The Falling Stars of Mooncrest Bay, By Makaila Odoom, Part 10

The Falling Stars of Mooncrest Bay, By Makaila Odoom

Part 10

I reluctantly followed Kaspar out of his meeting room, unsure of why I was trusting him at all.

We walked down a long hallway, lined with cyan carpet.  The hallway seemed to be lit by star-shaped lamps hanging from the ceiling. The walls were lined with portraits of past rulers. People with ornate clothing and jewelry, all wearing the same exact crowns that Kaspar and The Betrayer were wearing.

There were no other doors in sight on the walls.

I struggled to keep up with Kaspar. He was at least 6’ 5”, and he took very long strides.

“Can… you… slow… down?” I panted, running to keep up with him.

He did not slow down.

“Ugh,” I grunted. "You’re insufferable.”

“Your complaining isn’t going to get us there any faster,” Kaspar grumbled.

I ignored him. “How long is this hallway?”

More important question: how had I ended up in that room?

“Relax. We’re almost there.”

I got a glimpse of the door in front of us.

I may have been exaggerating a little, but the door looked as tiny as a piece of paper. 

We were, in fact, not almost there.

After several more minutes of walking, we finally reached the door. It was a normal looking wooden door. But when Kaspar opened it…

My jaw dropped.

The door led to outside, to the middle of the castle, where the most magical garden I had ever seen was.

There were bushes on either side of us, a pathway of stone in between the bushes, which were blooming with no flower I had ever seen before. They looked like a mix of lilies and cosmos, dark blue petals fading into a light blue color.

Behind the bushes, there were patches of different flowers everywhere, each one in a different shade of blue, pink, or purple, some even green. 

Tiny insects drifted around the flowers glittering like floating stars. Little lizards darted under bushes. If starlight had a scent, I imagined it would smell like this. 

But the most magical thing had to be the enormous willow tree in the center of it all.

It was beautiful, most likely thousands of years old, and the leaves were dark blue. Blue! 

The branches moved, leaves rustling softly whenever the wind brushed through them.

There was a white bench sitting at the base of the tree.

I stood there, taking it all in. Then I looked up at the sky. It was surprisingly very bright. The sun was out in all its glory.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Kaspar smiled. “You should see the garden at night.”

“I don’t know if I want to come back here if the only way is through that long hallway.” That was a lie. I would want to come back here no matter what.

Kaspar laughed. “There are other ways to get here that don’t take as much effort. There are four other entrances.”

He pointed behind the bushes to the right, where there was another border of bushes a few meters away.

Kaspar started walking towards the willow tree, I followed behind.

“And we couldn’t have gone through there?”

“Nope,” he said, giving no explanation.

I rolled my eyes. “Well? Are you going to tell me what you brought me here for?”

“I brought you here to tell your story…and Cressida’s.”

I was never going to get used to that name

I ducked down under the hanging leaves as we made it to the bench. Kaspar sat down, and I sat next to him… as far away as possible.

“Why doesn’t she tell me herself?” I asked.

He raised an eyebrow. “You mean to tell me that you would listen to her if she tried to tell you?”

I frowned. “Most likely not.”

Kaspar nodded. “Exactly. So, are you ready to listen now?”

I crossed my arms. “Sure.”

“Cressida’s story is long, and complicated, but I will do my best to explain.” He took a deep breath, staring at a glowing bug buzzing past before speaking.

“She was born here, in Alcyone…as an orphan. Her mother is presumed to have died during birth. No one ever found out who her father was…they think he left Cressida’s mother when he found out she was having a baby.

“When the neighbors heard Cressida’s cries, they came to check on her mother, finding Cressida, alone. She was taken into an orphanage, where she lived for the majority of her childhood. She had no friends. Cressida shut everyone out.

“Back then, when the girls at the orphanage turned ten years old, they were sent to work in the palace, as maids.

When Cressida was sent, she was assigned to my quarters. I saw her every day. She never spoke. I found her fascinating. I thought she was never going to speak to me, until one day, she saw me reading a book of Astral fairytales.”

Kaspar smiled, his eyes glazed over as if he was reliving that very moment.

“She asked me about the book, and we started talking about our favorite stories. Turns out we had a lot more in common than we thought. We started to spend every possible moment together. I would help her clean, we would talk, play games… one time I even snuck her to the Palace Library. We never got caught. My parents were always too busy thinking of themselves to care what their children were doing. They didn’t ever talk to me. When Orion was born a year later, they had maids to take care of him. It was very easy to evade my parents, and the palace staff was too busy taking care of them to notice Cressida and I.”

“You two were best friends?” I asked Kaspar.

He nodded. “We were inseparable. It stayed that way for a long time, until Cressida turned twelve. The girls at the orphanage didn’t even get their birthdays off work, so I threw Cressida a party in the Palace Library. It was just us two. I had snuck a cake from the Palace Kitchen, and I gave her three of my favorite books. That brief moment, when she had seen what I'd done for her… it was the happiest I’d ever seen her. I wish I could go back to that moment, maybe I would’ve been able to prevent what happened next.”

Kaspar squeezed his eyes closed. He looked so genuinely sad that I actually felt a little bad for him.

He took a deep breath, opening his eyes.

“A big factor of Astral Shifting is that you’re affected by strong emotions, especially when your powers kick in for the first time. Well, that moment was the first time for Cressida. She turned herself into a unicorn. Right there in the library.” He chuckled softly, staring at his hands folded in his lap.  “A unicorn.”

He looked up at me.

