4. Starwalker

The ride up the steep, winding path took twice as long as usual. Rahn was typically accompanied by workers on these ventures, who managed the driving and tended the cart and pack mules, and though he'd been learning to manage on his own since arriving in the Cross, it was the first time he'd ever journeyed up the mountain road alone.

Except he wasn't alone. Aesylt sat beside him on the small bench, huddled near her end with a desolate look into the gradually thinning wilderness.

It had been on his return from the livery earlier that night when he'd spotted her emotional good-bye with Valerian. Aesylt had waited just long enough for the boy to disappear beyond the forest line before collapsing to her knees in soundless, tearless sobs.

Rahn had never wanted so desperately to go to someone and comfort them, but his instinct told him she wouldn't want him, or anyone, to see her like that. So he'd waited for a better opportunity to offer his friendship. Visiting the observatory wouldn't cure what was ailing her heart, but it might distract her long enough for her to find her footing again.

Rahn shivered, casting a grin at an unbothered Aesylt. He'd bedecked himself in three layers of outerwear, compared to her one, but he was still ready to throw himself into a fire. "You're not cold?"

"I'm a wulf," she said, smirking from the side. "Or so they say."

"You have the temperament of one at least." He angled the mules into the last switchback. They moved slower at the higher elevation, giving the chill air more opportunities to wrap around them. "You believe there's veracity to the tales of your ancestor speaking with and mating with wulves?"

"There are those who cancommunicate with animals. It's called zydolny. The touch. Unique among the Vjestik, but rare." Aesylt wiggled and sat straight. "Darek Summerton spoke with wulves. It's an established fact. Whether he..." She snorted. "Who knows?"

"I may only be an aspiring scientist, but I struggle to imagine any real compatibility between the races."

"No one even understands what biological phenomenon causes children to look like their parents, Scholar. And if you cannot explain something, then you cannot rule out anything, however improbable."

Rahn's mouth puckered in amusement. "Did I teach you that?"

Aesylt gave a petulant shrug, but he caught her proud smile buried in her fur collar.

They scaled one last hill, short but sheer, and then they were there. Rahn pulled the cart under a long, covered area where the workers had parked their supplies. The row was empty at the dusky hour, but there were piles of empty crates and scraps, evidence of another long day of construction.

Aesylt slowly climbed out, regarding the half-built observatory in silent awe. Though he'd been visiting weekly since the workers broke ground, he turned to witness the progress through her eyes. Her mouth opened as she approached the half-built dome. The colossal glass panels had been installed along the back half, but only the beams had been built on the front side. A tarp dangled from the middle to keep snow from blowing in. Wood had been laid as temporary flooring, but when construction completed, it would be stone, like most other structures in the Cross.

He marveled at her reactions, a tad jealous he couldn't experience seeing the behemoth structure in its evolving form for the first time.

"I know you asked for my opinion, but I don't know where to start." Aesylt wrapped her arms around herself and stepped closer to the platform, dodging thickly packed hills of snow. "It's far beyond anything I could have imagined, but that isn't helpful."

Rahn chuckled to himself as he unloaded the wagon. "It's helpful." He checked his baskets: fire and kindling for the hearth inside one, and a blanket, a cask of ale, and some bread in the other. "Go on in. The floor is solid, though probably damp, so step carefully. Once you're under the domed section, you'll be protected."

He followed several paces behind to let her discover each detail for herself. There were boards and nails everywhere in the unfinished half, but once they stepped under the glass, an eerie calm descended. A glance up revealed the dusting of snow on the panels, but the moon, sky, and stars were on full display. The auroras danced along the peaks and valleys of the mountain, emerald and gold and a hint of violet.

Aesylt spun around, taking it all in. She stopped when she spotted him. "I've never seen anything like this. Ever."

"It will be an exceptional place of learning and discovery when it's finished." Rahn set the baskets on a worker's table and emptied the contents.

"The hearth works?" she asked, sneaking by him to snag an armful of kindling and logs. She smirked at his indignation and pranced away without waiting for his answer.

"You want to attempt to light it with magic, or shall I save you the trouble?"

