44. Astraea
44
A straea
“You bring trees indoors?”
I stared up at the giant pine tree in the temple Auster brought me to. It looked… sad. Taken from its home of soil to be caged by stone. It was odd to feel a connection with an inanimate thing of nature.
“It’s a tradition of the festive season running up to Star-Maiden Day. It’s still to be decorated.”
“Decorated?”
“It’s fun. You used to love this time of year.”
I’d never seen Auster so relaxed and almost giddy. It was a relief that our tensions from our last encounter hadn’t lingered, but I was also kept on edge since it could return any moment.
Celestials entered through the side arches with their arms full of gold and silver sparkly items. Everything was laid out around the base of the tree taken from its natural place outside and potted. I’d seen nature indoors before but it had been much smaller plants and flowers.
The celestials bowed to us when they stood in a line. I hoped the tautness that locked my body to the formalities here would ease over time. I’d once again been requested to wear an elaborate white and silver gown that made me stand out anywhere I tried to go.
A few shrieked when Eltanin spooked them, racing out from under one of the benches at the sight of the glittering ornaments and ropes of shimmering material.
I covered my mouth from my laughter as he dove into the assortment, finding entertainment in them like toys. His juvenile antics wouldn’t last long at all. Soon he wouldn’t even be able to fit through the door.
“He’ll make a great helper,” Auster mused.
He guided me toward the tree with a hand on my back as the other celestials started plucking ornaments and hanging them on branches.
“What is this for?” I asked, picking one out of Eltanin’s mouth. I copied the others, looping it over the branch.
“It’s supposed to be a blessing to welcome spring when winter passes and the decoration is just for joy and wishes.”
“Wishes?”
His brown eyes sparkled. “You’ll see later.”
I didn’t know how much time had passed as I lost myself in the activity. It had been a while since I’d become so eagerly engrossed in a task that was so carefree and fun. It reminded me of how I could never put down a puzzle or riddle until I’d finished it. I laughed at Eltanin flying higher than I could reach and trying to copy what I was doing. He was getting too smart too fast, and my pride swelled watching his progress.
“Can he speak to you?” Auster wondered.
He dangled a gold star close to my silver bauble.
“Not yet,” I said, watching him fly with a rope of what I now knew to be called tinsel. Another celestial flew up to help him wrap it around the wide expanse of the tree.
“You think he will?”
“I don’t know, actually. Apparently in the past I knew how to speak to them but perhaps I can’t anymore. Or perhaps he’s too young or some never speak.”
Something I’d said caused Auster’s silence, drawing my attention to him.
“How do you know you could speak to dragons?”
My pulse skipped. Had I not told him of it in the past? Of course… he never knew of my secret meetings with Nyte and I internally cursed, scrambling for a diversion.
“It was in a book—I assumed you knew,” I lied quickly, bending down for a gold ornament shaped like a box with a bow. An imitation of a present, I thought. Convincing enough that I shook it to listen for a tiny gift inside. I pouted that it was hollow.
“I did not,” he answered distantly, like he now thought back on the past version of me.
I grew with unease that he could do that. I didn’t know why it made me far more anxious to wonder what memories Auster had of me—of us—more than I was worried about what Nyte could recall.
“Probably won’t matter,” I said, brushing it off.
Auster and I reached for the same stray silver bauble. Our fingers brushed and I retreated to let him have it. He picked it up, passing it to me with a genuine smile that fluttered in my chest.
Nyte wanted me to be sure. To give any feeling that might surface for Auster a chance. So I didn’t shrink away from our proximity. We stood together, and I followed his sight up.
“There’s a spot near the top,” he said.
I rolled my shoulders subconsciously, then my wings unglamoured to reach the perfect place with the tree now full and beautiful. Eltanin gave an adorable noise flying over to me as I hooked the final ornament. I didn’t go back down, instead I flew back to take in the whole sight of the tree that now looked so strange but breathtaking. Though something felt missing.
“There will be a lighting ceremony later,” Auster said, like he could read my thoughts.
That sparked my intrigue, and the image of the tree glowing with lights flooded my mind. My lips parted; it felt like the first time a memory had come to me so easily. Just that single picture.
My feet met the ground and Auster walked down the aisle toward me. He looked upon me like I was the magnificent tree.
“Will you dine with me beforehand?” he asked.
I smiled with a nod, actually looking forward to his company over food and then the ceremony later; I didn’t fully know what it entailed, but I was excited to find out.
It was the first time I’d come here and forgotten the passing hours. The burden of war and vampires didn’t touch here and though it was peace; I would always harbor a note of guilt that this was like pretend to me. I had friends on the other side of the veil that kept everyone here safe and there was a world of suffering beyond. That’s where I belonged more.