“The bakers in the kitchen had reported a missing cake to my parents. Of course, they decided one of their caes going missing was an important thing to look into. I guess they figured that it was me who took the cake, because they both walked into the library, yelling for me, as soon as Cressida changed.”

“They were mad?” I guessed when Kaspar paused.

He shook his head. “They were thrilled actually. Not about finding out that I stole the cake. But about learning that a commoner girl had one of the High-Ranking Astral powers. Only Astral royalty had the High-Ranking powers, meaning that Cressida had royal blood, from… somewhere.”

Kaspar cleared his throat. “After Cressida had calmed down, and turned back into herself, my parents announced that they were arranging a marriage for us.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Our friendship slowly started to fall apart after that, even though we weren’t getting married until we turned twenty-one. Cressida was moved into her own wing of the castle. We started speaking less and less, even though we were so close to each other. It was so awkward… seeing your best friend, knowing that you would be forced to marry them in a few years. I’ve always thought that if we stayed friends, we would have ended up falling in love on our own eventually, but being forced… messed everything up.

“Anyway… two years later, Cressida had been training with the best Astral Shifter in Alcyone. She had mastered it. We still rarely talked. Seren was born a few months earlier. For the most part, everything was normal… until you showed up.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Me?”

Kaspar nodded. “Yes. Someone had left you on the steps of the castle, with nothing but the clothes you were wearing. A three-year-old, just dumped. There truly are so many monsters in the world. My parents included. They wanted to leave you to die.”

“W-what?” My voice broke, I felt the world closing in again. “They wanted me dead?”

“Cressida didn’t let that happen. She brought you in. She helped the maids take care of you. She loved you. She still does.”

“So, Chrystie and I… aren’t actually related?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer. How could we be?

“You aren’t,” Kaspar admitted. “But that doesn’t matter, Lila. How far she’ll go for you, what she would do for you… it doesn’t come down to blood. It comes down to love. Cressida may not tell me much anymore, but she doesn't need words for me to know how much she cares for you. She loves you… so much.”

He was so sure of himself. I could see it in his eyes when he looked up at me… but, “Then why did she lie to me?” My voice wobbled. “You should never hide things from the people you love.”

“She had no choice,” he said. “The reason you grew up in the human world is because when you turned five, the castle was attacked by the Achlysians. You were the first one they found. If Cressida hadn’t been there to protect you…” He trailed off and I gulped. “She knew it was no longer safe for you there, so she ran away with you, getting someone to starstep you to the human world. She was only sixteen and couldn’t take care of you alone. I had given Cressida all the money I had collected on my visits to Earth. It wasn’t enough and she needed help, so she created the illusions of your mother and grandmother.” He said, and my heart broke all over again. Kaspar saw my broken expression and said, “They may have been illusions, but when an Astral Shifter makes an illusion, they put a tiny part of themselves in it. When your mother and grandmother were with you it was always her. I’m telling you, Lila… you have no idea how much she loves you.”

I shook my head, trying to ignore what he had said. “You said she was sixteen when she left, but if I was five… then how is that possible if she’s eighteen now?” I asked.

“Lila… she’s twenty-five.”

At this point, I was used to constant shocking revelations that this one didn’t bother me that much.

“Oh. Okay. Well… anyway, who are the Achlysians?” I asked.

“The Achlysians are the strongest group of rebels the Astraborn have ever faced. They are against everything the Astraborn stand for, their powers can reverse Astral magic, but no one has been able to figure out how. Their hideout is unknown. Their goal is to have control over every nation on this planet, beginning with taking over each of the Seven Sisters, starting with Alcyone.”

My astronomer brain kicked in. “OH! Your kingdom was named after the star Alcyone! Alcyone is the biggest of the Seven Sisters.”

Kaspar nodded. “Exactly. I assumed that they chose to target us first because we are the biggest kingdom. I thought they wanted to make a statement to the other kingdoms, by taking the largest one first. But now, I look back and I think… what if they knew who you were and came for you?”

My eyes widened. “How is that possible? You didn’t even know I was the Starlight Bearer until this morning!”

“True, but the Achlysians have things that we don’t. They have the ability to corrupt their powers to take, instead of to give. Maybe, they felt how powerful and bright you were, even without your abilities being activated.”

I blinked. “So, they want me?” I asked.

Kaspar frowned. “It’s possible.”

He took a deep breath before continuing the story. “Before our soldiers could drive the Achlysians out, they killed my parents.”

I gasped. “I’m so sorry.” I really was this time.

Kaspar shook his head. “It’s okay. At the time I expected to be devastated, but I never actually had any real relationship with my parents. None of my brothers did either. I got over it quickly. Then I realized that meant that I was to take the throne. I couldn’t officially become king until I turned twenty-one, but I had to rule under a regent until then. So, I did. You grew up on Earth with Cressida. The Achlysians didn’t attack again. I let Cressida know that everything was fine. Then I turned twenty-one. Even though I became king, I still couldn’t get out of my marriage to Cressida. It was in both my parents’ wills that we get married. No way out of it. So, we did. Cressida spent most of her time on Earth with you, but there were times she had to come back. She came at night and during the summer so no one would suspect anything… so you wouldn’t suspect anything. Again, everything was fine. Until a month before your fourteenth birthday.

“The Achlysians returned. Not physically, but with a warning.”

Kaspar seemed to stare into my soul.

“The Falling Stars of Mooncrest Bay.”

My eyes widened. “It’s them.”

He nodded slowly. “The Achlysians are cutting off the connection the stars have to the universe… and sending them right into your town.”