Stellar (The Halo Series Book 3) Read online

  Regret tugged at Soren's insides as Aurora and Gray vanished from sight. But he stayed put, waiting until Verity had emerged from the docks and left up the path into the city. With no eyes to spot him, Soren jetted across the grassy expanse to the rocky staircase. Descending the stairs two at a time, he made it to the base, feet skidding a little on the mossy rock. His heart sank when he saw that Sevastion and Chord’s dark vessel had already departed from the docks.

  Clutching the strap of his leather bag a bit tighter, Soren ambled down the dock. In search of what, he wasn’t sure. Until he saw it.

  Settled between two of the largest Halo ships was a tiny boat. More minuscule than all the other traveling vessels. It seemed out of place. The panels were patched together with both white and black materials. Dark and light coming together. Almost like it was made for him. Eyes scanning to the bow, Soren zeroed in on the name of the little boat, painted in silver lettering.

  Stellar.

  The boat was called Stellar.

  A tug within the depths of his core made Soren walk forward, adjusting the strap on his shoulder. The ramp leading into the boat was already down, waiting for him. He paused, looking uncertainly over his shoulder, half hoping to see Aurora at the top of the rocky precipice, calling for him to come back to her.

  But she wasn’t there. Why would she be? That was just how his life went. Besides, he was cursed. And he knew, if he stayed, something bad would happen to Aurora or Gray.

  A heaviness settled into Soren's stomach as he sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a chest caving whoosh. Turning back around, he walked determinedly up the ramp into the boat.

  The black and white theme continued within the vessel. The floor looked like a checkerboard. White walls were decorated in monochromatic images of angels and demons battling at sea. He sat his pathetically packed satchel on a nearby white armchair when a small shudder ran through the boat. Moving to the closest window, Soren looked out to see that Stellar had departed from the docks. His decision to leave for good had been made for him, it seemed. A hollow aching made his chest tight.

  A chill that had nothing to do with the cold raised the hairs on his arms. Soren had spent many nights in the orphanage feeling soul-crushingly alone. But that loneliness was nothing compared to being the only person in a small boat floating out on an interminable sea.

  He wondered if there was a word to describe this level of loneliness. Maybe he should coin one, he thought. Or perhaps he could just use his own name. In the future, he would be known as the man who created the loneliest word in the English language.

  Soren: adjective. Sorenity: noun.

  Sorenity

  noun

  excessive and oppressive loneliness; the highest form of being lonely; deeper than secluded or destitute.

  “The old man returned from his wife’s funeral to his empty home feeling the crushing weight of sorenity settle over him.”

  Moving like a revenant through the ventricles of the boat, Soren managed to find a bedroom. The mattress was covered in a white down comforter, like one you might find in a really fancy hotel room. He slipped off his shoes and crawled onto the tall bed, burrowing beneath the covers, creating a cowl around his face. Strange it was called a comforter. It didn’t feel all that comforting.

  Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to pretend he was somewhere else. That there were people just in the next room trying to keep their voices down so they wouldn’t wake him. But it didn’t work.

  He was alone.

  He was soren.

  Hours later, he was jolted awake by a dark shape hovering over him, and he realized being soren wasn’t the worst thing he could be.

  The dark shape spoke. “Hello, Son. I was wondering when your mother would tire of you and send you away. Welcome back to the Darkness.”

  Ten

  AURORA

  “I’m going to change and get Soren,” Aurora called over her shoulder to Gray, who’d halted at the door to his apartment. “I’ll meet you in the dining room.”

  “Change into what? More Halo armor?”

  “Hey, they have different styles, you know.”

  Gray looked genuinely surprised by this, looking down at himself before glancing back up. “They do?”

  Aurora rewarded him with her trademarked eye roll. “Ugh. You’re such a boy.”

  “From you, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  Shaking her head, but smiling in spite of herself—she had been doing that a lot lately—she pushed the door to her apartment open, slid in, and shut it behind her. The door to Soren’s room was closed. She paused beside it, pressing an ear to the wood to see if she could hear him stirring inside, maybe the turn of a page or the rumpling of covers.

