders and stared them right in the eye. Quietly, with terrifying emphasis, he said, “I let them capture me.” 

Waqi froze, at a loss for words.

“I had no time to decide.” He spoke hurriedly, like he needed to make Waqi understand in the shortest time possible. “The assassins came, and all I could think was, are there others nearby, and will they hurt the other Stars if I don’t act? I allowed my home to be ransacked, and I allowed them the false sense of confidence to imprison me. And… the plan had been to do away with them all once they took me to their base, but…”

“The lake,” Waqi finished. “And the darkness, and the combined force of the flock. Just one of those three at a time you could’ve taken. Not all at once.”

“It did not end me, or even hurt much. It did worse, momentarily weakening me enough that I couldn’t fight back. I counted on you to finish it for me.” Finally taking a breath, he smiled. “And you did.”

Any trace of lingering anger Waqi might have harbored evaporated. They pulled Sol into an embrace, taking great pleasure in the fact that he, eternal king of Stars, melted into it instantly. “You know I always will,” they said, and they meant it. Sol was put on such a pedestal by other Stars, and Waqi knew how thin he was spread because of it. They were the one person he had to fall back on; this was the least they could do. “Still, for the love of the skies, never pull something like this again. Your grand kingly plans are going to be the death of me.”

“But you cannot die.”

“I’m also best friends with a king who believes the basic principles of reality are optional,” they joked, letting go of the hug. “It’s safer to not take anything for granted.”

“That sounds fair,” Sol conceded. “All of this aside, I will ask you… keep the reality of this day between us.”

Waqi nodded. As if they needed to be told. “I’m not your trusted North Star for nothing.” They beat their wings twice and rose, itching to take to a clear sky for the first time that day. “Get up here!” they called down to Sol. 

“To where?” he said with a laugh. “You know what became of my home.”

Finally, he descended into the old Medici palace’s chapel, only letting the protective cloaking field drop once the walls securely surrounded him.

Beaming, he spread his arms, ready to receive his fellow Stars. “I am here!” 

His flight-blurred vision cleared, only to reveal… nothing. The cavernous space of the chapel only echoed back his own words.

And the sound of a loose page turning. 

Sol walked toward the steady, calming light that radiated from an opposite corner. Cann sat alone, hunched against a wall in a way that couldn’t have possibly been comfortable for their wings and engrossed in a bound tome.

“I said,” Sol repeated, with greater enunciation, now that he spoke only to one fellow Star. “I have arrived!” 

“I can see that, my king,” Cann said mildly, without looking up from their book. “I heard you the first time, and knew you were coming well before then.”

He stiffened. “Did I fail to disguise my light enough?” 

“Oh no, it was more than enough for the mortals,” Cann said with a laugh, their eyes glowing with lavender flame to make the point. “But there’s no hiding from me.”

Sol sighed. He folded his wings back down and leaned against the pillar facing the other Star. “Where are the others, Canopus?”

Cann shushed him, impatient. “I’m almost done!” 

“Is it truly that riveting?” Sol asked flatly. “You read too much.” 

Cann didn’t give him the satisfaction of responding to the remark, or even acknowledging that they heard it. They simply flipped through the last fifty pages in the span of a few minutes and put it aside. Finally meeting Sol’s eyes with the utmost seriousness, they said, “No such thing as reading too much.”

“There is for you!” Sol argued. “You can know anything without lifting a finger. What use would you have for mortal books?” Absently, he picked it up, ready to cast it aside before the words on the cover caught his eye. It read, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres.

“For one,” Cann said, smiling, “It’s an invaluable resource on keeping up with the mortals. I know what I know, but it’s useful to keep a finger on the pulse of what they know.”

Sol found himself leaning forward. “And… what do they know?”

“It appears that one of them has taken a shot in the dark.” They held a palm out and produced a small pocket illusion; two spinning orbs, one large and golden, the other small and blue. “He has come to the revelation that the Earth revolves around the sun, not the other way around.” 

Before Sol knew it, he was perusing the book. The words blended together, but the diagrams scattered throughout held his attention. He vaguely remembered secret keeper al-Tusi and the rest of the observatory students in Iran shoving quaint pictures in his face, some near identical to the ones in this tome. Somehow, their legacy had carried itself to a mind several lands away.

“How did the astronomers of the caliphates never come to this?” Sol asked.

“A misguided question,” Cann said, ending the illusory demonstration. “You cannot judge them by the standards we have because of what we know, especially because they were brilliant on their own terms. I believe you would be better served asking why this man did make this departure.”

But Sol’s mind did not have the space to ponder Cann’s philosophical proposals. Basking in the satisfaction of finally having his centrality out in the open, no matter how fringe this mortal’s reach might have been, was too momentous to be disrupted by anything else. 

He caught Cann’s wry, knowing stare and tossed the book back to them. “As if I needed the humans to tell me what we’ve always known,” he said, trying his best to wipe the smile off his face. “Well, leaving that… why have I returned to an empty palace tonight?” 

Cann stood, smoothly snapping to attention. “Hauntings have decided, very unwisely, to camp outside the city walls. A show of force, I gather. The others have flown out to neutralize the flock.”

“All of them?” Sol asked, surprised. “Even Sirius?”

“Especially Sirius,” Cann corrected. “Vega insisted upon having him. You know how they get when the other side of fate’s scales tips even an inch downward.”

Sol nodded proudly. “North Star V never misses,” he said. “Still. How have they not asked you to join?”

“We aren’t that desperate just yet,” Cann said lightly. “Some blasts need to be held close to the chest.”

On cue, colorful flames lit up the chapel’s entrance. As Sol hastened to adjust his crown and take his place on the steps, Cann strode forth to meet the Stars. The group, freshly out of battle, frantically scrambled to make their various reports known. V shoved their way to the front of the group, buzzing with urgent blue lightning, but at the sight of Cann, considerably relaxed. 

Placing a sympathetic hand on Cann’s shoulder, V said, “I wish you only the absolute best of luck.”

Cann only blinked at them, confused. “For what?”

“My king!” Alpha Pavonis’ cry rose above the other Stars’ chattering, catching Sol’s ear. “May I have a word?” 

Before Sol could open his mouth, Cyon sprang to hold Alpha Pavonis back. “Oh, don’t you dare!” she yelled. “You do not get to skip your way directly to the king, Pav. This is unacceptable!”

The two continued to struggle against each other, the arguing punctuated by warning blasts. V turned to Cann. “Enjoy dealing with that,” they said. “I’m going to do away with the debris from the latest flock.”

“Wait, the latest flock? Vega!” Cann protested, grabbing for their hand, but V was too fast, making a quick exit in a flash of lightning. Cann gestured wildly in Sol’s direction. 

“Stars, silence!” Sol commanded. Instantly, the room quietened. Cyon had managed to pin Pav to the marble floor, before she was pulled to her feet by Sirius, who whispered calming words to her. Satisfied, Sol made his way down the steps. “Bring forth your reports one at a time.” 

“Affirmative,” Cyon said, dropping Sirius’ gloved hand and walking toward Sol. “You see, the matter at hand is that Alpha Pav—”

Sol held up a hand to stop her. “Now, if you will begin by recounting a fellow Star’s argument, I would rather hear it from the source themself.” He glanced at Pav, who was getting back on their feet. “The sky is yours, Alpha Pavonis.”

“Ah… thank you?” Pav stammered out. Quickly regaining composure, They stood tall and trailed their peacock hued robes behind them. “My king, as I’m certain you have gathered from the North Star’s words, we have not one Haunting flock on our hands, but a ready, almost endless queue. Every time we neutralized one at the walls, another rose to take its place. We slowed it down, and even then, Vega might meet another while they’re gone.”

“Are you implying we are low on firepower?” Sol asked. “Has Sirius’ deployment not eased any such concerns?”

“Yes, but—”

“Yes, and,” Cyon corrected sharply. “Show some respect.” Beside her, Sol could have sworn he saw Sirius grinning under the cover of his mask. 

Pav glared at the two, but went on undeterred. “Why continue the grueling task of taking them out one by one, when we have what it takes to frighten them off for good?”

They paused, as if their implication was obvious. Sol glanced back at Cann, who only shrugged. They were as confused as he was. 

“Explain yourself,” Sol said. 

“Why… we have you, my king.” Pav said. “If you send a warning using the most magnificent celestial body in the sky, they’d be forced to take heed, yes?”

“Sol,” Cann began, warningly. “This proposal is too ambitious for its own good.”

“You’ve spoken above your station more than enough, Pav!” Cyon piped up. 

“Sirius,” Sol said. “Please restrain your wife.” 

“Of course, my king!” Sirius’ constant flames brightened as he reached for Cyon’s arm. “Regardless, for the benefit of the court, Pav’s suggestion would be a severe violation of our arrangements with the Medici. Any unforeseen celestial events here will be seen by the entire population of Florence, and we could be—”

“Cyon,” Sol cut in, already tired. “Please silence your wife.”

“Heard loud and clear, my king.” But she was still glaring daggers at Pav, who was looking back at her with presumptuous, smug satisfaction. Sirius was barely managing to hold her back from attacking again.

Sol decided he had no time for this. “Cann!”

Cann stepped forward, wings and arms spread to usher everyone out of the room. “Say no more. Because no one here is my wife.”

“Your loss,” Sirius said, and collective airy laughter echoed around the chapel.

Sol let himself breathe, relieved by the tension dissolving. Sirius laced his fingers through Cyon’s and led her out of the room. The other Stars swiftly followed them, their conversations now far more lighthearted. Only Pav lingered behind, slow to budge. Sol took a tentative step toward them.

“That means you too, Alpha Pavonis!” Cann ordered, cutting any action short now that Pav had no choice but to listen. “Move!” 

“All of your concerns have been heard!” Sol promised the exiting Stars. “Allow me until the next sunrise. We will proceed only with what is best for you!”

“You heard him, next sunrise!” Cann repeated for emphasis. “For skies’ sake, don’t let me catch any of you out of your quarters before then. I will know!” 

Once everyone else left the hearing range, Sol sank into the alter seat, gripping the crown on his head tightly between his hands. He only had some hours to figure this out, and failures awaited him in every direction; which of them would be less shameful to bear? 

Cann cleared their throat. “Is everything alright?” they asked, the calculated performance of the king’s advisor flawlessly shifting to the softness of a friend. 

Sol tried to smile back, but it felt hollow. It always did when he was with Cann. And yet, even as he knew there was no use, he found himself saying, “Yes. Hauntings and mortals have never stopped us before. This is an inconsequential matter.”

Cann raised an eyebrow. They both knew full well nothing involving the sun could ever be inconsequential to Stardom. 

“I… must think this over,” Sol said. “Alone.”

“If you say so,” Cann said easily, no trace of accusation in their voice. Sol watched them gratefully as they marched out of the chapel without another word. He loved it when they played along this way; it almost lulled him into the false comfort of thinking something could get past their sharp, all-seeing eyes. 

With no one except his own light for company, Sol mulled over the decision, thinking about every angle hard enough for flames to rise his fingers, carelessly scorching the wooden chair. Skies above, fragile human furniture was a pain.

He stood, hating how couldn’t even claim ownership to the walls around him. Resentfully, he let his gaze drift over the painted frescos surrounding him, scenes of mortal processions and hunts. He’d find the pomp endearing if it wasn’t so offensive right then. These were the beings he and his people had to hide from? When would they wake up to the truth that the Stars outshone them in every way?

Except… His stroll through the hall finally came to Cann’s forgotten pile of books. On top rested the one that spoke of the sun’s centrality. 

Some already had woken up, hadn’t they?

Coming to a decision, Sol walked out of the chapel, steps as delicate as air. He could not sit idly. The lurkers thought they were out of reach, with their clever queue rotation, but Pav was right; they’d run at the first sight of Sol. He weaved through the palace corridors and bypassed the nearest window in a flash of light. 

Veiling his fire as well as he could given the stark contrast against night, he fluttered carefully into the air. 

Lightning struck the palace roof; V had arrived, landing unsteadily against the rough masonry. Sol moved instinctively, backing himself against the nearest wall to hide. Did they have to return just as he was leaving?

“Vega?” Sirius’ voice floated in, his footsteps rushing to join them. “Did you manage the mess? The wall remains untouched, yes?”

Catching their breath, V laughed. “Managed,” they repeated bitterly, with a break in their voice that made Sol worry. Were they hurt? “Guess who came to taunt me when I went to clean up?”

Sirius sighed. “Another encampment?”

“I don’t know where they keep coming from! It’s as if they can’t leave the walls unoccupied for even a wingbeat, the stubborn fucks.” 

“We outdo their stubborness, then,” Sirius said, his voice far less confident than the words. Sol’s heart sank; his strongest soldiers were battling themselves to exhaustion, all for the feeble, sheltered minds of this city’s mortals. “We need a plan of action. Between Pav and Cyon, whom do you think—” 

“Stop,” V cut in, irritated. “Your nonsense infighting can wait until sunrise. We aren’t even supposed to be out of our quarters. In, now!” 

Their footsteps and further conversation faded. If Sol’s resolve ever faltered during his exit, this hardened it beyond return. The Hauntings’ intimidation tactic could not be allowed to stand anymore.

Letting the anger fuel him forward, Sol set a course straight for Florence’s walls.

The closer he flew to the edges of the city, the murkier the sky became. Too soon, every precious star adorning the cloak of night disappeared, and he had nothing to glance up at for strength.

Enough, he thought to himself, steeling his nerves. It is I who must give them strength now. 

The weight of the blotted sky burdening his every wingbeat, Sol arrived quietly to the scene of the northern gate. Below, three Hauntings lay in wait on burned grass. Sol didn’t know it was possible to make nighttime even darker; these sentient black holes masquerading as earthly creatures always proved him wrong. He set his feet down on the wall’s brick facade, stepped off the end, and let his light burst forth. 

“Leave these walls!” he yelled.

Immediately, high whistles rang out as the Hauntings rushed into formation. One of the quicker front soldiers, clam-like in shape, launched a black-stained pearl the size of a boulder. 

Sol braced himself, burning hands ready to intercept it… but the hit never came.

Just as the cannonball corralled to knock into Sol, he was on the ground, untouched, the pearl dropping unceremoniously a few feet away from him. The Hauntings froze, confused, inadvertently allowing him a moment to regain his bearings. 

Enough to see that the stained pearl now glowed lavender.

Keeping a flame at the ready to ward off the Hauntings, Sol looked up at the wall behind him and yelled, “Cann!” 

On command, a head emerged at the top. Cann peeked down. “My king,” they greeted, not bothering to sound the slightest bit chastened. 

“What are you doing here?” Sol asked. The clam Haunting unwisely decided to rush him. Sol’s flame cut him down in an instant. “Out of your quarters, at this hour?” 

“I could be asking you the same thing!” Cann swooped down at the last word, tackling both remaining Hauntings at once. “Did you think you could hide from me?” Even as they punctuated each word with a calculated strike, Sol got the feeling the anger in their voice was not for the creatures. “Or did you want me to graciously look away, as you crept off to this endless fight?”

Successfully, Cann brought a frail reptilian Haunting flat onto the ground. The companion, an armored, plump one, continued to trade blows with them.

Sol rushed to their side, knocking the Haunting off course with one fatal punch to the head. He shook off the flame, triumphant. “That will teach you.” 

“Sol…” Cann whispered warningly.

“Don’t… think this is over,” a new voice said, wet and halting. The clam Haunting was still on the ground, a hole burned into his weak internal flesh. That did nothing to compromise the smugness of his declaration. “You can’t take us all.”

Sol’s fist burned, but Cann touched his arm, silently telling him to save it.

“Wonderful,” Cann muttered. “Another entry in this queue will be here any moment.”

“Oh, don’t act as if this was wrong of me!” Sol shot back. “Would you rather I sat comfortably in the palace while this went on? Pav said—”

“Pav is a showboating windbag,” they said drily. “Why are we listening to them?”

“It is our only option,” he said. “These Hauntings need to be cleared out, and if the cost is some inconvenience to the mortals—”

“The cost is you, Sol!” Cann’s voice rose to a volume Sol had never heard before. Softer, they went on, “You don’t have anything to prove to mortals, or Hauntings… anyone.” Desperate, they reached for his hand. “The sun’s face is all the more precious because it’s our secret. Why would you throw that away?”

“Cann…” Sol’s words died in his throat. He never considered what he’d be giving away. Even if he frightened the Hauntings, what would become of the Stars if they were unveiled to the mortals thanks to his carelessness?

He was the center of the world. For the first time, he hated that truth.

A dark mist closed in, followed by quick feet hitting the ground. More Hauntings were coming. Sol’s heart raced. What was he going to do, surrender to the enemy, or betray the secret? He racked his brain, at an impossible loss.

Until he locked eyes with the Star beside him, and everything fell into place.

“Do you know what I’m thinking?” he asked.

Cann’s smile shone even brighter than their burning eyes. “I know everything.” 

