He didn’t answer for several seconds. “I am not sure. It is a place I cannot see. A place I cannot go.”
I pressed both hands to my chest, trying to soothe my dying hopes. “But can a soul move from one hereafter to another? When I perish, will I still live with the other star mothers? Will my line still follow me?”
A long breath came from his muzzle. “I do not know. I wish I could tell you, Ceris. Even your Sun would not know. It is not His domain.”
Two tears, one for each eye, blurred my vision, and I blinked them away. “If they have gone where I cannot follow, I will be alone when I die, too.”
I hadn’t meant to say it aloud. I barely did; it was more breath than whisper, a plea to the stars overhead. But Ristriel heard me. He shifted again, paws padding as they grew closer to me. His body lowered to the ground again, close to me but not touching, his breath stirring the baby hairs lining my forehead.
“You will not be alone.” His voice sounded like the wood around us, distant and deep. “You will be worshiped, and if that does not please you, we will find your family in Nediah. And if they do not love you, I will be your companion as long as you wish. As long as mortal paths allow me to follow. But I would not worry, Ceris. You are a being that is easy to love.”
More tears filled my vision, and when I blinked, they ran down my temples and into my ears, but I did not wipe them away.
All I could think to say was “Thank you.”
We rose early the next day. I took a quick wash in a nearby creek and ate a breakfast that was half-foraged. My thoughts were still tied into knots, so I was not good conversation until after noon, when I finally let questions of family and the afterlife and Ristriel slip away and found myself rambling about how wool was spun and various dying methods, as well as merchants I remembered who’d come through town with more rare supplements like indigo and turmeric. Ristriel listened contentedly enough, though I don’t think I succeeded in furthering his interest in needlepoint.
We were still walking when night fell suddenly, not yet to the town Ristriel was hoping to give me shelter in. It was my fault, for I had taken an extra break and slowed us down, foraging for elderflower and chokeberries. Ristriel, ever patient, had not complained once about my dawdling. Indeed, he’d begun to make me feel guilty for ever doubting him or his intentions.
“It isn’t far.” He walked a step ahead of me, cemented by darkness into the form of a man. “Just over that rise.”
I could barely make out a rise up ahead, and knew it was solid land and not sky only because it was a piece of uneven blackness without a single star. The night was so absolute, so dark, that while searching for Surril, I tripped on something and stumbled into Ristriel.
He steadied me with cool hands, then wrapped one of them around one of mine. “It isn’t far,” he repeated, and I sensed a smile. “I forget that you cannot see in the dark.”
I gripped his hand tightly, grateful for the anchor of his presence. “I’m not entirely incapable,” I countered, but it was very dark. As Ristriel led me across the field, toward the rise, I looked up at the sky, searching.
Pulling back enough to make him slow, I said, “Where is the moon?”
He stopped, scanning the heavens himself. Not a single cloud marred our view; half the world was filled with stars. But it was not time for a new moon—last night the moon had been at her third quarter.
I was marveling at the beauty of the star scape when I heard a clamor somewhere . . . I couldn’t pinpoint where. Like the crashing of two bodies, but it echoed across the field, followed by the scraping of metal and a distant shout.
Ristriel’s grip tightened. “We need to go back.” He spun me around and began running back the way we had come, using his free hand to relieve me of one of my bags. “Hurry.”
I didn’t doubt him and ran as fast as I could, but a full day of travel and my bags made me slow. “What? What’s happening?”
Another clamor, like hammer against anvil. Or sword against sword. Distant voices made me think of the crowd of people outside Shila’s home after my return to Endwever had been made known.
Only, these voices were angry.
Ristriel didn’t answer, only tugged at my arm, urging my legs to move faster. Putting my head down, I put all my energy into my legs as we flew back the way we had come—
I saw a flash of blinding light before I heard the boom. It was the loudest thunder I’d ever heard, so violent its percussion pulsed through my body. I turned back not to see storm clouds, but light falling from the heavens like the petals of a wilting flower. Like some great god had ground lightning into dust and thrown it as though rice at a wedding.