Aesylt arranged the logs and tossed the kindling in. She snapped her pale fingers without turning. "Give it to me."

"Where I come from, ‘please' is not undervalued," he teased but brought her the flint. Their hands connected with a soft brush, passing like strangers in a market, and he experienced his first pang of self-doubt for bringing her there alone.

"I was only thinking of you, Scholar, and your delicate royal disposition." The fire took and then roared to life. She stood, sanded her hands, and turned. "I'll take some of that ale."

Rahn poured two mugs and handed her one. As she downed hers, he removed two of his furs and carried them to the far edge of the dome, where the best views of the mountains and sky were, and laid them down. He arranged them so they weren't too close together. "Grab the bread and come join me."

Aesylt made her way over but didn't immediately sit. He glanced up and caught her staring through the thick glass.

"We see the auroras all the time. But never like this," she whispered. She passed him the bread without looking at him. "And the stars... It's like you could reach up and hold them in your hand if you were clever enough."

"If anyone is clever enough, it would be you, Squish."

Aesylt whipped her gaze at him in mild affront. "That's the second time you've called me a squirrel."

Rahn raised both hands in surrender. "I didn't call you a squirrel. I merely implied you have the same practical traits as your beloved childhood pet. Resourcefulness, clev?—"

"You're not making this any better," she said but plopped onto the other fur. "I no longer wonder why you've never married, Scholar. You are clearly incapable of speaking to women as anything but specimens to be studied."

Rahn burst out laughing. "I could have told you that. Why do you think I'm at my best with my nose in a book or a quill in hand?"

"And how many books have you offended without realizing it? The trail of carnage must be unceasing," she said as she settled in. "You made a mistake bringing me here. Waiting will be torture."

"You can always come up here to visit."

She took a swallow of ale and pointed at the glass with her mug. "Thank you for the distraction tonight."

He nodded, sensing her darkness return. "The stars are brighter up here, don't you think?"

"They sure seem so. I know you don't believe they're Guardians or Ancestors, so what do you think they are?"

Rahn leaned back on his hands and gazed at the colorful sky. "Whatever they are, they're so much bigger and more complex than anything we've come up with as a theory so far. I fear we'll never know until we have the technology to reach them ourselves."

"So, never?"

He chuckled. "There's another, unintended casualty of us having no accounting of your histories, no glimpse into the past. We cannot know how far we've come because we don't know where we started."

"The rest of us, sure. You started in Ilynglass."

Rahn's blood cooled. Speaking, or even thinking, of his homeland threw him into a swirl of melancholy. Although he'd been nearly eight when the Rhiagains and the Noble Houses had fled a realm on fire, he remembered next to nothing about it. Just the fires and the screams. The shipwrecks. The chaos. "Duncarrow forbade unsanctioned writing and had no interest in documenting facts. As for Ilynglass..."

Aesylt seemed to read something in him, because her tone turned soft. "I shouldn't have brought it up. I'm sorry."

"You needn't apologize. Everyone wants to know about it, but few believe all my memories of the place are gone."

"I believe you," she said. "If it matters."

Rahn tried to smile. He fixed his gaze on the dance of light in the sky. His mind was already feeling the effects of the ale, which was far stronger than he'd realized when he'd packed it. "It matters."

She refilled both of their drinks and leaned back onto one elbow. "Is that why it's hard for you? Because no one takes you at your word?"

"I stopped concerning myself with the uninformed opinions of others years ago."

Her laugh returned the smile to his face, but realizing what he meant to say next dulled it.

"I lost both my parents and my little sister that day. Grandparents. Cousins. Aunts. Uncles. And the saddest part is I hardly remember them at all. I can't even picture my mother's face anymore." He glanced down at the intrusion of warmth, finding Aesylt's hand on his arm. "I've never told anyone else that. I don't know what compelled me to tell you now."

Aesylt tossed back a generous swallow of ale. "Confessions of the unintentionally inebriated," she said lightly, but her smile was joyless. "Would you feel better if I offered one of my own?"

Rahn rolled his hands over the cool mug. "You don't have to do that."

