Star Mother (Star Mother #1)(24)

The other two held my bags.

“Told you she wasn’t dead.” The man with the fabric headwear stepped on my foot and slowly eased his weight onto it.

My eyes darted to my bags. “P-Please, I don’t have any money.” My mind raced to name what few valuables I had planned to sell in Terasta. “I-I have a compass, some woodwork, and—”

“Oh, we know.” One of the other bandits held up his hand, which clutched my compass. The tombstone maker had given that to me as a gift.

The first said, “We’ll help ourselves to all of it.” His eyes roamed up my legs. “Hold her down.”

Fear slammed into me the same time the third bandit did, rushing at me while the first held my foot. I screamed and jerked away from him, but he pinned my shoulders down with a forearm and used his other hand to cover my mouth. I writhed under his weight and clawed at him, digging my nails in.

He screamed and released me, cradling his arm. But it was not my nail gouges that had hurt him; an angry, long welt had seared his arm where his skin had touched my collar.

“What are you—” the first asked as I wrenched my foot free and scrambled back. His eyes widened suddenly, and he tripped over himself to put distance between us. For a fraction of a second, I thought Sun had returned to save me.

It wasn’t until the man croaked, “Specter!” that I realized I was glowing. All of me that was uncovered: my nose, collar, hands. It wasn’t a harsh, fiery light like Sun’s, but a soft halo, feathery and pearlescent.

“Godling!”

I didn’t hear which of them had said it, but I wasn’t about to dispel the notion. If I was a godling, I would be more powerful than they. My assailants dropped my bags and ran for the road, cursing as they went, leaving me in a half-terrified stupor. I heard the retreating of horses moments later.

My hands trembled. I stared at them until the glow receded and I was myself again, confused and cold and wrought with panic, feeling hungry in a way I couldn’t explain.

A dry sob scraped up my throat. I threw myself onto the ground, picking up the things they’d thrown in their haste and shoving them back into my bags.

The bandits had taken off east, toward Endwever. I ran west. I ran, and ran, and ran, until my lungs scorched and my legs ached. The darkness came on so quickly I didn’t even remember the Sun going down. But still I ran, my mind delirious, my body numb. Had it not been for the candle in its window, I wouldn’t have noticed the farmhouse off the road.

Sweat-streaked, limping, and panting, I dragged myself to the door and banged my fist against it. I don’t remember who opened it, but I recall begging them to help me.

And then I passed out.





CHAPTER 9


I woke slowly, groggily, my body sore and stiff, my throat as dry as paper. I stretched, and my legs ached with the movement. My knuckles were slow to bend, and my neck popped when I turned my head.

The walls weren’t lit a soft shade of pink, and it took me a minute to recall where I was. The room was small, barely large enough to fit the bed and trunk that were its only furnishings. I did notice a glass filled with water on that trunk, and I slid my sore self from the covers and hobbled to it, drinking greedily, my stomach protesting at the cool weight. Stretching, I glanced out the small window fitted with only a twine grating. It looked to be afternoon, the Sun shining brightly in a white-blue sky. My ring was still lined with amber, and I wondered what was happening beyond that sky and how dire it was. I hoped Fosii and Elta were all right.

The creaking floorboards under my feet must have given me away, for a soft knock sounded on the door, and it opened, the face of a middle-aged woman poking in.

“Oh good,” she said, “you’re awake.”

Unsure of myself, I clasped my hands together and bowed to her. “I am so sorry for disturbing you. Thank you for giving me a refuge for the night . . . and most of the day, I see.”

To my relief, the woman merely smiled. “That is all right. What’s your name?”

My tongue started the sound of an S, but I paused, thinking twice. Father Aedan would have noticed my absence from the cathedral. Someone had likely been sent to Terasta to search for me. If they’d taken a direct route, they would have reached it before I did.

I was not yet in Terasta itself; this farmhouse seemed to be on the outskirts of the small town. But that promised me nothing.

The woman’s face softened. She stepped inside and shut the door behind her before taking up a seat on the trunk. “My name is Telda. I live here with my husband, Jude. We’ve three sons who have all moved on to their own houses.”

Taking a deep breath, I said, “My name is Ceris.”

Telda nodded. “I thought so.”

A worm of fear wriggled up my sternum. “Then you know me.”

“Some riders came by yesterday asking after you. Claimed you were in great danger. And when you came pounding on our door, you looked like you were. Jude stayed up guarding the place, but nothing else followed you here.”

I thought of the bandits, their hands on me. The strange glowing of my skin. “Did the riders say what the danger was?”

She shook her head, but her eyes drank me in. “They said you were a living star mother.”

I sat back on the bed, the single worm of fear becoming three. “Please. I don’t know why I survived, but I was granted permission to come home. Only . . . time must pass differently here. The home I knew, the people I knew”—my throat constricted, and I coughed to loosen it—“they’re gone. The riders you saw are strangers to me. They wish to keep me against my will. I only want to find my descendants.” Or, rather, my sister’s, but such was an unnecessary detail.