Chapter 13

The starfire throne burned with his wife's love, an inferno of determination that had seen them, once, leave a distant hell behind to escape into the stars. Aaralyn had yearned for freedom the same way he had. Innes had thought to instill that yearning in their children, thought of all the ones to carry his belief of progress forward into a new Age, it would be Eimarille.

"You're grieving."

Innes didn't look away from the starfire throne, staring into its burning depths as the sounds of war echoed in his ears and in his memories, distant and half-forgotten as they were. "I wanted more than this for them. For us. You won't let us have it."

"Why can't you see that we are home?"

The ache in Aaralyn's voice finally had him turning around, facing her as he so rarely had since he'd claimed Daijal for himself. She wore well-worn trousers and a fitted short-sleeve blouse, a corset belt tight around her waist. The glittering lines of the constellation tattoo on her right arm burned like his own, a mark of this world that would never leave them.

Just as he knew he could never leave her, despite everything.

"Let Eimarille have the throne. Let her and our children have the world. Let the future be the stars once more. Let us be free," he said.

Aaralyn stepped close, resting her hands on his shoulders, and he couldn't push her away. She stared up at him, beautiful and forever young, eternal in this world and in the aether. He searched her eyes and found no recrimination for all that he'd done, all that he'd wanted, only a forgiveness that made him want to scream.

"Our children have always had this world. And you have always had me. Leave this road behind, husband. Come walk with me once more." She raised a hand to cup his face, her touch as warm as the starfire at his back. "I have missed you. So have the others. Have you not missed us?"

He'd kept his distance, interacting with his fellow star gods only rarely over the last few centuries. Perhaps the isolation had driven him mad, but he would never know. The one constant—in his dreams and in his waking wanderings—had always been his guiding star.

Had always been his wife, even when she was not beside him.

"I won't stop trying to reach the stars," he said, pressing her hand to his face.

"If it happens, let it happen in some other Age, but it cannot happen this way. There is no peace in war, no salvation in conquering. You know that."

Innes closed his eyes, turning his face into her touch. "Have I become that which we fled from?"

It was a horror he hadn't ever contemplated in the years of guiding his children down a road he thought was the only way to the stars. Had he been so blind?

Aaralyn's fingertips pressed into his skin. "I will not let you become our nightmare. Why else do you think I have done what was needed?"

Defiance and secrets and rallying their brethren to bring all the countries of Maricol to bear against his choices. Always holding out her hand to him every time their roads crossed.

And they had always crossed.

"I cannot stop this. There are roads yet for our children to walk."

"Then let us guide them. Together, how we always have."

She drew him into a kiss and drew him away from mistakes made out of love and the desire for something more, letting Maricol teeter on the precipice of change.

Behind them, as they bled into the aether, the starfire throne burned.