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.