Chapter 8 A Classic Instance of Fleeing #2
“And yet you refuse to acknowledge that you are to be the next Starmaker, so I will proceed as if you know nothing.” He paused as if waiting for Aurora to argue, but she was exhausted and didn’t have it in her to fight.
The Starmaker’s face settled into an annoyingly satisfied expression, and he continued.
“Reverie was the only village on Earth that the Sun was cut off from, and so she made herself human and journeyed to the mountain to inspect it for herself. All of our magic—mine and yours and that of every Starmaker who came before us—was born from the Sun falling in love with a human when she made that journey. She will speak to you when you have fully come into your magic; until then, you will speak to her and greet her as if she were your beloved.”
Aurora took a step back and couldn’t help the scoff that escaped her lips. “She picked the wrong person if that is what she desires. How am I to adore the thing that took my life from me?”
“You will not have a choice,” the Starmaker said, turning to her. “As you feel her light in your veins, pumping through your body, the contempt you feel for her will fade. It is a complicated love, but love it is.”
“I was taught to love the things that are good for me,” Aurora said.
The Starmaker looked at her. “If that is the only love you have ever experienced, then I am sorry for you.” His gaze hovered near her mouth as he spoke, and Aurora immediately felt defensive.
How dare he make light of her love, of what she had given up to come here?
But before she could protest, the Starmaker began to speak once more.
“Tonight you are taking the first step toward becoming the next Starmaker.” He turned his eyes to the moon, and in a hushed voice that Aurora couldn’t make out, the Starmaker began to speak to someone other than her.
She realized in a rush that he was speaking to the Sun, and it killed her, the way his voice changed from stern to gentle, his impatience giving way to reverence.
The Starmaker kept talking as he began rolling up his sleeves, the motion causing the muscles in his forearms to tense.
When he had exposed his arms to the elbows, he whispered a final sentence, and all the blood coursing beneath his skin turned to gold.
Aurora stared, fighting against every impulse to reach out and touch his skin, to feel the heat of it. She blinked and looked away, assuring herself it was the magic, nothing more, that she wanted to touch.
The magic, she told herself again, more sternly.
“Do you agree that only the blood of a Starmaker could look like this on its own, without the touch of another?”
“Yes,” Aurora said, breathless.
“Good. Then it is your turn. Introduce yourself to the Sun in any words you like.” The Starmaker took several steps away from Aurora and placed his hands in his pockets.
Aurora almost laughed, it sounded so absurd, but the Starmaker was not laughing.
And since she had been the one to insist on this, she would at least follow his instructions.
She kept her voice low as she said her name, feeling awkward and unsure of what to say next, but she finally decided the truth was best.
“I do not wish to be here, nor do I wish to be the next Starmaker. If that is my fate, show me at once so that I may learn to accept it. If not, I would be very pleased to go home.” Aurora said nothing more, watching the moon, waiting for something, anything, to happen.
And then it did.
All at once, a heat ran through her body, so intense that Aurora gasped.
Shaking, she slipped her arms from her cloak and was met with the same glow she had seen in the Starmaker.
She looked over at him, but he was too far away to have touched her, and she turned back to the moon with wide eyes and a racing heart.
“It isn’t possible,” she whispered, holding her arms out in front of her, watching the gold race beneath her skin.
“We’ve been over this,” the Starmaker said, exhaling. “Are you satisfied?”
Aurora said nothing, pulling her cloak around her and walking into the bedroom without another word. The Starmaker followed, shutting the door behind him. “If that is all, then I will see you in the morning for breakfast.”
“Fine,” she said, turning away. A stinging sensation began in her upper arm, and she rubbed the area with her hand, trying to ease the burning.
“What is it?” he asked, staying where he was instead of leaving the room like she wanted.
“Nothing, my arm just stings a little.”
The Starmaker walked toward the large gilded mirror leaning against the wall. “Come,” he said.
“Why?”
He sighed. “Must you make everything more difficult than it ought to be?”
“No,” Aurora said, walking over to meet him, “but it is a trait you seem to bring out in me.”
“How fortunate I am.” The Starmaker stood behind her and raised his arms to her shoulders. “May I?”
Aurora met his eyes in the mirror and nodded.
Slowly, the Starmaker pulled the velvet cloak off her shoulders and turned her so that her right side was facing the glass.
He tugged the sleeve of her dress down slightly, his fingertips just barely touching her skin.
He studied her arm for a moment, then ran his thumb under what appeared to be a faint gold line.
Aurora shivered and hated herself for it.
“There,” he said.
“What is it?” Aurora asked, leaning closer to the mirror to get a better look.
The Starmaker unbuttoned the top of his shirt and slipped his right arm out of the fabric.
Aurora tried to ignore the way his muscles tensed with the motion, tried to avert her eyes, but she couldn’t seem to look away.
The rest of him was as beautiful as his face, a cruelty that Aurora resented deeply.
He then put his right arm next to hers so their reflections were side by side in the mirror.
“It is the beginning of the Sun’s mark; once you have fully come into your magic, it will look like mine. ”
Aurora stared at the Starmaker’s skin, adorned with an intricate pattern of the Sun, rays coming out in lines that ran down his arm. It glowed the same as his veins, the same as hers.
“I do not wish to be branded by the Sun.”
The Starmaker took a step back, slipping his arm into his shirt and buttoning it back up. “I would think you’d have realized by now that your wishes don’t matter.”
He left the room without another word, Aurora still studying her arm in the mirror.
She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, but then she remembered Farren’s letter, discarded on the floor in front of the fire.
She ran to get it, then sat down at her desk and frantically wrote a reply.
Just two words, but she hoped with everything in her that he would heed them.
Don’t come.