Xenia swept the hallway with a scowl on her face. Her movements were jerky and aggressive, as if the broom was to blame for all her misery. She was taking it all out on the poor wooden floor, and she'd scrub the color from it too if she could.
There was no reason for her to be forbidden from going to watch the meteor shower. When would she get a chance again? In five hundred years? She'll be dead by then!
Lost in her thoughts, she didn't even hear footsteps ascending the stairs.
Al-Aqar looked around and hummed to himself. The hallway was worn, just like the rest of the tavern. Milky sunlight shone through the window, illuminating it with a soft light—just enough to see all the cracks and cuts on the walls and the floor.
Still, it was better than some of the places he'd slept in while trekking across different bubbles. Bubbles were, after all, the main building blocks of the world they inhabited. As opposed to life on different planets or even continents, the Universe consisted of billions of tiny bubbles. Some held but a single cottage, some held whole cities, and some held whole nations. It had taken him a while to jump between them and reach the Slavoya Bubble.
"Room twenty-one…" he mumbled to himself as he looked around. There was something peculiar about it—the establishment was way too small to host twenty-one rooms. There was only one floor. He looked around before noticing a young girl—no older than sixteen—sweeping the floors.
Ah, that must be the unfortunate soul that had just gotten yelled at.
"Greetings," Al-Aqar said politely. "Would you know where room twenty-one is?"
The girl didn't spare him a look. Instead, she just pointed to the end of the hallway.
"You know, it's weird that there are twenty-one rooms but only one floor with… if I had to count, ten rooms."
The girl once again withheld her response, instead trying to scrub invisible spots from the floor with such vigor Al-Aqar thought she'd start pulling out the floorboards.
"I heard your aunt yelling… are you alright?"
The girl once again kept her head down, but he noticed her lips quiver as she bared her teeth. Obviously, she wasn't in the mood for a chat.
"Just go to your room."
"There's no need for such a tone." Al-Aqar gave her a patient smile. He was used to the whims of teenagers; after all, he worked as a professor at the prestigious magical school, Astranea. Not only that, but he was being mentored to become the head of the Astryx house as well. Dealing with children was a skill he had to learn. "I was just checking if you were fine."
"I'm fine."
"So, what's up with the room number?"
The girl groaned.
"It's my tesha's least favorite number. That's how old my tesho's mistress was when he left my tesha."
"And how old was your tesho?"
"Fifty-eight."
"That's quite a difference."
"Who cares."
Al-Aqar looked at the girl. She was scrawny and short for her age. Black hair covered half of her face, and it was unkempt, as if she'd never heard of a brush. Her outfit was simple but with Slavoya markings and symbols in the national colors: red, white, and blue.
"Are you going to see the meteor shower tonight?" Despite his better judgment, Al-Aqar still had to ask.
That's when the girl finally turned around and shot him a glare sharper than a thousand knives. "No! No, I'm not going anywhere! Why are you so annoying, asking me questions when I obviously don't want to talk to you?!" Her face reddened with anger. "Sveti in the Heavens, can't you take a hint??!"
With that, she grabbed her broom and bucket of water and stormed off down the hall behind her where the other rooms lay. Al-Aqar looked after her, perplexed, but simply shook his head. He wasn't one to assume malice when he could assume pain, hurt, or ignorance.
In the girl's case, it was probably pain.
"Room twenty-one… ah." He finally reached it.
The room was small. Al-Aqar figured it had been a closet before it was a room, purposefully transformed into one to make Dyana's unfortunate victims suffer. However, he assumed she hated most people, so he found it odd that just one poor room sufficed for her need for revenge.
At least it was clean, if nothing else. He sat on the bed.
Dusk would settle soon, and that's when he'd head for Starshka Hill. Before that, he figured he could use some time for reading.
Someone might think his bag would be heavy with all the tomes he carried, but that wasn't the case. Parvaneh had used her shadow magic of the Umbra constellation to enchant the bag, essentially turning it into a little shadow pocket that could store quite a lot—and keep those things weightless.
Which was very useful, since the tome he'd just pulled out was 'just' eight hundred pages light.
He hummed as he flipped to the page he'd previously stopped on.
"And when the Waters of Shvora split, seven absolute principles were born. By division, order was brought.
And that division had a cost.
By separating the universe into singular laws, the Constellations created instability at the borders where those laws met. At the borders, reality fractured… and from those fractures rose entropy: the Void Sovereign."
He spent quite a few hours reading. The text was in the ancient script and quite difficult to get through, so it was no wonder he'd only covered fifteen pages during all that time.
Al-Aqar closed the book as he thoughtfully looked out of the window. The dusk—purple and bloodied dusk that colored the skies—was settling over the Slavoya Bubble. It was almost time to go see the Eclipse and the meteor shower.
He cracked his neck (the stiffness from reading had settled in), stretched, put the book back into the bag, and headed out. Something beautiful awaited him.
Xenia opened her eyes. Next to her, her tesha was asleep, snoring like an elephant. See, Xenia was sixteen as of today. And one thing sixteen-year-olds didn't care about was rules. In fact, warnings and restrictions made their desires grow even more potent.
