Star Mother, page 2
I couldn’t make out what they were saying, only a word here and there, but it was Caen and Anya, the weaver’s daughter. I wasn’t surprised to see them together; they had been good friends since childhood, and I’d often suspected Anya of harboring feelings for Caen.
I’d just never thought he’d reciprocate.
She held the lamp. He bent low, talking close to her ear. I heard my name a couple of times, saw Caen caress the side of Anya’s face. That was all he did, for I stayed up in that tree until long after the two parted. Their voices were laced with regret and sadness and love, but I knew them both, and they were too good in their hearts for a tryst. They would neither shame their parents nor break my heart.
But after that night, it started splintering.
He will learn to love me, I told myself again and again. I had learned to love him. He just needed more time.
After that, I doubled my efforts. Brought Caen larger lunches, showed him the embroidery, and made him laugh. I put more time into my wedding dress, perhaps thinking that if the gods saw my dedication, they might be willing to help turn my betrothed’s heart away from the weaver’s daughter.
But once I knew, I saw his sorrow whenever Anya passed by, and her ache during noon worship. Their pain mirrored inside me. I’m not sure they noticed. I hope they didn’t. For even if I could be selfless enough to give up Caen, the choice wasn’t mine to make. Our parents had bound us together when we were little more than children, under the eyes of the Sun. They would never tolerate a parting. All of the arrangements had been made, and our cottage was nearly finished.
I looked forward to the future, to having Caen as my husband and babes scattered around our little cottage. Babes I would love with all the love within me. Babes I would never forsake no matter how old they grew, or who they were promised to. I wanted to give them everything my parents had failed to give me. I wanted a place to call home, and people who would be mine as I was theirs.
I avoided wondering if Caen would still look at the weaver’s daughter with such anguish, even with our children sitting in his lap. At her, or at the memory of her, should she leave. I avoided it, and yet in the minutes before falling asleep, when my mind was its weakest, the worries surfaced, churning and bitter, and I was afraid.
It was only a few months before my twentieth birthday when the Sun reached down and lit the torch upon the roof of the cathedral. A torch wide as a man lying down and deep as a child standing up, kept filled with wood and oil.
It had never once been lit, in all the centuries the cathedral watched over Endwever.
The torch burst alight just an hour after dawn one morning, and stayed alight long after the fuel ran out. The flames burned higher and brighter than any man-made fire, for the Sun Himself had reached down and touched the fuel, though none had seen His finger.
The faithful knew what this meant, once we were done reeling from the spectacle, reeling from being chosen. A star had died, and the Sun had turned His eyes toward Endwever for its replacement. Stars are perhaps the most powerful of godlings, which makes them incredibly long-lived. But unlike demigods like the moon, or full gods like the Sun, they are not immortal.
They are children of the Sun, and can only be born through a mortal mother.
I sat in a tree not far from my home, staring at the flames crowning the cathedral. They heated the cathedral beyond a bearable temperature, so no one could enter, and yet none of the stone or glass had scorched. The whole town was bathed in warmth. A meeting among the men had already been called, but there would be another for the women. There would have to be, for only a woman of childbearing years could appease the will of the Sun.
It was a great honor to be a star mother. Though Endwever had never been chosen before, tales were whispered of star mothers from other places, sometimes in other towns or cities in Helchanar, sometimes in the lands beyond our borders. There were poems about them, songs, tapestries. The star mother’s home would be greatly blessed, and her name would be woven with praise and admiration. Her face would be numbered among the stars, and her rest would be heavenly and eternal, in a paradise beyond what any mortal mind could conjure.
For no mortal woman could survive the birthing of a star. Once a woman left to be a star mother, she always returned nine months later, her body cold but strewn with heavenly treasures, a smile on her face. Or so it was said. It happened infrequently, only once every hundred or so years, so tales were all we had to go on.
The call had gone out, and we could not be long in answering it. No one wanted to test the patience of the Sun, who could burn all of Helchanar with a touch, if He so wished.
The women gathered on the second day. There were twenty-seven women in Endwever of childbearing age. Some of them were already married, but the honor of being a star mother was so great even married women could volunteer. Our meeting had not yet officially begun, and already the women whispered to one another about who was worthy, quoting scripture and gossiping. I listened with only half an ear. Having worshiped the Sun all my life, I knew of the honors, the promises. But my path was already set before me. I would marry Caen, have a mortal family, lead a mortal life, and die as any mortal would.
“Gretcha would be well for it,” the midwife whispered to Gretcha’s mother, though Gretcha, a year my junior, stood right beside her and could hear every word. “She is fair and unspoken for.”
Gretcha’s mother startled at the notion, but Gretcha did not. She took the suggestion reverently. There were not a lot of eligible bachelors in these parts; towns were small, with wide spaces between them. What better future could a young girl hope for than to be chosen by a god?
Jani, the herbalist, wished it could be her and said so over and over again. Her husband had passed away the year before, and she hungered for the salvation guaranteed to a star mother and, so it was said, her family. But Jani’s youngest child was already older than I was. The torch had been lit too late for her.
