Excerpt: The Other Side of the Sky

Adjacent moved smoothly into the inner room and returned with two ceramic mugs, intricately painted with flowers and leaves around the rip of the cup, each containing some steaming, creamy liquid that smelled of cinnamon and mint and another spice Zeal did not recognize. He sipped, and it was delicious. They reclined on a settee with their drinks, silent for a moment listening to the wind rustle the thin silver curtains and strange flying creatures caw and cheep and call outside as they swooped through the air. They were smaller than the Roki, and less humanoid, but otherwise resembled them closely.
“What are they?” Zeal asked at last.
“Birds, our sister-cousins,” Adjacent replied. “They do not reason as we do. But it is because of them that we became a race of flight. We owe them everything and share the skies with them with joy.”
“I am afraid I do not know what that is like.”
“Yours is a lonely race,” Adjacent acknowledged this with a nod of his feathered head. “Even Terra, the planet where your people began, has only one race that call it home, and that is yours. I imagine Sky is similar, since it was empty of Souls but for the Dragons when you arrived. And the Dragons call nowhere home but the Stars. What are you thinking about so hard, Zeal, with those lights dancing in your eyes?”
“I am thinking that I shall be like the Dragons, and call no planet home,” he told Adjacent with an air of quiet determination. “I am thinking that this is what the Stars are calling me for, that I was not destined to be of Terra or of Sky or of anywhere but the Stars. I will be a Star Singer of the galaxy.”
“This is not done. Each planet must have a Star Singer. If you relinquish your role, another must take your place on Sky, and there is no one left to train them now that the Dragons have gone.”
“The planet will choose rightly, you said that, Ditora.” Zeal clasped his hands in his lap tightly and looked at them. “I cannot explain it, because I cannot understand the Stars and what they sing to me. Sometimes it is all a jumble, as though it is just their normal patterns of song. But every so often I get a strange voice deep inside of me that tells me, do this. This is right. This is your path. I think that is the Stars.”
Adjacent chuckled softly, and put one lightly taloned hand on Zeal’s shoulder. It was small and pointed, as hands went, but Zeal found it surprisingly comforting. “That is not the Stars, Zeal, that is a conscience. Everyone has that. That little voice inside you that tells you right and wrong.”
“My friend Marla would call that God.”
“Does it matter what we call it so long as we know that it is there, and trust in the song that we here from it? You have done much on the mere will of the song in your heart, Sky. I heard your song,” he nodded, seemingly pleased, and set his empty cup down on a side table next to the settee, leaning back into the cushion behind him. “I heard it all the way here. I am fairly certain a large portion of the galaxy and beyond heard your song when the wall that silenced your planet was destroyed. It was as if there was an entire section of the symphony that had been silent for the entire concert, and at the finale, burst into life. We were sad that you had not sung sooner, but are grateful for the joy we experienced at knowing your people were silent no more. No, it takes a deep trust to create a song such as that. You do not doubt as much as you say you do. Simply from that song, and from the way you speak to me now, I have little doubt that you, the chosen Star Singer of Sky or the Galaxy or whatever, will find the path that you are meant to find.”
“And when I find it, I will walk it faithfully. This I promise you, Adjacent, Star Singer of Ditora.”
Adjacent shook his head, and sat up, his eyes misty as they reflected the light from the sky outside. “Do not walk your path, Star Singer of Sky,” he quietly replied, and rose from his seat to stand at the window with his wings spread out, as though ready to take flight at any moment. “Run. Run down it with all the speed you have in you. Run, don’t walk, and never stop until you reach the end.”