Star Mother (Star Mother #1)(22)

A restrained sob broke from Shila’s throat. “Oh, say you won’t, Ceris. We have need for you here.”

I gaped at her. “What need?”

She didn’t answer. Father Aedan put a hand on her shoulder, his gaze finding me. “You are a symbol of hope for us. For the people. You have been for . . . centuries.”

“I am merely a survivor,” I insisted. “I am no god.”

“But you’ve been touched by one,” Shila whispered.

My cheeks warmed. “That means nothing.” But my hand flew to my belly, as though I could feel the warm pulse of my star there. However, my womb remained cold, and a hollowness gaped within me when I remembered that fact.

As we offered our thanks and stepped back into the spring air, I said, “Everything I had . . . it’s long gone now.” I glanced in the direction of my old home. “I don’t have anything for the journey.”

Shila and Father Aedan exchanged a glance. Sweetly, Shila took my arm and wrapped it through hers. “Don’t worry, Ceris. We’ll see to it you have everything you need.”



Shila kept her promise. She and the rest of Endwever provided me with everything I could possibly need. But not what I wanted.

I had hoped for a bag in which to carry supplies. A few morsels for the road—if memory served me right, the next closest town, Terasta, was a full day’s journey away, and I could possibly restock there. I had no shoes, nothing in the modern fashion, and no money. I was willing to work for those things, but Shila and Father Aedan would hear nothing of it. They gave me a warm room in their home. One of the local women insisted I take her best dress, and Shila worked on another for me while also finding me a pair of shoes that were just a hair too big. The villagers provided me three meals a day, offered me fine bath oils and prettily carved hair combs. It was all so very gracious.

But the more I spoke of going to Nediah to search for my sister’s descendants, the more the villagers closed in around me. They wanted me to stay, badly, and it became increasingly hard to be alone. I felt guilty for wanting to leave, until someone nailed my window shut one night. That was when I understood: no one in Endwever was going to let me leave. Despite all the charity offered to me, I was a prisoner. Even Sun’s palace hadn’t stripped me of freedom.

Father Aedan coerced me to the cathedral every day so that I could be seen, touched, even prayed to, which alarmed me to the point that I refused to leave the house unless the prayers stopped. So the villagers sang to me instead.

She came amidst the tempered fire

The bride that was to be

And offered up her tender heart

Between the oaken trees

Hers was a gift of peace and honor

Given to the town

Children, at night, when you look up

Her child is looking down

The scriptures had promised I would be immortalized in song, but I’d never imagined I’d be able to hear the song. It was a lovely, haunting melody that played in my dreams at night.

My eighth day in Endwever, I watched my stone likeness as I stood in the apse of the cathedral during a service. The song, like a lullaby, echoed all around me. And I realized I was no different than the statue that had been carved in my honor. Unmoving, unchanging, and completely subject to the whims of those around me.

I had sacrificed myself for the good of those whom I loved. And, admittedly, for somewhat selfish reasons. My departure had been spun into songs and stories, stretched and emboldened over generations, idolized to the point where I was placed above the Sun. It felt wrong.

I hated it.

The only thing I wanted was family and a place to belong, and if such a thing existed for me, it was across the country in the city of Nediah. But I would never have it if I could not leave the place of my birth. I glanced at the amber stripe of the holy ring on my finger. The Sun could find me as long as it was activated, but when would He find me? He had mentioned trouble with the moon before I left. How long would those celestial politics take to resolve?

What if it was another seven hundred years?

And so, as the song finished, as I smiled at the congregation and thanked them, I made a plan to leave, with only one thing certain: once I ran away, I could never, ever come back.





CHAPTER 8


The villagers had given me enough supplies and clothing to keep me more or less comfortable for a few days’ journey, though I would need to steal food from Shila’s cupboards. So much had been donated to her on my behalf, I felt only minimal guilt for doing so. Yet I had to plan the timing of my escape carefully. My door wasn’t locked at night, but the house doors were, and I didn’t know where either Shila or Father Aedan kept the key. My tenth day in Endwever, I faked sick and stayed in bed all day. Shila was kind enough to bring me my meals, and I stowed away crusts of bread and winter-wrinkled apples for my journey. On the eleventh day, I managed to sneak some cheese from the cupboards at night without waking anyone. On the twelfth, I turned my old dress into two bags I could carry on my shoulders and loaded them up.

And then I did what might be considered blasphemy. I told Father Aedan I needed to talk with the Sun and could only do so at Sunset. He took me to the cathedral, and I knelt at the altar for so long my knees and belly hurt. The first night, I did offer a prayer, though I’m not sure if Sun heard it. The next two nights, I just knelt there, thinking, planning, once dozing off. It didn’t matter, so long as I established a pattern. So long as Father Aedan believed the ruse and grew tired of waiting for my hours of “supplication” to end.