Drifting Between Stars

Aurelian’s hum pours across the crystallised cliffs of Caelion.

The current is delicately washed against the stone; it could be easily mistaken for water sliding over glass. He shifts the tone higher, watching the ground slowly bending to resemble a faintly glowing ribbon.

“That’s it,” A call comes from behind, “The resonant path.”

His smile grows wide, the power of their world holding its breath for him, awaiting his next tune always felt this overpowering. Aurelian's fingers tremble as the ground continues to shift below him, neck tight containing the tune of the song.

Beneath the drop of the cliff a group of travellers step hesitantly onto the ribbon, hauling tons of cargo with enough to feed a hungry capital mob.

Aurelian flinches as a hand cups the back of his neck, but settles as the familiar figure of his wife steps beside him,

“They’re across, you can stop now.” Elowyn whispers. The last note strangles itself from his grasp,

“The glow is doing wonders for you right now.” Aurelian says, smiling at the reflection of sombre orange from the ribbon dancing in her hair. He takes a single strand in his hand, “You know, we could head back to base early.”

“Aurelian Llyre, still a charmer.” She rolls her eyes, “And still so quick to take the easy way out, no wonder your teachers warned me against you.”

“But talented.” He jumps in.

“Very talented.” Elowyn echoes, pressing her nose up to his and leaning so their foreheads touch. Aurelian closes his eyes. “We still have one more route to check out on this side of the ridge.”

“Yes, I can hear it.” He sighs, pulling away.

His talent always wedged itself in the way, being a wayfinder was rare in its own right, but being one of the best? Often meant he walked roads just like this, an ancient resonant path which had vanished into the northern corner some centuries ago.

Elowyn hops down the cliff towards the path, placing a crystalline beacon just before its entrance; it glows brightly entrapped with his previous song. A warning, for those wanting to walk it, to heed.

Aurelian fishes out her notebook, “Mark it.”

He starts the same hum, awaiting the ribbon to respond to him once again.

“I thought you wanted to go home?” She asks, raising an eyebrow. Aurelian snaps his head to glare at her but stops shortly, captivated at his wife illuminating in the ribbon's glow, standing as if the gods themselves lathered her in gold. For a heartbeat, the world shrank to just between them. His song and her eyes.

“I am.” He says.

Elowyn whacks his arm, “So unnecessarily soppy.”

They walk north in search of a zone flagged by the Concordance for an urgent survey. An area that once held a strong beat in their trade artery, now with no true path. People vanish and supplies meant for Lyrendal never arrive. Even ancient highways fail this far out, gravity warping and unstable ground collapses without a moments notice.

The Concordance was hailed as the top coveted guild, the one every child on Caelion dreams of working for. Wayfinders poising as the planet's coolest explorers and guardians of each path Caelionists walk upon.

The dangers are a constant nightmare to Aurelian, sometimes he quivered more than the cliffs did. Confidence swayed harder than his apartment block back in Lyrendal, but by the gods was it rewarding.

“You’re still humming the same note,” Elowyn twists their hands together, “You don’t have to be so cautious all the time Aur.”

“I think making sure the cliffs don’t decide to eat us is important. Someone has to keep them in line.” He shoots back,

She snorts, shaking her head. “The cliffs don’t have feelings, you idiot.”

“Ssshhh they might hear you.” He leans in, teasing into her ear. “I don’t want to disappear because I forgot to hum El. What if I lost you over something so silly.” Aurelian continues, voice sobering, squeezing their entwined hands.

“How many times have we done this, walked and sang and mapped. Stop doubting yourself, you keep us alive every step of the way.” Elowyn assures, he flushes under her steady gaze. “Even if you are only the second best wayfinder this planet has ever seen.”

He throws his head back, laughing at the obvious provoking, “Stupid Thalenion.”

“What was it again? Lyserion's favourite apprentice, voice so angelic even the gods bowed to him.” Elowyn giggles, “I prefer your measured approach much better.”

He grins, aware a much younger version of himself would have never let that comment slide.

During the academy he checked each song over and over again, repeating the rhythm until his vocal cords screamed enough. Aurelian opened a glass divide for half a day during his second year, singing until every stone vibrated in perfect alignment. It wasn’t natural talent for him like it was for Thalonian, while Aurelian studied for hours on end in chase of perfection, his counterpart was un-tethered. Performing to the guild markers and the resonant paths with an undefined boldness. There was no question as to why Lyserion preferred Thalenion. Though, under all the resentment also held a longing to be more like him, and the instinctive daring nature of his songs.

