“Starlight,” Wren said.
“No. Stars are in the sky… that was water.” She looked at us as if we had lost our minds. “I drank water.”
Wren glared at me as she pulled the glass back from Ashlyn’s hands.
“It wasn’t water. You drank starlight.” I could barely exhale. “The verdant alignment happened last night. It runs off into that spring.”
“My eyes burn,” she said. “What’s going to happen tome?” Her breath pulled faster. “I need to check you.” Wren lifted her hands above Ashlyn.
“How did I get here?” Ashlyn asked.
“I carried you.” My gaze held hers. “I wouldn’t leave you.”
Wren pulled her hands back. “My lord, you said she’s human. You must be mistaken.”
Ashlyn tucked her hair behind her ears. “I can assure you that I am human.”
“I’ve treated humans on the trade route before. Their blood flow—their life energy is different than the fae, but yours isn’t.”
“What does that even mean?” Ashlyn wiped back the tears as soon as they fell.
“I don’t know. It could be the starlight. It could be something else,” Wren said.
“Something else? Like I’ve been altered?” Every bit of color washed from her skin. “Like my sister was altered by magic?”
If it had altered her, Estlen wouldn’t accept her. “We should delay the journey.”
Ashlyn slid her fingers over her perfectly rounded ears as if she was checking to see if they were still as they once were. “This can’t stop the plan. I need to go,” she pleaded.
“I’d like to send for another healer to come look at her.” Wren tilted her head. “She was tending to a birth just beyond the village. Her experience far surpasses mine, but I’m not sure if there is anything that can be done.”
“You must have knowledge of how to help with this.” We couldn’t just wait to see what happened to Ashlyn.
“I know how to heal, Lord Fyn. Her body is weak, but other than that there is nothing I can sense that can be healed.”
Ashlyn’s chest heaved. Her blank stare held me.
“Your Highness, I have no knowledge of this. I don’t know of anyone who has tampered with it.” She reached for Ashlyn’s hand, but pulled back.
“Send for her,” I said. “Thank you, Wren.”
Ashlyn waited until Wren left. “What’s going to happen to me? Why is she afraid to touch me?”
I swallowed hard. “You took the stars’ magic. It’s sacred to my people.”
“I didn’t mean to take it.” She looked down at her hands. “I’m sorry.”
The stars let her live and wake. I knew she couldn’t understand the way we looked to them. That it was too foreign to her.
“She has to be wrong… I will have a human life still.”
“We need to make sure you’re okay first.”
“I’m not okay, Fyn.” Ashlyn’s eyes widened as she stared at me. “I wasn’t before I drank the fae wine or the starlight. I’m not okay being around you—being here.”
“Anything else?” I pretended her words did nothing to me. “You don’t have to do this to prove you are okay. And if my presence is too much to bear, someone else can take my place.”
Her lips pressed shut as she shook her head.
