Chapter 10 An Amusing Plight #2
“My cottage is the only house in Reverie that isn’t touched by sunlight,” Aurora said.
She felt the Starmaker turn to look at her, but she kept her eyes on the sky.
“It has never bothered me, the darkness. The cold. If it weren’t for the threat of the Frost, I would have been more than content to live beyond the reaches of the light for the duration of my life. ”
“I too am fond of the darkness,” he said, surprising her. “It is the only time I have for myself.”
Aurora finally pulled her eyes from the stars and looked at him. “Then I suppose it makes sense that you don’t care for mornings.”
The Starmaker didn’t reply and instead walked to the snow deer and greeted them by running a hand down their noses, then he got into the sleigh. The deer Aurora had almost shot looked over at her, waiting, and she guiltily made her way to him, petting his head in penance.
“What is his name?” she asked, climbing into the sleigh.
“He doesn’t have one,” the Starmaker said as the deer took off, the sleigh gliding through a fresh dusting of snow.
“Why not?”
“Because a name is intimate, and it only makes things harder when they die.”
Aurora found his words overwhelmingly sad, and she decided then and there that she would give the deer names, even if she was the only one who used them. Then she remembered the rabbit. “Constance has a name.”
“Constance will never die,” the Starmaker said, and while his tone suggested that he held no affection for the creature, Aurora had seen the way he had petted her at breakfast. “She was given to the first Starmaker by the Sun and will outlive us all, a fate she does not seem to mind.”
So the rabbit Aurora had seen in the portrait was Constance.
She thought of the way the animal’s fur glinted in the light, almost otherworldly, and she smiled to herself.
An immortal rabbit, the one breathing thing she would not outlive.
It gave her incredible comfort, and Aurora vowed to earn Constance’s affection after last night’s mishap.
The Starmaker said nothing more, and Aurora pulled the blanket over her lap, twisting her hands in it as the deer pulled them down the path that led to the village.
She closed her eyes and gripped the blanket tighter as they passed the area where the Frost had struck her the previous day, but she remained unharmed as they rushed through the trees and down the mountainside.
By the time the deer slowed to a walk, Aurora’s face was so cold it felt as if it was coated in ice. “You will get used to the ride,” the Starmaker said.
The deer stuck to a trail through the trees that bordered the village, and Aurora craned her neck to catch a glimpse of anything familiar.
There were soft lights flickering in the distance, but that was all she could make out of Reverie, and she hoped that her family was tucked safely inside, sleeping soundly.
Once there were no longer lights in the distance, the deer wove out of the trees and onto a plateau just south of the village.
Aurora knew this as the end of their world—the plateau gave way to a vast glacier that crept up to the edge of a stark drop-off.
The peak on the other side was far enough away to create a deadly gap; there was no way down and no way up, and even though her village should have been lost to the hostile environment long ago, the Sun had come in and decided otherwise.
It was the first gleam of gratitude Aurora had felt for the Sun since learning of her fate, and instead of rebelling against it, she let herself feel it.
The deer slowed to a stop at the edge of the glacier, and the Starmaker stepped out of the sleigh and wordlessly began walking.
Aurora assumed she was meant to follow, so she stepped onto the ice and trudged after him.
It was silent except for the crunch of the snowy landscape beneath their boots and the sound of the deer behind them, but the huffs of the animals soon faded into the quiet.
After a while, a large gold lamppost came into view, and at first Aurora thought she was seeing things.
She blinked, but the lamppost stayed put, standing alone in the icy field, beautiful and magical and wholly unexpected.
The Starmaker stopped and turned to Aurora, looking impatient as he waited for her to catch up.
“This will be similar to what we did last night, but it is much more intense,” he said. “I won’t lie to you: it is quite painful until you acclimate to the Sun’s heat, but you will get used to it in time.”
“It seems I will need to get used to many things,” Aurora said dryly.
“As will I,” the Starmaker mumbled, and Aurora almost asked what he meant, then realized he was referring to her.
She glared at him. “A little compassion wouldn’t kill you,” Aurora said. “You gave up a life once, too, or have you forgotten?”