Elowyn nudges him, eyes locked on something in the distance. His songs may not have unchained him from structure, but she did. Elowyn glimpsed something underneath all that, not wasting a moment before introducing herself in their first week of guild training. That was enough for him.

“Do you see that?”

“Hmm?”

“Pay attention,” She scolds, “Up there you can’t miss it.”

The path ahead shone with unfiltered perfection, the luminescence pulling his attention before Elowyn finished her sentence. He felt a pull towards the light pulsing out, shining smoother than liquid crystal.

“What is it?” He asks, reaching out to stop a still moving Elowyn. “It looks.. I don't think we should–”

“Why not? Aur this could be what the Concordance was after, the ancient path.” Elowyn argues,

“Sure it might be, but what if it's something else entirely.” He urges, “What if it's the drift?”

She scoffs, “Come on, we've trained for that.”

He pauses, straining to read her, expression faltering. Suddenly taken aback by the one person he shouldn’t have to second guess. “So you know as well as I do that the drift isn’t something we should be going into on a whim, without a strategy– or any kind of plan.” Urgency bled into his tone, and something else. More desperate, “Elowyn please, no one comes out of there unchanged.”

Her cheeks were no longer painted gold by the light, now they were red with want, with a hunger Aurelian could recognise in heartbeat. Elowyn on the verge of a new discovery. “It could be the path, we have to know.”

“No, it's too risky.” He says. The drift was beyond dangerous, a void of loosened gravity. Sound delayed and even matter itself uncertain. The phenomenon was one of the first lessons they covered at the guild.

“Let’s just take a peek.” She decides, already moving past his outstretched arm, ignoring him.

“Elowyn.” He snaps. Restraining her was never much of an option, Aurelian knew from the moment she’d introduced herself with perky full rosy lips and wild flowing blonde curls, Elowyn was a free spirit.

Normally, that was something he enjoyed. Very much.

“Wait.” He shouts and stumbles across the rock to catch her up. A reluctant cold snipping at his chest that he would do almost anything she asked of him.

Elowyn crouches, letting her fingers brush the glowing surface, mapping its strange angles. “It feels like it could have been a path once.” Her eyes light up, “The lost routes.” Curiosity flickers across her face as she traces it.

Aurelian hovers above, uneasiness tightening his stance.

“Sing.” She commands, “Do not be a coward, Aurelian Llyre.”

His fists clench, and they begin to twitch as the first note leaves his mouth. He’s forced to watch Elowyn step into the shimmering surface, his throat agonisingly dry as he forces it not to catch or clog.

It’s faint at first, a gentle vibration under his feet in response to his hum. Bouncing with energy, almost alive, cursing with as much curiosity as they both had.

“Elowyn…” He begins, voice tight with song and fear, “The resonance, it's different. Wrong.”

“Different doesn’t always mean wrong.”

She turns back, smirking as if she wasn’t taking them somewhere they had no business going, “Aur don’t look so grim, the cliffs aren’t going to eat us.”

At first, the path is playful with them. The surface bends and vibrates faintly, teasing the edge of their perception. Almost as if it hadn’t been seen in centuries, the matter was rediscovering the people who inhabited this planet.

Then it shifted, light began to stretch, not reflecting the cliffs but instead folding sideways. Gravity tugged at his boots, beckoning him. His song trembles as the changes happen, losing control.

“Elowyn stop.” He calls, “STOP!”

They slip forward, his humming faltering. “You have to keep going.” The playful tone is gone from his wife’s voice, she looked hesitant for the first time today.

Panic spreads across his lungs like a plague, “Is it–”

“The drift?” She interrupts, “I think so.”

Aurelian curses and gravity attacks them once more, shifting them knee deep into the path. Shimmering matter floating around their lower legs. “We can still turn back.”

“The rules for the drift are absolute, once we enter, we have to travel it.” Elowyn starts to hum too, “We have to try to anchor each other.”

“This is crazy.” Aurelian cries out, tries one last time to grab at her wrist but she disappears into the matter, he sinks forward into the shimmering light to join her.

Their song stabilises together, anchoring them to a path they both create. The drift threads into place, feet sloshing against liquid crystal, similar to stepping in a constant puddle. Walls flicker with folded light, distorting the cliffs they’d left behind, seeming further away than before.

Aurelian reaches out an arm, cutting through the kaleidoscope of colours, a stark reminder of when sun and rain meet. It sits mistily, hiding the way forward in a fog,

There’s a noise too, different from their harmonised voices. The drift pulses as Aurelian strains his neck to see, shapes flicker distantly, figures reminiscent of friends back home. It feels warmer over there, a slight humid breeze there for Aurelian to sense but to not know.

