The story she’s chosen tonight starts as they all do:
‘In the beginning were the Sisters and their Cradleworld…’
Words familiar to me as the dusky-mauve bindings of the book that contains them. Words that transport me back to childhood.
How many nights did my mother sit beside me after a nightmare or bout of illness, settling me back to sleep with an ancient tale from her Book of Starlore? Careful to avoid the story of the shadow creatures, for the night-birds, with their onyx wings and murderous milky eyes, held a special terror for me.
My father accused her of overindulgence, felt such attentions should properly be left to a nursemaid, but she insisted on tending me herself. That’s how it started, the night my brother died. Just like this, with my mother reading. Threading her fingers through my hair.
I try to forget this too, to avoid prodding the bruised memories, still tender, despite all the time that’s passed. But it’s harder tonight. My father has been right all along. I am a monster. I am dangerous. I’ll never forget the expressions of shock and fear that puckered the courtiers’ faces when I maimed their king. Threw Astrophel across the ballroom.
‘I have a gift for you,’ my mother whispers, interrupting her account of the Sisters’ creation of the Cradleworld’s Spangled Stream from gleaming tresses of their star-bright hair. She’s holding out a silver box, inlaid with mother-of-pearl carvings of the moons’ phases.
I haul myself to a seated position and hug my knees. Any lingering upset over the banquet is eclipsed by the wrenching ache in my chest when I look at my mother’s ruined face. It should be me taking care of her, not the other way around.
She hands me the box. ‘We can’t do much to protect you once you leave Meissa, but there’s a chance this may help.’ She motions for me to open it.
My fingers fumble with the delicate catch. The box is lined with white velvet and contains a lilac crystal ball.
I hold it to the lantern beside my bed. ‘What is it?’
‘A mooncrystal.’ My mother’s voice is hushed, almost reverent. ‘A fragment of the amethyst from which the Dawn Sister carved Arcelia’s moons. A gift from the cielsylphs, handed down through generations of the Stellarion bloodline. It can only be used by a select few, but given your moonsight, you might possess the skill. It belonged to Noelani once…’
I return the orb to its box, suddenly afraid to touch it.
‘For those able to wield it, if consulted under the full moons, the crystal acts as a conduit of Star-Aether, akin to a scrying-stone. It’s powerful. There are rumours Noelani used it to communicate with her husband, that much like the moons themselves, it’s connected to both the stars and waves.’
Gingerly, I trace the sphere with my fingertips. A dragging sensation tugs at them. I snatch my hand back.
The corners of my mother’s mouth twitch. ‘I was sure you’d inherit the talent.’
I look down at my coverlet. I don’t want to be reminded of what transpired in the ballroom. Of what I am.
My mother strokes my cheek. ‘Your powers are a burden, Lili. One I would gladly have spared you, but they’re also gifts.’ She shuts the box, presses it into my palm. ‘Take this with you tomorrow. Keep it close, it might prove useful.’
I mumble my thanks, but my mother is mistaken. My magic will only ever be a curse. I can only hope she’s mistaken about the mooncrystal too – that I’ll never have occasion to use it.
I flick a speck of lint from my nightgown. ‘Did the healers fix Father’s hand?’
‘They gave him an elixir of rose-quartz and bandaged it. There’ll be a scar, but no real harm done.’
‘Is… Is he very angry?’
My mother doesn’t answer. Can’t meet my eye.
‘I’m the one who should be angry,’ I say. ‘Did you know he planned to stage a handfasting without telling me?’
My mother raises a hand to her temple. ‘I did not.’ She sighs. ‘Perhaps it’s no bad thing you’re leaving tomorrow. Some distance between you and your father is what’s needed now. He loves you, in his own way, but after all the losses, I think he couldn’t bear…’ She trails off, voice choked.
She’s always making excuses for him. But seeing how weak, how whisper-thin she is, I can’t find it in myself to be cross with her. The husband she loves is a different man from the father I hate. She sees only a strict father, a distant father, a careful father. She doesn’t see the cruel tyrant. And I’ve never told her the ugly truth of him. Couldn’t bear to cause her any more pain, not when I’ve caused so much already.
I swing out of bed and scan the shelves in my study, looking through my collection of paper sculptures. I find the one I’m looking for. The last one I ever made.
Returning to my bedchamber, I place the miniature model of the palace into my mother’s upturned hand and smile. ‘Give this to him from me. A peace offering.’ My pulse slows. The idea of my father unwittingly holding fragments of the bestiary’s emberwing illustration, perhaps even displaying them publicly, satisfies something inside me. Assuages some of the bitterness and hurt.
My mother catches my chin, turns my face towards her, looks deep into my eyes. ‘I’m going to miss you.’ Her voice quavers as she fights back tears. ‘I want you to take care of yourself, to let Astrophel take care of you.’ I open my mouth to protest, but she waves my objections away. ‘For all the faults you perceive, and despite his behaviour tonight – shameful behaviour, which he bitterly regrets and has sworn to me he’ll never repeat – he is a suitable match, with much to recommend him. Perhaps this time away together will help you see that.’
I itch to make a cutting retort, but now isn’t the time. My mother knows how I feel about Astrophel, just as I know she’s always had a fondness for the fatherless boy she helped bring up. Astrophel has been as much a replacement son for her as for my father, and it’s made them blind to his flaws.