Zadkiel waited by the main doors with a warm smile that I returned.
“Will your friend Rosalind be coming back with you sometime?” he asked as we headed back to the Nova fortitude.
“I asked her today, but she claimed to want to train with my friend, Zathrian.”
Some enthusiasm fell from his face. I added, “I’ll tell her you asked for her.”
“No need,” he said. “She just seemed to find herself at home here, that’s all.”
I agreed. This place had that effect on people.
“This other friend of yours is welcome here with you, of course,” Auster said.
“He—uh…” I didn’t want Auster to dislike Zath before they’d even met. I’d asked him if he wanted to come but he was very hesitant. “I think he’s respecting his loyalty to Nyte.”
I hated that there was this divide, but I understood. I could only hope time might make it smaller. Have faith that time has a plan. I was trying, at least. Zath hadn’t admitted that was his reason, and Nyte would tell him to come if he wanted to, but Zath was fiercely loyal and though Nyte might not see it, he made an impression on more people than he realized.
“I see,” Auster said tightly.
Shit, I shouldn’t have said anything.
“I hope we get the chance to meet on the other side of the veil sometime, then,” he continued, after a pause.
I smiled, though it felt like tension had grown. I had a feeling it would be like this for a long while with Auster every time we met—hot and cold, learning who we are now versus who he remembers.
We headed straight for supper and Zadkiel left us again though I wished he’d joined us.
Auster sat at the head and I was on his right. The placement didn’t sit right with me. Perhaps it was because I was beginning to see more and more of what made him royalty here. A king without that title. What did that make me on these lands?
Traditionally my place was lower than his, but I tried to convince myself there was nothing in the table placement.
Nyte made me feel like the world was mine. He never let me forget I was the star-maiden and should own that. On this side of the veil it was harder to believe with the High Celestials displaying their leadership as if I wasn’t needed and was merely a symbol for the people.
As we ate, he told me more about the festivities around this time of year. People loved to have bonfires and sing and drink. It was such a season of joy that I was swept away in his stories and the way he told them for a while.
Auster loved his people. He spoke of the celestials so highly. Of his advisers and how the provinces were run. I found it fascinating if daunting, but I would have time to see it all for myself and learn the order here.
I laughed with him and indulged on celestial wine that tasted so sweet it was addicting. It numbed all my nerves and after we’d finished eating I wasn’t in any hurry to be anywhere else.
Leaning back in my seat, I was entertained with Auster throwing scraps of meat for Eltanin to catch. The juvenile dragon was so content and at ease here.
“Will you stay the night?” Auster asked gently, like he already anticipated I wouldn’t.
“I should get back—we’re trying to figure out what the vampires are planning.”
The mention of the vampires distracted him from the usual disappointment he showed when I would decline to stay.
“Have you discovered anything of importance?”
“Nothing yet. There’s a fae army I don’t think the vampires are aware of. They’re ready to fight with us.”
Auster mulled over that information with a hand under his chin, elbow propped on the arm of his chair.
I’d given him that information as a ploy to learn things from him too. “The material you used to harm them—what is it?”
“We’re not sure of the name, only that we were told by a seer where to find a shard of the rock that was deadly to the fae. Then we learned how to recreate the effects. All we’ve had is time to build our efforts to take back the entire continent. The vampires and their allied fae won’t stand a chance.”
He was so confident that it should have stoked me with relief and even pride, yet my chest constricted with foreboding. I was overcome with a strong need to prevent it ever being necessary they should have to use their newfound weapon against the fae.
“A lot of the fae are not in the opposing army by choice,” I said.
“Many are. There are always bound to be innocent casualties in war.”
“What if there are vampires who are as opposed to this war as we are?”
“Astraea.” He said my name in a way that pricked my irritation like a scolding. “We were once like gods to the people in Solanis. The celestials were respected; we kept full order for the fae, humans, and vampires to survive. We gave the blood- and soul-thirsty creatures purpose and they became too greedy. They will always be unpredictable.”
So are all people, I wanted to counter. Something in the way Auster spoke told me he would hear it, but not regard my defenses. The vampires were wholly condemned to him.
“What will you do with them when the war is won?” I dreaded to ask.
“There will be none left to even worry about again.”
My world stopped spinning for a second. It was unfathomable… he couldn’t seriously be considering the annihilation of an entire species? That was not justice but a massacre, simply for the way they were born.
“That can’t be the only solution,” I protested.
“Let us worry about that.”
“I will not,” I said, more firmly as I stood. “Everyone wants to call me the star-maiden, the savior. Then that’s what I am. I speak for and consider all life.”
“You haven’t been here,” he said harshly, as he too stood up.
