The Stargazer

Stargazer (chapter twenty)

The tears eventually ran out leaving a deep well of nothing inside her. Her father tried several times to heal the wounds on her body, but nothing he did seem to work.


“She won’t let me heal her,” he told his distraught wife.


“Stubborn, like her father.”


Her brothers came, berating her for worrying them and cajoling her to tell them what was wrong. She could only turn her face away and remain silent. After all, what words could frame the painful nothing in her heart?


Finally, Raewyn came and chased them away before settling on the edge of the bed. She turned the thin tome she held in her hands over and over, her expression thoughtful.


“What’s wrong, Ash?” she asked in her quiet way.


Aislinn opened her mouth to answer but words wouldn’t come. She swallowed hard, fighting to find a way between the tears and grief.


“Rowan’s dead,” she managed finally.


Violet eyes studied her face and then fell to the book.


“I thought you were with the Stargazer.”


Aislinn nodded.


Raewyn’s gaze sharpened. “So the Stargazer’s name is Rowan and you were with him.”


She nodded again, grateful that she didn’t have to find words.


“He came to the tower, you know.” Raewyn sighed and set the book aside, tucking her feet under her. “We had only just figured out you were missing when the astrolabe broke and Father found him lying on the floor. He asked Father to look out for you, to keep you safe.” She shook her head before Aislinn could find the words to ask. “He was alive but in a pretty bad way. Father didn’t have time to do anything before the man vanished.”


“Telescope.” The words slipped from her, unbidden.


“What?”


“Not an astrolabe.” Tears tangled the memory, choking the words. “Telescope. Mirror.”


“A telescope has a mirror, an astrolabe doesn’t,” Raewyn translated. “Can I ask you something without sounding weird? Just how long were you gone?”


“A month.” So short a time and yet so much had happened.


“I thought it might be something like that.” The dark haired girl looked down at the book. “We were sitting at the table and I was holding this book. Father was telling your brothers he would come back for them if he didn’t find you.” She looked up, troubled. “I could have sworn the book reappeared in my hands, but I don’t remember it ever being gone.”


“Time King.”


It was easier after that, the words coming in fits and starts while Raewyn listened. Aislinn recounted falling into the mirror and finding herself in a bubble of time. She told her friend of Rowan and the princesses, the seasons and dancing. Once started, she couldn’t stop, even when others began to filter back into her room. No one interrupted her. No questions besieged her. She spoke until the words filled with blood and power. And death. Tears dammed the flow and she sank back onto the cushions, exhausted.


Her father brushed the hair away from her face, his dark eyes troubled. Centauri was a prince of the Tuathe de’, but he couldn’t heal what ailed his daughter. Beside him, her tiny, delicate mother watched her with open worry. Brendan looked as if he wanted to kill something.


Ciaran leaned against the wall and crossed his arms, shaking his head. “Hide and seek.”


“Ciaran,” Centauri growled. “Mind your manners.”


Raewyn frowned. “No. Let him talk. What do you mean, Ciaran?”


Aislinn’s youngest, darkest brother waited until their father nodded before answering.


“This Time King is playing a game with us. He hid Ash and we had to find her. Now he’s hidden this Rowan fellow. Seems to me, the next step is finding him.”


“Rowan’s dead.” Maybe if she said it enough, the pain would dull.


Ciaran shook his head and pursed his lips. “Technically, he’s not even been born yet.”


The first flicker sparked to life in her breast.


“You’re saying she should wait around for a few hundred years and then try to hunt him up?” Brendon scoffed. “She won’t last a few hundred years heartbroken.”


Heartbroken? Was that what this pain was? But how could that be?


“Then find this Time King and make him take her to him.”


“The Alvar are not so easy to summon.” Centauri cut that line of thought of before hope could take form. “They hide in the streams of time and in the spaces between moonbeams. The few accounts found in the histories refer to them a pranksters and cruel souls. I doubt this one would help even if we were somehow able to bring him to us.”


“Would your mother know anything of these Alvar?” Raewyn asked, her expression thoughtful rather than the crestfallen one the others wore.


He shook his head. “Réalta is the historian of our people and what little I know, I learned from her. She found it odd that there is so little written or known about the Alvar.”


Star took Aislinn’s hand, her own fine-boned and fragile. She might be small and delicate, but her power was unquestioned. Aislinn had always wanted to be as strong and resilient as her mother.


“Everyone out.” The command was issued in a soft voice. No one stirred. “Leave us alone.”


One by one, they moved, fidgeting and then filing out, leaving her alone with the Queen of the Sidhe. Ailsinn lay still, wondering what was going on.


“You are so like your father sometimes, it frightens me,” Star said softly, still holding her hand. “When your father was pretending to court me, he was attacked by a troll and badly hurt. He wouldn’t let anyone heal him because he felt he deserved the pain for betraying me.”


Aislinn blinked. She’d never heard of a single hiccup in her parents’ courtship. “Betrayed?”


“He’d sold me out to Ankou to save his brother’s life.” The words were given without rancor. Star had truly forgiven her consort for the deed. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you. This human?”


“Maybe.”


Star nodded as if she understood completely. “You need to find him, then. Do you want to? Badly enough to wish for it?”


Aislinn and her brothers had learned long ago that living with the embodiment of wishes did not immediately mean their every wish would come true. Star chose which wishes she granted and was a stern task master for those who thought to abuse her power for their own gain.


“I want to find him.” That was an irrefutable fact. Rowan had been willing to give up his life for her freedom. Now, something drew her—compelled her—to find him.


“As you brother pointed out so eloquently, the man hasn’t even been born yet. There is opportunity there—if you have the courage to seize it.”


“I’m scared.”


“I know.” Star smiled a little. “I know that kind of fear very well. I can tell you, though, that the only way to be free of it is to find the courage to walk through the middle of it with your head held high. You have every right to be afraid. Only a fool wouldn’t be. You have to decide which is stronger, the fear in your head or the love in your heart. Whichever you choose, it will rule you the rest of your life.”


“Always?” That seemed improbable. Life offered new chances, new choices and, given how long Fae lived, it stood to reason there would be many more opportunities.


“Each time you choose fear, it grows stronger, harder to resist. Even if you choose with your heart, the fear never entirely goes away. It’s easier, you see. Easier to run away than stand and fight. Courage is a choice.”


Aislinn’s eyes were growing heavy, exhaustion taking its toll.


“I like him,” she admitted drowsily. “Respect him. I think… I think he needs me.”


It was the sleep talking, not logic. She knew it even as she drifted off. How could such a big, powerful man need her?


Cool fingers brushed the hair away from her face and a soft kissed pressed to her brow.


“Choose wisely, Ash. Does he need you or do you need him? The answer may define your future.”