Koren held the box in her shaking hands. She stared at the button, then at Exodus as it dimmed further while the Reflections Crystal brightened.
Cassabrie rose to her knees and clasped her hands, the tube tight within. “Koren, I beg you. You must push the button. I am weakening. The battle is raging outside. Your fellow slaves are dying. We have only seconds before ultimate disaster can no longer be avoided.”
“But Jason and Elyssa might come and—”
“This is our world, Koren! Our friends from Darksphere are here to help, but time has run out, and they cannot be the guiding light the people need. Only you have enough knowledge and wisdom to see this through. Only you will be able to apply the prophetic words, the true meaning of ‘The slaves must take her blood and bone.’ When you push the button, you will understand.”
Koren closed her eyes. The image of the barrier wall’s destruction flashed to her mind. Huge boulders had flown in every direction. Only an impossibly powerful force could break apart and fling weights like those. Such an explosion would rip Cassabrie to tiny pieces and scatter her remains hundreds of feet away. How could she brutally destroy someone so wonderful, so beautiful, so loving? In a very real way, she would be the one butchering Cassabrie, only worse.
“Push the button, Koren.”
“I can’t.”
“You have to.”
“I won’t.”
“You must.”
“There has to be another way.”
“There isn’t. See for yourself.”
Slaves filled the room in a semitransparent copy of the portico floor. As they sat in haphazard array, Elyssa rushed from one to the other, passing around finger dabs of ointment from a little bowl. The slaves helped each other rub it in to their abdomens. Soldiers stood at the perimeter of the floor, swinging swords and spears at attacking dragons, staving them off.
“Taushin has given the order to kill all the humans,” Cassabrie said. “He thinks you are dead, so he has no reason to keep them alive.”
The scene pulled back, providing a perspective from the air. Flames spewed from the Basilica’s bell tower. Dragons blew fire on the roof of the Zodiac’s portico, setting it ablaze. As it burned, screams pierced the dome room from the real-life corridor. Smoke passed in front of Koren in thin streams, like the fingers of a ghost.
A shout erupted. “Get out! Everyone! Down the stairs!”
The scene returned to ground level. Jason appeared, carrying two children down the portico stairs. A dragon swooped at him, but Magnar dove in and blocked it with his body. When the two collided, Jason ducked under both. The dragons crashed to the steps and battled, wings and tails thrashing.
Elyssa followed Jason. With an infant in her arms and an old woman on her back, she bent low and hobbled past the fighting dragons before joining Jason at the bottom of the stairs.
White dragons blew ice at the escaping slaves while the Southlands dragons blew fire. One slave after another either froze in place or erupted in flames. Although several hundred slaves remained, they wouldn’t last long.
Jason stood next to Elyssa, each still carrying a child. A smoky breeze blew back their hair. Bloody soot streamed down their faces. With their free hands, they interlocked their fingers and leaned their heads together.
The vision evaporated, but screams and dragon roars continued to rush in from the entrance.
Cassabrie sighed. “The valiant warriors from Darksphere cannot come to our aid, Koren, and they cannot win. They hoped for more allies from their world, but they did not come, so you must be their ally. Unless you do as I ask, all will be lost. I am the liberator, and you must send me out to the battle so I can set the slaves free.”
Koren stared at the control box. It vibrated in her trembling hands. As she slid her thumb toward the button, sobs erupted. “Cassabrie …” Her voice cracked. “Cassabrie, I love you…. You said … you said we’d have a nice talk someday … I need to know how to be a better Starlighter … a better Starlighter like you.”
“Shh, dear Koren. Fear not. We will talk again someday at the Creator’s hearth where fires bring only comfort. You are a wonderful Starlighter, and I love you with all my heart.”
Cassabrie folded her arms around the tube, knelt, and closed her eyes. After taking in a deep breath, she sighed and said no more.
Koren held her thumb over the button. How could she kill this beautiful angel? Might it be possible for the Creator to decide? There was still one other option. The explosive tube could detonate on its own, like the one at the barrier wall did. If the Creator wanted Cassabrie to sacrifice herself, maybe he could detonate the tube. Or maybe the Creator could keep Cassabrie alive and destroy all the dragons another way.
