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.”