Without having to say anything else, the two of them parted, Cann holding their ground against the incoming flock as Sol took to the sky. Trusting Cann to keep the Hauntings busy, Sol watched the horizon, waiting for the perfect moment. 

The smallest glimmer of the coming dawn’s fire was all he needed. “Now!” he yelled. 

He glanced down, only to realize with horror that he’d distracted Cann at a crucial juncture. A well-toned amphibian Haunting seized the opportunity, wrestling Cann to their knees as the force of the flock descended on them. Sol hovered uselessly on the spot, paralyzed by the sight, his eyes darting between the battle below and the sunrise. 

He could not fail. Not like this.

Then, the sky cleared.

A concentrated beam of lavender light had cut through an opening between the Haunting’s limbs and shot into the sky like a beacon. It reached its zenith and dispersed, sending a dome of thin, shimmering illusion descending onto the battleground. 

A curtain. They were safe from outside eyes.

Cann brushed their horrified assailants off and struggled to their feet. They looked up at Sol. “Do it!” 

The sun was now painting the sky red. Sol caught hold of its fire and, working like a strategically placed glass, focused its wrath on the toad Haunting who had led the latest charge. The skin ignited. High-pitched screams pierced the air, from the toad and the rest of the flock alike. Sol glared, unblinking, making his silent threat clear. The sounds faded mercifully fast into the distance as the Hauntings made their escape, away from the walls of Florence. Cann joined Sol in the air, wasting no time in putting distance between themselves and the retreating flock.

“Are there more coming?” Sol asked.

Cann briefly scrunched their face in concentration, then relaxed. “No,” they said, satisfied. “All of them are retreating.”

The weight of the sky seemed to be lifted off Sol’s shoulders as the two Stars made their way to the wall. They’d done the impossible, put an end to the endless fight. 

Sol landed on a higher palisade of the wall, and beamed at Cann when they followed suit. “Let it never be said you don’t deliver, Canopus.”

“Never be said?” Cann asked. “Even by you?”

The joke lacked their usual flair. Still, Sol didn’t let that chip away at the euphoria of a hard-won victory. “You’ll catch me saying no such thing.” He clapped Cann on the shoulder. “Truthfully, I don’t know how you—”

The force of playful hit made Cann stumble a step forward. They caught themself in time… but that slight gesture shouldn’t have fazed one of his strongest Stars at all. Sol noticed too late that they were clutching their robes pointedly to the side with both hands, as if to cover something.

He stood at attention, now alarmed. “Cann…?”

“It’s alright!” they managed through shallow breaths, smiling so genuinely that for a moment, Sol fully believed the words. “We won.”

They collapsed at his feet, and the protective dome above faded to nothing.

“No!” Sol sank to his knees beside them. He turned them over to reveal viscous black staining their robes. The lead Haunting had poisoned them in the scuffle; it had corroded deep enough to graze their skin. He brought a flaming palm to the sizzling wound. Even in the warmth of his arms, Cann was shivering. Their eyes did not open. “Fight it,” he begged.

He couldn’t win this way. This cost was too much to bear. 

“Over there!” a voice called from the sky. V led Cyon and Pav to the wall, their excitement and relief palpable through the wind. As they flew closer though, V’s smile instantly fell. The three Stars landed on the top of the wall.

“Cann, you idiot…” V cursed under their breath. “What happened?”

“I used the sun to drive them out,” Sol said, not taking his eyes off Cann.

“Oh?” Pav asked, with barely restrained glee.

“But I made certain no one would see it.”

“Naturally,” Cyon said, pointedly glaring at Pav. “Because how thoughtless would the alternative have been, right?” 

Sol’s face burned with embarrassment. As if he needed to be told now.

“Both of you need to shut it!” V took it upon themself to say. “Make yourselves useful and get them to Sirius, before the Haunting venom spreads too far.”

The Stars gently pried Cann away from Sol’s grasp. Still continuing their debate wordlessly with their eyes, Cyon and Pav flew off, supporting Cann’s weight between them. Sol watched after them, only snapping out of his thoughts when V spoke.

“The old ‘illusion of safety’ curtain trick, yes?” V asked, impressed. “Why didn’t I think of that?” 

“Would it have ended better if you had?”

“Don’t say that, it ended well enough! If the Hauntings have even half a brain between them, you scared them off for good!” V argued. “And Cann will be fine. It’s Cann, for skies’ sake.”

“They better be.”

V sighed. “I’m going to clean up this mess.” They gestured vaguely to the fires and black puddles. “Go back to the palace. See how they’re holding up.”

Sol was off to the palace practically before they finished speaking. To mask his flight, he followed a sunbeam; it was, thankfully, much easier to disguise himself in the daytime.

He practically kicked down the ornate door to the chapel. 

“Come now!” Sirius was saying. His gloves were off, and his constant flames were uninhibited as he tried to hold a struggling Cann down to the altar. He was succeeding, but only barely; Cann almost matched his strength. “Would it end to you hold still for—”

Sol cleared his throat, and the two of them snapped to attention. “Everything is in order, I assume?” he said.

“Yes, my king!” Sirius said. “But I need to attend to them at least until noon. It’s simply Haunting wound protocol.”

Cann scoffed. “Spare me the protocol, Sirius. The poison barely even took.”

Sirius crossed his arms. “And whose fire is to be credited for that?”

“If I may,” Sol said, amused. “Sirius, allow me a word with Cann. Protocol will be followed unfettered after this.”

Sirius bowed his head and stood. “As you wish.” Leaning closer to Sol, he whispered, “Make sure to dedicate at least some of your time to telling them to stay put.” He vacated the chapel, leaving Sol and Cann alone and shutting the door securely behind him. 

“Ironic,” Cann remarked. “That he believes you can tell me anything about staying put.”

Sol didn’t return the humor. “Do not deflect from the matter at hand.”

“Oh, are we doing this? Fine,” Cann said with a roll of their eyes, like they were being asked to perform a menial chore. “Yes, I’m perfectly intact and will be back to fighting shape by next sunrise. No, the poison is not your fault, and if you even try to insist otherwise, you fundamentally misunderstand why I followed you. And don’t worry, as far as the other Stars will know, your unbelievably rash stunt did not happen, and the curtain was our brilliant plan all along.” They took a breath. “Did I miss anything?”

Sol stammered a few half hearted responses, having to give up in the end to avoid appearing even more foolish. He took a seat beside Cann. “I wish you would stop taking all the gravitas out of my heartstopping speeches,” he said finally, smiling despite himself.

“You are very predictable.”

Companionable silence overtook them. Sol draped a wing around Cann’s side in case the biting cold of the poison hadn't subsided. Cann did not pull away.

“It bothers you, doesn't it?” they asked softly. “That I can read your intentions like an open book, but you can never have that certainty about mine?”

“It would help,” Sol admitted. “If I knew you intended to take every hit at the wall…”

“You couldn't have stopped me,” Cann said. “No more than I could have stopped you from sneaking out.”

Another sunrise, another civil war threatens to take this so-called great city. This time it has brought a plague with it, weeding out people left and right. You would think this would be an inconvenient time to threaten upheaval. Unfortunately, you are intelligent and possess a working mind, far more than can be said for any of them. 

I would ask how you are doing, but given how much that question trips you up, I will ask what you are doing instead. How, exactly, have you been lighting up the hospital this past moon? Let me guess, there is—

Her voracious reading stopped short in the middle of the sentence when she smelled burning. Again. 

She stood, toppling too many of her herbal supplies in her rush to calm the source of the fire. Sticking her hand into the flame, she found the drenched wooden core beneath and grasped it. Slowly, but surely, the flames tilted toward her, having found a like-built entity. They settled into her hand and left only a charred stub of wood behind. 

Sunbulah breathed a sigh of relief. Crisis averted. 

The door burst open with a kick. “Where is the sandalwood?” 

She jumped, startled, stepping swiftly in front of the now useless stub. “Head physician Masarra!” She tried to laugh, but its shakiness betrayed her. “How timely of you to bring up sandalwood… you see, the tree it comes from—”

“I have no time for your nonsense experiments, Sunbulah,” he cut in. He smoothed back his frazzled hair and lunged toward the table before she could stop him. “Give me the—!” He froze, staring at the offending table, his hands splayed on its surface. “What…?”

“It’s my… nonsense experiments,” she said, unable to keep the bitterness from the last words. “I promise it’s alright, we can do without the sandalwood! I’ll mix you something else for… whatever you’re dealing with.”

“Whatever I’m…?” He blinked, incredulous. “Woman, have you been around a single person these days?”

“No?” she said, getting impatient. Masarra knew full well that she only ever spoke with him, and that she kept correspondence solely with her lover all the way in Byzantium. “That was the deal, remember? Are you telling me what your patient needs, or should I take a guess and cook up a surprise for them?” 

His ire, instead of comically growing like she expected, dissipated instantly as he rubbed his temples, defeated. Sunbulah began to worry. It was never a good sign if even the head physician had given in to hopelessness.

“Better to show you instead,” he said finally, walking back to the door. “Come.”

She blinked, confused at the conversation apparently having left her expertise. “But I’m not supposed to leave the—”

“Sunbulah, I beg of you,” Masarra said wearily, clearly not in the mood for arguing. “Do not make this harder than it is.” 

Swallowing her boiling questions, she fell into step behind him.

The first thing to strike her when she took her first step outside into the hospital ward was the smell. Her apothecary cabin’s eclectic scents of wood, herbs, and the occasional fire gave way to rank, putrid air.

Then, she saw the patients on the beds. 

They writhed, crying out with pain as the physicians worked to soothe their viscous blisters. Some retched into ready buckets. Even from afar, Sunbulah saw that many had fingers blackened, their flesh rotting. Hadn’t Arc mentioned Byzantium’s ongoing brush with an inconceivable epidemic? How had it made its way to Granada?

“Since when?” Sunbulah could only ask.

“Wake up!” he snapped, a little too affronted considering he was the first to suggest her permanent lodging in the apothecary. “The stars have cursed us and God wants us to repent.”

Sunbulah made a face. As if the situation wasn’t unpleasant enough, he had to bring up astrology. “God, maybe, but what do Stars have to do with this?”

“Put your faithless sacrilege aside for once. There is a plague!”

“Well then, this is where we part ways!” she bit back. “I presume there’s no good studying any plants in a plague-stricken land.”

He gaped at her in open mouthed disbelief. “You’d take flight from our sick frontier now of all times? Are the plants your only concern?”

“Yes!” she said, throwing up her hands in frustration. “That’s why you keep me here! Where did the sudden high ground come from?”

Masarra, ignoring her, ran toward a bed. He sank to his knees next to it and began to clean the infected hand of the young girl laying there, muttering words Sunbulah couldn’t hear. 

Tentatively, she stepped closer, and everything she intended to ask Masarra died in her throat. The girl was sobbing quietly, her face caked in grime, but she couldn’t even lift a hand to wipe it off. She was so small, bursting with potential for growth like a fresh flower… and this disease had wilted all of that out of her. 

Without thinking, Sunbulah imbued her hand with subtle, cleansing light. 

She touched the girl’s face, willing the mess away just as she routinely brought life back to flower petals. Wide brown eyes opened fully to stare at Sunbulah, equal parts awed and confused.

Sunbulah made the effort to smile, remembering Masarra’s lectures on the importance of gentle bedside manner. She’d always scoffed, in disbelief that Masarra had a gentle bone in his body, but here, she had to put her absolute best foot forward.

“You are small, frail, and painfully mortal,” she said. “Understand this to be true.”

The girl blinked, surprised. Masarra turned on Sunbulah, eye twitching with rage. “How dare—?”

“Thank you?” The girl forced out the words, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Finally, someone’s honest.”

Sunbulah laughed. “I say this so you can appreciate just how incredible it is that you’ve survived the affliction to this point. Give yourself credit, friend, you’re firmly rooted, and you have tough enough bark that has let you weather the storm for this long.”

The corner of her mouth quirked slightly. “I’m a tree?”

Sunbulah reached once more to push back the girl’s dirty hair, before Masarra caught her arm. She braced herself for admonishment, but he was still on his knees, looking up at her with urgent, piercing eyes.

“Save her,” he whispered. “Your herb knowledge is unmatched. Pay your dues to this land. Take up physician duty and save my daughter.”

“Your—?” She looked between the two of them. Of course. Now that the girl’s strikingly sharp eyes and sloping nose weren’t completely obscured, there was no denying the relation.

His expression made it clear there was no room for refusal; she could not take flight from this if she wanted to. But if Masarra expected a promise, or invocations of God, or whatever his idea of acceptable responses involved, he wouldn’t get them. Not from her.

“I’ll give everything I can,” she said instead.

The child, whose name Sunbulah learned was Hadija, was washed up in the pool promptly. On Masarra’s orders, she and her trunk of essentials were moved into her own ward, which just happened to be Sunbulah’s own apothecary room. As hard as Sunbulah tried to fight this, Masarra was adamant that the hospital was overflowing already. 

Masarra shadowed her anxiously for the first several hours, and only left begrudgingly for work. Truthfully, this worried Sunbulah; on ordinary occasions, she could trust him to be fastidious with not catching the plague himself, but he was too close to this one. She savored the few minutes she’d get without his frantic input.

Hadija blinked in and out of consciousness, always starting her waking spells by hurling into a container. Sunbulah swiftly grew accustomed to handling it.

She stroked Hadija’s back through the last heaves and peered over the rim of the bucket. Predictably, a crude shade of a rejected diet accumulated over a good few days was inside. Except this time, it was marbled with ribbons of red. “Blood,” she noted. “Not good. Are you squeamish?” 

Hadija gave her that slight muscle movement that passed for a smile in her condition. “I can’t exactly afford to be.” 

“Point taken. Well, unbalanced as your humors are, I do need to reach inside you to fix this,” she said. Hadija, unfazed, only nodded, and Sunbulah took that as her cue. “Hold still.” 

Carefully, she propped Hadija up and lifted her sticky, sweat stained shirt from her back. Keeping one hand to hold her steady, Sunbulah reached for a fine blade from the table and cut into a spot of clean skin. Then, quick as light, she grabbed a cup and placed its rim on the incision. Little by little, blood rose into the cup. Sunbulah counted the seconds. Hadija’s heart began to quicken. Sunbulah released the cup.

“It’s done,” she said quietly, guiding Hadija back to the soft mattress. 

“Wait,” the girl said, with a hesitant crack in her voice. “Can you… get my trunk?”

Sunbulah arched an eyebrow. It was an odd request, but she complied, keeping her senses sharp in case whatever was inside would give Masarra more cause to yell at her. She creaked open the lid cautiously. Inside, placed gently on top of all the extra clothes and essentials, were hand-stitched dolls.

“The one in white,” Hadija said softly.

Relaxing, Sunbulah handed the doll to Hadija and laid her against the pillow. “Rest now.”

She barely had to say it. The girl had already blinked back into painful unconsciousness before Sunbulah had finished her sentence.

Sunbulah stepped away from the bed and crossed the room to sit at her desk. In her palm, she summoned a steady flame near the cup, scrutinizing the blood. Like studying a blighted plant, she told herself, knowing full well it wasn’t like that at all. There was precious little in plants that Sunbulah couldn’t fix with a wave of her hand and a redirection of light, short of complete cremation. 

Humans, with their numerous interlocking systems and frustrating lack of receptors to light, were more complicated. It was grossly inefficient to heal them only secondhand through plants and changes to living conditions. Why couldn’t she directly forcefeed some light to Hadija and—?

Something bright inside the cup of blood caught her eye. A reflection of her flame, Sunbulah told herself, snuffing it out so it didn’t disrupt her observation. 

She put the cup down near the table’s edge, lowering her head to its level. 

Unblinking, she stared the sample down, not daring to touch it for fear of driving off the answer she needed. Just as she was about to give up and reach for her supplies… the spot of light returned. Its white glow was stark against the blood, impossible to mistake for Sunbulah’s green Star fire.

She stifled a gasp as more little white flames emerged, floating in the liquid as if trying to burn the disease out of existence. This girl didn’t just have her mortal bodily system fighting the plague; purifying fire, a generations-old gift from the Stars, ran through her veins. 

Hadija was a witch.

At the least convenient time possible, Masarra burst in, yelling, “Have you done anything of use?”

Sunbulah swiftly hid the cup and shushed him, tilting her head in the direction of Hadija, curled up in bed. “Her sleeping is out of balance as is,” she whispered. “At least let her have the few scraps she can manage.”

He stood up straight, his arms crossed. “Watch your tone, Sunbulah,” he said, quieter but with no shortage of his usual displeasure. “She’s still my daughter.”

“Your daughter who has a week to live, remember?” 

“Don’t mock me, woman. If you want to live, you have no choice but to ensure her survival!”