Koren looked up at the sky. Creator, do I push it? Or will you take care of everything in some way I can’t see?
Another scream shot into the room. “Oh, dear Creator help us! They’re dying! They’re all dying!”
Her hand shaking violently, Koren set her thumb directly over the button. I need an answer, and I need it now.
Twenty-Two
Holding Reesa in one arm, Jason locked fingers with Elyssa and leaned his head against hers. Smoke billowed from the portico roof. Dragons whipped it into tight swirls as they flew around and under the covering. The protective line of soldiers had been breached. At least twenty had fallen to either fire or ice, and now a mass of slaves ran, shuffled, or limped down the stairs, escaping the inferno. Those who had received the medicine carried, pushed, or dragged those who had selflessly declined treatment in deference to others. Now with the ointment gone, more than half of the slaves were near death, including Reesa’s father, Dorman, who lay somewhere in the battle zone, a place too dangerous for Reesa to venture.
Although Fellina had joined Magnar, they were no match for the combination of the Benefile and Taushin’s forces. Even now, they fought valiantly, but two dragons against more than twenty amounted to impossible odds. Randall lay in the butcher’s shop where two women worked on his wounds, but whether or not he would live was uncertain. Tibalt’s corpse lay there as well. Wallace had carried him all the way from the forest, and now, with the disease ravaging his body and his energy almost drained, he rested outside the shop, carving a hunk of wood.
Taushin sat on the roof of the Zodiac, well away from the flames, while Mallerin battled ferociously. Hefty in girth, the she-dragon did a lot of damage by colliding with Magnar and deflecting him from battle. At least her activity kept Taushin from seeing well. He had to sit and wait.
“Are you giving up?” Elyssa asked.
“Never.” Jason transferred Reesa to Elyssa’s free arm. “First I have to get Koren out of there, and maybe Deference. Unless something went wrong, she should have given Koren the key by now.”
“Watch out!” Reesa said, pointing upward. “Here comes another dragon!”
From the north, a dragon zoomed across the sky, faster than any taking part in the battle. Elyssa set the children down and followed the path of flight with her stare, as if probing from afar. “It’s Xenith.”
Xenith passed by with barely a look and rushed toward the plateau. Within seconds, she faded into the smoky air.
“Is she too scared to fight?” Reesa asked.
Jason shook his head. “Not Xenith. I don’t know what she’s up to, but she looks like she’s on a mission.” He drew his sword and ran toward the stairs. Even if the floor of the corridor lay open, he’d get inside somehow. Maybe he could flag down Fellina and ride her to —
A loud explosion rocked the ground. Jason and everyone else toppled over, and the impulse tossed the dragons’ flight paths away from the Zodiac.
Jason rolled up to his seat. From the Zodiac, a plume of blue smoke and shimmering sparks shot into the air. The portico roof fell, but few if any slaves remained under it. Then the rest of the building collapsed in a billowing cloud of dust. Taushin leapt from his perch just in time and fluttered to the street, too blind to go anywhere else.
>
The sparks rained all around, tiny pink spheres no bigger than stardrops. They bounced before settling to the cobblestones, sizzling and slowly shrinking. A few pelted Jason, but they bounced off without doing harm. The slaves brushed the spheres away and stared at them.
Shrieks sounded from above. Beth crashed to the ground, her wings covered in flames. As more spheres rained on her, new flames erupted. Fire engulfed her entire body. The other two white dragons fell nearby, each one ablaze.
Mallerin retrieved Taushin, and they flew with the other Southlands dragons out of the rain of scalding spheres. They landed a few hundred paces away and watched the sparkling shower.
Magnar and Fellina settled between the other dragons and the humans, gasping for breath. The surviving soldiers, including Edison, Frederick, and Captain Reed, formed a line near the two dragon allies and faced the enemy dragons.
Jason jumped up and ran toward the Zodiac’s rubble. He stopped at the edge and stared. “Koren?” he called. “Deference?”