Aesylt finished her drink and flopped back. Her light hair spilled out on all sides, blending with the fur. "It's not the kind of secret no one else knows, I'm afraid, but very few do, and they're just as guarded about it as I am. Drazhan. My other frata, Hraz. My ota knew too. Nik and Val." She sighed. "We may practice magic openly in the Cross, but even among the Vjestik, there are forbidden magics. They won't ship you off to the Reliquary like the rest of the realm does when one of their children manifests something they shouldn't. We deal with our troubles ourselves."

Rahn turned to his side in alarm. "You possess forbidden magic?"

She nodded, her head rolling away from him. "When I was born, I... wasn't there. They delivered me, but then I was just gone. Disappeared into thin air. My oma started screaming for me, and my ota was ready to have every last nurse's head if they didn't explain what was going on. But then I was back. And no one ever spoke of it again until after my oma died, and I started going elsewhere again."

Rahn's mind continued to spin as she spoke. He was torn between wanting to stop her before she revealed something she wasn't comfortable sharing and letting her finish.

"My childhood vedhma, Saskia, called the place I went the celestial realm, and Ota sent her away for it. I think because he was scared for me," Aesylt said. Her tone took on a dreamlike quality. "She called me a starwalker."

Rahn tucked his chin down in confusion. "A starwalker?"

"When I go into this realm, everything is the same but different. The sky... It's like it's right on top of me, and I'm one with the stars. Like land and air are one. Some things follow me there; others don't... It's different every time. I can see and feel and do everything I can do in the real world, except nothing I do there has consequence here. If I die in the celestial realm, I just wake up here again, like nothing happened."

"If you... have you died there?" Rahn was aghast. His pulse had started to pound, bolstered by an unmistakable sense there was more danger to her words than she was letting on. "Aesylt?"

She nodded, her head tilted back. Her mouth parted, then closed. She exhaled. "A few times. Hraz, maybe a dozen." She smirked to herself. "Drazhan? Probably fifty."

Rahn shook his head, trying to understand. "You all go to this celestial realm, as you call it, to die? To experience death with no consequence of death?"

Aesylt propped herself up for another refill. "I haven't had this much ale in so long." She quaffed it back in one impressive throw.

He knew what she was doing and why. "Then maybe it's time to slow down a bit."

"Vjestik are born knowing how to hold their spirits, Scholar." She tilted her head back toward him. When her wide eyes implored him, his heart issued a betrayal, skipping wildly. She pressed a hand to her golden hair, twined with the dark bear pelt. It was the way she said scholar... perfectly ordinary. Perfectly indecent.

Perhaps I'm the one who has over-indulged himself.

"I stand corrected," he said hoarsely. He'd brought her to the observatory to take her mind off her fear and grief, not introduce a complication to her life. And his. "You were saying how you enjoyed murdering your brothers for sport?"

Aesylt chortled. "Well, I did enjoy it. In my defense, they begged me to take them. It was a safe place to practice. Hraz, for fun, I suppose. Drazhan for... everything that came after Nok Mora."

Nok Mora. The Nightmare. Rahn's heart ached for the village that had lost so much in one terrifying night and was still recovering from. "What about your own deaths?"

Her shoulders lifted against the fur into a shrug. "I prefer to face death and know it than wait for it and not recognize it."

Stories of that night filtered back to him. Whispers of the little girl who had hid under the bed as her father and eldest brother were massacred in front of her... as the village and half its inhabitants burned to ash upon the order of a vengeful king.

Just as swiftly followed more unwelcome visions, of waking, sodden, upon foreign rocks, bleeding and confused. Waiting for a family that would never arrive. "I understand, even if I wish I didn't."

Aesylt tapped the fur with the hand closest to Rahn. "I could take you there."

"To the celestial realm?"

She fought a yawn, but the urge won. "Yeah," she said sleepily. "Only if you want."

Rahn pressed his own yawn into his arm. Did he want to go? Even if the answer was yes, should he? His academic mind spun around the possibilities of such a place, but if there was one unspoken but powerful truth, it was that if something offered endless potential, expect danger in equal measure.

"Another time, perhaps," he said, but she was fast asleep.