Chapter 22 Denial
Denial
Aurora woke to a tapping sound. Her head was throbbing, and it felt like minutes passed before she was able to open her eyes.
Her body was covered in a salve that had all but taken away the burning she had felt the day before, but she was exhausted and frail, and the fever was taking its toll, her bedsheets soaked in sweat.
The tapping continued, and she turned her head to see the Starmaker sitting next to her bed, staring into the fire.
There was an open book on his lap, and his fingers moved restlessly against the worn pages.
“What are you reading?” she asked, her voice hoarse with sleep.
The Starmaker jumped, promptly closing the book and moving toward her bedside. “I was not getting much reading done,” he admitted. “How are you?”
“Tired, and my head hurts, but the burns feel much better.”
He nodded but still looked concerned. His brow was furrowed, and the tension he’d carried yesterday still pulled at his shoulders and spine, stretching him into a too-tight version of himself, one that might snap in half at any moment.
His normally shimmering hair was dull, and the skin beneath his eyes was dark.
Aurora tried to push herself up, but the motion caused the room to spin, and she slowly lay back down.
“Rest,” he said.
“We need to talk first.” Aurora couldn’t get past her suspicion that he had shunted more light to her than she could hold in hopes of forcing her to progress.
She was so relieved he was safe and so angry that he had put them both at risk.
“Please be honest with me. Did you deliberately overwhelm me with light?”
The Starmaker didn’t answer at first. He clenched his jaw and looked past Aurora, toward the balcony doors and the world beyond. He shook his head, and when he turned back to her, he seemed… mad. “Do you truly think so little of me that you believe I would harm you in that way? In any way?”
Aurora was surprised by how forcefully he spoke, and she made herself sit up. “You lectured me on the way to the glacier about how I needed to progress, and then that happened. What was I supposed to think?”
The Starmaker didn’t respond right away. “You’re right,” he finally said. “I have not given you reason to think otherwise.”
Aurora thought that was it, that the conversation was over and the Starmaker would leave the room, but instead he stayed seated beside her and looked her in the eyes. “I grew up in a very devout home, Aurora, and I have never believed in anything as much as I believe in you.”
Aurora was stunned. The words seemed to unlock something inside of her, as if they were a key she had been searching for tirelessly.
She inhaled deeply and reached out her hand to the Starmaker, realizing then how badly she wanted to use his name.
Not his title, not the word the world knew him by, but his given name. “What is your name?” she asked.
The question caught the Starmaker off guard, and he visibly recoiled. “I am the Starmaker,” he said, but his tone gave away that he knew exactly what she was asking.
“Your given name,” she clarified, sitting up taller.
The Starmaker shook his head, avoiding her gaze. “It doesn’t matter. It has been so long since I’ve heard it, I’d hardly recognize it.”
“I’d like to know,” Aurora pressed. It felt important to her, intimate, and in that moment, she wanted to learn his name more than she’d ever wanted anything. It was then that she realized he wouldn’t tell her, though, precisely because of the intimacy of it.
“I’m sorry,” the Starmaker said, standing and moving away from the bed. “It is not something I have shared with anyone since the last of my kin passed away. I felt that part of me should be buried with them.”
It struck Aurora as painfully sad that the human part of the Starmaker was gone—no longer a man or a son or a brother, just the one who pulled the light.
Perhaps it was easier for him that way; maybe remembering that part of himself was too hard.
Aurora knew she would come up with her own ways to bear the grief of this life, and she would not judge the Starmaker for his.
“I understand,” she said. “Why don’t you tell me what happened on the glacier instead?”
The Starmaker looked relieved that she had let her question go so easily, and he stopped pacing. “I’ve been thinking about it since it happened, and I believe that the Sun has decided you are ready. I tried to stop the light from reaching you, but I was not strong enough.”
Aurora was about to push back against his assertion about the Sun, but the way he said those last words—I was not strong enough—made her pause. He sounded surprised, but he spoke with finality, and Aurora realized that he was turning mortal again.
The end of his life was beginning.
“It is starting,” Aurora said softly.
The Starmaker sat back down in his chair, and Aurora inspected him for any sign of aging, but she found none.
He was tired and disheveled, but he was still the unfairly beautiful Starmaker he’d always been—no new wrinkles or papery skin, no graying hair or slowing steps.
He was perfect, a truth Aurora hated to admit but could not deny.
“The Sun has decided you are ready,” he said again. “It won’t be long now before you’re pulling the light on your own.”
“The Sun is clearly mistaken,” Aurora said, trying to fight the panic rising in her throat. “You saw me—I was unconscious for days. There’s no way I’m ready.”
“She will make you ready,” the Starmaker said. It was possible Aurora was imagining it, but she thought he was working very hard to keep fear out of his voice. “And I will do my best to support you in every way I can so that you are not hurt like that again.”
“I felt it,” she said, closing her eyes and reliving the memory. “It wasn’t just the light that reached for me—it was more of your magic moving through me.”
“I felt it, too.” The Starmaker paused, and Aurora opened her eyes to look at him. “We must get you comfortable with holding more light; my magic will continue transferring to you, and as that happens, I will be less capable of helping you.”
