PROLOGUE
The story was told, generation by generation, in song and in story, until time misted it into myth and legend. But some believed, as legends brought comfort.
And some knew the story as truth.
That in another time, in a realm as old as the sea, three goddesses created three stars to honor and celebrate a new queen. A star of fire, a star of water, a star of ice, meant to shine over all the worlds, they forged and brightened with wishes for a strong heart, strong mind, strong spirit.
These, the moon goddesses, stood as guardians over the worlds, as watchers of gods, demigods, mortals, and immortals. Though of the light, they understood war and death, blood and battle.
There was another, of the dark, whose great thirst, whose unquenchable greed blighted her heart to black. Nerezza, the mother of lies, cursed the stars even as she coveted them. On the night of their creation, she winged her power to them as they flew to the sky, enspelling them. One day, by her curse, they would fall from their shining curve around the moon.
When she possessed them, all three, when she held their power, the moon would die, the light would cease, and she would rule over the dark.
So it was that the moon goddesses—Celene the seer, Luna the kind, Arianrhod the warrior—gathered their magicks to protect the stars.
But such things require sacrifice and courage, and eons of hope.
The stars would fall; they could not stop this fate, but they would fall in secret, and remain in hiding until a time, in another realm, when those who came of them united in the quest to find and secure those stars.
Six guardians who would risk all to keep the stars from Nerezza’s evil hands.
To save the light, and all the worlds, the six would unite, would offer all they were to the quest, and the battle.
Now the six, from lands far-flung, had come together, had forged their bonds, their loyalties, had shed blood and given their own to find the first star, so the goddesses met again.
On the white beach where they had birthed the stars in joy and hope, they gathered under a moon full and ice white in the dark sky.
“They have bested Nerezza.” Luna took the hand of each of her sisters. “They found the Fire Star, and have put it beyond her reach.”
“Hidden it,” Arianrhod corrected. “And cleverly done, but none of the stars is beyond her until they are home again.”
“They defeated her,” Luna insisted.
“Yes, for now, yes. They fought bravely, risked all in battle, gave all for this quest. And yet . . .”
She looked to Celene, who nodded. “I see more blood, more battle, more fear. Strife and dark to face where terrible pain, terrible death can come in an instant and last for eternity.”
“They will not yield,” Luna said. “They will not.”
“They have proven their courage. Courage is truer when there is fear under it. I do not doubt them, sister.” Arianrhod gazed up to the moon and the place where for so long three sparkling stars had curved. “But neither do I doubt Nerezza’s hunger or her fury. She will hunt them, and she will strike again and again.”