The hands that caught her were pure steel beneath a gentle grip. “Child.”
Oh,Caelum—
“Mother.” Her face flooded with heat as she inclined her head and sunk as low as she could manage. “I’m so very sorry.”
The Mother was not unkind. Nor was she kind, exactly. She was fair, and just, and quiet with a pain that nobody ever spoke about but somehow accounted for as though it were a physical presence, always following at the Mother’s heels.
Perhaps it was simply the weight of bearing so much responsibility. The girl dropped her eyes, and said a silent prayer that she would never have so much on her own shoulders.
Then she said another, for the guilt at her ingratitude. She would be grateful for whatever path Hala chose to place her on. For whatever fate she was to be blessed with today.
But the Mother did not scold or remonstrate with her.
The girl swallowed as gentle fingers lifted her chin. To look at the Mother—or the Maiden, or the Crone—was to challenge Hala. It was almost a physical discomfort. Like the feeling when she missed a step or sat up abruptly in bed, heart thudding as though she had tumbled from a cliff edge.
But the words hummed with a softness that had her tension leeching away. “Look at me, child. It is alright.”
The girl looked. She looked into eyes that bled pure black with the faintest shimmer of light, eyes of starlight and night sky that in that single moment felt unending, as though she was staring into Ellas. The Mother’s face was surprisingly youthful. Much closer to Maiden than Crone, with only faint lines etched into her forehead to show the passing of time.
But there was so much sadness, so much grief, in those eyes that she gasped, something pushing her tostep away, move away, run—
But a soft hand cupped her cheek. “I am so sorry.”
She blinked, her eyes dropping. Low in her stomach, butterflies swooped and twirled. “It was my fault, Mother. Today—of course, you already know—today is my Ascension. I got carried away…”
She felt those eyes staring at her, examining her, and she wondered what they saw. Her voice trailed off.
“I am sorry.” The repeated words were barely a whisper, but the girl still felt that caress on her cheek as the Mother moved past her. Her silver cloak, hooded and deep, hid her from view as she stepped away from the girl and slowly walked down the corridor, before lingering in front of a nervous-looking Nyx and an unsmiling Celeste.
The three of them paused, looked at each other. The girl had never seen that look on her sisters’ faces before. Not in all the years they had spent together, sharing a room and a bed and a life.
But then the Mother was gone, and the girl shook away the strange cold that swept over her as her sisters advanced. She eyed Celeste, spying a liquid glimmer on the edges of her eyelids as her sister brushed a hand over her face.
They were not supposed to show such displays. Faeytes were to be peaceful, graceful, serene. A reflection of the goddess who blessed them, who watched over them in quiet pride from her place in the sky alongside her counterpart, Caelum.
The moon goddess did not shout, or scream, or cry. She did not hold her belly to stop the laughter from taking over or shove a dozen sweets into her mouth to see how many she could hold to amuse the children in the town.
Oddities that her sisters had tolerated in her childhood would be treated with more harshness after today. More would be expected of her, as was right. She would not disappoint them.
The girl straightened her back and looked at her sisters. At the tears that they blinked back, and did not allow to fall. At the sadness that rippled over their faces once more, before fading into their usual neutral movement.
For a moment, she wished her Ascension were tomorrow instead. That she could delay just one more day — one day before she needed to face this next step that suddenly felt so overwhelming that her knees threatened to buckle. That she could throw her arms around Nyx and Celeste and voice the words that lingered on her lips, words of thanks and gratitude and—
And love.
But that was silly, because faeytes did not love. Hala had stripped the ability from them, had taken it for their own protection after losing her inritus lover, Endymion, to the anger of her sky counterpart, Caelum, when she dared to choose a human over a god.
It was said that her grief had shaken the very foundations of their world. In her fury, she had torn the heart out of her faeytes, who had once loved so fierce and true that others had traveled from every territory to try and capture their attention.
Overnight, everything had changed.
Just as today would change her. But it was the way of things. It was how Hala protected them, kept her family safe, and Caelum be damned, she should be moregrateful.
For the hour to come, she would embrace her childish, fanciful emotions. And then she would kiss them farewell and gently set them free.
But she did not enjoy seeing her sisters cry.
“Today is not a day for tears,” she declared, spinning on her heel. “Today is for celebration.”