  Silence. Perhaps her Halo-enhanced hearing wasn’t what she thought it was.

  “Soren? You awake? We’re late for dinner… I’m just going to change, and then we can go down there.”

  Silence answered her.

  “Soren?”

  Wrapping a hand around the doorknob, she turned it slowly, announcing her entrance. The door swung inwards to reveal darkness. Flicking on the light, Aurora saw that Soren had left his room perfectly put together. His silk-covered bed was made, pillows fluffed and painstakingly placed. No clothes on the floor or half-open drawers, which was what could be found in her room. This small detail reminded her of how unlike the two of them were. She never put this kind of care into keeping her space tidy. Nothing was out of place. He hadn’t even left his book on the bedside table.

  Then Aurora’s nerves started up, beginning with a tightening in her chest and traveling in skin-pricking waves across her arms. She twisted her neck to the side to shake off a shiver. She was being irrational. He had probably just gone up to the dining room without her. She was late, after all, and judging by the put together perfection of his room, he likely didn’t care for lateness.

  Even so, she rushed through changing into a different set of Halo armor, one of the fancier outfits with an ebony corset that laced up the front and boots to match. The pants and cloak were the Power Halo’s trademark blood red. She pulled her hair back into a tight ponytail, sweeping her bangs to the side as she slid her favorite short sword into its holster. Samuel had wanted her to choose a favorite weapon, to master it. Well, she had, without his help. And it wasn’t a stupid bow and arrow.

  The thought of Samuel made her stomach clench with worry again. She picked up her pace, rushing out of her apartment and down the hall to the elevator. She jammed the button a few hundred times until the doors slid open to permit her.

  A group of people stood within, a hush washing over them as she stepped inside. The button to the top floor was already illuminated, so Aurora revolved on her heel and waited impatiently for the doors to glide closed. The elevator was spacious, but not so spacious that she couldn’t hear the two girls directly behind her whispering.

  “I think that’s her…”

  “One of the Stellars?”

  “Yeah. I saw the other one—the boy—this morning getting coffee.”

  “Really? Is he—?”

  “Oh God, he’s gorgeous.”

  “I wish I had a gorgeous Stellar.”

  “You have George, though.”

  “Yeah…Wish he’d learn to brush his teeth a bit more thoroughly. You'd think Halos would be immune to halitosis.”

  Aurora snorted, and the whispers stopped. She wondered how they knew who she was, or how they even knew she and Gray were Stellars. Neither of them had exactly broadcasted it or anything, and they were the only ones who met with Patrick and Abigail in a private venue. Word spread fast amongst the Halos, though, who seemed to enjoy a good tidbit of juicy gossip as much as the next mortal.

  The doors finally opened into the massive dining room, and Aurora bolted forward, narrowing her eyes at their usual table in the darkest corner. From this distance, Aurora couldn’t make out much more than that there were indeed people sitting there.

  The
apartment building held only a fraction of the Power Halos, which was still a sizable number, to say the least. The dining room was large enough to span a football field and had a different “theme” every night like the restaurants on Etheria. Tonight’s theme was, evidently, haunted forest. Actual trees had been erected throughout the room, interspersed with tables decked in gray, fog-like fabric, surrounded by chattering Halos.

  Aurora did her best to navigate through the trees and people without cursing. She’d been secretly working on cutting back her colorful vocabulary as of that morning, for Soren’s sake. It was much harder than she would have thought. Some sentences just sounded better with an expletive or two thrown in there.

  A waiter with a tray covered in bowls of white soup with billowing smoke rolling off of them—as if dry ice had been dropped into each one—bustled by. Aurora ducked beneath his tray, twisting to avoid hitting another waiter with an armful of bread baskets.

  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Oh, wait, that was definitely cursing. But did it count if she didn’t say the words aloud? She was going to go with: no. Or else, she might as well give up on this new challenge.

