Star Mother (Star Mother #1)(61)

The woman pulled the key from the lock. She didn’t appear unfriendly, only uncertain. “There’s an inn just down this way that will take you in. It always has a room to spare.”

I considered this. I should have enough coin for a room at the inn.

But Ristriel was less likely to return if I stayed in the cathedral.

It wasn’t hard to summon the starlight to my skin; it tended to respond to my emotions, and while they were a mess, they were strong. The woman gasped and dropped her keys.

I guiltily pulled the light back in, losing only a minute fraction. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Are you she?” the woman asked, leaving her keys on the steps. “We heard rumor that a star mother lived. Are you—”

I simply nodded, and tried not to cry. For some reason, being reminded of my fate by a stranger made it more palpable. But to my relief, the woman fetched her keys and shoved the largest into the lock on the rightmost door. “I have somewhere for you to rest, my dear. Please, you must be weary.”

And I was. For I truly hadn’t rested for seven hundred years.



I slept fitfully in the small room where the kind woman had made a pallet, so when dawn neared, I rose early, folded my blankets, and snuck away out a side door. I did not have the energy to explain my story again. I did not want to be worshiped. I did not want to speak of Agradaise. I had taken what I needed, and that would be all. I was lost, but I had to find my way somehow. And the only direction I had was to continue searching for the Parroses.

Or.

As I walked away from the cathedral, my bags weighing down my shoulders, my eyes dropped to my ring. I ran my thumb over its smooth surface. Twisted it on, to the amber band. Off to the black. On, off. On, off, before dropping my hand, the band still set to black.

Or I could tell Saiyon I would come with Him and be, as He’d promised, a queen over all the beauty He’d shown me.

I did not think Saiyon had ever lied to me, but like Ristriel, He had certainly held back truths very pertinent to my existence. I did not love Him, but perhaps I could grow to. He was a noble being, bound by duty, and that was admirable. He had never been unkind to me. In fact, He seemed remarkably humble, for a god, like He, too, was weighed down by something unseen.

Just as Ristriel was.

I pushed thoughts of the godling from my mind.

Were those my only options, then? To find my sister’s descendants and make a place among them or to return to the arms of my child’s father? And yet if my kin did not accept me, that left only one choice.

No, it didn’t. I could travel the world. Sell my embroidery, live off charity, discover the places Ristriel had told me about, where giraffes lived and towers touched the clouds. I could return to Endwever, set my own rules, and live happily there, a beacon of hope for my people. I could, perhaps, not find myself in Saiyon’s bed, but in His employ, and in return see my daughter as often as possible. Find purpose, or at least peace, in her. For despite everything falling apart around me, one truth was immutable. I loved my daughter. I missed her terribly, and her absence was a dull ache in the back of my heart that could not be satiated by mere stargazing.

I mulled over these thoughts as Nediah awoke around me. Any smiling faces I encountered, any merchants I visited for food, I asked about the Parroses. Like yesterday, none were able to point me in a clear direction, though one woman walking a goat on a leash advised me to ask the local cartographer. It took me two hours to find his shop. It was locked, the windows dark. I banged my head against his door twice before breaking away and finding a place to sit on the curb. Someone limping by with a crutch asked me for money. I had little, but I always had the option of selling my spirituality to the cathedral, so I gave him a few coppers. The rest I would need to keep for the inn tonight. After that, I’d have to find something to sell. I’d since trimmed my nails, but my hair was still especially long from the effects of Ristriel’s misuse of time. It was streaked with silver, but one could always dye it, if I needed something to sell.

My heart twisted, thinking of him. Thinking of his arms around me, before he confessed what he had done.

I wished I had never visited Agradaise’s coffin. I would rather have ignorance in peace than this confusion. This ache.

Sighing, I pulled myself onto sore feet and continued my search. I had made my way to the northwest side of the city, no closer to finding who I needed. I chose to forego dinner. If I was lucky, some bread or soup might be included with my room at the inn. If I could make it to the cathedral before dark, I might be able to remember where the stewardess had pointed.

Shopkeepers had begun to pack up their wares with the setting Sun when I found another long set of stairs to climb. I was about halfway up them when a jay flew over my head and landed on a rooftop ahead of me. It glimmered like the midnight sky.

My chest pulsed painfully, like my heart was the end of a flail. “I’m not ready to speak with you.”

But the jay said, “I found them, Ceris.”

I paused, though the immature and petulant part of me wanted to give him a crude gesture and continue onward, uncaring. “The Parroses?”

The jay nodded. “They live about a mile from here.”

Old hope surged in my chest. However I wore my despair, I could not leave this stone unturned. Grasping the handles of my bags, I said, “Show me.”

Ristriel gave me a somber nod and flew ahead, as slowly as a bird could without losing the air beneath its wings. My sore feet forgotten, I hurried after him. It wasn’t until I’d covered a full mile that my thoughts whispered, Trickster. But despite his confession, I could not believe Ristriel would purposefully hurt me, so I followed him besides.