Star Mother (Star Mother #1)(31)

“War with whom?”

He looked at me, surprised I didn’t know. “With the Sun, of course. They have always battled over the heavens. Sun is older, and He resented her for stealing His light and encroaching on His territory. She resents Him for being what she is not, and hates Him even more for shrinking her, scarring her. But He is of the law and must enforce it. Such is His nature. The moon does not like being disregarded simply because she is young. Since she is less. They have warred and peaced for millennia. Like you, her scars mark her journey.”

I glanced up again, studying the gray splotches of the moon. I tried to imagine her as a flawless orb of silver light. Truthfully, there was beauty to her dimensions, despite the violence with which she had received them.

I shivered, my body remembering the pain of my spirit’s scars, and for a moment, I relived each and every one of them.

“Rest, Ceris.” Ristriel crossed the glade, ears pricking as he listened to the forest. “I will watch over you as you have watched over me. Nothing will harm you under my protection.”

As I lay down, using my second dress as a blanket, the fire warming my back, I realized that I believed him.

One would think that sleeping out of doors would make for a restless night, but I slept soundly beneath the stars. Ristriel, wholly solid and once again the size of a warhorse, roused me with his muzzle just before dawn.

“We should go. It isn’t wise to stay in one place for too long.”

Rubbing sleep from my eyes, I nodded and gathered my things, noticing with disdain that the little bit of dried meat I’d had with me had suddenly spoiled. I cast it aside and hefted my bags onto sore shoulders. It would have been nice to put them over Ristriel’s back, but Sun was quick to reclaim His kingdom, and my godling guide again became as the air, translucent the moment a Sunbeam touched his broad back. If last night had given me any clues, I believed he could change shape only when he was ethereal. It seemed, unless we found a building of some sort to enter, he would be ethereal for most of the day. I also wondered if his ghostliness would help him keep his promise. He could not hurt me if he could not touch me, though lack of physicality did not mean he couldn’t trick me.

Thinking of his pursuers, I reiterated one of my earlier questions. “How close do you have to be for my starlight to conceal you?”

I could tell my prodding made him uncomfortable, but if we were to travel together, I wanted to know what I had gotten myself into.

Several seconds passed before he answered, “Very close. Like before. If it isn’t shining.”

I flashed back to the bandits’ terrifying attack, and the pearlescent glow of my skin. “What if it is shining?”

He paused before answering. “You will attract attention.”

I might not have been a well-traveled or well-studied person at that time, but I could tell he was hiding something from me.

Purposefully slowing my steps, I let two extra paces stretch between us.

Ristriel led me to a narrow river, and we followed it for a time, blue dragonflies darting across our path. The day was a warm one, and I fanned myself as the Sun grew high. His light was almost at its peak when I found a large boulder alongside the water and sat upon it, kicking off my shoes and searching through my bag for a bit of cheese.

The dark horse stopped and looked over his shoulder, flicking his tail as though he could feel the flies on his skin. “Why are you stopping?”

“For lunch.”

He glanced at the sky. “Already?”

I found a wedge of cheese and pulled it triumphantly from my bag. “I may be the mother of a star, but I am still mortal. We walked far yesterday.”

He turned around, his large body oddly graceful. “You are not entirely mortal.”

“You are not the first to say so.”

“You will be long-lived, like the godlings. The starlight will make it so.”

I lowered my treat, contemplative.

“I’ve offended you.”

“No.” I dug the toe of my shoe into the moist Earth. “No, you haven’t. Just given me something to think about.”

“Your years?”

I nodded. “There have been . . . several changes, since I became what I am. I hadn’t really considered what I’d do, oh, next century. Here I am, trying to find my sibling’s descendants, but even if I succeed, I suppose I’ll have to watch them die, and their children die, and their children’s children die.” I considered Sun’s reaction to my question about past star mothers. Did He feel this same heaviness in His chest when He thought of them?

My thoughts turned toward the paradisiacal hereafter Sun had spoken of at our dinner together. What was it like? No bandits, no wolves, no blisters, surely. All those I loved around me, instead of buried in the ground, far away. I was grateful to have lived where others had passed, but was not life in the hereafter still life? My spirit would still be thriving. My way would be easier than it was now. Had I perished and passed on, I wouldn’t have felt so . . . lost.

Ristriel lowered his head. “It can be a lonely existence.”

The admission did nothing to bolster me. My existence had already become lonely. How much worse would it get if I lived for centuries yet?

I studied him, noting subtle things about him that were not entirely equine—the curve of his ears, the spark in his eyes, the shape of his hooves. “Ristriel, how old are you?”