Sunbulah bit her tongue. It was odd, how quickly he discarded all the rhetoric about the plague as God’s punishment once it affected his own. “Listen,” she said wearily, “you don’t have the slightest clue what she’s going through. If you did, you’d have taken care of it without asking for more than a few herbs from me. You’ve already tacitly admitted I’m right for the job, so would it kill your pride to hand the reins over to me?”

“My pride is not the matter at stake and you know it,” he said coolly, striding forward and pressing the crate shut. “You are a liability. Skilled in one area, granted, but a careless accident waiting to happen regardless. I don’t intend to put my child in harm’s way. From you, or the plague.”

She looked away, mortified, fighting to keep her face stable. It was less the man himself and more who he reminded her of that threatened to expose a nerve; hadn’t she heard almost that exact combination of words from the sun king Sol, numerous times? The last thing she wanted to do was prove him right. 

Composing herself, she gathered the courage to say the next words. “Then you’ll be happy to know I’ll be out of the hospital for a few days.”

“Out of the question!” he sputtered. “Your insubordination is reaching untold limits! The arrangement—”

“Is rendered moot now that her life is in our hands, no?” she said, not looking for an answer. “I’ve run out of the most crucial supplies, and I intend to leave no stone unturned.”

He stepped forward, close enough to remind her that he towered over her considerably in height. He, a mere human, posed no threat to her physically, but the way he glared down at her was enough to make her freeze in place; this was not the first time she’d served a taller man with the intense disapproving glint in his eyes, and in the moment, it did not matter that Masarra was nowhere close to Sol in terms of power. Still, she didn’t break her gaze, even as her knees began to tremble. 

Giving in, he sighed. “For your own good, you cannot leave. I’ll see what I can do about your supplies, but you need to stay put.”

Unbelievable. “You’ll trust me with her life, but not with a trip outside,” she said flatly. “You’re the smartest man in this hospital, and even so I wonder if you hear yourself sometimes.”

He rolled his eyes. “Come now, you always blow everything ridiculously out of proportion…”

Masarra, to his credit, left quietly as smoothly as he entered, but not without casting a few warning glares at Sunbulah. He would return without warning like he always had. He hadn’t forgotten he was technically her superior; it had simply been put aside when Sunbulah became the only one he could rely on. 

Hadija stirred in her sleep, and Sunbulah let herself breathe; at least the argument didn’t wake her up. 

She sank into her chair, frustrated, angry, and at a loss to whatever to do next; she’d never truly been in a position where safety or restraint were high priorities. Now, there was the balancing act of curing this child under her care without giving any indication that anything unusual marked either of them. She reached for Arc’s letter and read through the rest of it; civil wars, building fortification… he was out there doing things, while she wasn’t even given the liberty of leaving this one room.

This would be when she rummaged through her stock and experimented, but she was out of every herb that would be safe to expose in front of a dying child.

So, she did the next best thing; she grabbed her quill and started a new letter.

Arcturus, always the entirely figurative light of my life,

You know I say this with the utmost affection in my heart, but how in the skies do you expect me to believe your distaste for the mortals when you diligently guard their every edifice? If you despise them that much, I do not see you committing. 

Still, you do manage, clearly. If I can be disgustingly vulnerable for just a moment, Arc, I envy your ability to draw a sharp distinction between our worlds. How easy it is for you, to speed through time, fortifying Constantinople’s walls by day, fighting creatures of darkness by night, and always reporting well-gotten results to our king. Regimented, direct, without unnecessary flair… everything I adore about you; skies know our fellow Stars could learn a thing or two from that. 

No such neat demarcation has been possible for me. The world is a forest, richly populated and crawling with interlocking life forms, all placed ahead for exploration. Decay, predation, the stubborn persistence of life; name one thing here that is constrained to one world and not the other? Mortals act as if they are the only thinking beings here, as if their pain is unique, unmarked territory. I suppose in that way, they are not so different from us. I already hear your undoubtedly furious response to the contrary.

I lose the thread; what else is new? This is all to say, the plague you mention has made it to Granada. None of my wandering studies have prepared me, and although one moment longer in this limited apothecary might eat into my mind for good, I’m not sure about my capability for the task ahead.

You are no longer my only company here, but still. Send your advice and refreshingly direct criticism my way. With love…

Hadija stirred awake. Quickly, Sunbulah signed her name, folded the letter closed, and burned the seal on it before the girl’s heavy eyes regained their faculties. Thankfully, Hadija’s first glance was at the door, then at the closed crate, and only lastly at Sunbulah. 

“Was my father here?” she asked.

Sunbulah laughed bitterly. Now was as good a time as any to begin packing for the trip. “He cannot go more than an hour at a time without breaking down my door.”

She shifted uncomfortably on the bed. “Is it true? What he keeps saying?”

“About you not having long unless we work inhumanly hard? I’m afraid so.”

“Not that,” Hadija said, too flippantly for a girl speaking of her incoming death. “About… God, and punishment, and something about stars…”

Sunbulah scoffed. “You really shouldn’t take everything he says to heart. He doesn’t know as much as he thinks he does”

Clearly unconvinced, she held the doll in white close to her chest. “He knows… most things,” she argued feebly. “I just want to know what I did wrong. For this to happen.”

Putting the last of her traveling gear in her bag, Sunbulah turned her full attention to the patient. “Why would you believe you’ve done anything wrong?”

But Hadija curled deeper into the covers, preoccupying herself with the doll’s hair, and Sunbulah had no desire to disrupt that fleeting moment of comfort. So it was settled; there would be no confessions tonight. 

“Well, then.” Sunbulah cupped the girl’s sunken face in her hands. “Good night.”

Just as she cleansed the girl’s face of grime before, this time, she summoned warmth in her hands, easing away the last block keeping Hadija lethargically awake. If everything went as planned, this would last longer than the short, troubled bursts of sleep she’d been suffering from. Once Masarra inevitably caught wind of Sunbulah’s escape, he could easily send someone who wasn’t a ‘liability’ to take over.

“I’ll be back,” she promised the sleeping child, slinging her bag over her shoulder and walking out.

Sunbulah counted on the staff’s fatigue, and her own subtle manipulations of light to mask her exit. When at long last she slipped out of the hospital through the back door, she was greeted with a dead, starless night. Anxiously, she rolled the letter to Arc in her hands, and had to pay special attention to make sure she didn’t accidentally burn it; given the precarity of the plague, her chances of finding a messenger were not great, but she had to hold on to this singular thread of certainty that remained hers. Sad as it sounded, she’d put her apothecary post at stake, so he was all she could count on to last the week.

She scrambled into an unassuming corner and scanned the area for onlookers. When clear, she spread her wings and took to the skies. 

She repeated the three items she was out for in an oddly comforting rhythm under her breath. Oranges, hyacinths, sandalwood incense. Easy, basic, effective… and, by her calculations, the very narrow slice available to her under a strict deadline.

It was a short flight to the nearest fruit orchard. Very proud of securing her first find already, Sunbulah dived into the trees. 

She moved too fast, and couldn’t stop her descent in time before she crashed through a patchwork of branches, full wingspan, latent flames and all. Her cries were lost to the stray pieces she swallowed, and she fell face-first onto the moist orchard soil. 

Still, in the end, she was surrounded by a heap of fallen leaves and fresh oranges. She laughed, holding up the nearest large beauty. “I still win!”

She spoke too soon. Along with the still falling debris, a screeching bundle of feathers swooped down, piercing her find with its accursed claws and pulling hard. Determined not to lose this easily, Sunbulah held fast, fighting the eagle owl’s iron grip.

“Claws off, fiend! It’s mine!” She yanked her hand back forcefully enough to catapult the owl away. The orange was still in her hand. She cheered, but stopped short when she realized the owl hadn’t flown off. 

It had fallen to the ground a few feet away. And it wasn’t moving.

Sunbulah cast the fruit aside and inched carefully toward the owl. She reached a hand forward to inspect, but when it flinched from her touch, its wing shifted ever so slightly enough to reveal an underside of charred feathers. Had she burned the poor thing on the way down?

“Oh, skies above, no…” she said softly. She gathered up the whimpering owl in her arms, using one hand to hold the wing still while the other shone a light on it from behind. Bones were broken. “I’m… so sorry.” What else was there to say? 

She couldn’t fix bones as easily as stems, but she could do the next best thing. Grabbing a loose branch from the ground, she imbued it with green light, resuscitating its dead cells and growing it as she wished. Soon, it was the perfect splint to hold the wing; she grabbed some twine from her bag and tied it securely. 

She glanced back at the fallen oranges. "You shouldn't really be eating these, all things considered. Why...?" She trailed off. The remaining glow of the splint gave her just enough of a view of the bird's insides to know that the liver was not in its best condition. Without further question, she rolled the oranges toward the owl. “All yours.”

Round eyes stared up at her, confused.

“You're hardly the most unusual patient I've had. And I can still fly for more fruit,” she reassured him, flapping her wings. “A little hard work has never hurt anyone.”

Satisfied, the owl began to peck at the new meal. 

Sunbulah flitted between the patch of trees, scrutinizing the oranges under her green light and pocketing the ripest looking ones. Hadija couldn’t eat much under the plague, so her best bet for a healing diet was lots of citrus and water. She grew so focused on having her best pick, the blasts eluded her ears for far too long.

Shots rang out, closing in with each successive blast. Sunbulah turned, only to see a chain of violet sparks was heading right for the defenseless, feasting owl.

“No!” She darted into the line of fire, speeding up the growth of the seeds she sent below so young trucks sprang up as a barrier. She couldn’t see the owl anymore, but she heard confused hoots from behind her; he was safe. 

Ahead of her, a horse’s hooves pranced forth. Riding on top of the black steed was a tall woman, glowing with violet light, eyes hard as she searched for a target. “Where did it go?”

Sunbulah stood at attention and held a flame out to greet her fellow Star. “Good evening, Aliya!”

Aliya blinked, as if trying to parse an unfamiliar presence, but then broke out into a smile. “I thought I recognized the screams from somewhere!” She dismounted, and before Sunbulah had the chance to respond, she grabbed her by the shoulders, inspecting her for damage. “No one in their right mind would be out in the woods in the dead of night. Where is the Haunting who attacked you? Are you being held as bait? Dubhe and Al-Qai’d are in the air, should I tell them to blast—”

“There was no Haunting!” Sunbulah assured her quickly. Reaching behind the tree, she let the owl climb onto her arm. “See? We were both on a hunt, and I let it have my share.”

Aliya, perking up at the word ‘hunt’, said, “Skies above, small planet, so are we! What are you out for? Did you find a Haunting hideout in this orchard? Or a place for a secret watchtower, or—”

Sunbulah held the bulging bag toward her. “Oranges!” 

“Ah.” Aliya’s face fell. “And that means…?”

“Well, a diet of citrus can keep consumption clean and free of the spreading black plague. I also need hyacinth flowers and sandalwood, to ward off what’s infected my patient already, and keeping it simple is my best hope right now, because I’m actually not supposed to be out, you see. Speaking of the plague, have you been taking care of your horse’s intake lately?”

“That’s nice, dear,” Aliya said, patting Sunbulah’s shoulder, clearly having stopped listening once the conversation ceased to promise her anything. She returned to mount her horse, shooting a chain of blasts into the sky. “All clear, you two!” she yelled to the sky.

Sunbulah flinched as it burned through the topmost branches. “That’s a good portion of the yield gone.”

Aliya shrugged. “The mortals will survive.”

“Actually, they have less of a chance of that without the fruit. Because of the plague, they’ll have to make more use of the harvest than usual. Many physicians will be recommending—”

“Sunbulah,” she cut in, smiling in a way that was at odds with the tightness in her voice. “I get the picture.”

Do you? Sunbulah wanted to ask, but before she could open her mouth, two more large holes were burned into the canopy. The owl jumped, startled from the sudden entrance, and she had to hold him steady before he could hurt himself. The two Stars who were speeding downward could have simply used the hole Aliya had already made. Sunbulah decided against pointing that out. 

Al-Qa’id, small, quick, and sparking with excited lightning, scanned his surroundings with a wide grin. It dissolved into a frown when he saw nothing to fight. “Where’d it go?”

“It was never here,” Aliya said. “False alarm.”

“Slippery little things,” Dubhe said, balling her fists. “This is dangerous.”

“Did something happen?” Sunbulah asked. “I mean… why the hunt?”

Dubhe and Al-Qa’id, noticing her presence for the first time, looked at her incredulously. “What rock have you been living under where the king’s alerts don’t reach you?” Al-Qa’id asked. Dubhe nudged him pointedly to shut him up.

Sunbulah’s face flushed with embarrassment. “The hospital.” 

As if she needed the reminder that the king had walled her out of any tasks after she and Arc found different posts. Silence followed, only broken by the owl rubbing up against her. The three siblings seemed to carry their own silent conversation solely through knowing glances and vague gestures. Sunbulah instinctively reached for the rolled up letter in her bag. Why was there only one Star she was able to talk to without making a fool of herself?

“Tell you what,” Aliya piped up. “Since you’re out already, you might as well tag along. We’ll complete our mission and you can…” She paused. “Collect your fruits and branches?”

Dubhe made a face. “Collect what?”. 

She went on, “And you can hand your letter over to Alhambra witches when we’re done! They’ll deliver it for you.”

Sunbulah snapped at attention. “There’s witches at the palace?”

“Where else would they be?” Aliya shifted on her saddle, making room for Sunbulah. “Ride with me. You must be out of practice from all that time cooped up with the sick earthlings.” 

Aliya’s siblings laughed quietly at some shared joke and set off into the sky. Sunbulah's mind went a mile a minute trying to process this seemingly very simple choice. Aliya was offering her the solution to everything; a quick ride for her search, a way to Arc, and a possible path to restoring her image with the king? It was perfect.

Too perfect. 

Something about where the offer came from, with Aliya’s syrupy tone and her siblings’ incomprehensible communication, put her on guard, even more than she was with the mortals she had to hide from. 

Then, she remembered Hadija. Even if Sunbulah saved her life, without the Alhambra witches, she’d never know how to make sure it stayed safe. That tipped the scales to her decision. 

As soon as she climbed onto the horse, it took off out of the woods. 

Sunbulah positioned herself with her back against Aliya’s, growing and molding branches into a secure perch for the eagle owl. She hung it against the saddle and carefully let the bird climb off her arm. “Alright?” 

The owl chirped affirmatively, with such genuine satisfaction that Sunbulah couldn’t help but laugh.

“Wouldn’t you rather cage it?” Aliya asked, a small laugh in her voice.

“He’s injured. He doesn’t need a cage, just a place to rest where he won’t die.”

“Huh,” she said, and Sunbulah sat straight up. Aliya’s tone was thoughtful, but in that maddening manner where there was no way to know what the thoughts were. “You… get a lot of practice on birds at the hospital?” 

“Oh, no!” Sunbulah said, brightening. “Only humans! Sick, injured, mad, you name it!” 

Aliya turned her head ever so slightly back. “You don’t say…”

“I do! Though, I don’t actually spend that much time around the patients,” she admitted. “This is my first one. The head physician will have my head if I don’t save her. And you know it’s important because he let me see her at all! Usually he wants me to never even set foot out of the apothecary. I’m not even supposed to be here now!”

“I see,” she said. 

Sunbulah arched an eyebrow. “You do?”

She laughed. “Well, no. But… it’s intriguing, I suppose. You’re a Star, above this man in every sense of the word. Why are you answering to him?”

And so the horse dutifully carried them through the hills, and Sunbulah let her guard down in the face of Aliya’s questions. She had found Aliya attractive a long while back; who wouldn’t, with that winning smile and knowing glint in the deep blue eyes? That had only lasted until Aliya opened her mouth, and the million undertones to her every sweetly spoken word became too much for Sunbulah to keep up with. 

But this new, genuinely curious side to Aliya? Sunbulah reveled in how intently the other Star listened; being able to give information away for once instead of relentlessly hunting it down was a treat too rare to pass by.

She was in the middle of reciting the Compendium on Simple Medicaments from memory when the smell of fresh floral goodness stopped her. “Finally!” She clambered off of the horse, stretching her fingers in preparation to dig the hyacinths free. “Aliya, can you call the others down? All four of us can work faster, and I can go back with a full stock and make Masarra eat his words!”

“Oh, Sunbulah,” Aliya said with sudden, grave sadness, pointedly not signaling for the others. “You’re brilliant. That mind of yours runs a mile a minute and accumulates so much knowledge…” The compliments began to unsettle Sunbulah. The countless layers to Aliya’s speech returned. “But you still haven’t figured it out, have you?”

Sunbulah, already on the ground with her fingers digging through the soil, didn’t dare to meet Aliya’s eyes. “Figured out what?” she asked, uncharacteristically worried that she didn’t want the answer. 

“You’re not that man’s herbalist, or physician, or whatever else he’s told you,” she said evenly. “You… are his patient.”

