Star Mother (Star Mother #1)(45)

We flew, weightless, the Earth and the night sky blurring around us. Not as it had after Ristriel broke the law of time, but in a whimsical way, the way of gods. I was a falcon diving into the heavens, I was a falling star, I was a baby’s first breath. The sky opened to my eyes, the stars becoming large and real, their light warm and cool all at once, soft and blinding, dazzling and mesmerizing. Matter of all sizes and shapes flew around them in dark rings, and when I asked about it, Ristriel answered simply, “Their power attracts the unmade things of the universe.”

He flew with skill and ease, weaving through the halos of dust, speeding among the stars. As we soared past them, they became streaks of color. I could hear their interest, their laughter, their singing.

Time seemed to warp. I was everywhere and nowhere, flying through seconds and years. And then I saw her in the distance, silver and white, small and precious. I pointed, and our direction shifted, until I was surrounded on all sides by velvet nothing, yet with Ristriel’s arms around me, I did not fall.

Before me shone an effulgent being smaller than myself, a child enveloped in a massive halo of starlight. Her skin was starlight, and her hair and eyes shone like diamonds. She smiled at me, and my heart grew too large for my chest to hold.

“Mother.” She reached for me.

Tears fell from my eyes, one after another. Extending my arm, I clasped her hand in mine. She was warm and soft and everything a child should be, though she seemed more a girl of ten than a newborn.

“My dear Surril,” I whispered. Ristriel’s arms released me, but I floated into hers, my skin glowing as she did, our light combining into something even more beautiful.

“I saw your picture,” Surril sang. “I watch you every night.”

I wept into her hair and clung to her, giving her all the love I had within me. “I watch you, too, my dear girl. I love you.”

“I know.” She giggled and pulled her fingers through my hair. “I know, and I love you, too. All of us do.”

Pulling back, I looked at her face. “All of us?”

“You are a star mother,” she chimed. “You have stayed with us when others could not. You are mother to all of us.”

She gestured outward, and the stars around us twinkled and shifted, as though waving to me, reaching out with pearly fingers. At that moment, with my daughter clasped tightly to my chest, I was the happiest I had ever been. Never would I wish to go back and be what I had been—a mortal girl with a normal life ahead of her—for it would mean Surril was not mine, and she was my everything.

Surril grinned at me and ran her soft hand across my cheek, then shifted her gaze to Ristriel. “You should not be here. They’ll find you.”

Ristriel had floated some distance away. He seemed thinner, and his skin was ashen as though he were sick. But of course he was—Surril beamed with starlight. Expression serious, he nodded. He looked behind him to a place I could not see, but what I assumed was the Earth Mother. “I believe they already have.”

My light dimmed. “Who? Your pursuers?”

He nodded. Such a spectacular show of power—taking me up into the heavens themselves—could not be easy to hide. It was the same reason Sun could not risk Himself, not when the court of the moon battled against Him. Ristriel must have known it, and yet he had brought me anyway, simply because I had asked.

I swallowed. “Does the starlight not hide you?”

Surril answered, “Not here, Mother.” She kissed my chin. “I will watch over you always and burn in your heart. But if you want him, you must go.”

I turned to Ristriel. He shook his head, as though telling me to take my time. Acting as though it would not hurt him if I did.

I did not want to leave this place. I did not want to peel away from my daughter’s side. But even absent the war and Ristriel’s pursuers, I could not stay forever. I was still mortal enough that I could not live among the stars.

If you want him.

Ristriel was shriveling before my eyes. Sacrificing himself for me, for these brief moments of happiness with my daughter.

Quieting my own light, I kissed Surril and released her. Floating toward Ristriel, I outstretched my hand. “Let’s run, Ristriel.”

His too-thin fingers wove through mine, and we were flying again, stars streaking past us. I clung to him as our surroundings shifted, as we fell back toward Earth, my face tucked against his neck, his arms tight against my back. The farther we moved from the stars, the more whole he became, filling out, solidifying, until he was the only real thing around me. An anchor in the gaping expanse of space.

Our deal had been my protection for his guidance. And yet he had risked his safety, his life, to make me happy. He was more than kind. He was inspiring. Loyal, thoughtful, mysterious.

I clung to him as the Earth rushed up to meet us, never once doubting that we would land whole. Because I did want him. He had promised I would never be alone, not while he existed, and I wanted to believe it—and was terrified it might be a trick that would break me. For Ristriel was a godling I did not yet understand, and although I wasn’t wholly mortal, I carried in me the fears of one.

But one thing was becoming certain: the thought of Ristriel leaving me behind, in Nediah or elsewhere, roused a misery in me I did not think I could face.





CHAPTER 14


We landed in the shadows behind the barn; a long strip of clouds had covered the moon. In my mind, I heard the distant galloping of otherly creatures coming for us, a sound like a bad taste on the back of my tongue. It was something I was sure I would have missed, had I been wholly mortal.