Star Mother (Star Mother #1)(34)

The wolf nodded, and I stepped carefully through the trees, my path still dark. I got turned around once, but managed to find the pond. Bowing to it, I asked, “Does any godling claim these waters?”

When I received no response, I stripped out of my dress and submerged into the water, biting down on a gasp for how cold it was.

Working quickly, I scrubbed the hem and then the underarms of the dress I’d shed, then hurriedly ran the soap over myself, pulling my hair out of its braid to get at my scalp. I slowed in my scouring only once, when my fingers passed over the stretch marks on my hips. I imagined a little babe tied to my back, crying for the chill, comforted on my breast. The longing for it bit harder than the icy pond did.

Teeth chattering, I waded out of the pond, wrung out my hair, and pulled on my second dress, tight muscles slowly relaxing as the dry fabric warmed them. I had just finished braiding my hair when the Sun grew bright as noonday over the pond, although the woods around me remained basked in shadow.

I turned toward the brightest light, pulse quickening. It was either a godling come for Ristriel, or— Sun.

“Hello, Ceris.” The grass curled at His feet. Swaths of celestial fabric looped over both of His shoulders, coming down into a golden belt before splaying over fiery legs. The way it hugged and flowed would be any sculptor’s dream.

He seemed so radically out of place in the forest. His presence did nothing to stir the sleeping Earth Mother, but Her trees seemed to bow to Him.

I blinked as my eyes adjusted to His brightness. “H-Hello.” I remembered to bow, but a burst of excitement stuck my spine up straight again. “Is it time? Now?”

Sun frowned, diamond eyes gleaming. “I am sorry, Ceris. I have very little time, and the way to her is more dangerous now than it was before.”

Hope evaporated from my skin. “Oh.”

“I wish to speak with you.”

“Is that not what we’re doing?” I stepped closer to Him, drawn to the heat of His presence. He was a bonfire that would not burn me, and the cold touch of the pond quickly receded from my limbs. “What has happened?”

His shoulders slumped. “The battles again.” He sounded tired.

“They are bothersome.”

“That’s how I always think of war. Bothersome.”

I’m not sure if He grasped my jest, for He simply nodded. Then His jewellike focus narrowed on my face. “Ceris, I’ve come to ask you to return with Me.”

My mouth went dry. “To the heavens?”

Another nod.

I caught myself wringing my fingers and forced my hands to drop. “But You said it was too dangerous to see her.” Our star. Our child.

He appeared uncomfortable, which oddly made Him look more mortal, if I were to ignore the brilliance of His person. “It is, but I wish you to come to the palace. I wish you to be with Me.”

My jaw hit the mud ringing the pond, or it might as well have, with how I gaped at Him.

“You would be as a queen, until your years ended.” He held out His hand as though the promise were a tangible thing He could show me. “You would be able to return to Earth as often as you see fit; I would of course give you that freedom. I only ask that you be at My side in the interim.”

I stared at Him a moment longer. Then another moment.

Was the Sun God trying to . . . court me?

Oh stars, what would my mother think of this?

“W-Why?” I dumbly sputtered.

He pressed His lips together, glancing skyward a moment.

“Because I think of you. Because you are different.”

“Because I survived.”

“It is not just that.”

His presence made me warm, and I stepped closer to the trees.

“I . . . I don’t know how to answer that.”

“Come with Me, and I will show you.”

My spine tingled like someone drew a spent match over the bumps. “Sun—”

“It would not be the same,” He added, quieter. “You are no longer purely mortal.”

It took me a moment to realize He meant lovemaking. That it wouldn’t hurt me. Just as His touch no longer hurt me.

My chest flushed at the thought. His hand was still outstretched, and I came toward Him, reaching past it to take His wrist. It was hot, just on the cusp of burning, but not enough to do me any harm.

I pulled away. “Every time I came back, the world would be different. I’d lose every friend I’d made. I’d—”

The furrowing of His brow made me pause. “Time is constant, Ceris. It would affect you, as a mortal, the same in the heavens as it would in any other world.”

I froze, jaw half-open. The sincerity in His face made my knees weak. “Wh-What?”

He cocked His head, confused.

“No.” I shook my head. “No, that’s not right. I was there, with You, for . . . almost ten months? But when You sent me home, seven hundred years had passed since my departure.”

Sun went so still even His flames ceased to move. “What did you say?”

“This isn’t my Earth. Not the way I left it.” I gestured to the forest around us. “Everyone I knew is dead. Their children and their children’s children are nothing but bones—”

My voice thinned, and I stopped, struggling with my own emotions. Swallowing hard, I said, “How did You not know?”