Star Mother (Star Mother #1)(51)

He didn’t quite touch the windowsill. “I looked for your starlight. Tarnos is not a large place.”

So he did know the town’s name. I paused for a moment, working through my thoughts. “One of the godlings, from before”—I treaded carefully—“he said he saw ‘her darkness’ in you. What did he mean?”

His dark gaze regarded me for a beat. “Starlight and shadow are not good and evil, as many mortals depict them. They are simply light and dark. My purpose has always been good, even if I was born of the dark.”

Scooting to the edge of the bed, I asked, “What do you mean, ‘born of the dark’?”

He studied my face in such an earnest way my cheeks warmed. Did he ever flush, or was he always cool as a summer stream? “I was created in war. The feud between the Sun and the moon is everlasting, nearly as old as they are. I am one of the moon’s scars.” He considered for a moment, almost touching the cathedral, but refrained, and I wondered at his hesitation. “A portion of her dark side fell to the Earth Mother,” he explained, hands clasped together, thumbs fidgeting. “The Earth Mother gives life to all things, and thus I was born.”

My lips parted as I tried to comprehend life created in such a manner. “The moon is your mother.”

“The Earth is also my mother,” he clarified, “but the ways of the gods are not the ways of mortals. It is not . . . the same.”

I thought of the pleading look he had given the sky when the moon was out. Did he yearn to have a mother, as a mortal would?

Did he want to be loved by her?

I slunk off the bed and crossed to the window, pressing both hands to its marble base. “Ristriel, who named you?”

His eyes widened, vulnerable and round.

And then an un-Earthly howl sounded beyond the village. A sound I would not have heard if I didn’t have starlight within me.

I knew immediately that we had not evaded Ristriel’s would-be captors as well as we had hoped. His eyes dropped to my ring.

I twisted the line to black. “We should hurry.”

He nodded and vanished. I collected my things and rushed toward the exit, but stopped at Father Meely’s desk. The supplies were all there, and I would feel ungrateful leaving him with nothing. So I quickly painted my hand with ink and pressed it into a delicate piece of parchment. He would find it in the morning.

Ristriel met me outside the cathedral’s only door, and together we dashed into the forest.

They came for us like wolves.

The un-Earthly howling seemed to reverberate between the trees, not waking a single creature, yet piercing me as though I were canvas and they were the needles, pulling rough thread through my body in misaligned stitches. We passed under moonlight, and Ristriel became a horse. As soon as we stepped back into shadow, he forcefully pushed at me with his head, lifting me onto his back. I barely had time to grab fistfuls of mane before he darted into the forest. He tried to keep to the shadows as before, but the moon was too bright, the trees too squat, and the moment we passed through a glimmer of moonlight, I fell through Ristriel’s body as though it weren’t even there, barely managing to avoid injury. He became a man once more, grabbed my hand and my bags, and pulled me through the night, occasionally losing his grip due to the magic of the moon.

Branches cracked and the ground quaked as the rhythm of our pursuers grew louder. Ristriel dashed behind a thick, misshapen tree, breathing hard as though he were mortal. “Stay here,” he said. “Hide. They’ve no qualm with you.”

I shook my head and grabbed his arm. “I’m not going to leav—”

A whistle through the air was the only warning before Ristriel’s eyes widened, and suddenly he jerked away from me as though caught on a line. And he was. In the weak light between the shadows of trees, I could see some sort of ivory harpoon embedded in his leg, silvery light and indigo blood pooling around it.

“No!” I screamed, my skin burning silver. I chased after him, catching sight of Shu, the godling with the silver horns, at the end of the magicked rope secured to the harpoon. The gremlin godling growled at his feet, and Yar wheeled around toward us as though he were his own great mount.

Ristriel groped at his leg, gasping. The shadows began to shift around him, but Shu mercilessly pulled on the rope, dragging Ristriel forward another foot. “None of that.”

“Unhand him!” I cried, rushing to his side. I burned brighter than ever before, casting new light in the grove. Ristriel’s face was pale and wan, and he shook his head and pushed at me, trying to get me to escape.

But I would not leave him.

Yar came around behind me, stirring old foliage beneath him. If he recognized me, if he knew I had lied to him before, he made no mention. “You know not what you protect.” He drew an ivory net from his belt. “Get back, or you will answer for his crimes.”

I looked back at the great brute with the blue-striped horns, my hands shaking, my skin burning with starlight I couldn’t control. I was angry, I was afraid, and I was hurting Ristriel. I had to be, for he was of shadow, and this power was not.

I was staring at the heartless Yar when I saw a bit of debris pass by him, as though caught on a strong wind. But there was no wind tonight.

I remembered Surril and the halo surrounding her.

Their power attracts the unmade things of the universe.

Yar neared, and I pushed into the starlight instead of restraining it, stoking its heat like I would a fire. I poured myself into my anger, my fear, my need, and it brightened more than my eyes should have been able to bear. It lit the grove as if it were noonday. Foliage, debris, and dirt flew around me in a perfect circle, gaining in speed. Pieces of bark tore from the trees to join the fray. Plants uprooted themselves as the tumult gained strength.