Rain beat against the darkened window, the fire cracked and popped on the hearth. Caiden stared at his plate.
“My mother drowned,” said Wen softly. “She tried to go sailing in a storm. The wind and the waves were too much for her to handle, and she barely made it away from the shore before her boat capsized. By the time they pulled her from the water, it was too late.”
Talia stared at him, horrified.
“My father does not wish the sea to take anyone else.”
She glanced back at the Baron, mortified that she’d upset him. “I’m so sorry, sir. Forgive me. I didn’t know.”
The Baron wouldn’t look at her. He rose shakily from his seat, pushing his chair back. Caiden leapt up to help him, putting one arm under the old man’s shoulders.
“I am very tired this evening,” he whispered. “I will retire early.”
As Caiden helped the Baron from the room, Wen jerked up from his seat. “Raiva’s heart, Talia, what’s wrong with you?”
“You wouldn’t tell me anything. Why shouldn’t I ask your father?”
“Because he can’t handle it!” Wen paced over to the fire. “We don’t—we don’t talk about things like that. It upsets him too much.”
“Your mother is dead!” Talia cried. “Why can’t he accept it?”
Wen’s face was hard. “Because it hurts. I would think you’d understand that.”
“Of course it hurts,” she choked out. “But that doesn’t change the fact that it happened, that we all have to keep on living.” She threw her napkin on the table and stood abruptly.
“Where were you today? You weren’t in the garden. Did you go down to the beach again?”
“If I had, what would it matter?”
“Talia, you can’t—”
“You don’t own me,” she spat at him. “You don’t even know who I am. I can do whatever I want.”
He shook his head. “No you can’t—not here.”
Her thoughts flashed to the betrothal, to the ring weighing heavy on her right hand.
“Tuer crush your bones,” she said, and stormed from the room.
She dreamed she was sitting with her mother in the Emperor’s aviary, the sun hot on her skin, a fountain burbling at her back.
“What happened to the Stars?” she asked her mother, closing her eyes to listen to the chattering parrots.
“The Stars, my darling?”
“There were three Stars in the beginning, wheeling about the earth. What happened to them?”
“The gods plucked them out of heaven. Well, two of them anyway.”
She leaned her head on her mother’s shoulder. “Tell me the story.”
Her mother stroked Talia’s hair. “When the gods withdrew into their separate realms, they no longer thought of mankind or Endahr. The gods forgot the tasks the One had appointed them at the beginning: They neglected to care for the earth, for the trees, for the animals and the waters and the wind. For the Stars. They forgot because they grew jealous of each other and were not content to rule in their realms alone. The gods quarreled for centuries, thunder and wind raging against the sea, beasts ravaging the earth. Mankind tilled the ground and tended the animals. But they could do nothing for the Stars. And so the Stars began to dim.
“The gods grew afraid, and decided to take the Stars for themselves before their power waned forever. But Tuer and Raiva had pity on mankind, and convinced the other seven gods to take only two of the Stars, and leave mankind one.
“So the gods warred over the keeping of the two Stars, which burned with greater power than they had ever imagined, for they retained still that first spark of life that the One had created at the beginning. Whoever wielded the Stars could give life, or take it, could break mountains and drain oceans. Whoever wielded the Stars could rule the gods, and the world.
“But as they fought, the earth trembled and the continents splintered into the sea, and mankind feared that the end had come.”
“But it hadn’t,” said Talia.
“No. But night crept into Endahr, darkness covering all the world for half of every day, and when the last Star rose above the horizon, it shed hardly any light, and gave no heat at all. And mankind began to freeze in the darkness. So they cried out to the One who was before the gods to save them. He listened to their pleas, and made the remaining Star burn brighter and hotter than it had before, though it still did not equal the glory of the three. He made a mirror for the third Star, to reflect a shadow of its light in the darkness, and sprinkled lesser stars into the night sky.”
“The sun and the moon and the stars,” Talia mumbled into her mother’s shoulder. The spray of the fountain touched her cheek. “What about the Stars the gods took?”
“They fought over them for centuries, but in the end Huen, the god of the earth, took the first Star. He bound it as a jewel into a ring made of gold, and brought it far beneath the earth. Aigir, god of the sea, took the second Star. He bound it in a band of silver and brought it into the ocean. With the power of the Star, he took dust and coral, weeds and shells, and formed them into a beautiful Hall at the base of the Immortal Tree.”
“And that’s what happened to the Stars,” said Talia, sleep making her ears buzz.
“That’s what happened to the Stars.” Talia could hear the smile in her voice.
“I wonder how they made Stars into rings,” she said, just before she fell asleep.
She thought she heard her mother reply: “With the Words of the gods,” but she couldn’t be certain. When she woke again, her mother had carried her back into her palace room, and a parrot of her very own was eyeing her from a brand new perch.
In her bed in the Ruen-Dahr, Talia twisted and shook. Her dream shifted.
She saw a ship in a dark sea, a woman laughing on a throne, a Tree that reached to heaven, a song that shook the world.
An army of Dead things rising out of the sea, clothed in shadows, every one of them screaming.
Chapter Eighteen
SHE HAD BREAKFAST ALONE IN HER ROOM the next morning, having no wish to run into Wen. The rain had stopped in the night, but there was still no hint of sunlight piercing the eternal clouds. A dreary grayness seemed to cling to the very stones of the Ruen-Dahr.
Talia sipped tea and ate sweet bread with raisins, staring down into the waves and trying to forget her dreams. What were the chances, she wondered, of being betrothed to a man whose mother had also drowned? She pushed the thought angrily away. There was no connection between them—her mother had taken her own life. Wen’s had drowned by accident.
There was a knock at her door, and Ro poked her head in.
“I’m just finishing,” Talia said, thinking the maid meant to take her breakfast tray.
“Lord Estahr-Sol is waiting for you in the stables, Miss. He said you’d arranged to have a ride?” The curiosity in Ro’s eyes belied the casual tone of her words.
Talia swallowed down her tea and brushed the crumbs from her fingers, her pulse quickening with excitement. He had remembered! “His horse is half-Enduenan. Caiden thought I’d like to have a look at him.”
Ro grinned. “I expect you would.”