  Dodging a slow-moving group of Halos, all with eyes on her, Aurora finally moved into clear view of her table. Brielle and Logan sat with an empty chair between them, and Gray was situated across the table looking moderately uncomfortable. None of them appeared to be speaking. Chord and Sev weren’t there, of course, which bothered Aurora more than she cared to admit. But that wasn’t what made her blood turn cold, freezing in her veins and shocking her system.

  Soren wasn’t there.

  He was probably in the bathroom. Or maybe he went back to the room to look for her, and she’d somehow missed him or—

  Her thoughts were cut off by Gray voicing exactly what she was about to say. “Where’s Soren?”

  Aurora’s words were laced with the tension she felt. “He wasn’t in the apartment… Has he not been up here?”

  The three Halos shook their heads, Gray looking nearly as anxious as Aurora felt. The other two girls didn’t seem all that concerned.

  “I saw him downstairs earlier,” Brielle said. “Danni Jo and I were getting coffee. He said he was looking for you, actually.”

  “Did he leave the building?” Aurora asked, trying to keep her voice from rising higher in pitch. She had to remain calm. That’s what mothers did when things like this happened right? She’d never experienced the “kid lost in a grocery store” panic that any mother she’d ever known had experienced.

  Brielle bit her lip, her eyebrows meeting. “I think so…”

  “What do you mean you think so? He either did, or he didn’t.” Aurora knew she was being rude and that this was in no way Brielle’s fault, but she didn’t quite care about the brunette’s sometimes much too delicate feelings at the moment.

  “I’m sorry, Aurora,” Brielle said with genuine sincerity. “I was distracted. I didn’t—”

  “Distracted by Danny Joe, were you?” Logan cut in then. Her smoky gray-blue eyes narrowed at Brielle, the fires of jealousy flickering in their depths. “Was he whispering sweet nothings in your ear?”

  Brielle’s mouth turned downwards in disgust at Logan. “Danni Jo is a girl. And, no, she wasn’t. We were ordering drinks when Soren walked away.” Logan made an annoyed noise in the back of her throat, and Brielle rolled her eyes, turning back to look at Aurora. “I thought I saw the front door open, but I’m not completely sure. I’m sorry, I—”

  Aurora cut her off. “It’s fine.”

  Then she turned on her heel and moved like a lion tracking its prey through the crowded restaurant.

  As she knew he would, Gray jogged up to walk briskly beside her. She expected him to ask what she was doing or tell her she was being dramatic or some other something that men tended to do when a mother was being overprotective or “irrational” about her child. But he didn’t. Of course he didn’t. Gray didn’t say things other men said. Instead he said something that made her fall just a little bit more for him.

  “Where should we look first?”

  GRAY

  “I’m going to find Michael,” Aurora said. The paper white pallor of her skin communicated the depth of terror she was feeling. “Maybe he can send out a message on the prophecies. Like an angel amber alert or something.”

  “Good idea.” Gray hated to admit it, but, between the two Stellars, she really did have all the good ideas.

  It took true coordination to maneuver through the restaurant without knocking over a waiter or tripping on a foot jutting out from beneath one of the tables. Aurora’s eyes zoned in on the exit, her feet stepping expertly around every boundary until the two of them made it to the elevator. She jammed her finger into the button, which lit up. This didn’t keep her from continuing to press it again and again and twenty more times until the doors slid open to reveal the very angel they'd been looking for. Michael.

  Something in the Power’s eyes made Gray think he may already know something about the situation…and it wasn’t good either. “Ah. Aurora. Gray. Just the Stellars I was in search of.”

  “Michael.” Aurora’s voice was saturated with relief. “We were looking for you too. Soren’s gone.”

  Michael’s head dipped indicating he already knew this, which didn’t bode well for Gray. “We should speak privately, I believe.” With this, he turned around and pressed the button to the elevator. The doors opened to reveal what looked like a rounded office with three oversized armchairs and a table in the middle filled with a bowl of starfruit.

