Star Mother (Star Mother #1)(40)

“You have far-reaching senses,” I said.

“I was very far away, so I had to.”

Lifting my hand from his shoulder, I pulled at my pocket, offering to hide him, but he shook his head. He really did believe we were safe, then.

“Where, Ristriel?” I asked. “Where were you, before I met you?”

He offered me a weak smile. “It is better that you don’t know. It is a place I have risked much to forget.” He ran his palm over a splintering wooden post. “I should go outside. They’ll have a harder time finding me if I’m incorporeal. And if I’m moving.”

I could understand how becoming a ghost would make him harder to find, but I failed to see how pacing outside the barn would be beneficial. If anything, he should hide. “Why moving?”

His fingers curled inward, away from the post. I could see him struggling to find an acceptable answer. “It is the way of things.”

I scoffed. That was the sort of answer Sun would give. Hooking my thumb into the pocket of my dress, I asked, “Can I not hide you?”

He dipped his head, but his features were uncertain. “I do not want them to find you again. It will raise suspicion.”

And he’d promised I wouldn’t come to harm, though I still didn’t think Yar and Shu would harm me. Then again, when it came to things celestial, Ristriel would know better than I.

Further prying would have to wait until morning. “I’m going to rest, then.”

As far as I knew, Ristriel did not return to the barn until Sunrise.



We left before the farmers rose, making our way northwest. We moved farther and farther from the forest, until I couldn’t see the shading of its trees any longer. After a day of traveling, the hills began to mellow, giving us flatter ground dotted with smatterings of trees not quite large enough to be considered a wood. We slept out of doors, and I sang my song to Surril while Ristriel, malleable in the moonlight, shifted into a wolf and curled up at my feet, listening. That night and the next, I worked a little on my new tapestry by firelight, my stitches so small in my attempts to capture the intricate play of darkness and light that was my godling guide that my needle threatened to tear my canvas, which I’d had to trim twice, because it had started yellowing on the edges. It was not handling the shift from heaven to Earth as well as I had.

“Why do you create that way?” the wolf asked late the second night. I had thought he was slumbering, but of course Ristriel did not need sleep the way I did. Fatigue weighed down my eyelids, but I’d wanted to finish some violet highlights before turning in for the night.

My hand paused, and I looked at my tapestry. “It’s art.”

The wolf tilted his head almost like he was offended by my obvious answer. “Why thread? Why not sculpture, paint, storytelling?”

I smiled. “This is much easier to carry.”

“Storytelling is not heavy.”

Chuckling, I pushed another stitch through the tapestry. “It is if you write it all down.” I paused at my next stitch. “Can you create, Ristriel?”

“In the celestial sense, no. But I can hold a paintbrush, when I’m whole and have given myself hands.”

“Do you paint?”

“I have never tried.”

Stifling a yawn, I rolled up my tapestry and put it aside. I could work on it again tomorrow. “I could show you needlework, if you’d like.”

His canine ear twitched. “I have seen many things in my lifetime, Ceris. Needlework seems one of the dullest. That is why I asked why it is your preference.”

I laughed out loud. “If I’d had the universe at my fingers, perhaps I would have taken up another hobby. Just spinning and dying the string alone is toilsome, I’ll have you know. There is a great deal of accomplishment in a finished tapestry.”

Ristriel grinned as much as a wolf could, and laid his muzzle down again.

I lay down as well, supporting my head on my elbow. Thumbed the edge of the tapestry I’d lowered beside me. “Have you seen so much?”

He hummed an affirmative.

I chewed on the inside of my cheek. Rolled over so I could see the stars. “Have you seen the hereafter?”

His fur rustled. “The hereafter is not one place to behold. It is many, it is always, it is . . . difficult to explain.”

“But you’ve seen it?” Hope pulsed behind my breastbone.

“I know of much of it.”

“The star mothers’ hereafter?”

He shifted again. “I understand it is a beautiful place, where those who sacrificed, and their lines, are treated as gods.”

“And if a star mother does not die?”

He didn’t answer for several seconds. “I am not sure. It is a place I cannot see. A place I cannot go.”

I pressed both hands to my chest, trying to soothe my dying hopes. “But can a soul move from one hereafter to another? When I perish, will I still live with the other star mothers? Will my line still follow me?”

A long breath came from his muzzle. “I do not know. I wish I could tell you, Ceris. Even your Sun would not know. It is not His domain.”

Two tears, one for each eye, blurred my vision, and I blinked them away. “If they have gone where I cannot follow, I will be alone when I die, too.”

I hadn’t meant to say it aloud. I barely did; it was more breath than whisper, a plea to the stars overhead. But Ristriel heard me. He shifted again, paws padding as they grew closer to me. His body lowered to the ground again, close to me but not touching, his breath stirring the baby hairs lining my forehead.