Sunbulah breathed out a laugh. It was all some absurd build up to a joke. “Don’t be ridiculous.” Too forcefully, she released the hyacinth’s roots and yanked out the bulb. “I’m a Star. He’s never had any cause to think me sick, or injured, or—”

“Mad,” Aliya cut in, the single word carrying the force of a thick tome to the head. “Are you sure about that last one?”

She gripped the bulb tight in her fist. The deal, she wanted to protest, before remembering when he’d first found her. After she’d burned her own cabin.

She’d never assumed any intentions he hadn’t stated. Why would she?

“An easy mistake to make,” Aliya went on, undeterred. “You’ve always talked back too readily, been outright incapable of picking up the most basic conversational hints, and every thought you have leads back only to the century’s chosen obsession.” She took a breath. “And most damning of all for these humans? You take the form of a faithless woman unfit for polite society. Why do you think the physician was so adamant you never leave his sight, or interact with anyone outside of your ward? He was studying you, and he knew exactly what he was doing. You can’t aggressively explain your way out of this one, dear.”

Ward. Not even her beloved apothecary remained untouched. By now, the stalk and bulb were hot ashes in Sunbulah’s hand. “You show yourself as a woman too,” she countered weakly. “You ride a horse.”

Aliya stepped forward, wrapping her arm around Sunbulah’s shoulders. “I, unlike you, have the good sense to follow the code of conduct in my limited time around humans. It’s like the king says, hiding ourselves is not only about our powers. It’s about keeping ourselves safe.”

She stiffened, her face growing hot at the mention of Sol’s name, and lost the battle with her tears. “Don’t.”

“Sunbulah…”

“I can pick up hints.” She wrenched herself free. “None of my life ever concerned you before I foolishly gave you a weakness to pull at. Is this just one more humorous anecdote to laugh with your siblings about? Or do you plan to tell Sol? Like he needs yet another reason to lecture me, very loudly, about my conduct?”

A flash of hurt crossed Aliya’s face. Sunbulah no longer trusted it. “This is for your own good! Come to Alhambra with me and my siblings. Next time I see Arcturus, I can even—”

“Stop making yourself out to be the one saving me!” she shot back. “I didn’t need it back in the forest, I certainly don’t need it now.” 

She flew off, not caring what direction as long as it was away. Tears blurred the sky ahead of her, but for the first time, she saw everything with paralyzing clarity. Not even this strand of fulfillment she’d found at the hospital had meant anything.

Taking shelter at the top of the first oak she found, she sank into the embrace of the branches and shaped herself a small nook. The warm, familiar feel of bark and leaves surrounding her brought back enough of her senses that she could let herself think again.

Which, considering her circumstances, was a huge mistake. 

For once, she hated the evidence-based workings of her mind, because there truly was no way to delude herself into thinking Aliya’s ultimate conclusion was wrong. Not only was it supported by every newly tainted interaction she had with Masarra, but she was no more equipped to contest Aliya’s observations about society than Aliya would be to speak about prophetic medicine.

“Do you think I’m the problem?” she whispered idly into the branches, only daring to say it out loud because here, she wouldn’t have to hear an awkward, socially polished answer. Or any answer at all. 

Wingbeats sounded nearby. 

Sunbulah froze with alarm, but then she heard the screech. 

Giddy with relief, she parted the leaves and began to climb. She emerged above the tree, right in time for the eagle owl to land on her outstretched arm. “You’re healed!” She marveled at the completely intact wing he was showing off. The splint was still there, but it was glowing green; not even the faintest suggestion of the deeply charred feathers remained. “I healed you? How in the skies—”

The eagle owl burbled impatiently, pecking her. Only then did she see the hyacinth stalk he was holding in his beak.

Her smile fell. She pulled the splint’s knot open. “I’m… unbelievably flattered you thought to look for me when you should have been flying free. But I don’t believe I’ll be needing this any longer.”

The eagle owl solemnly placed the bulb on a nearby nook… only to peck her arm, more forcefully this time. 

Sunbulah forced her fire to not react disproportionately to the tiny attack. She settled back against the branches. “I was held at the hospital under false pretenses,” she told the bird, hating how pathetic the paper-thin cover sounded in hindsight. “Masarra thinks me mad. Sol wants me completely out of sight and mind, or I might blot the perfection of his Stardom. I’m a pitiable curiosity for Aliya and her siblings. You tell me, friend. What am I even here for?”

He hopped off her arm and retrieved the hyacinth. Then, he opened his beak, dropping the stalk.

“No!” Sunbulah scrambled after it, just barely catching it between two fingers. The bird made a repetitive, joyful noise from his throat. “I don’t know what you’re trying to prove! The only reason I was after this was for…”

Hadija, she remembered.

Even if Masarra trusting her with his daughter was as meaningless a gesture as all the easy herbalist labor he’d made Sunbulah perform… she’d disobeyed him so thoroughly. His approval was never why she was doing this, was it?

Sunbulah sat up, a lump in her throat at the thought of that little girl, fighting for her life against certain death. The girl who Sunbulah almost abandoned on a whim.

No more.

The eagle owl settled on her shoulder as she placed the stalk in her bag. “Two out of three rudimentary remedies isn’t bad, right?” she asked. “Who am I fooling, of course it’s bad! They’re rudimentary, that’s the point!” 

The bird bumped against her cheek. She stroked the feathers on his soft head. 

“But two is better than none, isn’t it? Thank you for everything…” She racked her brain for something to call him, when her hand found the unsent letter in her bag. She took it out and held it to her heart, deciding there really was only one name to give her prickly, refreshingly forthright new friend. “Little Arc.”

The sun peeked over the jagged horizon. Sunbulah squinted in the new light, daring the new day to throw whatever it had her way. She could take it.

The two of them left the perch of the treetop behind and took to the skies. 

By the time they returned, the sun had climbed higher, but the atmosphere above the hospital was gray, more dismal than ever. Sunbulah had no more time to waste. She launched Little Arc into the air and dimmed her own light; she would enter the same way she’d left. 

When she crept into the strung-out infirmary, she expected a lot more eyes out for her. In reality, that was Star-like wishful thinking. The preoccupied staff ran ragged, most stretching themselves between two or three patients by necessity; far more had come in during the night. 

Sunbulah’s light flickered, threatening to reveal her in an outpouring of care. She now saw a face, a life in every suffering body there. A life no less full than her own, and certainly deserving better than being reduced to a diseased body… or mind. She vowed to never let her own immortality blind her to the value of a full life. She was a healer, whether the Stars and Masarra thought so or not.

Give yourselves to me, she wanted to beg them all. Let me help.

She chided herself for losing focus so easily. One at a time. Setting her eyes on her beloved corner room, she weaved through the crowd, a knot twisting in her heart from every single one she had to brush past. 

At the end of the hall, a few men gathered outside Sunbulah’s room, Masarra at the head, barking orders as the other forced tools into the door to pry it open.

Whatever was happening, she needed to change direction. 

She backed into the nearest wall, finding the nearest window with a fumbling hand and slipping out of it. Outside, she didn’t have to search for the window to her room; the homegrown climbers lining it marked it clear as day. 

She sneaked inside, and was immediately met with a soft projectile launched at her face. The doll clumsily hit its target and dropped to the floor.

“Oh,” Hadija squeaked out, sitting upright on one end of the bed. “It’s you!” 

Sunbulah tossed her back the doll and glanced at the large trunk, which had somehow moved just conveniently enough to barricade the door shut. “How did that get there?”

Faintly, her eyes flickered with silver light. “I moved it,” she said too quickly. “Didn’t want to get it dirty.”

“And you won’t get up to open the door for your father, because…?”

“Well, you were gone, and he would move me if he knew! Couldn’t you have…” She clapped a hand over her mouth.

Quickly, Sunbulah replaced the bucket. Then, she marched up to the blocked door. She kicked the trunk aside in a burst of strength, and flung the door open to dumbfounded men and a very stunned Masarra. “You are making the child’s rest exceptionally hard,” she said.

The rest of the men drew back, averting their gazes. Sunbulah could only imagine how she looked to them, hair scattered and eyes wild. 

Masarra stood firm. “I need to see her.” And you, she could almost hear him say.

“Right now?” Sunbulah asked. “She’s vomiting into a bucket, and would really rather you don’t. Either you can stand there and mutter about retribution, or I can make her a meal and treat her tumors. Which sounds better to you?” 

The man still towered above her, glaring forcefully, but made no move to push his way in. She’d won.

“Now,” she said, smiling sweetly, “Please leave my ward.” 

Emphasizing those last two words, she made sure to look Masarra in the eye. Tempting as it would have been to scream at him, or watch him reckon with how she was capable of figuring it out, Sunbulah simply shut the door in his face, refusing to entertain his surveillance. She had a job to do.

At her desk, she emptied out the contents of her bag. After applying the hyacinth between Hadija’s fingers, she finally found a ripe silence to fill as she prepared the citrus meal.

“Hadija,” she said, trying to tread carefully for sensitive information. “Have you ever felt… different, from other kids growing up?”

“What?” she asked, her energy already draining.

“I mean…” She trailed off. How was she meant to make this line of questioning sound even remotely sane? “Like… something boils your blood hotter than others, and you can do things never before seen, but no one else can understand, because you barely know yourself. As if something affects you, specifically, and the flesh prison you inhabit seems to have a mind of its own?”

Hadija turned her gaze to the table, and Sunbulah could have sworn she saw a spark of panicked hope in her eyes. Just as quickly though, she breathed out a laugh. “That’s just what it’s like to be a girl.”

That made Sunbulah stop cold and absently pinch into the orange. She was an immortal Star with no inborn concept of the idea, but for the longest time, she’d considered herself a woman in every way that mattered. She’d never stopped to unpack what that meant; wasn’t it a descriptive category, no different from how a plant could be described by its bearing of seeds or spores? What was she missing?

Hadija cleared her throat painfully. “So… did you have a point?”

Sunbulah shook off her thoughts and crossed the room halfway to the bed. “Your remedies will take time.” She kneeled down to be at eye level with Hadija. “Just… take care of yourself. And if there’s anything at play here, no matter how awkward or unbelievable, you can tell me. I’m open to more than you think.”

A long silence followed. Sunbulah held a few slices of orange out, but Hadija was looking everywhere except at her.

“I didn’t move the chest myself,” she said quietly. “Or… I did. Just not in the way you think.” 

Sunbulah nodded. “Go on.” 

Hadija sighed deeply and pointed her hyacinth laden hand forward. A blinking white glow surrounded the slices Sunbulah was holding out. Slowly but surely, after dropping three pieces first, she managed to levitate one toward herself. 

Sunbulah smiled triumphantly. “Well.”

“You can’t tell anyone!” Hadija insisted through a mouthful of orange. “Not even my father. I don’t want to end up like—”

“Like me.”

“What?” Her eyes widened. “Of course I want to be like you! You’re clever, and brilliant, and you don’t let anyone tell you what to do…”

“I’m also locked in a room I’m not allowed to leave, and generally considered too unstable to be around the decent God-fearing populace,” she added. “Work out for yourself why that is.”

Realization dawned on Hadija’s face. “But you don’t seem… that can’t be true! He must have made a mistake!” 

“Even if he did, I have my own secrets. Let’s keep this one between us too.” With one wave of her hand, a stray orange seed on the ground sprouted a sapling. 

For good measure, as if having smelled potential oranges from outside, Little Arc hovered outside the window, rapping at the glass with his beak. Sunbulah prepared for horror, for the evaporation of all the confidence she’d earned.

But Hadija stared at it with awe, hugging her doll close. “You can do anything.” She focused on another seed, knitting her eyebrows close, but only succeeded in burning it up and running out of breath. 

Sunbulah sprang forward to catch her before she fell off the bed. They sat, Sunbulah holding Hadija the same way the girl held the doll. Both sick, with secrets that couldn’t leave the room, finding inexplicable solace in seeing even a fraction of themselves reflected in a smaller, far more perishable girl. What would become of them in this world?

“I can’t do anything,” Sunbulah admitted solemnly. “I cannot heal you, or the other people out there. I couldn’t even find all I needed to start with you. I’m out of sandalwood.”

Hadija blinked at her, the silver glow returning to her eyes. “No, you aren’t. There’s some on the table right there.”

Sunbulah laughed bitterly. “Burned. Of no use unless I can somehow bring it back to—” Her eyes wandered to the window, to Little Arc, and she grinned as an idea of the insane variety hit her. If she healed the owl’s wing by accident, surely she could undo this damage too. “Wait here.”

She placed her hand on the ashy stub, let the green light seep out of her hand… and did not falter this time. Sol, Masarra, and Aliya’s disapproving judgment all disappeared when she looked back at Hadija; the trusting gaze of a vulnerable soul under her protection was all she needed.

In a burst of light, the original block of sandalwood was not the only thing that had been restored. Somehow, she’d rooted a small tree into her table. The scent wafted through the air, grounding her success into tangible reality.

She let out a disbelieving laugh, turning back to her patient. “Now. Let’s burn it properly this time.”

 Two months later, Sunbulah had treated far more than one victim of the plague, and had incidentally accumulated enough goodwill to transcend Masarra’s initial label. She and a much healthier Hadija walked into the royal fortress of Alhambra, and were met with a wonder previously conceived of only in wild imaginations—people exactly like them. 

Sunbulah knew the witches they found weren’t Stars in any sense, but they laughed with her like friends, listened to her like enraptured students, and explained the workings of their world like generous hosts. 

Best of all, they were all curious skeptics, asking incessant questions until they got exactly what they wanted. Her kind of people.

She took a stray leaf out of her hair, intending to show a group of women exactly how to feed light in a way that made it grow. "Like this!" Just then, she felt someone tap her shoulder. 

“I see you learned how to hold a conversation,” Aliya said. 

Sunbulah smiled, turning to look at her. “All I needed was people willing to listen. Strange, how hard that’s been for most I’ve met.” 

Aliya didn’t smile back. “We need to talk.” 

“Do we, now?” Sunbulah glanced at Hadija. The girl was sitting on nearby stairs, with a doll in one arm and Little Arc perched on the other. A few women sat around her, talking with her like they’d known each other their whole lives. She’s in good hands, Sunbulah decided, and nodded to her audience as she tossed the leaf. They descended on it, fighting for the chance to try out the spell. “Practice on your own!” 

As soon as the two of them had reached the greater hall, out of earshot from the witches, Aliya said, “It surprised the king a great deal, when we were forced to report to him the news that you, of all Stars, had a more successful few moons than us combined.”

Sunbulah blinked. She hadn’t even known there was competition, let alone one she was ahead in. “But you were going on hunts. What became of that?”

Aliya snorted. “A misunderstanding. There had never been any Haunting threats.”

“Excuse me?” 

“Arcturus mentioned a ‘black plague’ in his reports,” she went on. “You know how unreliable messages can get. It was hardly a leap from that wording.”

“I’d told you about the plague!” Sunbulah said incredulously. Right as it left her mouth, she realized. “You weren’t listening then, were you?”

Aliya drew in a sharp breath. “Now, don’t start lecturing me about that little mistake. Believe me, Arcturus hasn’t let me hear the end of it. I’m regretting everything that transpired already.” Before Sunbulah could decide whether or not that was an apology, Aliya shoved a paper into her hands. “For skies’ sake, tell him you’ve graciously forgiven me. It’s my only hope of staying, and my horse does not travel overseas.” 

Aliya ran off to join six of her siblings at the end of the hall, leaving Sunbulah with the bizarre position of having influence over decision making. 

She unrolled the letter, slowly, with a smile on her face and no flame in sight.

The desperation with which she’d always devoured Arc’s letters was absent. For once, she didn’t need to hear from him; she wanted to. 

Wasn’t that, in the end, the peace of mind that had evaded her for so long?

As she read, it occurred to her that she was moving, walking back to the witches. After that, she’d be healing at the hospital, and teaching Hadija. She’d gone from being an unknowing captive to having all these like-minded souls at her behest.

If Stars ever slept, this would have to be a dream. 

“That one has won every race these past several weeks now.” She gestured to the affronted amir, his screams drowning out even the fallen one as attendants came to his aid. The last centuries had taught Yamna that the rich ones whined incessantly about even the most minor of grievances. “He needs to be humbled.”

“Do you truly have nothing better to do?”

She sighed, sitting back. “Not since the last execution.” Her assumption had been that a sultanate formed by ambitious slave soldiers would be endlessly stimulating, and it was proven wrong long ago. All the stories from the sun king and other fellow Stars over at Iran made her jealous; they lived near all the action, while all she and her brother got to have these days was covert attendance at parties. Still, she’d learned to make her own entertainment wherever possible. Turning to Jabbar conspiratorially, she said, “The week-long hunt starts shortly. Anyone in particular you want to unleash an ostrich onto?”

He scoffed. “Sister, please. I am a captain, and I have much more important—”

“Oh, I understand,” Yamna said, a smile playing on her lips. “Of course, this means I’ll have gathered up more activity to report to the king. You can proudly say that while I was doing all this, you just sat there, refusing to engage. I’m sure he’d love that.”

