“As you wish, Bena Mageraetas,” The man sounded relieved his hand would no longer be the bearer of such news, and his exiting footsteps soon followed.
Delmurra lingered a moment more, then her softer footsteps left and the door clanked shut behind her. Iron keys rattled and the door lock clicked. Dnara opened her eyes to the stars and exhaled in the rebounding quiet.
Her mind swam with unanswered questions of harvests and crops and damaged fields. What crop could fit in a chest upon a table, and clinked when moved? Unsettling thoughts prickled up her skin, the sensation more acutely felt than any other since becoming the collar’s puppet.
As if pulled by strings, her limbs moved and she stood. Her body turned and she looked into the room, discovering an office of simple elegance, uncluttered and clean but not lacking in details that spoke of high position and unquestioned power. A delicately woven tapestry hung on one wall, and beneath it a carved desk of the whitest Elvan silverwood. On this desk were leather bound books with gold leaf embossing, rolled sheepskin parchments and a fine silver quill standing upright in its stand. Next to Delmurra’s unfinished writing sat a wood chest, its lid open and harvest exposed.
‘See,’ whispered the voice, and her collar keened in sorrow.
Dnara beheld a harvest of starstones, and the black sea swelled protectively around her as her soul began to scream.
The Starstone Prophecies continues in Book 2:
Before The Stars Fall
The Starstone Prophecies
Verse 2
Before the stars fall,
fire’s rebirth will gleam,
a stone breaks the water,
and the earth, alone, shall dream.
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