Star Mother (Star Mother #1)(76)

Pain tinged my jaw, I clenched it so tightly. I could not answer Him.

My silence answered for me.

“In My kingdom,” Saiyon went on, “there are many more lives at stake than there are people in Nediah.”

Tearing my eyes from Saiyon, I looked over the godlings around us, armed and ready, cold gazes set on Ristriel. They could capture him, hurt him, given the command. But if the moon came out, Ristriel might be able to fly away. Leave me behind and save himself—

“Spare her, and I will come.”

Ristriel’s voice was hot iron pressed to my heart. “Ris, no.”

He turned to me, reaching for my hands, but in Saiyon’s aura, he could not take them. A sad, heavy smile tugged on his lips. “I knew the laws when I broke them.”

I searched his eyes, blinking back tears. “You were hardly given the chance to follow them.”

He lifted his thumb and wiped it under my eye; I felt only the cool touch of autumn there. Leaning close to me, his cheek hovered at my temple. So quiet no one else could hear, he whispered, “You have taught me what it is to love, Ceris. So long have I watched it from the skies, but I never understood it until now. It is truth, it is promise, and it is sacrifice. I don’t regret any of it, even if my chains become eternal. I will be happy in that dark place, so long as I can watch you thrive.

“I love you, Ceris.”

My heart shattered as he pulled away. My limbs grew so cold I could not move them. Even my starlight had burrowed too deep inside me to surface.

Ristriel turned toward Saiyon. Moonlight peeked and rippled across his back, turning him from a demigod into a ghost, a specter, something unreal and unreachable. My heart bled with his every footstep. Every inch he moved away from me felt like a thousand miles, and my spirit opened up and cracked like the canyons we had almost reached.

Would this be our goodbye? I hadn’t even been able to touch him.

He would repay seven hundred years, alone in the dark. Even with my starlight, I might not live to see the end of his sentence. He would have no one to fight for him, to free him. He would be chained forever. Both of us would be alone.

“Let us be done with it,” Saiyon said.

It is truth.

Ristriel bowed his head, subservient.

It is promise.

Saiyon lifted His sword.

It is sacrifice.

Sacrifice.

“Stop!” I cried, flinging my arm out as though it could stay the Sun God’s blade. “Stop! I will serve the time myself. I will take it. I will serve his seven hundred years!”

Ristriel whirled around, obsidian eyes bright and disbelieving. The godlings were so still they appeared no different from the rock formations around us. Saiyon’s eyes brightened, and His brow lowered.

“You cannot. He must pay his price.”

Ristriel looked at me the way he had the first time I’d thanked him. Like he could not believe I would make such an offer. Like he might weep.

Like he could not believe I loved him, too.

“Is it law?” I begged, voice shaking.

Saiyon nodded, once.

“Then he will serve beside me.” I stepped forward, until Saiyon’s heat flared across my body. “I will serve half his time. If it appeases the universe, let him start before I do and finish first, too. But I claim three hundred and fifty years of my own. Surely this is just enough for a creature wrongfully imprisoned!”

Saiyon’s mouth set in a hard line. I remembered our argument outside of Nediah. I have claim on him!

Saiyon hadn’t denied me then, and I knew from the anger lining His face that He would not deny me now.

Perhaps I understood more of the laws than I had believed.

“Ceris, no.” Ristriel’s words were strained with emotion, like it physically hurt him to speak.

I did not look at him. I held Saiyon’s gaze defiantly. My starlight uncovered itself, burning brightly, a soft, cool light against His vivid, scalding blaze.

Even now, I could not tell you how long we battled each other in silence, unblinking, powers pulsing. It might have been only seconds; to me it was years. And years to gods were as inconsequential as seconds to mortals.

“I will accept your offer—” Saiyon growled.

“No,” Ristriel begged.

“—on one condition,” Saiyon finished.

I squared my shoulders. “Name it.”

Saiyon sheathed His sword. “You will spend your years in My kingdom, with Me.”

My starlight dimmed, leaving me with that powerless hunger. Despite my previous dealings with the Sun God, I had not expected this.

I would not be beside Ristriel in Oblivion. I would not be able to reach out to him, comfort him, console him.

But nothing in all space and time could stop me from loving him.

“Agreed.” My voice remained steady.

Saiyon’s relief was almost hidden. Almost, for I noticed the breath that loosened His shoulders. “So it is done.”

“Wait.”

Saiyon flared, His patience thin as eggshells.

“I swear an oath of truth that I will give him to You.” Now I did look at Ristriel, and the pain in his stance, in his countenance, made my spirit weep. “But give us until dawn. You stand on the Earth Mother and judge during the moon’s reign. Take out our sentences when Your sovereignty is in full.”