The Starmaker turned to her. “I have not forgotten.” It was all he said, and it enraged Aurora that he seemed entirely uninterested in making things easier for her.
He had his childhood bedroom tucked away in the castle, and yet he acted as if Aurora should have no misgivings about her new circumstances.
“Perhaps your life wasn’t worth mourning, but mine was. It wasn’t perfect, but it was full and good, and it will take me time to let go of it.”
“You know nothing of the life I gave up,” the Starmaker said, his tone so severe that it sent a chill down Aurora’s spine.
She remembered the family photo, the way he had hugged his sister, the journal with the picture of the girl tucked inside.
And while Aurora had been overwhelmed with empathy for him last night, she couldn’t seem to find it again here now that he was being so cold.
“And I suppose you will say nothing of it, offering me no comfort or understanding.”
“It is not my job to comfort you, Miss Finch. It is my job to teach you everything I know of this magic while I am still able. This entire mountain will soon be in your care, and the life you led before I met you is of little concern to me.” He looked down at her as he spoke, his breath forming white clouds that drifted past her in the frigid morning.
“How can you claim to love this mountain when you care so little for the people who live here?”
“I care deeply, which is why I’m trying to help you move on.
Do you truly think it would be better if I brought tea to your room so we could sit near the fire and you could tell me of your engagement to a boy you may never see again?
Perhaps we could braid each other’s hair as you regale me with stories of your childhood.
” He shook his head and pointed up the valley, toward the gentle lights glowing in the distance.
“You are a Starmaker, Miss Finch, and it is time you act like one.”
“If being a Starmaker entails being callous and cruel, then I am no Starmaker.”
“It entails being present, but you are stubbornly stuck in the past.”
“I arrived at the palace yesterday! That hardly qualifies as the past.” Aurora was so frustrated by the Starmaker that she had to move, and though he had yet to draw the light over Reverie, she was heating up as if she’d been standing in the sun for hours.
“You have the fire of the Sun in your blood, and a clock began ticking the moment you touched me—you must use your magic. We can stand here and dwell on things over which we have no control, or we can forestall your death by calling the light.” The Starmaker exhaled loudly and shoved his hand through his hair, and even in the darkness, it shimmered as if it were laced with starlight. “I suggest you choose the latter.”
Aurora stopped moving and watched him, her heart beating wildly.
She wanted to keep arguing, to yell at him until her voice went hoarse, but he had said we, and though perhaps she was being naive or wishful, she chose to believe that was his way of showing her compassion.
And so she took it because she needed to.
“Everything is so dire with you,” Aurora finally said. “But in case you are right and I’m on my way to certain death, I suppose we should begin.”
The space between them was charged, and Aurora could sense their frustrations with each other colliding in the air, fighting like animals.
She was sure they would still be there after her lesson, but for now she would concentrate on learning everything she needed to know about the journey that lay ahead of her.
The Starmaker seemed to recognize the temporary reprieve, and he nodded, turning toward the village.
“Remember that your magic is the result of the relationship between you and the Sun. It’s personal; there are no set recitations or spells.
The Sun has deemed you worthy of conversing with her, so come to her with whatever suits you.
We are the only way she can reach Reverie—it is the magic in our blood that creates an invisible tether between us, and that is the only thing sustaining our village.
” The Starmaker closed his eyes. “It is a heavy truth to carry, but it is alleviated by a lighter, more brilliant one: she wants us to survive.”
When Aurora was a child, she had pictured the Sun as a princess in the sky, wearing a gold dress made of silk with a train of sunlight that illuminated the world.
It all sounded so enchanting, and Aurora had marveled at the love the Sun must have felt for the original Starmaker, so fierce that she gave him magic to protect his home even though they could not be together.
It wasn’t until Aurora was older that she had realized what a burden that kind of love must be, and it had made her feel traitorous when she wondered if the Sun thought her love for the Starmaker was worth enduring an eternity of separation and grief.
Then Papa had died, and Aurora hadn’t been able to bring herself to ask Mama the question that had haunted her: Was it worth it?