Novus Fortunato had been invited to have a drink with Justin Marius in his department's downtown offices, located in Constellation's hovering north tower in Soliara. He strode into a link from the Invernali building's lobby and out of it into another much smaller party.

Portia Nero handed him a flute of sparkling wine that she had poured herself. Apparently the meeting was too clandestine for servers. Lucian Acario, Exequi Angelus Gloriam I, and Angelus Gloriam II raised their half-empty flutes to Novus in more of a salute than a cheers. Novus raised his glass in reply.

"Thank you all for coming," Marius said, and glasses were raised in his direction too, many of them close to empty. "Please, lower your glasses. Before we can celebrate, we should secure our victory." Marius gestured to Novus, to his slight surprise. A flap of his hand said to step forward. "Exequi Fortunato, let's make your commitment official, shall we?"

Marius commanded the audience with a woman on his left side, an excitable plump girl in a purple summer dress whom Novus didn't remember ever having seen before. Novus went to stand on his right, turned halfway around, feeling as if he were part of a display in a storefront.

"Thank you, Exequi Fortunato, and Exequi Solace, for supporting a movement that everyone in this room has been fighting for, many for a long, long time.

"Gaia Solin refused to listen to voices of her opposition, forgetting that her choices impact all Solari, not just those who agree with her. Unfortunately, speaking ill of the deceased, even on the night of her passing, cannot be avoided. Solin ignored our criticism, she ignored our dissent, she ignored the revolution forming steps from her office and seats down from her position at the board table, right under her nose. And today, to be honest, she lost as a result of her own short-sightedness.

"She is dead, and the revolution lives." Applause broke out from the hands of the attendees of the small gathering.

"Solin's surviving supporters would have you believe that what I want for Solaria is dangerous; it's just the opposite. Constellation's primary objective will be to improve safety and security in the Solari Empire. Safeguarding a dangerous force none of us understand, limiting who can toy with it, reversing negative side effects, reducing dangerous experimentation that could destroy all of existence. Magic won't hurt people or take lives, or create tragedy. Not any more.

"Furthermore, we aren't going to continue in this state of immortal misery, mourning the loss of those we love for eternity. Immortal life the way it was designed by Constellation was a horrific experiment gone wrong, the greatest proof that magic needs to be limited. And it will be." The speech was broken by another applause from his people, a dozen faces Novus recognized as fellow board members, a few dozen unfamiliar others blending into one another, blank faces in evening gowns and dinner jackets.

He wondered if they were all Constellation employees, or just Marius's personal friends. They liked his ideas.

Novus didn't; they sounded one step from what his father liked to rave every morning at breakfast over his newspaper. "Magic is dangerous. See, I told you so. Look at this. A research team of six wound up halfway across the planet, losing contact with the star dial, experimenting with linkless teleportation. They couldn't come back once they weren't connected to the star dial any more.

"They had no idea where they were going, it was sheer luck they ended up on dry land and not in the middle of the ocean. But it would have served them right had they drowned. Another team had to locate them, save them the walk back home — or rather the hike to a port at Zama City over the Presicus mountain range. It took the second team ninety-five hours to find them as they survived the four days foraging for food in the wilderness while at risk of winding up in the crossfires of rebel groups in the area wondering how in the stars six Solari citizens wound up in the middle of their jungle."

"Azara isn't jungle east of the Presicus, I believe the foothills are temperate conifer forest," Novus interrupted just for fun, leaving the rest of his father's argumentation unargued.

Benito had thrust the newspaper at him and tapped the last paragraph with a fierce forefinger. "See how this piece of journalistic excellence ends?" He read, "'Constellation officials in the department of teleportation comment that linkless travel will be available to the public as early as twelve months from now.'"

Novus read, "'. . . via certified educational institutions, when safety regulations have been ensured to current company standards.'"

"Those institutions are rubbish and the current company standards are rubbish." Novus had let the argument die, resolving to make the most of the day he could become his own man.

Now here he was, his father buried in fresh soil, independent from the old man's ideas for the first time in his life, about to elect his father's top choice for company president. Because he couldn't bring himself to vote for a candidate who may have killed his father.

Marius was handed something under a cloth from one of his richly gowned friends. Novus didn't know what was coming, but he sighed and resolved himself to do whatever came next. He could be his own man without supporting Sunyin or Valerian. He would prevent his father's murderer winning the company presidency — and then he would spend the rest of immortality undermining Justin Marius's absurd notions and hating his father's memory in peace.