She threw the cover off herself and quietly got up… her aunt was dead asleep. She wouldn't move, and Xenia knew it. She braced herself and tiptoed to the closet. She grabbed the first dress she found and quickly got dressed before, as quietly as a snake, slithering out of the tavern.
The only desire she had this year was to see the meteor shower, to see the Constellations glisten in the sky. She didn't understand why it was forbidden, why it was taboo. They were just stars. She was never interested in wielding their powers, and perhaps, had she not been forbidden from even looking at them, she wouldn't have been interested in the stars either. But they attracted her like a lamp attracts a moth.
There was a kid in the village. He was a charkezi.
There wasn't much to say except that he was whisked away to some sort of school, and now, when he visited over the summer, everyone avoided him like the plague. His parents were trying desperately to sell their house and move away, but aside from nobody wanting to move to the Slavoya Bubble, nobody wanted to move to Medya specifically.
Xenia had no desire to go through any of that. She had friends she liked, actually.
Yet something called to her—a forbidden song, a tune she felt within her heart, a dangerous desire that enticed her.
Starshka Hill was the best place to watch tonight's Eclipse, and she would be there.
It took Al-Aqar an hour and a half to climb to the top of Starshka Hill. Despite his lengthy journey, he wasn't used to physical activity—he was a scholar, after all, not a sportsman. He huffed and puffed as he dragged his scrawny body up the grassy, steep terrain.
The view, however, was worth it. Standing on top of it, it felt as though he stood in the center of the Universe. He'd never seen a night sky so clear, so beautiful—each star like a pearl in the sky, glistening and twinkling like zircons on a dancer's dress, like rubies in a Queen's crown. It was breathtaking.
He took a few moments to admire the night sky in all its glory. The bubble barrier of Slavoya was thin. Usually, the barriers made the skies murky, as if you were watching them through a glass bottle, but not here.
He smiled… then looked ahead. He still had a few steps to the edge of the hill… when he noticed the familiar black hair that had never met a brush.
"I thought you weren't coming to see the meteor shower," a stranger's voice interrupted Xenia's thoughts. She was sitting at the smooth edge of Starshka Hill, knees pulled up to her chin.
"It was a spur-of-the-moment decision."
"Really? It seems to me you had your eyes set on it, though."
"You talk a lot," Xenia growled, "despite nobody asking you anything."
The stranger chuckled. "Are you always this rude?"
"Yes."
Silence washed over them.
"The name's Al-Aqar," the man said and held out his hand for a handshake.
"Xenia Chernova."
"Xenia? It's not a Slavoya name, yet your last name is."
"My father wasn't Slavoyan. My mother was."
"Where are they?"
"They're dead, charkezi man," Xenia said, feeling pretty much done with the conversation. Once again, silence took over, wrapping itself around their shoulders like a coat of shadows.
"It seems your folk dislike us charkezi, the Blessed ones," Al-Aqar hummed as he took out a pipe. In a moment, a pleasant herbal scent spread between them. It didn't smell like tobacco at all—instead, it was sweet like summer wine. Xenia would know; she was allowed a glass at sveti feasts.
"The Cursed ones, as we call you."
"Have you ever met a charkezi before?"
"Yes. My mother."
The man went silent, and Xenia thought: good. Keep him uncomfortable and he won't speak.
"I'm sorry for your loss. How old were you?"
"What do you care? Mind your own business," Xenia scoffed. "I don't need a stranger's sympathies."
She wondered when the Eclipse would start. Bit by bit, the three moons started aligning—two smaller sisters crowning the third, red, and largest, which looked like a crystallized drop of blood. A beautiful pin pinned on the black dress of stars.
"Look… it's starting," Al-Aqar whispered and took out his notebook.
Xenia looked up. The three moons aligned… and the Blood Moon became even bloodier. Then, a shower of stars started falling. She'd never seen something as beautiful—it was as if a whole orchestra of lights played, each meteor its own melody, except you couldn't hear it, but only see it. It was a performance for the eyes. Here, in the most beautiful spot, the most beautiful thing was happening.
Quite a few meteors exploded in the air. Their shards would find their destinations and bless the Chosen ones with the powers of the Constellations.
Until… one of the meteors seemed to change its course. It headed straight toward the Slavoya Bubble—full, massive, and… without exploding.
It was becoming bigger and bigger.
Is it just me or is it…? Xenia thought as the meteor continued falling without slowing down.
"It's coming right at us." Xenia's face paled as she realized. She quickly stood up, and so did the stranger. Her heart started beating fast—they were going to be completely annihilated by the rock which showed no intentions of slowing down.
Usually, when fragments fell, they'd slow down before hitting the ground, before being caught by the hands of their hosts. That's what had happened to Ivor. He simply caught his. Xenia, like the rest of the little group that had gathered that night around him to celebrate his birthday, simply moved away, not wanting anything to do with him.
"Step behind me," the charkezi man said and pulled Xenia back.
"Astryx Vechno, branis-te vorota!" the charkezi man began his chant… purple light illuminated them, a shield forming around both Al-Aqar and Xenia. Xenia felt sick to her stomach—was she really supposed to put faith in this little bubble they were in? The meteor was aiming at them at a speed of 50,000 miles per hour. There was no way either would survive it.
Xenia didn't even get to blink before a loud 'boom' echoed through Starshka Hill.