The Sun’s words surfacing in memory made my breath catch. The battles again.
The clamoring, the shouting, was growing louder, closer. And I remembered what Ristriel had said in the barn. The moon’s soldiers were following Sun’s. And Sun’s soldiers . . . they were following us.
“Gods help us,” I whispered.
Ristriel tugged me to the Earth, and I hit on my hands and knees. Still holding my hand in a desperate grasp, he bowed his head, and darkness even thicker than the night around us began to ripple from him as dye dropped into water, blacking out the stars, the fire in the heavens, and the deep hues of night.
“Don’t move,” he whispered against my ear.
He was trying to hide us. Hide us from the violence in the sky, the clamor that was nearly upon us. The Sun had mentioned battle. Ristriel had spoken of it, too. And the moon was gone.
We had walked into the middle of a war, and my mortal eyes could not even see it.
Panic, sharp and cold, crawled up my legs and arms, raising gooseflesh in its wake. I could hear a cacophony of people—godlings—swarming around us, thrusting their weapons and igniting their powers, screeching at one another in a language I did not understand. I could see none of it, but I could hear it, smell it, feel it through the rumbling Earth beneath my hands.
And just like with the bandits, I began to glow.
“Ceris, no!” Ristriel cried, but I could not control the light. My starlight spread, and his darkness evaporated like windblown smoke. He ripped his hand away from mine as though I’d burned him. Just like the bandit had.
With starlight in my eyes, I saw the soldiers—creatures silhouetted against the sky, creatures on the ground, creatures in every space in between as though the pull of the Earth Mother meant nothing to them. Some were manlike, others were monsters, even more were spirits or mere shadows I could not identify. Many of them turned toward the beacon I had created. One charged for me, tall and red with the horns of a bull and the snout of a pig. Another just like him but stouter. A green godling noticed me as well, but something large mowed him down before he could reach us.
“You!” The first godling pointed a great spear at me, the tooth of some legendary monster bound to its haft. “Do you fight for the day or the night?”
Ristriel stepped between him and me, even as more godlings charged toward us. “We are not here for war. We only wish to pass!” he shouted back. He had to shout, or else not be heard over the crazed orchestra of battle haloing us.
The godling’s spear shifted to Ristriel, hovering inches from his nose. “You must fight. Or have you no loyalty?”
Gritting my teeth, I urged my body to darken, to cool, to extinguish, and slowly, like a Sunset, the starlight dimmed. That same strange hunger from before—a sensation I hadn’t been in the right mind to dwell on—crept up my limbs. It was not a want for food, but something . . . missing.
“We have no qualms with you.” Ristriel didn’t even flinch as the stout godling turned around and cut through another creature sneaking up on him. My view of the beings grew dimmer and dimmer as I sucked in my starlight. “She is blessed of the Sun. Let us go.”
The last thing I saw before my light vanished was a cruel grin on the red godling’s face. “Ah, but I see her darkness in you.”
And he struck.
“Ristriel!” I cried as his body knocked back into me, sending me onto my backside. Another explosion lit the heavens, a battle too far away for me to see, let alone reach. My thoughts flashed to Sun. He was up there, wasn’t He? Fighting for His kingdom, His powers, His people. Did it make Him weak, battling within the moon’s kingdom?
I did not have long to wonder. The trailing, mystical light from the explosion helped me make out two silhouettes—Ristriel and the red godling—grappling with each other. Ristriel was smaller by half, but he was not easily thrown aside. He shoved away the godling only to intercept another, and another, until I could not tell his shadow from the rest.
My heart raced inside me. I pushed onto my knees, only to cower when some sort of enormous bird cawed over my head, diving into the fray. I could not leave Ristriel to fend for himself, but neither could I fight.
Desperate, I scrambled over the Earth, searching for stones to throw. My fingers grazed a palm-sized one when a shadow whisked across my hand. I thought it was another flying godling, but when I looked up, the shadows all around me warped, gray against black, coming alive, defying the light of the stars. The shadows surged into the fray, lassoing around the necks of godlings or whipping at their legs. Warriors turned around to strike, only to be engulfed.