“I might not have all my memories but I’m not naive. Evil isn’t born, it’s made. Just because someone wronged you doesn’t make everyone your enemy.”
“Someone?” he seethed. I hadn’t seen Auster this angry before, but I’d triggered it in him now. We both backed away from the table and he stalked to me. “We’ve been hiding for three hundred years to gain back the magick you weakened to the point the vampires would have annihilated us if you didn’t die and the veil was created.”
The daggers of blame speared me one by one until my back met the wall.
He searched my eyes with that blazing anger, recalling all that time ago. Until he sighed, and it all diffused out of him when he came back to the present.
“I’m sorry,” he said, cupping my cheek. His thumb stroked my skin. “I don’t blame you. I just want you to understand this is what we’ve been waiting for. Your return to our side to help us stop this once and for all. War isn’t easy, it should never be. It takes a lot of sacrifices and those of us who lead need to be willing to make the hard choices.”
All I could do was nod. There would be no reasoning with him right now.
I hated to submit. Hated myself. I wanted to argue—to make him see I would not be a bystander to this war. I didn’t want to hear it spoken of like something I didn’t need to understand, only accept.
I wanted to fucking remember. Maybe then I would know what Nyte saw, why he believed in me so passionately. Was it pitiful that in moments that shook my confidence all I wanted was him? Just a single look at Nyte was often enough to set the dying wick of my candle ablaze.
“Let’s not let this ruin our day,” Auster sighed. “Come, you’ll enjoy the lighting ceremony.”
I didn’t know what to expect, but standing by the tree in front of a crowd that made the giant hall feel too small now, I couldn’t place my feelings.
Auster made a speech and people listened to him with adoration in their eyes. His brothers were here from their own provinces, but they would have their own version of this happening throughout the week too.
Zephyr hovered close to me while Auster was still speaking.
“How are you finding all of this?” Zephyr asked under his breath.
I spared him a glance. He was as formally dressed as me and the High Celestials. Always in white with their province color. I noticed the seal on his coat this time—each celestial had a different constellation and I made a note in my mind to research them. I had the constellation tattooed in silver on my chest carved into brass and pinned at my shoulder too. It’s what decorated the banners in the street for this time of year.
“It’s… a lot,” I admitted. I’d never been such a spectacle for so many eyes.
As well as my elaborate white gown, they’d convinced me to wear a halo crown that was stunning, it just felt too much. They added glitter to my face and silver liner over my eyelids that made my irises brighter.
“You’re doing great,” he said, looking out over the crowd.
I appreciated those words more than I could say right now when inside I couldn’t help feeling like I was always doing something wrong.
“Now we have our maiden home; it is an honor to restore this tradition to its true form,” Auster announced, casting me a smile of acknowledgment.
People’s eyes adored me like I was a goddess. I knew I was, but what I also wanted to tell them was that I was just like them as well. I bled like them, loved like them, and doubted myself like them. If I could get the celestials to see that, it was a step toward getting them to understand they were not much different from the fae, the humans, or even the vampires either. We were all people. One people. It was my destiny to show that.
I felt comfortable next to Zephyr. Aquilo and Notus couldn’t help themselves with the occasional cold glare spared my way. Subtle enough that none of the onlookers would think anything of it.
Once I was guided over to the front of the tree by Zephyr, a line started forming down the aisle and my hands clammed up. Auster had told me before what I was expected to do. I would grant each person a tiny orb of light made of my magick, they would wish upon it, and it would be let go to attach to the tree like the ornaments. On Star-Maiden Day, it was tradition that I would gather them all back, and send their wishes to the stars.
It was all hope and superstition, but that was a beautiful thing.
The first in line was a child. She had long blond hair and bright blue eyes that peered up at me nervously. I crouched to her level.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
It took a patient moment for her to push past her hesitation.
“Naya,” she said.
“I have something for you, Naya.”
In my open palm, I created the tiny warm glow. Naya’s expression brightened, cupping her small hands together.
“It needs your wish before it can fly,” I told her.
The light hovered in her hands and she was so taken by it that the sight was precious.
“I want mama to get her wings back so she can come home,” Naya whispered to it.
My gut sank terribly. I wondered who her mother was. Had she been one of those saved from Alisus Keep?
Naya let her light go, and I stood to watch it fly high before settling on a branch as the first wish among hundreds that would adorn it by the end of the night.
How many of them would hold impossible dreams?
I forced a smile for Naya who launched forward to hug my legs quickly before skipping off happily, oblivious to how fragile her wish was. It was selfless, for her mother, and I couldn’t make it come true.
“She’s happy. Smiling. She has hope in her heart and that’s all that matters,” Zephyr said close by me.
“Everyone who was saved from the keep…”
“They got to come home and see their families again.”
