Star Mother (Star Mother #1)(57)

He shifted again into a man. The man I had come to identify him as. It felt like a true form to me, for though mankind comes in every shape, size, and color, Ristriel was always consistent in his interpretation. Always the same face, the same hair, the same build.

Always beautiful, and never a stranger.

“I like it, too.” I wanted to take his hand, but the Sun still shone upon us, so I settled on wishing for it instead.





CHAPTER 16

Ristriel was right.

In our three days of walking, the wood thinned and opened, and the fourth morning we topped a hill and looked out over a wide expanse. A large lake shimmered in the distance, and beyond that the spikes of a faraway mountain range, but before all of it, nestled in grassy hills, was the first true city I’d ever seen.

Nediah.

A thick stone wall surrounded it, but from our vantage point, I could see its houses and shops, clustered close together like sleeping mice. The city arched up, encapsulating one of the hills, and a great cathedral sat at its highest point, its golden spire shining in the morning light. I squinted—there was something else on that spire, but I was too far away to see what.

“That is it,” Ristriel murmured. “Your new home.”

“It might be. If the Parroses live there, and if they accept me.” I kneaded a knuckle into my stomach. It was tight and uneasy, which made the thought of breakfast unappealing.

“They would be fools not to.”

I smiled at him, warmed by the words. “Come with me, Ristriel.

Walk with me.”

He nodded, and we descended the hill together. When we reached the next, I noticed the cemetery.

It was outside the city, marked off by a four-foot fence studded with spikes to keep out wild animals. It was large and green, and the smell of honeysuckle wafted from it.

Changing direction, I moved toward the fence. There were a few people within. I came to the fence and followed it around until I found the gate. As soon as I entered, a man who looked to be in his late forties approached me. I had expected Ristriel to flit away, to hide in my hair or my pocket, but he stayed by my side. The day was warm, the sky spotted with clouds, and his colors made him appear ordinary.

“I’m the keeper here,” the older man said. “What are you seeking?”

“Parros family.”

He nodded as though the request were perfectly normal, which gave me hope. Gesturing for us to follow, he walked toward a small building I’d thought was a sepulcher, but turned out to be a utility shed and office all in one. He flipped through the pages of a tome on a crooked table.

“G-14.” He pointed south. “Look for the pegs in the ground.”

I glanced to Ristriel, hope rising in my throat. I walked south, noticing metal pegs in the ground stamped with letters and numbers.

I found row G easily, and lot fourteen was near the other end of the fence. Some of the graves were like the ones in Endwever, weathered and illegible. Some were only months old.

“Parros,” I said, running my hand over the closest one. Yosef Parros, passed two years ago at the age of fifty-one. “The surname is here, all right. I just need to find them.”

I’d run through the meeting in my mind so many times, sifting through different scenarios accounting for all sorts of reactions.

Mistrust, disbelief, happiness, tears . . . I’d tried to prepare myself for every possible outcome. The worst-case scenario was either not finding my family at all or finding them and being outright rejected, in which case I’d have to make my home somewhere else, or take Saiyon up on His offer.

I glanced at Ristriel, wondering if he could ever make a home among mortals, or if he’d be forever running, leaving me behind to grow old without aging. Would he stay by my side, if I chose to stop moving?

Would he be able to?

“Come with me to the city?” I’d never been an anxious person, but facing that large place on my own became suddenly daunting. I’d never been to a city before. Part of me wanted to turn back into the forest and simply get lost in it, never to face another human being again.

But Ristriel nodded, and I breathed out my relief. Once we left the cemetery, he said, “I will have to be careful if there are crowds, but I will do my best.”

Crowds, because anyone might simply walk through Ristriel instead of bumping into him, and that could cause anything from confusion to a riot. As Ristriel had said, humans were superstitious creatures. “Thank you.” I let my fingers pass through his, and a cool chill ran up my arm. Ristriel stepped closer to me, enough so that, were he solid, our shoulders would brush. I wished that I could feel his hand in mine as I approached this enormous place where I knew no one. So I could have something steady to hold on to. So that he could whisk me away if something went wrong.

I glanced up at the Sun, willing more clouds to bar the light.

Then I turned my ring off.

There were guards at the gate, but they stood there casually, welcoming the coming and going of visitors. The wall was old, perhaps built long ago as a fortification in battle, and the city was densely packed within it. The crowded streets, crammed with shops, homes, and people, were not good for Ristriel, but I marveled. The throngs were thickest down the large streets, especially toward the centers, where people of all sizes and shapes pushed past one another, or shouted so their haggling could be heard over their neighbors’. We avoided the worst of it by following the narrower routes close to the wall, hugging the stone as we passed tradesmen and sweetshops, skinny houses sharing walls, a horse market. I found two men sitting outside a closed tavern, playing a game of stones, and asked them if they knew where the Parroses lived. They did not, so we moved on. I asked a woman leading a child by the hand, but she did not, either.