The Last Fallen Star, Graci Kim [books to read in your 20s .TXT] 📗

“But we posed the question: What if there’s another way—one that doesn’t require the divine? What if, instead of focusing on what we lack, we focus on what we already possess?”

I think of the four fires revealed at my Gi ceremony and cringe. I didn’t lack just one element—I lacked almost all of them.

“The goddesses require us to have a perfect balance of all five elements in order to channel their powers. But we found that tapping into our dominant element—the thing we already have in abundance—is enough. It not only works like a Gi, it also allows us to wield that element. Like you saw when Austin controlled metal, or when Taeyo manipulated water.”

My mouth gapes. Does that mean I could wield fire? The thought blows my mind. I grew up thinking I didn’t have a drop of magic in my blood. Now I find out there’s a way I could control the thing I’ve always been ashamed of. No, not just control—master.

My first gut reaction is to ask Sora if I could learn this skill, too. I want to know how it feels to have magic at my fingertips. But then Hattie’s face pops into my mind, reminding me of my priorities. This is not the time to be picking up party tricks. I have a job to do.

Instead, I ask another question. “But how does it work? Where does the power come from if not the goddesses?”

Taeyo points to the water cooler near us, and then to a running tap a man has turned on in the kitchenette across the room. “The five sacred elements are all around us. The Earth was made by Mago Halmi herself, and we were all created in her image, which means we and the elements are all divine in our own right. We don’t need the Godrealm to access our gifts. Magic is inside each of us.”

I immediately think of Auntie Okja. She’d told me the Horangi had become obsessed with power because they’d figured out a way for witches to become as potent as the goddesses. That’s why the scholars had been cursed by their goddess to never wield magic again. It was also the reason Emmett’s mom had been stuck in the cross fire keeping the seventh artifact out of their hands.

A bubble of anger pops inside me. They can adapt all they want—it doesn’t erase the horrible things they’ve done. At the end of the day, they killed Emmett’s mom, and there is no excuse for taking a life.

“Is that why you did it?” I ask quietly. “Is that why you staged an attack against the gifted community? Why you killed people? For…for power?” I consider the life I could have had if the Horangi hadn’t become corrupt. All the things I don’t even know I missed out on. “Why couldn’t you just have been happy being the keepers of the sacred texts? Why did you have to be so greedy?”

“You don’t know the full picture,” Sora starts. “There are always tw—”

“Don’t lie,” I say. I slip the letter out of my pocket and show it to Sora. “I know you were hiding the seventh artifact for your own use.”

She reads it, and her eyebrows arch in surprise. “How did you come to have this?”

When I don’t respond, she grabs a Swiss ball and invites me to sit on it. “You were honest with us about what brought you here. So let me now repay you in kind.”

Out of principle, I refuse the Swiss ball and sit on a nearby chair instead. I don’t want her to think she’s won me over. I cross my arms. This had better be good.

She takes a big breath. “People know the Horangi as keepers of the sacred texts because we looked after the gifted library. But that was only one of our duties. For generations upon generations, we have also been the keepers of the sacred artifacts—divine but dark objects that represent the goddesses’ original sin.”

Original sin…I remember Adeline’s monologue about the goddesses believing that the dark sun and moon represented their inner darkness. When the goddesses commanded the Haetae to devour the sun and moon, they committed a sin against their mother. As a result, Mago Halmi locked them out of the Mortalrealm. It makes sense that the fallen shards, or artifacts, are physical representations of the daughters’ crime.

“But our ancestors were sworn to secrecy,” Sora continues. “We had a duty to protect the artifacts, even from people in our own community. If they fell into the wrong hands, these powerful dark relics could break the equilibrium between the three realms.”

Now I understand the real reason why the Cave Bear Goddess wants the last fallen star destroyed. “Okay,” I say, trying to see where this is going, “and…?”

“But we failed to adequately protect the sunstone ax. The council found it, and they, like so many others, became infected by its power. They became corrupt. We had no choice but to destroy the artifact before the members kept it for themselves.”

I snort. “No, that’s wrong. The council was trying to stop you from using it. The elders aren’t corrupt.”

A dark shadow passes over Sora’s face. “We believe they were. And when we tried to reveal the truth, they framed us and banished us from the gifted community.” She shakes her head. “Because of the council, many innocent people were killed. Including your parents.”

I swallow. This is all a lie. A big, elaborate invention. Emmett’s mom had been an elder on the council. And in the vision around the Haetae’s bell, I’d seen her taking the sunstone ax from the Horangi.

Suddenly, the blood freezes in my veins. Could Emmett’s mom have been taking it from the Horangi to use for herself? I shake my head. Impossible.

“How do you know all this, anyway?” I ask, starting to feel sweaty and uncomfortable.

Taeyo sits on the Swiss ball that Sora offered me earlier. “Sora was the Horangi elder on the