Star Mother (Star Mother #1)(38)

Even though the memory wasn’t necessarily a happy one, it made me miss her. It made me dwell on all the unanswered questions that danced inside me. Had my mother found some happiness in the end? Had both of my sisters married? How many nieces and nephews did I have? And Caen . . . had he remembered me the way I’d wanted him to?

I would have to wait until I died to find out. But when I died, because I had lived . . . would we even end up in the same afterlife?

I stopped midfield, catching my breath, letting the questions unravel like slipped stitches. “I simply have to believe the best will pass,” I chided myself. Try my hardest. Barter with the gods themselves, if I needed to. I couldn’t undo what had already come to pass. Sun had made that much clear.

“Are you all right?” Ristriel hovered nearby. He stood in full Sunlight, and I could see the forest line through his torso.

Straightening, I tucked loose strands of hair behind my ears. I smiled, stretched. “I’m trying to be.”

He glanced back toward my bags, barely noticeable above the grass at the other end of the field. “What are you believing the best of?”

I flushed. “Oh, you caught that?” Leave it to a godling to have impeccable hearing. “I was thinking about my family. The ones I left, when I became star mother. They’re all deceased now.”

He nodded solemnly. “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.” Leaning back, I stretched my spine. “But it’s been a long time.” Longer for them than for me. “I’m hoping to find my sister’s descendants in Nediah. Stories get passed down in a family, so they’ll be able to tell me about the relatives I never got to meet. They’ll be my stories, too, in a way, and I’ll become part of their tapestry, and everything will feel right again.” I laughed, though it wasn’t particularly funny. In truth, it hurt. “That’s the plan, at least.”

“Mortals have always been fond of stories,” he supplied.

“Of course.” Turning about, I hiked back toward my bags. “We don’t live long enough to remember who we are without them.”

Ristriel followed my path, lingering about two paces behind me. “What are your stories, Ceris?”

My steps slowed. He didn’t mean the story, the one that drew attention from everyone else. The one that had made me “important.” He already knew that story. He’d discerned that story the moment we’d met.

It was strange, and somewhat alarming, how long it took me to reflect beyond that, to the person I was before that star died. Like it really had been several centuries. Like I was an old woman scraping up her past.

“I liked to play in the forest,” I finally said, turning around. I was on an incline, making me a hand’s breadth taller than he was. “I liked to pretend I was a wolf or a fairy, and bound around like a wild thing. My mother hated it.”

A smile bloomed on his mouth.

“I liked jokes. Pranks. The setup was almost better than the reveal.” I chuckled to myself as memories surfaced. “I often dragged my sister in on it. It was never as fun by myself. I’d switch neighbors’ cows, or put peppers in our breakfast . . . Once I moved an entire woodpile to the other side of my betrothed’s house.”

He seemed impressed. “That sounds like a lot of work.”

“It was certainly a lot of splinters.”

Ristriel seemed to consider this as he resumed walking. “I was very much like you, when I was young.”

I laughed. “Leading milk cows around in the middle of the night?”

He looked abashed. “Unfortunately . . . I was not so tame.”

I watched him, imagining what sort of mischief a godling might get into. Wondering if that’s where he’d earned his reputation as a trickster. “Oh?”

By his body language, I could tell he did not want to answer, and I considered whether or not I should push for information. However, he did relent, “Did you know the Earth Mother used to have rings?”

“Rings?” I glanced at the gold band on my finger.

He shook his head. “Not like that. In the sky.” His head tilted back as he scanned the blue-and-white expanse. “Rings across the heavens, circles of dust that lit up the sky.”

I tried to imagine such a thing. “And you . . .” I wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence.

He shrugged, and I sensed him closing off.

“But,” I interjected, stepping around a large stone, mirth dwindling, “that’s not who I am anymore. I grew up too much. And I have a suspicion that’s not who you are anymore, either.”

“Has your joy changed so much?”

I had nearly reached my bags, but his question made me stop completely. “What?”

“Your joy.” He stepped beside me, hands clasped behind him, eyes endlessly dark and curious. “Is that not what all mortals—all creatures—live for? That which brings the most happiness?” He glanced heavenward. “Did she change so much? Or did He?”

I opened my mouth, closed it. Contemplated. With anyone else, the silence might have been awkward. But Ristriel waited patiently, taking in the landscape around us while I sorted my thoughts.

“Surril did change my joy,” I said after a minute. “She became my joy. I was never able to hold her in my arms, but she means more to me than anything. And without Him, I would not have her. As for the rest . . . I haven’t been able to hold still long enough to know how much of me has changed. I’m still trying to swallow the changes of the world around me. Does that make sense?”