Jabbar’s eyes narrowed, sudden competitive fervor lighting them up with blue flame. Conjuring a glowing hunter’s net in his hands, he opened his wings and took to the air. “Excuse me while I set the trap.”

Yamna laughed, calling after him as he flew off. “That’s more like it. Show them the real hunter’s spirit!” 

She meant to simply unleash the unique chaos of Jabbar’s attempts to show off, sitting back and enjoying the resulting mess from a distance, but truthfully, the curiosity was irresistible. He could go and rile up the prey all he wanted; Yamna would take the first step in knocking the hunters off their pedestals. She took off, and the sand blowing in her face was a small annoyance compared to the triumph of finally getting her brother to do this with her again. He was getting too up in the clouds about being the constellation’s captain lately, and she resolved to remind him he still wasn’t above having fun at the mortals’ expense.

She touched down near the paddocks, wedging herself behind a nearby strip of date palms. For once, she resented her stout, muscular form, good for everything except stealth; even vanishing her wings did nothing to help her hide convincingly. 

Surveying her marks, she resisted the urge to gush with excitement about the sheer wealth of potential practical jokes available to her. 

Should she release the precious falcons into the air? Let the gold-adorned dogs or the trained cheetahs out? Disrupt the tent building activity taking place around the preserve? Perhaps she could even steal crossbows and wait for the amirs to fight about it amongst themselves.

The majordomo entered, calling after the hunters, who all stood at attention. He carried a sack of blowguns. Perfect, Yamna thought, thanking the skies above for this glorious opportunity. The man left the sack on the ground, bowed respectfully, and made a swift exit as all the hopeful hunters descended on it like hawks. 

Yamna tapped her fingers impatiently on the palm’s trunk, waiting for them to disperse. They were taking an ungodly amount of time, examining the make of the guns as if they were samples of fine wine. 

Fortunately for her, when they did abandon the sack, they were too distracted arguing amongst themselves, measuring extremities under the veneer of respectability. 

They left the door right open for Yamna’s entrance.

In a blink, she rushed to the sack and retrieved one of the spare blowguns. She rolled the accompanying clay pellets in her hand; she could make this work. Counting on all the large animals at the edges of the paddocks to conceal her, Yamna took in her marks. Who was going to have the honor of being the first target?

“Back to the tents. Now.” 

The genuinely threatening tone caught Yamna’s ear over the sea of overly saccharine, passive aggressive mingling. A cheetah growled in response to whoever spoke those words. 

“And if I say no?” a woman’s voice challenged, low and lilting. 

Yamna perked up, at attention. This, she had to hear. 

She peeked over the horse’s behind blocking her vision, just enough to catch sight of the man and woman in question. The woman, every bit as maddeningly serene as her voice, held the cheetah back, meeting the man’s eyes with the unspoken implication that it was entirely his luck that she didn’t let it pounce. 

The man, a nondescript amir who looked exactly the same as the rest of his ilk, didn’t seem to catch the subtlety at play in the fog of his obvious insecurity. “Malak,” he said, the name familiar and disdainful in his mouth. “I entertained your fantasies up until here. I believed you’d see sense once we reached this… frankly ridiculous excursion.”

“Ah, so keeping me from this is out of care for my welfare now?” she shot back. The cheetah purred with agreement.

He shook his head. “Deny truth all you want, but don’t ask me to indulge this.”

And just like that, Yamna’s buffet of choices narrowed to one insufferable man. She balled a clay pellet in her fist, imbuing it with red hot energy from the flame that made up her entire being. With a few swift motions, she loaded the blowgun, and aimed for his shoulder.

She shot. The pellet-sized explosion hit right on cue. 

“Who dares?” someone screamed, and another responded, “Save them for the birds!”, while another with slightly less skewed priorities yelled for a physician.

The shock gradually turned to a blame game as everyone scrambled to figure out who had enough of a petty grudge against the amir to waste a pellet. As Yamna took off, away from the admittedly tantalizing scene, she cast one last glance back. To her relief, Malak was safely being escorted away.

Then, she saw the man himself, and wanted to slap herself. She had not, in fact, hit his shoulder and ruined his chance to hunt like she wanted. The shot grazed the back of his turban instead.

Well, she couldn’t win everything. 

Once again, she took to the date palms, this time perching on one’s canopy for a better vantage point on the paddocks. The chaos had settled, and the crowd was several bodies lighter; everyone except the most foolhardy of hunters, surprisingly including Yamna’s victim, had fled to the comfortable tents.

Before she had the chance to search for Malak, a blue filter overtook her vision. 

A net dropped over her and pushed against her side, knocking her toward the ground. Her wings were snagged too, leaving no chance of resistance. 

“Jabbar!” she protested. “I was watching the mortals scatter like ants! That’s always the best part!”

He dissolved the net into thin air, grabbing her arm and hauling her to her feet. “Shame on me for assuming you’d stay put,” he said, but the mask of annoyance wasn’t enough to hide the restrained laugh. “What did you do?”

“Shot a man who had it coming,” she said breezily. 

“Right,” he said, unconvinced. “How badly did you miss?”

Yamna punched his shoulder, refusing to dignify that with a verbal response, even as her face burned with embarrassment. She would submerge herself in the Nile at night before she admitted he was right about having better aim than her. “Forget that. What did you do?” She rubbed her hands together in excitement for the answer, small sparks bursting at her palms.

“Managed to lay traps on the fringes of the preserves before having to stop,” he said. “I ran into the sultan. He wanted to speak to you.”

She made a face. “Skies above. That barely formed child?”

The clop of horse’s hooves announced a new arrival. “I am no longer a child, Yad al-Jawza.” Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad gracefully disembarked from his mount. From his gait, it seemed as if he’d come into his own as a young man, but Yamna privately thought he still looked woefully undercooked. She was further vindicated when, obviously unaccustomed to having to function without a go-between, he reached for Yamna’s hands and wisely stopped before going further. “I don’t believe we have been formally introduced.”

“We have,” Yamna pointed out. “You just happened to be a hatchling at the time.”

His face hardened with defensiveness, reminding Yamna that he was in fact a man with a chip on his shoulder about having something to prove. Disappointing. She missed the precocious child, in over his head as he was. “You’ll find that much has changed since then.” His attention shifted to the nearby paddocks. “I assume you caused this havoc?”

Yamna stiffened. She had not been expecting to get caught.

Jabbar stepped protectively in front of her. “Great sultan, I hope you don’t presume to charge my sister with—”

The sultan held a hand up to stop him, without breaking eye contact with Yamna. “Who did you hit?” 

The posture broke any tension Yamna might have felt; how was she supposed to feel intimidated when she easily towered above the man? “The one accompanied by his wife and a cheetah,” she said without hesitation. “Honestly, if I hadn’t done it first, the creature definitely would have. And I wouldn’t overlook the wife either.”

Jabbar sighed, realizing there was no use defending the guilty. “Why do I bother?”

“Hossam, then,” the sultan said thoughtfully, clearly having stopped listening at the man’s description. “Yes, I have suspected. A particularly troublesome one.” 

Somehow, Yamna didn’t feel as if the suspicion was in her direction. Jabbar looked at her, just as confused.

“These last two reigns have barely been my own. Still, rest assured, this one will mark history.” Remembering the Stars were his audience, he said, “My predecessor’s execution was only the beginning. If I allow you free reign to inflict what you wish upon the amirs during these hunts, do you believe you can… clean out my court?”

Jabbar scoffed. “With all due respect, we don’t merely exist as tools for your mortal politics and—”

“We wholeheartedly accept, great sultan,” Yamna cut in. Here was an excuse to have all the fun she wanted with these pompous amirs, handed on a silver platter. Why shouldn’t she take it? “When do we begin?”

The sultan stared at Yamna like he didn’t quite know what to make of her, then turned to address Jabbar, because apparently his opinion was the important one at play. Typical. “Rijl al-Jawza, I assure you, this will benefit you as well. Your—”

“Save it,” Jabbar said coolly. “I’ll defer to my sister here, thank you.”

Yamna smiled. It was moments like these that made her certain she would scorch the very skies for her brother. “Let Orion’s hunt begin!” 

Without further ado, the siblings took to the air, laughing and kicking up a small sandstorm in the faces of the sultan and his horse.

As soon as they ascended beyond the clouds, the air cooled between them in the absence of the need to perform. Falcon cries echoed from every direction. One almost flew right into them. Yamna let it perch on her arm.

“Thank you,” Yamna said to her brother, stroking the falcon’s head. “I’m… sorry I got excited. I know you had your reservations, but…”

“Sultan or not, he had no right to supersede your acceptance that way,” Jabbar said. “I doubt he even has the facts straight about our ranks. Who does he think he is?”

“A man,” Yamna ventured. 

“Exactly! A mere man! Why would—” Jabbar trailed off, realization about what she truly meant dawning slowly on his face. He sighed, exasperated; he tended to forget such matters entirely, treating them like an inconvenient reminder when brought up. Yamna honestly envied him. “Humans and their ridiculous divisions of sex…”

“Jabbar,” she said, amused. “We’ve taken on those divisions as well. We call each other sister and brother, for skies’ sake.”

“Not all of us have taken the easy way out. The North Star outright refuses to, and they’re in good company. Besides,” he said with a teasing smile, gesturing vaguely to Yamna’s whole form, “tell me what about any of that signifies a woman in any mortal’s sense of the word.”

She let the falcon go free and pulled her military coat tighter around herself, glaring. So what if she preferred it this way? After all, so-called women’s clothing was much better admired from a distance. Preferably on a different beautiful woman. “It signifies so in an immortal’s sense of the word,” she said. “And by an immortal, I mean me. It’s my word.”

Her brother nodded sagely. “The only word that matters.”

She laughed. At least human men’s narrow-mindedness gave her and Jabbar a common enemy. Now he had no choice but to take part in the game out of sheer contrarian spite.

The two of them touched down in the shrubs lining the hunting preserve. 

Predictably, a ready net had materialized in Jabbar’s hands before Yamna could even close her wings. Forging ahead toward a clearing with obvious purpose, he said, “This way!” 

“Oh?” Yamna followed, her curiosity piqued. “Why that direction in particular?”

He laughed, confirming her hope with a wink. “A good hunter always knows when his trap is sprung.”

They barrelled through the thicket, stopping short when a gaggle of amirs’ screams reached their ears. With a light touch of flame, Yamna burned away the leaves obscuring her vision and peeked out her makeshift window. Ahead, a glowing net, hanging securely from branches above, had hoisted three men into the air. Two ostriches on either side tossed the swinging net between them, a different cry ringing out with each hit depending on which man was the current victim.

As if that wasn’t delightful enough, for a split moment, Yamna caught sight of a burned turban. Hossam was one of the men inside. This was everything she wanted.

Yamna looked between the sight and Jabbar a few times, impressed and baffled. “You did not.”

He shrugged, but there was a glint of pride in his eyes. “Who else could?” 

“I thought you didn’t want to,” she said without thinking, and immediately wanted to smack herself for how pathetically wounded her voice sounded. When Jabbar looked back at her, his face creasing with concern, she forced a sardonic laugh into her next words. “I mean, I thought Orion’s illustrious captain was too good for fun now.”

He elbowed her playfully. “I thought so too. Then you dragged me into this.”

Yamna wanted to cry. Ever since the rest of their constellation scattered towards their own tasks, Jabbar was all she had. Him avoiding time with her in favor of appearing serious and competent for Stars that weren’t even there with them… stung in a way she could never quite figure out how to say out loud. She could have, right then.

“You were going to rust uselessly if I didn’t,” was what she said instead. “Idiot.”

He rolled his eyes, the smile not leaving his face. Then, he reached within the folds of his outer tunic and pulled out a crossbow. He notched the arrow and handed it to Yamna. “Do you want to end their misery?”

“Where did you—”

“The sultan had to approach me without his procession in tow,” he said. “Should have kept a closer eye on his stuff.”

Yamna mentally rescinded every comment she’d made about her brother becoming boring. Eagerly, she swiped the crossbow. Taking the arrow’s end in her fist, she added her own personal touch to it. She positioned the weapon and aimed. 

When she made to shoot, she underestimated her strength. 

The arrow flew unscathed. Its bow wasn’t too lucky. It cracked from the force of her grip. Wood splintered in her hands and fell to the ground in useless, charred pieces. Jabbar pulled her back into the shrubs before she could reach to salvage something.

The explosion she’d stored in the arrow went off and the men screamed, falling to the ground with a too-loud thud. 

Yamna dared to peek. 

She hadn’t just hit the branch she aimed for; she’d toppled the entire tree backwards. At least the ostriches had escaped.

“Good work,” Jabbar said flatly.

She shoved him in retaliation. “Well, it covered for us, didn’t it?”

Hossam shoved the other men off of himself and struggled to his feet. “Did anyone maintain this preserve?” he yelled to no one in particular. “Trees falling everywhere. Unacceptable.”

Yamna smiled smugly at Jabbar. See?

One of the men cleared his throat apprehensively. “I believe the ostriches went that direction, my lord.”

“To hell with the ostriches,” Hossam shot back. “And with this so-called sultan. Were it not for my unwanted company, I would have finished him off before this poor excuse for a game began.”

Yamna froze. Beside her, she felt her brother tense with sudden focus. Was this…?

“You cannot still be considering this plot,” the third man objected strongly. “After Baybars’ execution?”

Hossam scoffed. “The cowards who were scared off by that stunt didn’t have what it took to begin with. I refuse to let this man under my skin with his overcompensation.” Promptly, he proceeded to walk backwards into a loose branch and fall flat on his face. Waving off his men’s attempts to help, he said, “One way or another, I will end this hunt prematurely!”  

The half-hearted hunters scurried away toward the wildfowl that they lost. As soon as they were out of sight, Jabbar seized Yamna’s shoulders, unmistakable urgency in his eyes.

“We need to nip this plot in the bud,” he said.

“Why?” Yamna asked. The news was shocking, to be sure, but she had no attachment to the sultan. All of these nominally powerful men blended together in her mind. “Let him do it, I say. Either way, it will be fun to watch.”

Jabbar shook his head. “At least this current fool on the throne knows us and is a reliable secret keeper. Can you say the same for anyone who’ll usurp him? The lack of a succession line guarantees us nothing!”

She cursed under her breath. Out of every possible thing Stars had to worry about, humans’ political instability was the most annoying. She could handle skirmishes with monstrous Hauntings or devastating floods any day of the week, but she could not explode her way out of a succession crisis. 

Or at least, she’d never tried to. Yet.

Oblivious to her thoughts, Jabbar scanned their surroundings. “I’m going to keep the conspirators occupied and see if they’ve got anyone else involved. Hossam made it sound like most of the coterie wouldn’t be, but it can’t hurt to make sure.”

Yamna stood. “I’ll come with—”

“No!” he shot back, so adamantly it made her flinch. Instantly though, the flame in his eyes faded, and he went on, softer, “Yamna, I didn’t mean…”

When he reached for her hand, she pulled back, plastering on a smile. “It’s fine,” she said, even as a break in her voice betrayed her. “I’ll let you take this, captain.”

She took off, because the last thing her brother needed to worry about right then was her inconvenient emotions. If he knew how she felt, he’d either give in despite being right, or he’d stay to make her feel better. 

Neither could happen right then, Yamna decided; she was not going to ruin more than she’d already had. 

As the sun began to dull, she landed where the falcons circled, near the ground populated with extravagant tents. Taking a deep breath, she closed her wings and left the safety of the palm trees. If she couldn’t do anything useful in Jabbar’s stealthy and serious mission, she could at least be mindlessly entertained with the nonsense in the tent quarters. 

She’d be here for a whole week. This was how far she’d fallen.

In the midst of feeling sorry for herself, Yamna didn’t see the cheetah before it tackled her.

She proved too heavy to instantly knock to the ground, but it didn’t do her any favors; the surprise was enough, and she was too preoccupied trying to keep any spontaneous fire at bay to focus on her balance. The cheetah pinned her to the ground and bared its teeth, growling.

Yamna spat loose sand. “Can we not do this now?” she asked the cheetah, tired and unfazed.

It stopped growling and stepped backwards, its gold eyes blinking in confusion. It hadn’t released Yamna just yet; she’d just gone from intruder to curiosity.

“You must forgive Hurairah. I asked her to guard the tent,” a new voice floated in, bemused. A woman walked out of the nearest tent. Malak, Yamna recalled. “Get off of the nice lady, beloved!” 

 Hurairah finally left Yamna alone to return to Malak, and Yamna was left on the ground, blinking. Had she just been called a lady, and a nice one at that? There was no telling what would come next.

Malak helped her to her feet. “She’s still staring,” she said, tilting her head in the direction of the cheetah. “I believe she likes you.”

“Flattering. I wonder why,” Yamna said, knowing exactly why. Night was setting in, and cats always did tend to be more perceptive to Stars’ light around this time. “How are you enjoying the hunt?”