“And what if the Sun transfers all of your magic to me before I am able to hold the light?”
The Starmaker shook his head. “That won’t happen.”
“And if it does?”
He sighed. “I’m not sure,” he said finally. “I suppose that would mean Reverie would remain in the dark until you could carry it all.”
“I don’t understand why your magic would move to me before I’m ready.”
“Nor do I,” the Starmaker said, and they were both quiet. Aurora didn’t have the energy to keep questioning the Sun or her magic or anything else, so instead, she said simply, “Thank you for helping me. I know that morning on the glacier wasn’t easy for you, either.”
The Starmaker didn’t reply, but neither did he move away, and Aurora watched him as he seemed to war with himself over something.
“What is it?” she asked.
The Starmaker stood and began pacing again, taking several turns around her room before coming to a halt beside her bed. “I was worried about you, Aurora. It was torture not knowing where you were or if you were safe. I didn’t like it.”
Aurora almost laughed at the way he said the final sentence with disgust. “I’m sure it was very hard for you not knowing if your successor was safe.”
“I was not worried for my successor,” the Starmaker said, practically spitting the word. “I was worried for you, Aurora.” He swallowed hard. “You.”
As soon as he said it, the space between them became charged, as if the words had changed the chemistry of the air itself and every particle was reacting to them the way Aurora’s stomach was.
Her heart picked up speed, and the Starmaker’s eyes were so intense that she had to force herself to keep her gaze steady, not wanting to look away.
“I was worried for you, too,” she said quietly. “You were the first thing I thought of when I woke, and when Farren told me the light had come while I’d been out, it was the sweetest relief I’d ever felt. I wanted nothing more than to get to you and make sure you were okay.”
“A stark change from seeking me out to argue with me.” The Starmaker laughed, a low rumble that began in his chest.
“I can do both.”
“Yes,” the Starmaker said. “It seems you can.” He paused. “You should get some rest.”
Aurora lay back on her pillow, and the Starmaker pulled up her quilt, even though she was sufficiently covered.
His movements were slow, and he took his time tucking the quilt beneath her shoulders.
His hands lingered there as if he was unsure what he wanted to do next, and Aurora’s breath caught in her throat as she watched him.
She had been frustrated with him for so many reasons since they met, but perhaps the biggest was that she was no longer interested in keeping space between them.
Her fingers itched with the desire to reach up and pull him down to her, to cover herself in the weight of him, to feel the press of his lips on hers.
He would not be here forever, and he would weaken as his body began to age, but he was here now.
He was here, and so was she, and in that moment she was not convinced that wanting him was foolish.
Slowly, she pulled her arm free of her blankets and took hold of the Starmaker’s wrist. “What if you stayed?” she asked, not taking her eyes off his.
“I’m not tired.” The words were rough, and Aurora wondered if it was her exhaustion that was making her dizzy, or if it was the pain or the fever, or if it was the Starmaker himself, pulling her into his orbit.
“I did not mean for sleeping.”
His jaw tensed and his body went rigid. “Aurora,” he began, his voice hoarse, “I cannot. The last thing you need is to care for another person who will inevitably leave you.”
“Who said anything about caring?”
Aurora watched as his mouth pulled up on one side, a devilish smirk that made her desire even stronger. “Do you not care for me?” he asked, bending over as he spoke the words, his face just inches from hers. “Not even slightly?”
Aurora pushed herself up on her elbows again, closing the space between them, her lips practically brushing his. “I’m rather frustrated with you at the moment.”
The Starmaker’s eyes danced in the firelight, amusement playing on his face. When he pressed his lips to hers, it wasn’t hungry or restless the way Aurora had envisioned it. Instead, it was patient. Gentle. Loving, even.
His lips were soft and warm and tasted of tea, and all Aurora could think was more.
More kisses, more touches, more moments that sent her far away from her role as Starmaker Rising.
There was a voice inside her whispering that this—he—was the greatest adventure she’d ever been on, that being held by him was perhaps the most at home she’d ever felt.
She pulled him closer, but he merely brushed one more kiss against her lips before standing.
He watched her with his golden eyes, reflecting the Sun back at her when all she wanted was to forget about the light.
“I want you,” the Starmaker said, so plainly it broke Aurora’s heart.
She’d been trying so hard to guard herself, terrified of what loving one more person would mean, terrified of the way grief could destroy her.
Just three words, but they were honest and true, and Aurora was angry at him for voicing something she was desperately trying to deny.
She was always angry at him.
“It is complicated to want you. Your very existence is ending mine, and yet I would rather die having known you than live a thousand lives as strangers.” The Starmaker walked toward the door, but he turned to look at her once more before leaving.
“You have a very long life ahead of you. I would never forgive myself for making it harder.”
Then he was gone, shutting the door softly behind him. Aurora stared at the space he’d stood in, stunned by his words and his gentleness and his care. Her mind was racing, and she had an incredible urge to cry.
He was the Starmaker, and she was the Starmaker Rising; they could never be together, and Aurora couldn’t escape the heartbreaking truth that she was killing him just as he was bringing her to life.