While the talk went on, I surveyed the familiar faces and found one missing. Idlysi was not here, though both Pasha, my baby sister, and my mother were present. Curious, I slipped away from the delegation and returned to our home, where I found her in our shared bedroom, cocooned in blankets, staring wistfully out the window.
“Lys?” I approached her.
She must have been lost in thought, for she tensed when I spoke. “Leave me alone.”
“But the torch—”
“I know about the torch!” she shrieked, then cowered into her blankets, apology written in her eyes. “How could I not know? I can feel it, even here!” She shook her head. “Pasha is young yet, and you are spoken for. I’m a prime candidate, aren’t I?”
Her fear struck me like a dull knife running the length of my breastbone. “Idlysi, they will only take a volunteer—”
“And what if no one volunteers?” she whispered, pulling her blanket-covered fist to her mouth, pressing it against her teeth.
I gingerly sat on the edge of the bed and touched her foot. She shrunk from me. “Why would no one volunteer? It’s a glorious path to have.”
But my sister bowed her head. “Is it so glorious, to die?”
“The spirit never dies.” It was a verbatim quote from scripture.
She shook her head like we spoke different languages and shifted her gaze back to the window. In an attempt to comfort her, I said, “I think it will be Gretcha.”
Idlysi drew in a shuddering breath. “I hope so.”
Pressing my lips together—I was unsure what else to say—I let her be. I did not return to the meeting, but to the beading on my wedding dress, which hung from a dress form in my parents’ bedchamber.
My heart twisted inside me as I worked on the gown. Was I naïve, to believe scripture? To believe the promises passed down from the generations before us? Or was it merely easy to believe because I knew someone else would volunteer and it was not a decision I would be forced to make?
I wondered what would happen if no one volunteered. Would the Sun punish us? Would He turn away?
Or was Idlysi right? Would one of our women be forced to go?
Eager for distraction, I focused on the task at hand. My wedding dress was simple but lovely, cut from linen I’d woven with the aid of the village midwife and edged with lace I’d braided myself. I thought to try it on, but found I could not pull it from the dress form.
Instead, I went to visit Caen.
It was just past noon. The village was eerily quiet, the women’s meeting having adjourned, families sheltering in their homes instead of completing their daily labors. Even the birds withheld their song, and the hounds their play. My footsteps felt unnaturally loud, and I slowed to quiet them.
I spotted Caen’s profile on his back step, his head in his hands, the shadow of the forest across his lap. I paused, breath catching against a great rising ache within me. He looked so sorrowful, so stooped, so small. I approached with care.
“Caen?” I asked.
I startled him. His head shot up, eyes like a child’s, wild until they found me and softened. “Ceris.” His voice was rough.
“Are you all right?”
He nodded, but the way he sat said otherwise. I lowered myself beside him on the step and ran my palm down the length of his back. Felt his spine move as he breathed.
“I am afraid,” he admitted.
“We all are. One never believes lore and legend will come alive before their eyes.”
He leaned into me, and I relished his weight. I brushed my fingers through the ends of his hair, cut across the nape of his neck. Caen was such a strong man, and although he was always quick to laugh, I had never seen him cry. Now, he seemed on the verge of tears.
“Caen, what’s wrong?”
He swallowed, hesitant, but my silent persuasion eased out the words. “Gretcha or Anya. No decisions came of the women’s meeting, and now the council will debate between the two.”
His words drove an iron spike through the center of my chest. My fingers stopped. His sorrow flooded me, choked me, weighed me down as an anvil hanging from either shoulder.
Anya. I had not even considered her.
If Anya was chosen, she and her family would be honored for all time. But Caen’s heart would break, for despite my best efforts, I knew he still didn’t love me. Not the way I loved him. Not the way he loved Anya.
And if I knew Anya, she would accept the call. She could not have the man she loved on Earth, so why not end her torment in the most glorious manner possible?
I resumed tracing the planes of his back, but my fingers grew numb. We stayed like that awhile, sitting in complete silence, for even the creatures of the forest were reverent of the burning torch. Not a single cricket chirped nor dog barked.
It was in that silence that a small spark lit within me, little more than an ember, glowing within the pit of despair sucking beneath my skin. I ignored it at first, or tried to, but it seared so painfully I could not bear it. Leaving a kiss in Caen’s hair, I left him to mourn alone and walked aimlessly, unsure of where to go. The cathedral was out of the question, as it was uninhabitable. The forest felt eerie. My home seemed too crowded, too unwelcoming, and Idlysi still brooded there, terrified for her own fate. So I merely walked around, without a clear path, without a destination, trying to squash that spark, for I feared it more than I had ever feared anything in my life.
I knew how to make Caen love me more than any other, without breaking his spirit, without dishonoring my family.
The problem was, I would have to die for it.
CHAPTER 2
With a few words, a single promise, I could give Caen what his heart truly wanted. I could spare Anya’s life and break the ties of our betrothal. I could honor my family and have my name in song, passed down from generation to generation, to be remembered always.