Malak’s face scrunched with irritation. “Please. Genuine enjoyment for me might as well be a crime.” 

She laughed bitterly. “You and me both.”

A spark of interest seemed to wash all of Malak’s boredom away. She met Yamna’s eyes with an odd sort of hope, as if she was looking for some of her own discontent mirrored. “Are you… here with anyone?”

“My brother,” Yamna said automatically. 

Malak’s gaze remained steady, hungry for more. Skies above, Yamna thought, trying not to panic. If she couldn’t manage stealth in the hunting grounds, how was she meant to do so in a conversation? 

Carefully, uncharacteristically testing every word in her head, Yamna went on, “We’re here on the sultan’s request. My brother’s an incredible hunter, and I misfire every weapon I touch. As much as I’d love to be out there, you can see why I’ve been made to retreat.” She paused. Was that everything? “And, well…” She gestured vaguely at herself. “You know how men are.”

There, she thought, satisfied with herself. Enough of the truth to say comfortably, and vague for plausible deniability at the same time.

Malak nodded, fully on board. “Do not get me started. My husband is out hunting, and I’m left here.” On cue, the cheetah smacked her head against Malak’s leg, making her laugh. “Oh, I didn’t mean it like that, beloved. You know that.”

Yamna watched the woman fawn over the cat. The silk mantle draped flawlessly around her, and she carried it as effortlessly as if it were part of her own flesh. Malak seemed so much freer, less on-defense now than she was back at the paddocks. Fighter that Yamna was, she couldn’t help but tense up; this was too intimate for her to bear witness. She was not used to seeing humans letting down their walls of pomp and performance.

This woman must be guarded, she thought. Most of all from that unbearable man she has to call her husband.

Her husband… the conspirator she and Jabbar were meant to clean out.

The instant Yamna remembered the mission, her mind burst with glorious clarity.

She was going to make herself useful, and she was going to do it without collateral damage. This challenge would be conquered swiftly.

Yamna cleared her throat to get Malak’s attention. “This would be when I take my leave, my lady. Do you know of any spare tents I can use until my brother returns?”

“Nonsense!” Malak said, reaching for Yamna’s hand, smiling widely. “I wouldn’t dream of subjecting you to the…” She bit her lip, searching for a polite descriptor. “...various characters who saw fit to trail this hunt. You’re staying with me.”

“My lady—”

“Stop.” She held up a palm. “I won’t hear a word otherwise. And for the love of God, the name is Malak. Call me as such.”

Yamna smiled, and she didn’t have to fake it this time. This was starting off even better than she’d thought. “As you wish, Malak. Please, lead the way.”

Malak bolted into the tent, dragging Yamna by the hand. Yamna let herself be led forward, but she made it only one step inside before her feet touched carpet. Lush, very flammable carpet. 

Bury the fire, she told herself, trying to repress it even though it was a laughably contrary instinct for a Star. Bury it deep, deep down.

Malak let out a cry of surprise and abruptly dropped Yamna’s hand. Concerned, she touched her face. “Friend, you’re positively feverish!”

“Am I?” She scrambled for an excuse that wouldn’t get her cast out of the tent; she was too close to be pulled away now. “I’m… simply adjusting to Cairo’s weather. This is nothing to worry about!”

Malak sighed. “Of course. You’ve been out all day, haven’t you? I’d have assumed the sultan would at least given you and your brother a proper welcome before hoisting this task on you.” She looped her arm through Yamna’s and led her, more gently this time, to a spread on the ground. A lead platter sat there, a lavish mutton dish inside with a piece of fresh bread. Two golden goblets were placed on either side. “Eat. You need it, and I’m certainly not passing up the rare chance at a meal with someone tolerable.”

At her insistence, Yamna sat, racking her brain for the appropriate way to act; it had been far too long since she had to consume a human meal. As if that wasn’t enough to worry about, Malak unwrapped her head covering, her tied-up tresses falling to her waist like midnight waves. She was looking at Yamna expectantly. Clearly, the guest had to eat first.

Yamna tore half of the bread for herself, a safe bet on a fair share. 

Then, she wrapped it around the portion of meat, and bit down on the meal with full force. Malak was staring, her eyes wide and her hands over her mouth. Skies above, why was she staring? Yamna blinked, her mouth full of food that she couldn’t prevent in time from instantly burning. 

Malak burst out laughing. “Right. I should’ve realized.” Her gaze swept keenly over Yamna’s form, an approving smile blossoming across her face. “You didn’t achieve that… impeccable physique by shying away from food.”

Yamna swallowed, relieved and oddly pleased by the compliment. “Yes,” she said, even though she hadn’t eaten in the last century, and for the life of her, she could not understand humans’ inexplicable push-and-pull with their source of sustenance. Why would consuming less of one’s life source ever be considered a virtue? Light was the closest thing the Stars had to an equivalent; no one in their right minds would think to deprive themselves of it. 

“Oh, wait!” Malak grabbed the remaining piece of the bread and imitated Yamna’s haphazard method of wrapping it around meat, bubbling over with infectious laughter. She attempted to stuff it in her mouth in one go, but had to settle for a quaint, human sized bite from the top instead. That didn’t seem to deter her enthusiasm for even this quiet act of rebellion. “Lovely.”

With gleeful abandon, they devoured the platter clean and didn’t leave a single morsel to spare.

The two of them were lounging on the carpet, indulging themselves with the beverages and exchanging stories of travel, when a scream sounded outside the tent, followed by Hurairah growling. Malak’s face fell, the brightness of the past hour vanishing as if it had never been there. 

She cast Yamna an apologetic look as she donned her covering. “He’s back.”

Yamna perked up. The target. She could start learning how to end him now. She followed Malak outside. 

“Leave him alone, beloved,” Malak called out, and it might have been the most half-hearted, toothless reproach Yamna had ever heard, second only to the way Jabbar scolded her for exploding people who beat children. Hurairah obeyed, without taking her eyes off Hossam.

The man struggled to his feet, dazed. Yamna noted with amusement the net burns on his outer garments. “If you don’t get that accursed animal under control, woman, I’ll—” He seemed to notice Yamna for the first time, and reached for the sword at his belt, eyebrows furrowing with anger. “Who are you?”

Yamna couldn’t muster a reply at first, until she realized; he was mistaking her for a man. The child sultan had made the same error when she first appeared to him, simply because of her cropped hair and dressing; and here, she’d thought humans got wiser with age. “This is immensely improper behavior, you know,” she said.

Hossam froze at the sound of her voice and sheathed the sword again, now more confused than angry.

A shadow of a smile returned to Malak’s face. “Yamna here is my friend. She’s kept me company in your absence.”

He was already shoving his way into the tent, muttering something about Malak’s choices in company. Yamna took this as her cue to leave and reconnect with Jabbar, but Malak held her back.

“Stay,” she whispered. “Please.”

“I plan to,” Yamna said truthfully, savoring the look of relief that crossed the other woman’s face. “I must meet with my brother first.”

Malak nodded gratefully, turning to go back inside. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

Hurairah grumbled, making her displeasure known as soon as Malak was out of earshot. Sympathetically, Yamna patted her soft head. “Sooner than you think,” she promised.

After making sure every hunter had taken refuge in their tents, Yamna opened her wings and set off into the night sky. Jabbar sat anxiously on a cloud nearby, waiting for her. 

“Yamna!” He took a few tentative wingbeats toward her. “I’m sorry, you know I never wanted to—”

“Oh, shut it.” She shoved him playfully, sending him flailing about in empty air for a moment before he steadied his flight. “You can have your serious missions, and captain duties, and whatever, they’re all yours. I’ve found some new entertainment in the tents.”

“You… have?” he asked, with inexplicable disappointment. The tone gave Yamna pause. Shouldn’t this have made him happy? “With what?”

“Not so fast, dear brother. If I tell you now, it will only distract you.” 

“But—”

Before he could continue, she cast an explosion at him, which he easily countered with a protective net of his own. 

“Fine!” he conceded. “Keep your secrets. Have a good week, I suppose.”

Yamna folded her arms and nodded, satisfied. She would have a good week, and get the stupid conspirator out of their way as she did so. “Nice work today,” she told him. “I saw how much you managed to bust him up when he returned.”

He perked up. “Really? If I keep it up, would the king be impressed with me?”

“I’ll make sure of it,” she said, and resolved silently to follow through. After all, Jabbar didn’t know it, but he was going to make this much easier for Yamna; in every way, this would be a team effort. 

“Alright,” he said, quietly, as if he couldn’t believe his luck. Yamna looked at him curiously. In what world would he think she wouldn’t even do that little for him? He caught her eye and straightened up. “I should go back to the preserves and… set up for when they leave after Fajr prayer.”

He bolted away before she had the chance to press further into the strangeness of leaving so early. There were several hours left before Fajr; maybe he simply didn’t want to be around her when he had to take care of work.

That’s fine, she reminded herself. I have work too. She dived, returning to the tent grounds.

As the week went on, Yamna learned a great deal from witnessing Hossam and Malak’s daily life up close. 

Malak was a different person depending on proximity to Hossam. The iron core beneath her lovely silk garments and the sharpness in her eyes was a constant, of course, but when she was alone with Yamna, whom she had known for only a few days, she was all smiles, loose and carefree. 

Around the man she’d been spending her life with, the defenses went up. She spoke as if on trial, and he belittled her every happiness; the one bad time Yamna had observed on the first day seemed to be their norm.

He annoyed Malak, that much was clear as day. Yamna would be doing her a favor by taking him out. 

Or at least, that was what she told herself, every subsequent sunrise. The reality of the days involved much less watching for Hossam’s weaknesses and more… warm mundanity with Malak. Sharing meals, walking Hurairah, relaxing in baths… all of this they did while Hossam was out. He was the subject graciously sidestepped in conversation, never mentioned by name, lest the acknowledgement shatter the joy.

On the fifth day, it hit Yamna all at once; she was no closer to ending him. Once more, she’d neglected the seriousness of a mission for… what? Useless play?

Malak jabbed her in the side with an idle foot, sprawling across a ridiculous amount of pillows. “What are you afraid of?” she asked, casual as ever.

Yamna puffed out her chest. “Never in my long and storied life have I been afraid of anything.”

“Really?” she asked slyly, clearly pleased in meeting this challenge. “Your silence and fidgeting today says otherwise.” 

Yamna threw aside the pillow she’d already ripped to shreds. “So?”

“So, I want to know more. Even if we ignore right now, surely you don’t expect me to believe you’ve always been this perfectly sculpted, absolute marvel of a woman who could kill a man with a glance?”

If only killing a man with a glance was accepted behavior at the moment. “Trying to flatter me into confession, are you?”

Malak inched closer on the mattress. “Is it working?”

“Almost,” she admitted. And so, like she had with every question thrown her way, Yamna played the game of dressing truth in human skin. It was always more convenient than lying. “I earned the spoils of every game I’ve played fair and square. I didn’t start out like this, I made myself so because I was bright and unstoppable and… I just could. I’m an asset to the ruler of my land, and my brother knows it.” This hung in the air. She hadn’t seen him all week except for in short glimpses. He was always so busy with the mission. “I hope he doesn’t take it to heart.”

“He shouldn’t,” Malak said. “You’ll both be on your way as soon as this hunt passes, nothing soured.”

The next question, Yamna didn’t meticulously polish. Raw and unfiltered, she asked, “Where will you be? After—”

Malak placed a finger on Yamna’s lips. Their eyes met, and they were close enough together that Yamna knew she wasn’t the only one heating up. Oh, she realized, comically too late. She’d done this a little too well. Yamna leaned down enough for Malak to eagerly make her move.

Their lips collided. Malak, determined, held fast, practically scaling Yamna’s body to deepen the kiss further. Yamna kept a hand on Malak’s back, pulling her in closer; suddenly, keeping the explosions at bay was second nature, because in that moment, they were not Yamna’s greatest pleasure. This was.

They parted for breath only when Malak toppled them over onto the mattress.

“You,” Malak managed between breaths, still on top of Yamna, “light fires within me. A force of nature, you are.”

You have no idea. Yamna reached up to pull a strand of hair away from Malak’s eyes. She wanted that smiling face before her in all its glory. “Look at you,” she said admiringly. “Such brilliance, and all of it waters down in other company. What are you afraid of?”

Hossam’s voice yelled outside, drawing closer and shattering the scene.

“That,” Malak answered softly, instantly moving to smooth out her hair and dress. 

Yamna bolted upright with a start, and not just because of who was coming their way. “What did you say?”

Malak flinched, avoiding her eyes. She hadn’t misspoken, then. 

“You’re afraid of him?” Yamna pressed. All that shameless rebellion, then… what for? “You know you can—”

The tent entrance parted and Hossam stormed his way in. “Five days,” he said between heavy breaths. His clothes were blackened in impressions of Jabbar’s nets. “Several men lost in the maze these preserves have become. And not a single worthwhile kill to show for it!” He rounded on Malak. “You. Make use of all the space you and your beast have been taking up. I need some relief.”

Yamna clenched her fist, sparks coalescing within. She could end him now. 

For a moment, Malak held her gaze. Then, she turned to Hossam, resentment burning in her eyes. “You can’t get this… relief elsewhere?”

He laughed humorlessly. “You are the only wife who insisted on coming along. Who else would it fall to?”

The unabashed crass speech, in front of a third person no less, was unbelievable. Then again, Hossam stopped seeing Yamna as a person the very second he no longer perceived her to be a male threat. Resigned, Malak looked to Yamna. One word, Yamna thought, trying to convey it with her eyes. One gesture from you and he’s dead meat. 

“Go,” Malak said instead. 

Stunned, Yamna walked out. This time, Malak hadn’t begged her to stay. What else could she have done? 

So much, she reminded herself. I could have—would have done it all. I lost my nerve when it counted most.

She lingered outside the tent, listening. It started with argument, the louder voice dominating like it was his right until the lower one snapped under the pressure and dared, for a few words, to match its volume. Dead silence, and then…

The tent’s hide only barely muffled the discordant sounds of pain that followed. 

Yamna stared at empty space in the unforgiving night sky, thinking for the first time since the week started something other than the game. This was why she’d contented herself with witnessing only the humans’ fumbling, overdressed public selves; what lurked behind closed doors was too dark, too at odds with the fun she wanted to have, and not everything she found distasteful in this domain could be swiftly humbled with an explosive practical joke.

She came to a startling conclusion; she would not kill Hossam. 

Neither would Jabbar, and certainly, nor would the sultan. None of them had earned the spoils of this particular hunt.

 She looked to the sky. “Next sunrise,” she resolved, waiting every drawn out hour for the king’s sun to bestow upon her the strength she was going to need.

Finally, the time came. 

The men filed out of tents to congregate for Fajr prayer, and Yamna wasted no time in bolting toward the tent. Fortunately enough, Malak was already outside, putting out a piece of dry meat for Hurairah. 

“You aren’t praying?” she asked.

Malak jumped, surprised, but the relief on her face could have melted mountains. Yamna didn’t miss the difference in the way she wrapped her head covering, so it covered more of her face than it usually did. What she’d heard in the tent last night made it easy to guess why.

“It’s my… monthly exemption,” Malak said with a wry smile. Yamna thanked the skies above that Stars didn’t have to deal with the counterproductive mess of periods. “I suppose I’m impure in more ways than one now.”

“And all the better for it,” Yamna said. “I believe so, at least.”

“Your word is worth more than any other.” Then, the smile faded and she said, softer, “I told you to go. You likely get enough grief as is for existing, and I—”

“I will go,” she promised quickly. “But first…” From the folds of her outer coat, she produced a blowgun, handing it delicately to Malak. “Follow the hunt. Stay unseen, the way you’re so adept at doing so. There is only one… particularly potent pellet. Save it for the beast whose blood you know deep down you’re justified in spilling.”

Malak took it carefully, her expression unreadable, and Yamna wondered if this had been the wrong move after all. “Tell me,” Malak said slowly, stroking Hurairah, who was rubbing against her leg, “how something said to be impure has brought me nothing short of an angel.”

“I’m no angel,” Yamna said. “Merely a fellow woman who wants you free.”

“Stay?” It was no longer a desperate cry for company. Just a question. A request.

“You don’t need me to,” she said, pleased. “Not anymore.”

When the hunt left, Yamna trailed them from the sky. Naturally, she found her brother in the preserves without having to look too hard. His hair, frazzled, stuck out in every direction, and even the ready net in his hands was misshapen.

“You’re here!” he cried out. Yamna braced herself for the captain's reprimand. “Thank the skies… do you know how hard it is to keep these men preoccupied? I can do nothing without you, Yamna, I need you! I need your misfired weapons, and first resort to violence, and—”

The initial shock of the admission hit Yamna like a flood; it was so strikingly mirrored with her own innermost feelings. Once it faded, Yamna shot forward and enveloped Jabbar in a hug. “None of that will be necessary,” she promised. “The mission is over.”