Marius removed the white silk with one hand and decided to let it fall on the tile floor. He held a pair of miniature star dial gnomons, and now he took one and offered it to Exequi Claudia Solace hilt first, as if passing a knife. The second gnomon wand was presented to Novus. It was heavy in his hands, large and bulky.

He held it awkwardly, beginning to surmise what this awkward wand might be for.

"They're connected to the star dial downstairs." Justin gestured toward a steel railing and a hole in the floor to his side, as if his guests could see through the floor to a star dial below. "In my department's research lab. I want magic to be in the right hands. The gnomon will give you access to magic — unlimited by distance. It is a more precise and deliberate weapon than a gun; it is capable of instant teleportation without links, which you'll find to be faster — instantaneous, actually — and more inconspicuous than summoning a visible link to travel through.

"You can use magic anytime, anywhere." The hypocrisy of these advancements took a second for Novus to digest.

Then his stomach was filled with warmth, relief spread from there, his scowl melted and he realized Marius wasn't as regressive as he had thought.

He looked out from face to face and saw only approval radiating from all of them, and without understanding completely he let the same soak into him. Marius lied when he said he was going to halt magical progress? He personally developed a more advanced tool for connecting to the stars? Novus didn't get why, but he liked it.

"I'm excited for this moment. I anticipate the votes of twenty-seven electors, including these last two, putting me over Alma Valerian's twenty or so. If you don't mind — Exequi Fortunato, Exequi Solace — those of us in this room who have been working for decades to do what Solin would not . . . We can't wait another minute, and we certainly can't wait another year in the event of a loss tonight. Would you mind promising with magically binding words to vote for me, Justin Marius, to be president of the Constellation Company tonight?"

Claudia Solace was beaming as if she never wanted anything more in her life, but her answer was unexpectedly shy. "Yes, Exequi," she said, not quietly but with forced confidence, her eyes darting from the crowd back to the exequi's face. "I would be . . . it would be an honor to promise, to vote for you." She wasn't comfortable looking either at the audience or at the exequi; she took a breath in and fixed her eyes somewhere above the heads of the crowd. As if she wanted to love the attention, but she didn't quite understand why they all had to look at her. There was a little polite applause like dozens of wings aflutter.

"And Exequi Fortunato?" said Marius.

Novus wondered briefly whether this smiling crowd in cocktail dresses waiting with bated breath to clap their hands for him was going to turn violent if he said no to ceding his right to free will.

But it was only for an hour.

"I'd be honored as well," he said, and that was a lie, but he planned to vote for Marius and in so little time left there was little likely to change his mind. If something did, he'd just have to live with his mistake. And who knew who these people were and what they could do if angered. The invisible yet crushing power of even the slightest social pressure held him, not paralyzed, not hostage, just going along with the current.

Instinct and a magical education must have told Exequi Solace what to do, because she didn't need instructions. She made a promise out loud to vote for Justin Marius to be president of the Constellation Company at the electoral meeting at crepesculum on this day of the anno centesimo of the Solari Era. The gnomon lit up white and seemed to heat up, because Exequi Solace tensed as if holding hot metal.

The glow spread outward spherically until her hand was engulfed in a small white star of light.

When she finished speaking, Novus lifted his gnomon dramatically like a magic wand, which he realized it basically was, there wasn't really anything distinguishing the two except the word chosen to brand this real magical instrument in his hand as opposed to the word that signified an imaginary magical instrument appearing in stories, the former of which Constellation consciously chose not to name 'wand,' although the one difference between an imaginary wand and the tool he held was the similarity of design to the shape of the gnomon on a time-telling dial, which might have been a necessary shape to form a conduit to the stellar power source.

The gnomon did warm his fingers — which was unnerving, but it wasn't hot.

Novus knew it was working because he felt a response, like a form of communication, between his thoughts and the stars, just like he knew when he intended to open a link, that the stars heard him, or whatever. But Marius would have no way of knowing what Novus was doing, what if he were only willing the gnomon to light up?

Then Novus spoke the same words Solace had, doing his best to repeat her recitation, and it occurred to him to wonder whether Marius's new star dial could confirm that he used the power of the star connection to make the words a reality.

By that point he had already said it: "I, Exequi Novus Fortunato of Casicaa, promise to vote for Justin Marius to be president of the Constellation Company at the electoral board meeting at crepesculum on this day of the anno centesimo of the Solari Era."

White expanded from the center of the gnomon outward spherically until it encompassed Novus's hand and the entire wand, and the end of Novus's arm looked like a miniature white dwarf sun.

Applause inundated them like hail clacking on a sidewalk.

If he was making a mistake, he would just have to live with it.

Thank you for reading Stars Rise. Please leave a star behind if you are enjoying the story.