I could be a star mother.
The thought possessed me so strongly I could think of nothing else. I found my way home after several hours, only to climb onto the roof and stare at the torch atop our cathedral. Even from there, I could feel its heat. Heat that thrummed with my own heartbeat.
I had the power to earn my betrothed’s heart, to take away my sister’s fear, to give Anya a chance at happiness. To show my worth to my parents, and to all of Endwever. Perhaps if Caen could not love me, the Sun would.
I tried fruitlessly to push the thoughts away, but they stuck to me like burrs. The men met that evening. I did not sleep that night. It didn’t help that my window faced the cathedral, and the Sun’s fire burned His face into my eyelids whenever I tried.
I thought of Caen in the forest, touching Anya’s cheek. I thought of him curled up on his back step, bowed over by the fear he might lose her once and for all. The way he’d said her name echoed inside my skull.
Come morning I was miserable and overtired, and angry that it went beneath the notice of my mother and my youngest sister, though I could not fault Idlysi, who couldn’t even stomach breakfast, nor my father, who had not yet come home. After breakfast, I took up refuge in our small kitchen, the room farthest from the cathedral, and drew its thin curtains over the window, trying to block out the eyes of the Sun. Trying to quiet my own pestering ideas. I managed to doze in one of the chairs, only to dream of the torch and start awake with a crick in my neck. I went to my parents’ bedchamber, where I attempted to work on my wedding dress, but my fingers could not thread the needle, and it all seemed so very pointless.
It was that evening, my father still not home, my mother in the kitchen, pushing her food around her plate, and me staring at my nearly completed gown, that I finally freed that spark, that pestering ember, and let it ignite.
I will be the star mother.
My fatigue, my anger, and even my fear abated the moment I thought those words, as though the Sun Himself had soothed me.
My dress blurred in my vision. My hands shook. I swallowed. Straightened. “I will be the star mother,” I whispered.
And Caen would love me for it.
I felt hyperaware of myself as I moved through the house, as though my quiet declaration, while too hushed to pass the walls of the room, had reached the heavens. As though the Sun God had turned His gaze to this house. My mother and youngest sister still sat at the kitchen table, their plates mostly full. Idlysi had declared she wasn’t hungry and was tucked away in our bedchamber. I wasn’t hungry, either, for the spark inside me had burned up my appetite. I stood in the doorway, waiting for them to look at me and not at all surprised when they didn’t.
“What would you think,” I said, “if I were to go away for a very long time?”
Only my mother looked up at me. “Now is not a time for your antics, Ceris.”
Her words didn’t affect me. I felt as though I held a great, invisible shield. Like I was someone else, watching a play featuring myself. “These are not antics.”
They did not reply. But that was fine. Once this was over, we would all remember our love for one another.
“The dress will fit Idlysi well,” I murmured.
Mother glanced at me, one eyebrow raised.
I met her eyes, then Pasha’s. Leveling my shoulders, I said, “Father will come home. I will be the star mother.”
More than one plate hit the floor.
I left the house before anyone could argue with me. Truthfully, I wanted them to argue. I wanted some sort of proof that I mattered, that I was too loved for them to let me give myself up without a fight. The men had debated this long; they could debate a little longer and find someone else to answer the Sun’s call.
But I also feared there would be only silence, or worse, congratulations, and so I left, allowing myself to be a coward then so I would not be a coward later.
Night had fallen, but it seemed to be early evening from the way the godly torch continued to burn, drowning out even the light of the stars. I walked away from it, nearly ran, for fear was creeping back into me little by little, and I worried that I would change my mind and forever suffer for what might have been.
But I did not go to the council meeting, nor the cathedral. I went to Caen’s house.
I came around the side, planning to climb up the woodpile and knock on his window, but he was already out there, stripped to his shirtsleeves, quartering wood with a ferocity that revealed his own inner turmoil. Todrick was with him and spied me first, reaching over to swat Caen’s ankle. He stilled his axe, glancing first to his brother, then to me.
“Ceris.” He lowered the axe. I wonder what my expression must have been, for he dropped it and walked out to meet me. “What’s wrong?”
Todrick silently excused himself and disappeared into the house.
I was short of breath, and not just from the excursion. I strained to keep my muscles from trembling, for even through my terror, I was aware that the only time I’d felt at peace in the last two days was after I had made my decision and spoken it aloud. If the Sun had heard it, I would be a fool to rescind the declaration. “I just wanted to see you one last time.”
His brow, dotted with perspiration, drew low. “What do you mean?”
I gripped his elbows and stood on my toes, kissing him on the lips. It was a quick and modest kiss, but I had never kissed Caen before, and it startled him. “I wanted to tell you I love you,” I admitted, my pulse racing with the confession, however obvious it must have been. “And I want you to be happy.”
He stammered, “C-Ceris, what . . .”
“Remember that,” I pressed. I was losing my courage, and even on the south side of the village, I could feel the heat of the torch pushing into my shoulders. Reminding me of my promise. “Remember me.”