“Wh—” He tried to break free of the hug to look around, but couldn’t shake Yamna’s iron grip. “What do you mean? What did you do?”

“Nothing!” she answered happily. “That’s the remarkable part.”

With impeccable timing, a bang resounded a few thickets back, followed by glorious, disgustingly familiar scream. Laughing, Yamna grabbed her brother by the hand and flew in the direction of the noise.

From the green canopy, they could make out a woman and a large cat, calmly and precisely smoothing over a patch of ground that was slightly off-color, like it had been dug up.

Crimson liquid mixed with the raging embers of Yamna’s magic, scattered throughout the scene as a lovely garnish. The gun had worked. 

Malak turned her gaze to the sky, mouthing a silent yet treasured, “Thank you.”

That smile alone gave Yamna such immeasurable satisfaction, she didn't even care that she hadn't seen the man die herself.

“This was your new entertainment?” Jabbar said, his voice heavy with incredulity and awe. “You are truly unmatched.”

Except even the grandest flights rested on the premise of a zenith… and its aftermath. Finally, air thinned to nothing, and Earth below seemed a faint suggestion of matter. The time had come. Waqi slowed the frenzied movement of their wings.

They took a deep breath, savoring the moment. “Here it comes.”

Then, they let themself fall. 

The air just barely carried the sound they let out, halfway between a laugh and a scream of delight.

This was their favorite part. They would never admit it on the ground, where every part of them itched to fight the atmosphere with their wings and fly, however high the day would let them. Many times, they’d said to other Stars that they’d happily give up immortality if it meant they could fly for the rest of their existence, and the sentiment was barely a joke. But the fall? They lived for it, and the air as they burned their way down was the sweetest they’d ever taste.

Clouds faded into view, gray and rumbling, preparing to unleash a deluge onto Iran. Waqi’s fists heated up, glowing with ready blasts; they could not let this unacceptable weather stand. 

They plunged into the mess. When fog took over their vision, they pivoted sharply, punching at the nearest storm cloud. The lightning crackling inside was no match for Waqi’s own strikes of energy. They cut through the surrounding air in a wide arc, so swiftly that the clouds vanished with a whimper.

“You tried,” Waqi said, laughing to themself as they took off to vanquish the brewing storm from the rest of the sky. 

They moved with instinctive ease when they shed their corporeal form to become a merciless blue lightning bolt. It was less satisfying than punches and blasts, but it killed every threatened storm before it got the chance to materialize, all the while keeping Waqi hidden from any onlooking human’s eyes.

Of course, the tactic traded away precision for raw power. 

They didn’t process hitting the wrong target until the voices rang out. 

“Waqi!” Dhanab yelled, halting the excitement with a start. “What in the skies did you do that for?”

Waqi shifted back into their usual form, steadying their flight with their wings and blinking the scene before them into clarity. Their Star friends Dhanab and Taira hovered in front of them. Dhanab was scrambling to cover her head. Taira had stopped midway through braiding Dhanab’s hair, barely containing laughs. 

Slowly, Waqi turned around. Remnants of lightning floated in empty air, having burned a hole in the white cloud structure around them. They’d destroyed a Star lodging. For the third time that week. And this time, they didn’t get to pretend they were heroically fighting monstrous Hauntings, because this was nothing but a cloud punching spree.

They faced their friends with a sheepish smile. “I’ve interrupted something, I gather?”

“I’d say so, yes,” Taira said lightly, at the same time as Dhanab muttered, “Not the first time.”

“In my defense,” Waqi began. “I had—”

“North Star duties,” the two finished in unison.

Waqi looked away, sighing. There went their excuse. “I don’t suppose you’ll allow me to make it up to you?”

A scheming smirk crept across Dhanab’s face. “Taira?”

“Hm.” Taira stretched and cracked her joints in preparation. “Since you've so kindly offered...”

Waqi had barely enough time to summon a defensive forcefield when Taira shot toward them with unbelievable speed. She tackled them off the cloud’s ledge. Waqi fought to keep their flight steady among her unpredictable movements and countered her every hit. Laughing all the way, they tumbled wherever Taira wished, because as strong as a flier as Waqi was, they only fought the air; Taira held it at her command. 

“Unfair!” Waqi protested, pushing Taira’s voluminous wind blown hair away from their own face. “I’m taking this up with the king!” 

“What’s the matter?” Taira said, between laughs. “Holding back so I’ll be taken off guard by your next move?”

Waqi caught her next punches, holding both of her hands in place with a surge of lightning. They grinned. “You know me too well. This is a tactical liability.” 

She cried out as Waqi seized her hair and flipped her over their head. As soon as they readied their next blast, their arm locked up, illuminating with a silvery blue glow. 

The rest of their body followed. Taira also froze. The two Stars’ descent had been halted by a joy-killing outside force.

“Dhanab!” Waqi yelled to the sky. “It was just going to get good!” 

Taira snorted. “For you, maybe.”

Dhanab swooped gracefully down from above, landing only a few feet below without breaking her telekinetic hold on the other two. Waqi gaped. Were they that close to the ground already? 

“Do you want to let all of Maragha in on the secret?” Dhanab asked, gesturing frantically to the town behind her. 

“Oh, we’re in trouble now?” Taira asked.

“You will be, keeping this up,” Dhanab said. “Two wild winged beasts screaming and clawing at each other is hardly discreet.”

Waqi raised an eyebrow. “And two wild winged beasts suspended in midair by a third, decidedly more stuck-up winged beast… is?” 

Dhanab opened her mouth to argue, then shrugged. “Point taken.” With one wave of her hand, the glow faded, and Waqi and Taira collapsed in a heap on the ground. 

Waqi brushed themself free. Dhanab pointedly looked past them in favor of helping Taira up. Only Taira.

“The disrespect,” Waqi said with mock offense, forcing themself to their feet. “This is how you treat your North Star?”

Dhanab smiled sweetly. “I wouldn’t dream of insinuating the North Star could possibly need my help.”

Waqi rolled their eyes and shifted their attention to the sky. At least from here, they could check whether they’d succeeded in averting the storm. They expected to see clear blue conditions, plagued by a few maddening remnants of a storm they happened to miss. Instead they were met with… a sunset. In the distance, the town of Maragha seemed to come alive, suddenly bustling with movement.

“Oh no,” Taira said quietly behind them.

“I know,” they agreed, exasperated, glaring at the accursed observatory on a nearby hill. “Now we’ll have to listen to the evening prayer.”

“I like the sound of the prayer,” Dhanab said quietly.

Taira shook her head. “It isn’t that! The sun set too early.” Oh, Waqi thought. They’d assumed they simply lost track of time once more. “Waqi,” Taira said, all humor gone from her voice. Disoriented by the sudden change in mood, Waqi turned to face her. “This is a whole hour early.”

Dhanab’s eyes widened. “An hour? Did the king tell you anything about this?”

Waqi laughed, but their voice shook with uncertainty. “There you two go, taking everything the sky does so seriously…” 

“Even if we didn’t, the humans would!” Dhanab argued. “Especially here. Their prayer relies on this, you think they won’t look into the situation? And if they look too deep, they’ll find us, and then the secret keepers might tell on us too, and—”

“Dhanab.” Taira wrapped an arm around her. “Slow down. Breathe.” She looked to Waqi for support.

 Their words caught in their throat. Skies above, they had not expected a morale strengthening task today. “I’ll… speak to Sol,” they blurted out, “and get this all sorted! He’ll play some trick of sunlight, hide the irregularity. This kind of thing is easy for him! It will be fine.”

The Star king’s name seemed to put the two at ease. Yes, Sol would fix this, and Waqi would have free reign to make fun of his overly dramatic success speeches to his face afterward. That was how this was supposed to go.

“Before that,” Taira piped up, “maybe we can go and ask director Tusi’s minions what they think is happening.” She tilted head toward the observatory. “To see how much damage we’ll have to undo.”

Waqi made a face at the thought of vanishing their wings. “Go and ask. In the guise of a human?”

“As a man?” Dhanab added, equally offended. “No, thank you.”

Both of them stared at Taira. She sighed, closing her wings and gathering up her long cloudlike tresses. “The usual, I see.”

“Don’t act as if you don’t like it,” Dhanab said.

Taira winked at her. “I let you off the hook only because you’re too beautiful to pass as a man.” 

Dhanab flushed, but got to work on tearing a section of her own outer robes, wrapping it around Taira’s hair as a makeshift turban.

“You could just give over your scarf,” Waqi pointed out.

“Waqi, please!” Dhanab said, scandalized. “I am not going to stay out here uncovered!”

That sounded absolutely ridiculous, but Waqi chose not to argue. They never did see the point in bothering with matters of earthly conduct, when by all means the Stars were meant to live above them all. This is why they could never stomach any task that involved walking among humans. Their status as North Star, Stardom’s first line of defense, would surely get lost among the endless customs and rules that every other little kingdom offered a different version of. Such a life was inconceivable.

Still, they noticed that Dhanab was pointedly trying to avoid being perceived with torn robes. Wordlessly, they walked in such a way to conceal her from any passersby’s view, keeping a low profile as they trailed Taira.

Not that Taira made it particularly easy. 

With a skip in his step, Taira closed in on the observatory hill at a quick pace. Too quick. The other two almost struggled to keep up and stay hidden at the same time.

“What’s his hurry?” Waqi whispered to Dhanab.

“You know Taira,” Dhanab said. “At least he hasn’t resorted to flying. Yet.”

Waqi and Dhanab stopped at a distance, hanging back as Taira went on. He reached the entrance of the central observatory tower, greeting the two workers outside like old friends. One of the men straightened up to receive the new company, while the other remained pointedly occupied perusing an astronomical manual.

“Peace be upon you, brothers!” Taira said. “I could not help noticing that the sun has been down for several counts too far, and I have not heard the call for Maghrib yet.”

“Upon you be peace. I do not know what to tell you, Al-Ta’ir,” the attentive man said, his tone apologetic, as if he was fully ready to take the blame for the heavens breaking an otherwise flawless pattern. “Sirvan and I have been in conversation all day, and we haven’t yet reached an impasse.”

“Forget this pretense, Payam. Tell him like it is!” the other man, Sirvan snapped. He rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration and, without warning, shoved the manual in Taira’s face. “Look at this!” 

Taira stayed silent for too long. “Yes,” he said, purely to appease the worker. “This is… most irregular.”

“Irregular,” Sirvan said with a bitter laugh. “For all our lives the sky stays constant! Predictable! ‘Study the heavens,’ Tusi tells us, ‘Mark prayers as God commands!’ How were we meant to know the sun can set anytime!”

Waqi rolled their eyes. Humans truly believed their neat tables could map the skies out to the letter. As if the Stars had nothing better to do than move in strict patterns for their convenience. An impulsive lightning blast threatened to break free at their fist. Dhanab touched their hand, stopping it right there.

“I believe I should call out Maghrib now,” Payam said carefully. “The people will be concerned.”

“Concerned?” Sirvan said, baffled. “This is unlike anything we’ve seen!”

Taira wisely saw his exit. “Thank you, brothers,” he said, though Sirvan’s diatribe about the fundamental principles of the sun’s movement drowned it out. “I trust your decision, and eagerly await your call.” Meaningfully, he caught Payam’s eye at the last word.

With that, Taira left the scene as swiftly as he’d arrived, regrouping with Dhanab and Waqi. 

“Overreacting scholars,” Waqi said. “This is probably nothing!” 

Taira ignored them. “Payam is the muazzin. I’ve dropped as many suggestions as it’s appropriate for me to do. I think we’ll be in the clear, if he can get his volatile brother calmed or distracted long enough to call the prayer.”

“I hope he does,” Dhanab said softly.

“That’s all we can do for our coverup on the human side, but we’ll stick around just in case.” Taira turned to Waqi. “The rest is up to you. Ask Sol what’s going on. He’s the only one who can make this seamless.”

Waqi nodded. This, at least, they could do. Leaving their friends at the hill, they crept a safe distance away from wandering townspeople’s eyes. 

Then, they opened their wings and shot off into the early night sky. The air was clear, carrying that sweet tropical taste that came only when the dark settled and—

Focus, they reminded themself, shaking off the intoxication. This flight had to be short, direct. Purely economical. 

They ascended just enough for their head to peek through clouds.

Waqi looked around, and almost didn’t recognize Sol’s home at first. They were so used to the sight of extravagantly piled clouds, reflecting sunlight with infuriating perfection, that they only processed the black clouds in front of them as an incoming weather disaster.

Somewhere on the way to destroying the storm, they realized it floated where their best friend’s home should have been.

“Sol?” Waqi’s voice broke embarrassingly at the call of his name. 

Any moment, the only part of them still clinging to hope insisted. Any moment, Sol would fly out, laugh triumphantly about his incredible unexpected practical joke, and fix everything.

No answer came.

Waqi rammed themself into the mass of black clouds, their mind racing. The structure fell apart pathetically, the only sign of Sol’s brilliant presence being stray plumes of flame. Actual flame. Not the inviting light that always decorated the king’s home. 

Waqi emerged on the other side into empty air. The home being deserted, leaving only storm clouds and flame, and whatever the early sunset was… 

All signs pointed to a struggle. 

Waqi glared at the remnants of black smoke around them with newfound hatred. This was no longer annoying weather. It was the herald of the enemies—assassins—who took Sol away… and after seeing it, Waqi was sitting here, staring into space like an idiot.

They needed to act now. In a flash of blue lightning, they dived, right back to the spot where they left their friends. The grass beneath them caught fire as the shock of the ground returned them to their corporeal form. Before they had time to breathe, someone grabbed their shoulder.

“Careful! You’ll—” Dhanab’s usual chiding stopped short, and her face softened into concern. “What happened?”

Waqi tried to contort their features into something less alarming. Judging by their friends’ confused glances, it did not work.

“What did the king say?” Taira asked. “He didn’t deny the request, did he?”

A laugh, clipped and shaky, escaped Waqi’s throat at the question. “It’s a hard thing even for him, to deny something he hasn’t even heard,” they said. “Something broke into his home. Only storm clouds remain there.”

A shadow passed over the other two’s faces. Taira took a deep breath. “Please don’t tell me…”

“Hauntings?” Dhanab asked, her voice small. It was barely a question. 

“Listen to me,” Waqi said, grasping her hand, suddenly emboldened by their friends’ clear panic. Waqi couldn’t afford to be scared when they had other Stars to worry about. “No one can hear of this. Not until we get to the bottom of it.”

“Waqi,” Taira said. They couldn’t help but flinch. They hated when all playfulness faded from her voice like that. “This isn’t some accidental cabin fire we can just pretend is an act of nature. This is an attempted Haunting assassination, and if those monsters even got to the king, what chance—”

“They didn’t get to him!” Waqi snapped. “It’s Sol! Skies above, will you have some faith? For all we know, he reduced them all to ashes and is just… hunting for a new home. Or better yet, for the assassins’ allies.”

This half of North Star duties, the one which was conquered by words rather than fire, never came naturally to Waqi. Yet, often, they found they could simply speak anything into existence, and if it softened even a single line of worry on a fellow Star’s face, it would do the trick. For better or worse, Waqi held all the cards here. They knew Sol better than anyone; whatever they said about him, the other two had to take it by necessity. 

Waqi needed to take it too. It was all they had.

“You’re right,” Dhanab said, mercifully. “Yes, that must be it!” 

“So, all we do is track him down. It’s the same plan as before… just with this extra step.” They spoke feverishly right as the words came to them. “Taira. Those trails of dark smog from Hauntings are left in the sky for hours after the fact, are they not?”

Taira nodded, a hint of her usual laidback confidence returning to her eyes. “If the monsters escaped—”

“There’s no way in hell Sol would let them go free without pursuit,” Waqi finished. They braced themself for flight. “Lead the way. We’re right behind you.”

And so, the three Stars took to the skies. They cast jokes and idle conversation between themselves like playing balls, masking any unwanted urgency. The premature night hung around them heavily. Even as they followed the sickening, viscous Haunting trail, no one dared to suggest the unspoken; that the king was likely in danger and it may be up to them to save him. Sol was supposed to save them, not the other way around.

You’re fine, Sol, Waqi thought to themself repeatedly, reassuring their own mind and daring their friend to meet the challenge. They need you to be fine. You can give them that much.

Give me that much.

When the trail ended its forward snaking in the sky and dissolved into fog, Taira began to descend and the other two followed. An expansive lake awaited them below. It boiled furiously, despite the cool night, sending warm air towards the Stars.

“Here we are,” Taira whispered. “Now, either the Hauntings show themselves, or Sol comes out… let’s hope we don’t have to do something drastic.”

Waqi strained their eyes to see the lake past the fog. Why was it boiling? “I swear… why can’t we just—”

“Don’t summon a flame,” Dhanab warned, reading their mind. “Wait for it.”

