Star Mother (Star Mother #1)(69)

The breathtaking stained glass and oil paintings, sculptures and busts, mosaics and columns, were practically invisible to me at that moment. I sought something pragmatic, not ornate. I did stop once at Agradaise’s bust, studying her face in copper, remembering it bathed in brilliant light. Wondering when I would get the chance to ask Saiyon her story, if He even remembered it.

But she was dead and could not help me now, so I bowed my head in a plea for forgiveness and continued my search, checking alcoves, shelves, and tablets along the walls. I walked through the ambulatory and looked in each chevet, then came around the cathedral again, checking drawers and slinking behind roped-off sections. I found books, but most of them were familiar hymnals or scriptures—the same pages I could have read back home.

Footsteps alerted me to another’s presence, and I saw a priest approaching me. I straightened, keeping my chin held high. If the guards could not keep me out, he certainly wasn’t going to, either.

“I’m looking for records,” I explained.

He readily ignored my question. “You are she.”

He must have spoken to the stewardess, but I couldn’t be sure. “I beg your pardon?”

He came within three paces of me, clasped his hands together, and bowed his head. “Star Mother, it is an honor.”

“My name is Ceris.”

“I know who you are.” He lifted his gaze to take me in, and something about it made me feel as cold and metallic as Agradaise’s bust around the corner. “I have communed with the Sun. You must return to Him.”

I blinked at him. Had Saiyon really spoken to this man, or did he fancy himself a revelator? It did not take an extensive education to interpret the relationship between star mother and Sun.

I took a breath to steady myself and fuel my patience. “I am looking for records of celestial law. The workings of the universe. What may have been passed down and shared between the walls of this church.”

Tilting his head to the side, the priest gave me a patronizing smile. “The only laws that need concern you are that we are to worship the gods and read their scripture. Within their words is all you need to know.”

I did not hide the scowl infecting my face. I set the hymnal down and stepped from the alcove, brushing by him. “You know nothing.”

I turned and started for the front doors, but the priest followed me, talking over my footsteps, his voice growing a hair louder with every syllable passing his lips. “Are you mad? You of all women have lived, and the Sun touches this very cathedral, and you walk away from it?”

When I did not turn, he sped up and slipped in front of me, blocking my path. “The sire of your star may be a god,” he panted, “but you are still a virtueless woman. Why not return to He who has claimed you?”

The blood drained out of my face even as my hot pulse pushed it back into my cheeks. I glowed, not because I meant to, but because my temper flared dangerously close to the line of my control. “How dare you.”

To my amazement, the priest looked over my skin, dazzled by my starlight, seemingly unaware that he had just insulted my worthiness as a woman. “Sun be praised.”

I almost spat at him that the Sun hadn’t given me this light, Surril had, but I thought better of it at the last moment. I wouldn’t waste any more of it here. Reining in as much of my anger as I could, I feigned astonishment. “He is here. He awaits us in the street.”

The priest blanched and whirled toward the doors so quickly he tripped on his robes. And in his eagerness to meet his god, I fled in the other direction, picking my way through a side hall behind the ambulatory. The décor fell away within a few steps, the walls turning into uneven stone, cold and unadorned. This was a better route, besides. It would do no good to reveal Ristriel’s hiding place to the crowd outside.

When I stepped into the crypt and saw Agradaise’s casket, a chill overcame me, eyes watering in remembrance of the beauty of my vision. Beauty I’m sure could only be described in the gods’ own tongue. To say I did not still yearn for it, that I did not ache to see it again, would be a lie. I would ache for it all my mortal years. But my fate had changed inextricably, and I could not yet confirm it hadn’t been for the better. There was beauty to be found outside the hereafter. Beauty I knew completely, beauty I had touched, beauty as complex as the depths of the night sky.

Thoughts of the self-righteous priest winked away, as insubstantial as a summer snowflake.

I shoved open the narrow door to the cellar with my shoulder and took another six steps downward. The lamp was lit, flickering with what little oil was left. Cool relief drowned me when I saw Ristriel sitting up, elbows resting on his knees, head down. His blacker-than-black hair covered half his face, but he glanced through the locks when I approached.

Dropping to my knees beside him, I asked, “Are you all right?”

The corner of his mouth ticked. “It will pass.”

I took his hand in mine and looked it over, running my thumb across his palm, tracing his fingers with my own. He watched like it was some sort of dance he was beholding for the first time.

I saw no injury—no cuts, no bruises, no scrapes, on his hand or elsewhere—but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Ristriel wasn’t mortal, after all.

Which made me remember.

I lowered his hand softly. “You have never lied to me.”