  “How did you—?” Gray began, then shook his head. “Never mind.”

  Michael was an angel. That was how. No explanation necessary.

  “Do you know where he is?” Aurora continued as if she wasn’t at all impressed by this new development. It wouldn’t surprise Gray if she weren't. She had a maddening way of being exponentially unaffected by even the most astounding of things. But, given the current circumstances, he couldn't blame her. “Do you know where Soren is? He’s still on the island, right? He’s still—”

  Michael guided the two Stellars into the elevator office, waiting for them to be seated and the doors to glide closed before he spoke.

  “Aurora.” His voice was low and serious. She immediately shut up and waited, her eyes growing rounder. “I am only able to keep accurate tabs on my Power Halos. Unfortunately this does not include Soren. However, I can tell you the body count on the island has lowered by three. Sevastion and Chord, of course, we know have left. But we cannot locate the third person. We can only assume this was Soren.”

  If it was possible, Aurora’s face drained of its remaining color. “Do you…do you think he might have gone with them? Could we contact—”

  Michael’s head was already shaking back and forth. “There is another boat that is no longer accounted for on the docks. Stellar. Verity informed me that this vessel was indeed there when she accompanied Sevastion and Chord to Lady Lionheart.”

  “So, you think he…took it?” Aurora’s voice shook, and Gray reached out to squeeze her hand. She let him. But she didn’t squeeze back. She’d gone limp.

  “That’s what we believe, yes. What is more concerning, though, is that we are now unable to locate it on the sea. It’s as if it has simply disappeared.”

  “Is that possible?” Gray asked.

  “Anything is possible. However, we have a grave feeling about what might have happened to it. Caducus’s army has been stationed in their own ships, hovering just over the salt waters of the world. No Dark creature is privy to Hiraeth’s location, so they will be stationed at random. We fear Soren’s boat, Stellar, may have drifted directly into one of their paths.”

  A shaking hand moved up to cover Aurora’s mouth. “But he can’t be… Don’t tell me he’s…that he’s—”

  “We believe he is alive. David would not want harm to come to him because he knows Soren is more valuable to them alive than dead. Because of you.”

  Aurora, who w
as normally the stoic one, looked like she was about to fall apart. Her bottom lip trembled, and she sucked it in, biting down to stop this physical expression of what she considered weakness.

  “So, you think David has him then?” Gray asked. He didn’t remove his hand from Aurora’s. He didn’t care if she thought she needed the comfort or not. She was going to get it.

  Michael’s dark eyes flickered with something akin to anger. Gray wasn’t sure he’d ever seen this expression on their mentor’s face before. When he spoke, his voice was low. “That is what we assume.”

  “We can’t just leave him with them,” Aurora whispered. “They’ll hurt him or brainwash him or worse. We have to go after him.”

  Michael’s head tilted to the side in sympathy, something Gray knew Aurora hated. “Yes, except this is what they will expect you to do, what they want you to do.”

  “So, what, we’re just supposed to do nothing?” Aurora’s voice was growing steadily louder. “I know I’ve been a terrible mother his whole life, but that doesn’t mean I’m cool with just leaving him with his demon of a father.”

  Michael leaned forward, keeping a steady gaze on Aurora. This small action seemed to shock her into silence. “That is not at all what I am suggesting. But you can’t expect to simply storm their ships and demand to have Soren back. There has to be a course of action. A plan.”

  “Then what’s the plan?” Gray asked before Aurora could.

  “The Halos are an honorable and ominous force created by the Light. But…Caducus expects this army. He has prepared for it. And he thinks he has us all figured out. But there is a move we could make which they will not anticipate.”

  Aurora was on the edge of her seat, her gaze laser focused on Michael. A creeping apprehension made the hair on Gray’s arms stand on end. He couldn’t explain it. “And what move is that exactly?”

  “I’ve arranged a meeting with an old…acquaintance of mine. His armies are no doubt strong. A force to be reckoned with. A force the Powers have been battling since the creation of existence.”