When the sky threatened dawn, we held each other and repeated our promises, mingled with apologies. I sang to him and he kissed my forehead, tracing his fingers down the silver streaks in my hair.
When the Sun rose, two fiery godlings appeared on either side of us, armed with ivory spears, heads mounted with tall, flaming helmets. They held out their hands, and bound by oath, Ristriel stepped into them.
My heart had already broken for him, but when Ristriel flashed away in the possession of those godlings, my spirit broke, too, and I fell to the dust and wept for him, until every tear I had to give spilled to the Earth Mother.
Saiyon’s projection, standing behind me, waited for me to finish before taking me back to His palace.
CHAPTER 24
My time with Ristriel did not result in a child.
Part of me despaired that it hadn’t, for I so desperately wanted a piece of him with me, something I could hold and cherish, since Ristriel was locked away in a place I could never hope to find, and three and a half centuries is a very long time to someone who was not quite mortal.
Another part of me was glad that I hadn’t conceived, for I dwelt in the Palace of the Sun, and I did not know whether a child of Twilight would have survived within its walls.
I was confined to the palace, but I was not chained, nor was I kept locked up in my room. Even so, for a month I would not leave my bedchamber, with its not-walls and not-furniture. When I wasn’t abed, weeping for my loss, I lay on the floor, staring into the star-clustered sky, whispering to Surril. Often, she whispered back. Fosii and Elta, again appointed to my care, tried everything in their power to make me smile, but Surril was the only balm to my ache, and I blessed her with every scar she had given me, seen and unseen unlike.
After the first month, I grew defiant. I pushed the boundaries of my prison, for I saw it only as a prison then. I walked to the edges of the palace and dared to jump into the sky. I went where I was not welcome—the armory, other godlings’ quarters, even Saiyon’s. I would not call Saiyon by the name He had entrusted to me. I would not call on Him at all, and I starkly ignored Him when He came to me, no matter how kind, angry, or sorry He appeared.
Time moved on as it always does. I was allowed my stitching, and Elta retrieved for me the longest piece of canvas I had ever seen. I started from its topmost corner, stitching into it greens and browns and grays, depicting Endwever as I remembered it, the cathedral and the forest, telling my story from the beginning. When I got to the second scene, where the torch lit, my stitches came uneven and loose so often I unpicked it more times than I could count. Anger and sorrow do not make for a steady hand.
I took my stitching of Ristriel and soaked it with tears night after night for six months before finally attaching it to my tapestry. I ran my hands over it gently, afraid of wearing down the fibers, and did not hide it from Saiyon when He visited me. He kept coming back to speak to me, to apologize, even, for the laws He was bound to uphold, despite my harshness toward Him. And harsh I was.
I discovered what I had not during my pregnancy—that my world could be viewed from Saiyon’s home. I needed only to climb to the highest point of the palace, and from there I could look over not-spires to the Earth Mother. She looked very small from that place, like I could hold Her in my hand. I watched the Sun’s light draw across Her face and waited for a shadow lit by stars to descend in its wake, dividing Saiyon’s kingdom from the moon’s. Twilight’s presence forced their war to a stalling point, for the moon could not cross His power and Saiyon did not wish to. Twilight touched the world for barely half an hour at a time before withdrawing into Oblivion. Twice per turn of the Earth Mother. Each time his colors shone, I sang to him the songs we’d shared on Earth. I sang from the moment he appeared to the moment he vanished, no matter how depressed or weepy or hoarse I was. I sang to him, day after day, month after month, year after year, never sure whether or not he could hear me.
Two years passed before I resigned myself to my fate. Two years before I could conquer my misery and take care of myself, as I knew Ristriel, Surril, and even Saiyon wanted me to. I finally opened up to Fosii and Elta, telling them stories of my childhood in Endwever and my journey to Nediah. As I stitched picture after picture in my tapestry, I told the godlings about the workings of humans. Of wars and storms and happy times below. I know they reported what I said to Saiyon, for He later presented me with a sort of spyglass that, when I stood on that high spire of the palace, I could use to see Nediah. I watched Quelline and Ruthgar live and grow. I saw little Ceris turn into a woman and marry and have a Ceris of her own. I watched Yanla, and then Argon, pass away, and mourned apart from my family, who would never see my tears. I watched Quelline and Ruthgar pass as well, and Ceris’s family expand and grow.