Star Mother (Star Mother #1)(17)

I spent much of my time looking up into the eternal night sky, peering at my star and all her siblings. Peace came easier that way.

The lack of blood wasn’t the only peculiarity. My breasts didn’t engorge, either. The only sign of my pregnancy was the droop of my empty abdomen, the skin thick like scar tissue. Strangely, that crystalline sheen I’d had since arriving at the palace was gone. I seemed remarkably myself, although my flesh sometimes, from the corner of my eye, seemed to glow with a subtle inner light, just as my abdomen had when it was heavy with a star child. My hair was streaked silver as well, like my aging mother’s. A glimpse in a requested mirror told me the rest of me had not aged, but I thought I looked different. Like my soul bore more years than the rest of me did.

Most notably, I was alive and well. It was as if the birth never happened, and I was not the only one who found that unsettling.

After another three days, Elta and Fosii came to prepare me as they had nearly five months previously, when I dined with Sun, though I was given a dress beneath my cape since the crystalline spell was no longer on my person. I found myself oddly nervous to face Him, more so than I’d been at our dinner. I knew something was wrong. I knew it from the stories and the songs about star mothers, from the looks the godlings gave me, and from my own broken expectations.

Elta and Fosii worried over me so greatly. I loathed burdening them with my own trepidation, so I kept my anxieties to myself and allowed them to escort me through the palace to a great hall that looked very solid and very real to my mortal eyes. Within it was a throne that appeared to be made of marble pierced through with Sunset. It was tall and broad and glittered with gold, with golden rays jutting out from the back like swords, meant to mimic Sun spokes. He looked as He always did when in my presence, His power dimmed but remarkable, His body just as tall and wide as that throne, His face just as radiant and golden.

It was strange, how I could not quite remember the scalding and visceral birth of my star, and yet every inch of me still burned from the memory of Sun’s body against mine, of the pain that had engulfed me inside and out, and of the way I’d felt everything and nothing at the same time. It alarmed me—not that I could recall the agony of our lovemaking, but that I could not recall the sensations of my own child coming into life.

“Ceris Wenden.” My name sounded like a hymn in His deep voice. He strode toward me and stood close, utterly mesmerizing. His diamond eyes glittered with wonder. “Star Mother.”

I curtsied low, pulling a few threads of courage from within myself. I dropped my skirt as soon as I thought it acceptable to do so.

His hot finger touched my chin and lifted my face. I flushed at that simple touch, not because it was arousing but because it stirred more memories of our night together. But the kindness in His face brought me forward just as it had at that dining table, where we had spoken so honestly all those months ago. We had parted on friendly enough terms.

It was then that I realized while His touch was blazing and hot, it did not hurt me. It shocked me to speechlessness.

He studied me for a long moment, eyes bright and white hot, His hand still holding my face. I scrambled for words. Part of me, the part I had left on Earth, wanted to utter, Ta-da! But of course I did not let those sounds pass my lips.

“You are an anomaly,” Sun finally said. He studied His knuckle against my face for a moment, as though also realizing He did not harm me, before lowering His hand. “Never, throughout all the chords of time, has a mortal withstood the birth of a star.”

I searched His face, finding wonder in its nearly blinding facets. He did not yet need to fulfill my request that I be remembered. Not when I stood before Him, whole.

He tilted His head to one side. “Have you nothing to say to Me?”

Clasping my hands together, I said, “I have been told I am very much mortal, Your Majesty. I’m afraid I cannot enlighten You.” I paused. “The pun is not intended.”

His lip quirked. He stepped back, then strode a small circle around me, making me nervous. When He returned to my front, He said, “You are remarkable.”

I blushed from the praise. “Th-Thank you.”

He glanced to the side of the not-room, to a few grand-looking godlings, far larger than the servants who graced my bedroom. One of them uttered, “What shall we do with her?”

“I know not,” Sun replied, glancing back to me. Studying me as though He had not already done so. As though I had changed—which I had. Then, leaning close enough that I could feel the fire of His breath, He peered into my eyes. “Not entirely mortal, I think.”

A hiccup pushed halfway up my throat at those words. Not entirely mortal?

My hand fell to my stomach, where a star had once been. My body was different. A body changed when giving life to a child. But what happened when that child was a godling? A star?

Sun hummed beneath His breath, thinking.

“If I may,” I spoke quietly, and He nodded for me to continue. “I . . . I would like to return home.”

Sun arched a bold, fiery eyebrow. “You wish to return to the Earth Mother?”

Another of the godlings at the side of the room said, in a voice like bells, “That is the home of mortals,” as though we did not already know.

And yet, perhaps the god before me needed to be reminded.

Sun drew His bright fingers across His chin, considering. It was a very human gesture, which I found oddly endearing. Feeling bold, I thought to encourage Him. “I believe You’ve no further use for me, my Lord.”