Starbright (The Starbright Series) Read Free Page A

supernatural, burning light radiated around me until my human form was almost completely hidden. Heat and light left me in waves of self- protection, the Darkness desperately fle d from my presence and my light that would cause them as much pain as their cold blackness caused me .
                  The smell of sulfur grew stronger for only a moment as my inner light singed some of the stragglers; they shrieked an ear-piercing sound that rang painfully in my ears . And then they took to the sky in an urgent escape from a battle they were hardly prepared for.
                  I smiled wider ; calling back the blinding light into my body and reducing my essence to a slight outward shimmer. I reached down for my coat and slipped it back on, not bothering with the zipper . I didn’t really need the warmth now; the warmth that lived inside of me was more than enough to keep me warm, but I also didn’t want to attract anymore Shadows.
                  Even without the Darkness clouding the landscape, with the absence of my supernatural light the n ight felt extra dark . I couldn’t wait to get home and to bed now that that was all over, but with my car upturned I needed to call Tristan to come get me . He wouldn’t be happy about me dragging him out of bed, but his grandmother and my caretaker, Annabell e , couldn’t drive at all, let alone come get me in the middle of the night. He would be even less happy when I offered him very little details about how I flipped my car over in the first place .
                  Just as I reached for my phone though , a single shot of light came careening through the atmosphere and stopped suddenly somewhere high above me, obscured by the thick cloud cover . I lifted my head, expecting my parents and when the light moved into two separate lights I grew even more hopeful. One light dimmed to nothing though, but stayed elevated, somewhere up in the dark sky . That couldn’t be right. My parents wouldn’t extinguish their light before they reached the ground.
                  They couldn’t, it wasn’t possible.
                  The sounds of crashing and metal slicing the air recalled my attention. I squinted my eyes and searched through the heavy gray for some sign of what was happening. The cloud above my head glowed in bursts of brighter light like a terrible and destructive lightning storm and when the sounds of terrified screeching and the horrid smell of sulfur reached my nose I recognized the light as a fellow Warrior.
                  But it was definitely not my parents.
                  The sounds of battle continued for several more minutes, as I remained rooted on the ground. I couldn’t join the fight without a weapon and so I was left to assume who was winning by the sounds of weapons meeting targets and the high-pitched wailing of Shadows.
                  Eventually the battle died down in the heavens and the death toll slowed. I didn’t know what to expect as the light darted in a fast line to my right and then shot from overhead to just a few feet in front of m e .
                  A human would have needed to cover their sensitive eyes from the extraordinary brightness a fellow S tar illuminate d . But not being human, my eyes were made of the same light and so I just watched on with impatient an ticipation to discover who had arrived to clean up my mess.
                  Out of the light, one figure walked forward, dim and obviously not a S tar. When he was close enough that I could determine he was a man, an elderly man with snow white hair and leathered skin, I took a step back, unsure what to make of this gruff human looking person apparently with the ability to fly and see Shadows, making him decidedly not human. I shrunk into my coat, having the forbidding feeling I was about to be reprimanded.
                  “Stella Day ?” He