A mop of dirty red hair rose from the debris, then a head, shoulders, and a torso. Crumbling stones fell at her side until she fully straightened. It seemed that a vaporous crown of light rested on her head, though it faded in and out of visibility.
Jason tried to call her name again, but only a whisper emerged. “Koren.”
She slogged through the rubble. Chains weighed down her wrists, each one dragging a floor tile. Tears streaming down her dirty face, she pointed at the street. “Everyone—” She coughed out a cloud of dust, then continued in a choked voice. “Everyone has to swallow one of the stardrops! It’s the only way you can be healed!”
Jason ran to her and helped her out to the street. “Swallow a stardrop? Are you sure? Most of them got some medicine, maybe only the ones who didn’t get any should —”
“No!” Koren bent over and scooped up a stardrop. “Tell everyone to hurry! The stardrops won’t last long!” She laid it on her tongue and swallowed. As it went down, she closed her eyes and sighed. “Cassabrie,” she whispered as she lowered herself to her knees. “Thank you.”
Jason swallowed with her, imagining the torturous heat passing through her esophagus. How could she stand the pain?
Koren’s eyes shot wide open. She clutched her stomach and bent over, wailing, “Oh! Oh! Dear Creator! What
are you doing?” Her face turned redder than her hair, and white smoke poured from her mouth.
“Elyssa!” Jason shouted. “Hurry!”
Elyssa sprinted to Koren’s side, her pendant swaying in front. While Jason helped Koren lie on her back, Elyssa pressed a hand on Koren’s chest.
“I found the stardrop,” Elyssa said. “It’s burning inside, like a fiery cyclone attacking everything it touches.”
While Koren continued writhing and moaning, hundreds of slaves gathered around, some with worried expressions, others with skeptical frowns. Reesa pushed through the crowd and knelt next to Koren, saying nothing.
A middle-aged man picked up a stardrop, then let it fall. “It’s as hot as a burning coal. You’d have to be crazy to swallow one of those.”
“They have a point,” Jason whispered to Elyssa. “I know how hot those things are, and if it’s burning Koren, who would want to swallow one?”
Elyssa shook her head hard. “That’s not what I meant. The fire is burning the disease inside her, not her organs. It has to burn away the infection, or she can’t be healed.”
The older man lifted his shirt, showing healthy skin. “I don’t need one. I’m already healed.”
Others echoed his claim, while still others pushed closer, their ulcerated faces reflecting their desperation.
Jason touched a stardrop sitting on the ground, already slightly smaller than when they had first fallen. As it sizzled, a thousand thoughts tumbled into each other. What happened in the Zodiac? Where was Cassabrie?
Why did Koren make sure she stayed in the dome room? How could she have survived the explosion?
Then, as if a Starlighter had fanned out a cloak in his mind, the entire tale came to life — a tale that began at the dawn of Starlight, a tale of noble sacrifice, a tale of selfless love—all personified in the hearts of a pair of green-eyed redheads.
He picked up the shining little sphere and gazed into its pink radiance. “Cassabrie!”
Elyssa squinted at him. “What?”
“I’ll explain later! We have to get people to swallow these stardrops!” He opened his mouth and tossed the sphere in, then swallowed it as quickly as he could. The heat going down wasn’t as bad as expected. Even when it dropped into his stomach, it didn’t burn much at all.
Koren gasped for breath, her eyes still closed as she cried out, “Oh, it burns! It burns!”
Jason touched the wound where the litmus finger had been cut out. Unlike in Koren, the disease in him hadn’t had time to spread much at all.
He jumped to his feet and pointed at a stardrop. “They’re dwindling!” he called out. “Don’t lose your chance! Swallow one before they’re gone!”
“Not me,” a man said. “I’m fine, and I sure don’t want to go through what Koren’s going through.”
Elyssa grabbed as many stardrops as she could carry in her cupped hands. “Jason. No time to argue with anyone. Just spread the word and feed the children. Don’t let any stubborn adults stop you.”
“Right.” Jason nodded toward the butcher’s shop. “Give one to Randall. He’ll help us once he’s healed.”
