Star Mother (Star Mother #1)(77)

I could not separate from Ristriel without saying goodbye. Without touching him one last time.

Saiyon’s lip curled. He did not like this.

Ristriel murmured, “I, too, take an oath of truth. I will not run or flee. I will return to my chains at dawn.”

An explosion popped overhead, drawing Saiyon’s gaze to the ongoing war above. “Very well.” His tone was low and sour, but resigned. He said nothing more, only waved His hand to the godlings surrounding us. They dispersed in flashes of Sunlight. Saiyon lingered only a moment, watching me, before He, too, returned to His war.

I exhaled, and my strength fled with the breath. I fell to my knees in the dark, the clouds coming together once more, the ensuing thunder sounding more like an oncoming storm than a fit of godly rage. Perhaps in Her dreaming state, the Earth Mother cared enough to shield us from celestial carnage. In Saiyon’s absence, beneath the growing cloud cover, Ristriel was again whole.

He knelt beside me and took me into his arms, pressing his forehead into my hair. “No, Ceris,” he whispered, his tears against my scalp. He spoke as though he could still convince me to withdraw my claim. “No, please.”

Pulling back, I cradled his face and kissed his lips, tasting his sadness and mingling it with my own. “I will not leave you to the darkness.” It was a truth, a promise, and a sacrifice. “I will always come back to you, Ris.”

I held him, and he held me, and we mourned together, though in truth, in the deepest parts of our hearts, we had both known this would be our fate. We were both beings trapped outside of time and punished because of it. And we would pay it back together.

We had only hours before dawn, and we did not waste a single minute. We made our promises and whispered our prayers. Lay against the Earth Mother and discovered each other slowly and thoroughly. It took only a glimpse of moonlight for Ristriel’s clothes to become skin, and I knew him as I could know any man. We came together, learning, moving, shuddering, and I understood then what lovemaking should be, and I held it in my heart, protecting it with every ounce of power my star had bequeathed me.

When the sky threatened dawn, we held each other and repeated our promises, mingled with apologies. I sang to him and he kissed my forehead, tracing his fingers down the silver streaks in my hair.

When the Sun rose, two fiery godlings appeared on either side of us, armed with ivory spears, heads mounted with tall, flaming helmets. They held out their hands, and bound by oath, Ristriel stepped into them.

My heart had already broken for him, but when Ristriel flashed away in the possession of those godlings, my spirit broke, too, and I fell to the dust and wept for him, until every tear I had to give spilled to the Earth Mother.

Saiyon’s projection, standing behind me, waited for me to finish before taking me back to His palace.





CHAPTER 24


My time with Ristriel did not result in a child.

Part of me despaired that it hadn’t, for I so desperately wanted a piece of him with me, something I could hold and cherish, since Ristriel was locked away in a place I could never hope to find, and three and a half centuries is a very long time to someone who was not quite mortal.

Another part of me was glad that I hadn’t conceived, for I dwelt in the Palace of the Sun, and I did not know whether a child of Twilight would have survived within its walls.

I was confined to the palace, but I was not chained, nor was I kept locked up in my room. Even so, for a month I would not leave my bedchamber, with its not-walls and not-furniture. When I wasn’t abed, weeping for my loss, I lay on the floor, staring into the star-clustered sky, whispering to Surril. Often, she whispered back. Fosii and Elta, again appointed to my care, tried everything in their power to make me smile, but Surril was the only balm to my ache, and I blessed her with every scar she had given me, seen and unseen unlike.

After the first month, I grew defiant. I pushed the boundaries of my prison, for I saw it only as a prison then. I walked to the edges of the palace and dared to jump into the sky. I went where I was not welcome—the armory, other godlings’ quarters, even Saiyon’s. I would not call Saiyon by the name He had entrusted to me. I would not call on Him at all, and I starkly ignored Him when He came to me, no matter how kind, angry, or sorry He appeared.

Time moved on as it always does. I was allowed my stitching, and Elta retrieved for me the longest piece of canvas I had ever seen. I started from its topmost corner, stitching into it greens and browns and grays, depicting Endwever as I remembered it, the cathedral and the forest, telling my story from the beginning. When I got to the second scene, where the torch lit, my stitches came uneven and loose so often I unpicked it more times than I could count. Anger and sorrow do not make for a steady hand.

I took my stitching of Ristriel and soaked it with tears night after night for six months before finally attaching it to my tapestry. I ran my hands over it gently, afraid of wearing down the fibers, and did not hide it from Saiyon when He visited me. He kept coming back to speak to me, to apologize, even, for the laws He was bound to uphold, despite my harshness toward Him. And harsh I was.

I discovered what I had not during my pregnancy—that my world could be viewed from Saiyon’s home. I needed only to climb to the highest point of the palace, and from there I could look over not-spires to the Earth Mother. She looked very small from that place, like I could hold Her in my hand. I watched the Sun’s light draw across Her face and waited for a shadow lit by stars to descend in its wake, dividing Saiyon’s kingdom from the moon’s. Twilight’s presence forced their war to a stalling point, for the moon could not cross His power and Saiyon did not wish to. Twilight touched the world for barely half an hour at a time before withdrawing into Oblivion. Twice per turn of the Earth Mother. Each time his colors shone, I sang to him the songs we’d shared on Earth. I sang from the moment he appeared to the moment he vanished, no matter how depressed or weepy or hoarse I was. I sang to him, day after day, month after month, year after year, never sure whether or not he could hear me.