The Girl Who Hunted The Stars

Chapter 1

a/n: now, everything's really getting started. the italics rlly make this sound ominous help. i'm so sorry this chapter is so long btw. anyways, i'll let you begin the story now! 

Aurora Hollis has seen a thousand stars die.

Not at once, of course. But she's felt the wave of death come at such a force, it felt as if a thousand stars had died right before her eyes. She used to clutch her eyes shut, wait until the glowing light dimmed and her eyelids couldn't even peek at the sight. Killing stars wasn't like killing animals, it was like the unfathomable acceptance that the night sky lost yet another beacon of hope.

Well, a beacon of hope for some. Aurora knew that people, less morbid than she was, wished on stars. They cried to them, danced beneath them, whispered the softest whispers of their hearts, and likely more, that Aurora would never consider doing.

Her beacon of hope was the star's death. She couldn't wish for anything more when that dying light was what kept her alive all these years. From the moment she had signed away her life, she couldn't waste time nor could she leave her heart on her sleeve after every passing. She sat, knees brushing the mossy ground, as her target crumbled to the ground.

The star, though unnamed, was stunning. Unlike legendary myth, stars weren't simple bursts of light. Aurora may have lost a select years of her education but her siblings never failed to remind her of the many forms that stars became through the millennia of history. Once, long ago, they were mere bursts of light but something changed, some gust of wind blew in just the right direction, at just the right time, and the history books began recording them as sentient. Stars were alive, breathing, watching. Sometimes, stories portrayed them as sprites. Other times, as glittering stones strung up in the sky.

She knew neither of those proved true as the star pulsed, glowing... dimming... she connected it more closely to a heart. When the glowing faded, the life gone, she could close her eyes and say felt like a mere stone in her hands, no bigger than the length of her forearm typically, but she knew it was alive once. Her lip was slick with perspiration as she moved, her feet no louder than a whisper.

"Hello," said Aurora, looming over the star. Its glow dimmed in greeting. Stars couldn't speak, that much was true as well. Some liked to jest that it was the great Huntress Solana that took that privilege away. The stars from ages before were often too naïve, granting wishes and dreams whenever one wished, when one most definitely did not deserve such kindness. Aurora's smile, pointed and pitiful, fell from her lips.

There was little time to spare.

She reached for the hilt of her knife. Her fingers grazed the luminous blade. This was a gift of honor, Aurora recalled, granted by Sir Hester and given to her by Aldon. At the thought of his name, her stomach tightened. No, don't think of him now.

Focus, Rory, on what must be done. Aurora breathed loosely as she angled the knife over the center of the star. Each pulse was weakening, fading. Before she knew it, the star would crumble, becoming one with the earth and her chances of harvesting any magic would be gone.

Aurora brought the blade down on the star.

Her own heart clenched, as if she'd pierced her skin. She waited, waited a moment more, then pulled it out. Silently she chastised herself for letting a bit of grief get the better of her. The star was now little more than a shell of what it had been. It's power was for the taking. Her knife was tossed to the side as she pulled out a leather pouch, hastily untying the strings. There were two simple methods of extracting a star's power.