“Wait?” Waqi shot back, incredulous. “For them to—”

Something shot out of the lake. One projectile gave way to several, piercing the silence with the high whistles of Haunting laughter. The fog stopped the Stars from seeing the attack, but they all heard it, and knew the lack of light would not let them dodge. Taira screamed as a Haunting assailant tackled her into the darkness.

“No!” Dhanab instantly moved to follow Taira’s faint white flame. 

Waqi prepared a blast. “Leave it to me!” 

Dhanab blocked their path, taking hold of their shoulders. “I’ve got her. You should look for the king.”

Look for the king. Waqi knew what she meant to say, but they resented the wording anyway. It was far too close to acknowledging the danger they’d so carefully chosen to downplay. Still, she stayed, her gaze lingering on them with clear anxiety. She wouldn’t go without their express order.

“Go,” Waqi told her. “Do… whatever it is you were already going to.”

She smiled, relieved. “North Star duty!” she called out encouragingly, flitting away to Taira’s aid. 

Dropping every precaution about stealth, Waqi lit themself up in a burst of blue flame. The fog lifted. Finally, finally, they could see their attackers, scattered in midair and on the banks of the lake; without the cloak of darkness, the Hauntings carried forms befitting creatures of earth, except far too big, and closer to humans in terms of gait and clarity of disruptive purpose. This assortment of aquatic bait froze in fear at Waqi’s explosion, even the overgrown shrimp that had Dhanab and Taira locked in battle. Waqi relished the look of shock on the monsters’ faces. Clearly, they hadn’t been expecting the North Star. 

Just as quickly, they recovered with shrill battle cries, and the inky fog wafted into the air once more. This time, Waqi was ready.

They shot lightning indiscriminately, warding off the first few human-sized black crustacean Hauntings that leapt up at them. The flame stayed steady all the way, keeping their sight clear throughout every scuffle. The effort of keeping up defenses still remained a liability. They could not take in a single iota of their surroundings if every moment was punctuated by a strike at the relentless Haunting flock.

“Clear me an opening!” Waqi yelled to their friends.

Practically before Waqi finished speaking, it was done. Dhanab seized telekinetic control of the flock’s edges, and Taira sped to take out anyone who dared step into Waqi’s radius. 

With newfound freedom, Waqi began a swift descent… and it allowed them a crucial glance at the mysteriously boiling lake.

A golden light flickered beneath, its glow coloring fire into the angry waters.

Sol.

Waqi didn’t think. They dove headfirst, the fall heating up their every inch. Hauntings cried out, attempted a poorly thought out deflection, but Waqi’s fire now radiated fatally. Just try it now, they dared the assassins. Naturally, not a single one met the challenge.

The saline water greeted them all at once. 

Any numbing power it might have had over Waqi was warded off by the burning field surrounding them. They had bigger concerns.

“You came,” said an unmistakable voice behind them, with a tone of never having expected anything else. “My one and only North Star.”

Waqi turned sharply to look at Sol, relief and frustration warring within them for the chance to guide their response. Neither got the chance, because an ink-black current hit them instead. 

The staggering force threw them back, until they wedged their feet against the lake floor and opened their wings. They summoned a field of energy, protecting them from the onslaught. Waqi stepped forward, fighting the water with all they had, and broke into a run. The Hauntings they rammed into crumpled at the slightest touch of fire. 

Waqi had help down here too. Sol’s pillar of flame, emboldened by the new arrival, burned brighter, working with Waqi’s to purify the waters. When the blackness cleared, the piscine Hauntings that cast the torrent at them instantly skittered away from fear. Good.

At long last, the sunny glow was uninhibited. Every malicious assassin who stood between Waqi and Sol had been vanquished. As for Sol himself, his wings had been folded down and forcibly fastened to a rock formation by the Hauntings’ signature viscous ink. His brilliant golden locks, plumes of flame that had been boiling the lake from underneath, finally settled into soft waves. Despite the tired, sunken shadows beneath his eyes, he beamed at his friend like nothing had happened.

“I take it you have questions,” Sol said, calm as ever.

“Oh, you don't know the half of it. Hold still!” Waqi struck Sol’s restraints with lightning, setting his wings free. Sol stumbled forward from the sudden unshackling, and Waqi moved to steady him. “Do you need a moment?”

Any sign of weakness faded as his eyes flashed with clear offense. “Who in the everloving skies do you think I am?” 

Waqi laughed. There he was. “I was only making sure. Come on!” 

They seized his arm, guiding him to the surface until his wings recovered enough to pull his own weight. Waqi made it to the surface first, taking in the taste of pure wind and then turning to help Sol onto solid ground. A clear night sky shone above them, decorated with stars, free of any fog. The smell of charred flesh and the odd black puddle on the bank were the only signs that Hauntings had even been there.

“Well done,” Sol said, finally allowing Waqi to unclench their muscles. He’d said the word, so the fight was over.

A short distance away, Dhanab stood over Taira, no doubt fussing endlessly over every minor scratch Taira had sustained during her scuffle with the shrimp Haunting. All the while, Taira stared at her, smiling like she’d won something beyond the fight, not making a single move to stop her. Waqi rolled their eyes fondly. Those two could accomplish untold feats exemplifying every Star ideal, and still act afterward more like illicitly close adolescent human girls.

Sol strode toward them. “I see I have you two to thank for this infestation’s defeat.”

Dhanab jumped to attention, rushing to adjust her scarf. “My king! It is… an immeasurable relief to see you again.”

He laughed good naturedly, extending a hand to help Taira to her feet. “Are you alright?”

She took it. “That shrimp was far sturdier than he looked.”

“You must forgive me for the confusion this must have caused,” Sol said, and Waqi made a considerable effort to not bite back in the presence of their friends. “As valiantly as you fought, I never like having to send you all into Haunting territory.”

Taira scoffed. “You didn’t need us, my king. We all saw how you boiled the lake. Waqi told us on the way you were probably destroying them already, and they were right!”

Sol turned to Waqi, an unspoken question in his eyes. Waqi met his eyes meaningfully. Later, they tried to tell him.

Dhanab cleared her throat. “There’s still the matter of… the early sunset,” she said, thankfully changing the subject. “The humans were very shaken up.”

“Ah,” Sol said, glaring at the sky with truly personal resentment. “An unfortunate side effect of my… divergence, after the assassination attempt.” He stood up straighter. “No matter. The irregularities will be smoothed over by next morning. And our North Star here can convey the desired story to the secret keepers.”

“What?” Waqi protested. “Please don’t make me talk to Tusi again! He’s insufferable!”

The other three laughed, because Waqi’s misfortune was the joke that united them all. Some friends, Waqi thought, though they couldn’t stop their smile. 

Taira stretched out her arms. They cracked painfully, sending out sparks, but she pretended not to notice. “Well, that’s taken care of. I should check Maragha’s parameter for any runaways.”

“Absolutely not,” Sol scolded. “Dhanab, get her straight home and make sure she doesn’t set a single wingbeat out until next sunrise. This is an order.”

Already at attention, Dhanab grabbed Taira’s hand and spread her wings. “Yes, my king! Let’s go, Waqi.”

“You two go ahead,” they said, mustering all the cheer they could. “I need to speak with the king.”

It was a common enough request that the two didn’t think twice about. Waqi watched as arm in arm, Dhanab and Taira took off into the sky, chattering between themselves about plans for the next day. 

Once they were sure the two were out of earshot, Waqi punched Sol in the face.

Sol, naturally, barely flinched. “And here I thought you’d be the bigger Star about this,” he said flatly.

Waqi swung another fist, overflowing with everything they’d been holding back. “The bigger Star? You—” They pointed an accusing, lightning infused finger, giving up all pretense of being the unbothered North Star. “—scared the absolute shit out of me, you know that?”

Sol sighed. “Of course. I realize it was not ideal, but—”

“I had to tell them you were fine.” Breathlessly, they laughed, because the absurdity didn’t let them react any other way. “I mean, even after the sunset, I’d seen the state of your home. And I had to look them in the eyes and tell them you weren’t in trouble. And all this time, the Hauntings actually overpowered you, imprisoned you in a fucking lake? They could’ve hurt you, or worse!” 

“They could have done no such thing,” Sol said, so emphatically that it actually gave Waqi pause. “I was in no danger. I knew you’d come.”

“Oh, please…”

Sol took their shoulders and stared them right in the eye. Quietly, with terrifying emphasis, he said, “I let them capture me.” 

Waqi froze, at a loss for words.

“I had no time to decide.” He spoke hurriedly, like he needed to make Waqi understand in the shortest time possible. “The assassins came, and all I could think was, are there others nearby, and will they hurt the other Stars if I don’t act? I allowed my home to be ransacked, and I allowed them the false sense of confidence to imprison me. And… the plan had been to do away with them all once they took me to their base, but…”

“The lake,” Waqi finished. “And the darkness, and the combined force of the flock. Just one of those three at a time you could’ve taken. Not all at once.”

“It did not end me, or even hurt much. It did worse, momentarily weakening me enough that I couldn’t fight back. I counted on you to finish it for me.” Finally taking a breath, he smiled. “And you did.”

Any trace of lingering anger Waqi might have harbored evaporated. They pulled Sol into an embrace, taking great pleasure in the fact that he, eternal king of Stars, melted into it instantly. “You know I always will,” they said, and they meant it. Sol was put on such a pedestal by other Stars, and Waqi knew how thin he was spread because of it. They were the one person he had to fall back on; this was the least they could do. “Still, for the love of the skies, never pull something like this again. Your grand kingly plans are going to be the death of me.”

“But you cannot die.”

“I’m also best friends with a king who believes the basic principles of reality are optional,” they joked, letting go of the hug. “It’s safer to not take anything for granted.”

“That sounds fair,” Sol conceded. “All of this aside, I will ask you… keep the reality of this day between us.”

Waqi nodded. As if they needed to be told. “I’m not your trusted North Star for nothing.” They beat their wings twice and rose, itching to take to a clear sky for the first time that day. “Get up here!” they called down to Sol. 

“To where?” he said with a laugh. “You know what became of my home.”

Besides, the king was missing. All normality went out the window, did it not?

Before the horrific implications of the thought had time to sink in, Polaris assaulted his own ears with a haphazard, five-string melody, still preferable to the alternative. “Don’t think,” he warned himself. “Just keep going...” 

Impossibly fast footsteps pierced through his sound bubble. Polaris placed them immediately from the speed, but was allowed no time to brace for the nonsense before the door flung open.

“Oh,” Arcturus said, perpetual frown deepening as he realized they were the only ones in the room. “It’s just you.”

“Unfortunately,” Polaris agreed. He shoved the guitar below the table so no inconvenient questions would come his way. “How have you been?”

He blinked. “You saw me literally just a few hours ago for a mission report.”

“Ah.” Had he? Polaris couldn’t remember. Time and conversations blended together into white noise lately. All he was sure about was that four days ago, the sun went dark. “Well. Clearly, your ‘report’ was only part useful information and mostly undue criticism, then.”

Arcturus stiffened, letting Polaris know the accusation was on point. Though frankly, it was not a hard guess. “It’s completely warranted, actually. How long do you plan to sit around and—”

“For skies’ sake, Arc, leave him alone.” Procyon entered, hand in hand with Sirius. “I swear, the world could end and you still wouldn't stop sniping pointlessly.”

Arcturus stepped back to let both of them through, still scowling at Polaris. “He started this one.”

“Sure he did,” Sirius said, though the strained smile beneath his mask did not reach his eyes. He nodded toward Polaris. “All set?”

By now, Polaris knew the question was a formality and the answer carried just as little significance, but he met it with an affirmative smile regardless, moving his guitar even further out of view. 

Stars filed into the room, each with their own extended opinion piece on the situation. Polaris listened, because that was his job. He had to make a conscious effort to avoid mentally compiling the information into easy reports for the king.

Focus. He isn’t here right now, Polaris kept telling himself. You, however, are. Make it count.

Just as he was about to begin, one glaringly empty seat gave him pause. He addressed the gathered Stars, all occupied in talking amongst themselves. “Has anyone seen Ri—”

The skylight burst open, allowing in a freezing gust of wind. The building’s walls lost their glow for a moment, flickering dangerously. Stars closest to the center of the room ducked for cover, but they didn’t need to, because Rigel flew in. He promptly summoned a temporary net above everyone’s heads to stand by as he pulled the skylight securely shut. Furious raindrops, successfully stopped, continued to splash across the panes. 

Relief filled the room, cut short by a thunderous peal from within. Everyone’s heads turned in Polaris’ direction.

“Hey!” Arcturus grabbed Polaris’ hand before it drifted below to reach for the guitar, fixing him with an impatient glare. “Get it together. Start the goddamn meeting.”

Polaris straightened up, face warm with embarrassment as he collected himself. The unintentional booming sound he had let loose subsided. “Thank you all for coming,” he said, eager to move past the moment of weakness. “Rigel, I believe we should begin with you.”

Rigel, still recovering and taking his seat, snapped to attention. He cursed under his breath, not quietly enough to slip by Polaris. Though, to be fair, not many things could evade his hearing unless he wanted them to. Sirius gave Rigel an encouraging squeeze on the shoulder. 

“Uh. I didn’t find Bett.” Rigel pointed at the mess above the skylight. “Obviously. Cyon tracked the explosions well, but every time I got to a place… Bett was already somewhere else.”

“There’s no way for me to account for the storms either,” Procyon added.

Polaris nodded. “Stars keep falling to this… Abyss sickness. The few we were able to catch are contained in the cell block for everyone’s safety. More powerful ones evade us, like Betelgeuse.”

Methuselah cleared her throat from the far end of the table. “Forgetting to mention someone, are we, North Star?”

Polaris sighed. “It’s hardly a matter anyone can forget,” he said carefully. “Our searches for the king have come up empty. We have at least one scouting group out for him at all hours, and yet…”

“This is a problem,” Arcturus said, as if anyone needed to be told. “And clearly, sitting around isn’t an option. If we don’t take this on now—”

“We don’t know what we’re up against!” Polaris retaliated. “The only person on this island who would is…” He trailed off. There was no need to finish.

Rigel stared at him. “Are you saying we should give up? Be okay with losing our people?”

“That isn’t what I—” he began, but it was no use. 

“Whether or not we want it, they are gone,” Methuselah said. “Lost causes, if the Abyss has tainted them so.”

And that was it. He’d lost them. The room devolved into panic and heated argument. Rigel’s panic, Procyon’s emergency data, Methuselah’s call to tradition, Arcturus’ need for immediate action, everyone’s terror about being the next to fall… all of it collided in a cacophony, transcending the peace and diplomacy that had been the lynchpin keeping together Polaris’ stint as North Star. Worse, he didn’t have the king to back him up.

Polaris heard every shouted point in exhaustive detail and finally had enough. He brought a fist down hard on the table, the boom shocking everyone into silence. “Stop,” Polaris said, “acting like he’s gone!” 

When he looked up, every Star’s eyes were wide, trained on him. Usually, that amount of attention would be accompanied by smiles, because it would be directed toward a song Polaris played, or a celebratory announcement of the king’s entrance.

Now, all he saw in those faces was desperation laid bare.

“The darkness that overtook the sun lasted one hour,” he went on, speaking from the heart. “Because he is still out there. The sun goes on rising, clouded as it might be, because he will return to us! This is a difficult time, but if you’ll all do everyone a favor and have the slightest modicum of faith in the eternal pillar of Stardom… well. That will do us a far greater service than endless, futile dispute in the eye of a storm, don’t you agree?”

Polaris sat back down, tentatively studying the reactions. Rigel and some others, he’d successfully calmed, while the rest at least got something to chew on. Even Arcturus eyed him with some small amount of surprise.

Sirius slowly raised a hand. 

“Please,” Polaris said, motioning for him to go on. It was only right for the highest ranked Star present to speak. “The sky is yours.”

“Your words are all true,” he said. “But still, as it stands now… tomorrow marks our fifth day with no sign of the king in sight.”

Polaris’ prepared reassurance died on his tongue at the strange emphasis Sirius placed on the time. He wasn’t the only one who noticed, either. Rigel’s eyes regained the light they’d lost in the past days. Arcturus sank deeper into his seat with a quiet “Shit…”, while Methuselah hardened her gaze, as if warning everyone present to choose their words wisely.

“Polaris,” Sirius continued. “As North Star, you’ve sworn to be the voice of the Stars and Sol’s trusted second. His crown is still formally in your keeping, right?”

He nodded, confused about why he was being asked. Of course he still had it; Sol had entrusted it to him during the Equinox and tasked him with renewing its light. More whispers drifted across the room, but instead of panic, they carried… hope.

Why did that scare Polaris even more?

“Then it’s settled,” Sirius said, and looked at Polaris as if to apologize in advance for what he was about to say. “If Sol’s not back by tomorrow… you take the throne until he is.”

Arcturus let out a disbelieving laugh. “Acting king Polaris,” he said, with a note of abject horror that matched Polaris’ own. “We’re doomed.”