“Before they were forced away from them despite the horrors they’d faced.”
Zephyr’s look was pained.
“Maiden,” Auster said, drawing me back to the waiting line.
It was odd to hear him address me by that title, but it’s what these people knew. Not Astraea, the person I am. But the star-maiden, the savior they needed me to be.
The night went on and I grew more exhausted hour by hour. The energy it took to create hundreds of small lights drained my magick slowly on top of the small conversations I had with people in between.
I enjoyed it, truly. It was easing my nerves to get to converse with people so personally and hear their wishes. It was touching to be part of this wonderful tradition.
When the last of the people left and the doors closed, I didn’t care for poise and properness as I slumped down on the stairs before the tree. It was now a breathtaking beacon I couldn’t stop staring proudly at. Glowing with my magick holding everyone’s wishes for the new year to come.
“I’m proud of you,” Zephyr said. Auster was chatting with some other celestials at the side of the hall.
I smiled with gratitude. “Were we… friends?”
He felt the most familiar out of the brothers.
“Yes,” he said. “Good friends, actually.”
Katerina had said so too, adding merit to his claim. He sat down with me and I took in his wears of silver and turquoise.
“Do all the houses have their own color?” I asked.
“Yes. Sapphire for Nova, turquoise for Luna, crimson for Sera, and gold for Aura. We each have our own constellation too,” he said, tapping the eight points of a constellation made of brass on his jacket.
“I have my own?”
“Your color is violet, like your magick.”
I was eager to learn more about the celestial houses, but right now all I wanted was sleep.
“You should stay the night in Althenia,” he said. My fatigue must have been weighing on my face.
“I’ve been thinking so much about the war and needing to find my magick, but I miss books,” I confessed. “Auster said we could visit the library but there hadn’t been much time with all these festivities.”
“I could take you tomorrow,” he offered. “Show you more about the houses.”
I thought about Nyte with a want to go back to him, but perhaps more I wanted to stay here a little while longer since I couldn’t have both.
“Then I’ll stay,” I said.
Zephyr’s smile was warm and genuine. His sight slipped to Auster as he finished speaking and headed to us.
“Trust yourself,” Zephyr said. “You don’t have to be compliant in all things.”
He looked me over head to toe, like he knew I hated the bright white of the gown I wore.
Eltanin crept onto my lap. Instead of burrowing like he usually would for a sleep, his head canted curiously at Zephyr, feathers fluffing. I was beginning to learn a language from him from his quirks alone. I was sure he was trying to impress the High Celestial.
Zephyr chuckled, reaching out a hand, and the dragon was more than receptive to him, hopping from my lap to his.
“He seems to really like you,” I mused.
With Auster, he was more subdued, uninterested. Unless food was involved, in which case he’d let an enemy be a friend for a while.
“He has good taste,” Zephyr said. “A remarkable thing. I never thought I’d see a celestial dragon and I’m almost convinced he’s some kind of illusion.”
“He’ll be aging up soon,” I said sadly. “On Star-Maiden Day, I think, is when the full moon should be.”
“Ahh, you’re going to have your hands more full with him then.”
I smiled fondly. Eltanin had become an unexpected pride and joy in my life. My attachment to him often reminded me of Nyte. He was a thread of my existence I couldn’t live without now.
“Ready to go?” Auster asked.
I took his hand to reluctantly stand. All I wanted was to collapse onto a bed.
“I think I’ll stay, if that’s okay. It’s very late now anyway.”
Auster’s whole demeanor relaxed to a pleased softness.
“I would love nothing more.”
He regarded Zephyr with a single nod. The High Celestial placed Eltanin on my shoulder before he headed down the aisle.
“I hope to see you tomorrow, Astraea,” he called.
I nodded, excited about spending more time with him and seeking out the library.
“I’d rather hoped we could spend the day together before you leave again,” Auster said.
I couldn’t place it, but it felt like he wasn’t fond of Zephyr. Not like how he seemed closer to Aquilo and Notus.
“It will just be a few hours,” I said.
Auster nodded but it was tight. He reached for me and I allowed him to pull us through the void until we were back in my rooms.
“If you need anything,” Auster said, heading to leave.
“Thank you.”
He looked like he wanted me to say something else, perhaps ask him to stay longer. I hoped he wouldn’t ask again about my incomplete bond with Nyte. Auster left without another word and the moment I was alone it was like the weight of expectation I didn’t know had been crushing me had lifted completely.
I climbed into bed, still dressed, only taking off the silver halo crown. My eyes weighed so heavy and Eltanin curled up comfortably with me.
Staring out at the sky I thought about the day’s events, and drifted off with hope chasing away the ever-growing tension of war.