“On my way.” Elyssa took off in a dead run.
Jason clutched a stardrop, ignoring the pain, and scooped Koren into his arms—chains, tiles, and all. He pushed through the crowd and climbed to the top of the Zodiac’s remains. Koren squirmed, still moaning loudly enough to draw attention. Her face glowed with a pink hue but likely not brightly enough for others to notice. Although she lay horizontally, the crown stayed on her head, just a ring of glowing glitter that adhered to her scalp.
When everyone looked Jason’s way, he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Hear me! Everyone must swallow a stardrop! Yes, it will hurt. Yes, you will suffer, maybe as much or more than Koren did, but if you don’t take one, you will die. Cassabrie herself—her flesh, blood, and bone—is within these stardrops. She gave everything so you could be healed. Don’t waste it. Time is running out.”
A buzz passed across the crowd. Some scrambled for the stardrops and began swallowing them and passing them around, while others looked on, unmoved. Grumbles filtered into the hum, expressions of disgust at consuming someone’s body.
“Father!” Jason called. “Bring the men! Distribute the stardrops to those who want them and can’t get them, and make sure the children swallow them.”
Led by Edison and Frederick, the men marched into the crowd, collecting stardrops along the way. Soon they were dispensing them as ordered, though many slaves still refused to take them.
Seconds after swallowing stardrops, slaves began writhing in pain. Cries of anguish rose all around. It seemed that with each new cry, more people declined taking the stardrops, no matter how passionately the soldiers tried to persuade them
Finally, the soldiers each swallowed a stardrop and waited silently for the reaction. Some knelt and looked toward the sky. In the distance, the Southlands dragons arrayed themselves in a line, facing the remains of the Zodiac while Mallerin and Taushin stood in front of them. Smoke shot from their nostrils, and their ears flared. Apparently Taushin was getting them riled up for the next battle.
Still cradling Koren, Jason surveyed the crowd. Reesa knelt near Dorman, combing through his hair as he shook violently, his face flushed. Many of the soldiers clutched their stomachs, including Edison and the captain, though they and the younger children didn’t appear to be suffering as badly as most.
Soon all the remaining stardrops dwindled to nothing, but it seemed that everyone who wanted the new cure had been able to receive it. Yet, who could tell when the cure would take effect? Although Koren had become quiet, sh
e still hadn’t recovered. Others who had been in pain also settled, and they emanated a similar pinkish glow from their skin. Time would tell if true healing was taking place.
Jason looked at the Southlands dragons again. As he watched, they spread out their wings and beat them against the still air, not launching themselves into the sky yet, but as if limbering themselves up in preparation for another attack. With nearly everyone incapacitated and vulnerable, they would meet very little resistance. Whether the cure would work or not, the slaves might soon succumb to another plague, one of teeth, claws, and flames.
“Jason?” Koren blinked at him, her face tear-stained and dirty, though no longer glowing.
“Are you all right?” he asked, leaning over her once more.
“I think so. Let me try to stand.”
He set her gently on her feet. The chains jingled, and the tiles clanked on the debris. She wobbled for a moment but quickly steadied herself. “I think I’m fine.”
“Is the disease gone?”
She laid a hand over her stomach. “For good this time. I’m sure of it.”
“That’s great!” He grasped her shoulders, but when her eyes showed no sign of joy, he slid back. “What’s wrong?”
New tears trickled. “She’s gone, Jason. Cassabrie is gone. I watched her explode into thousands of pieces. Deference is gone, too. The Reflections Crystal swallowed her, and the explosion smashed it.”
Jason scanned the debris. No sign of the glimmering girl appeared across the collection of rocks, glass, and toppled columns. “They’re not gone forever. It’s impossible. Their spirits have to exist somewhere.”
“I wish we could find out for sure.” From the rubble, Koren grabbed a corner of a piece of blue fabric. As she pulled, rocks peeled away, revealing her cloak — scorched, tattered, and dirty, but fairly intact. Within the folds, a rectangular box with a red button on one side came up with it. She slid the box into her trousers pocket, her chains still weighing her hands down.