Warm like his familial home, comforting.

He starts to reach out for it, the drift jolts and the cliffs start to grow more in the distance than before. Aurelian snatches his hand back,

“Elowyn where are you? It’s trying too–”

“I know.” She hums, “I can feel it too. And you.”

“I can’t see you.” Aurelian panics, “Why can’t I see you?”

But he can hear her, their twin tune still carving a path out ahead.

“I can see you. Your song is more powerful than mine, you’re anchoring me.” She pauses, “I can’t anchor you. Aurelian you have to keep moving forward, don’t look back. Do you hear me?”

He nods, swivelling away from the shapes in the distance. “Yes.” He hums, shoulders relaxing knowing at least Elowyn had the comfort in seeing him.

Their song and step entwines, reshaping the light around them, folding the surface. Time stretches the further Aurelian walks, only pushed on by the soft reassurances of his wife behind. Navigating the paths they weave to their exit, and ignoring the part of his heart that begs to have once more glimpse at the warmth and people that he misses dearly. Life at the guild could be isolating, time spent away from loved ones only grew as his talent had.

He can’t turn back, it would be risking another crack in their harmony but also giving in to what the drift wants. The wish to strip him down to bare bones. Aurelian can’t help but think how evil this extraordinary matter is.

“Almost there El, I can see it.”

Fragmentation begins to flicker close by, the dark black of the night sky appears where the drift’s endless roof had hung hauntingly. A laugh rips from his mouth as his hand cuts through the kaleidoscope mist and back into the air that he knew smelt dusty and herbal.

“Elowyn we did it.”

Aurelian’s boot drips of crystallised liquid, silver and almost opaque, as it settles onto solid rocky sand. His cheeks beam as he whips around to greet his wife.

He pauses as he looks back, “Elowyn?” His voice breaks, the flickering light of the drift was still present,

And his wife was trapped behind it.

Aurelian runs to it and tries to grab at her, “No no no no.” He cries out as his hand waves through the mist. Elowyn’s face sours, her bottom lip trembling, “It’s okay.” The hum ripples through the matter.

The light begins to sew itself together, her boots disappearing. “Please no, Elowyn, you just have to step through. What are you doing?” He begs, face to face, a wetness dripping down onto his cheeks,

“I can’t.” She cracks, “It won’t let me leave.”

“Why? Elowyn fight it, it’s just a stupid cliff.”

Her eyebrows knit together, hands pressing against an invisible force. The drift was collapsing, Aurelian grits his teeth.

“I’m not like you Aur, I can't fight it.” She whispers, “It’s okay, I’m okay.”

He stumbles backwards, hitting the ground hard. The matter knits and knits until the bend of light illuminates what’s left of Elowyn’s beautiful face.

Her sea green eyes blink with tears shed, “I love you.”

She disappears, tugged back by the drift.

“NO!” Aurelian screams, charging at the space that isn’t there. Throwing himself at it and hitting the rocky ground.

“No.” He sobs into the sand. Lips touching the soft ground, “I love you too.”

The sand wept with his tears, grains imprinted in the shape of his figure as Aurelian lays. He stares at the hole where Elowyn last stood for hours, perhaps days whispering prayers to gods long forgotten, begging for her return.

He staggers upright when it's too much, dehydrated and dazed, wandering around looking for another entrance for the drift. Aurelian walks in search, steps endless and direction unknown. Its futile, Aurelian knows the law on the drift, once taken it could not be returned.

Despite that he wanders, his lullaby littered with anguish, heart breaking with each note. Finally raw and unpractised, a wail of grief coating it with cracks and holding his rhythm hostage.

He even sings some of her songs, the few she shared.

At last it takes its toll, vision spotty and throat dry. He resists as long as he can before her love takes hold of his whole body, stronger than a pair of twin suns, and Aurelian yields his search. Collapsing the ground, he knows that even worlds have to bow sometimes.

His singing stops, and Aurelian awaits death. Eager to not know a world where she ceased to exist.

Then a hum begins again, faint but there. Aurelian doesn’t dare trust his eyes to the truth enough to open them.

“Oh Aurelian, I’m so sorry.” A deep gruff voice trailed off, “The drift takes too many.”

Something cold and wet touches his lips, instinct opens his mouth, greedily taking in water that he didn’t deserve.

Aurelian had lost Elowyn, she was drifting between stars now. The old saying never rings true for him, time does not heal his wounds.