Page 76 of Flame and Sparrow

I still didn’t understand how I had found myself in the middle of it, but I was wide awake, suddenly, and determined to survive whatever came next.

As I contemplated my first move, I reached up to run a hand along my ears. They’d been pointed when I’d fallen asleep, but now they were smooth; Mairu’s magic somehow reached to cover me, even here—wherever this was—and the thought was oddly comforting and encouraging.

I cautiously stretched my foot away from the solid bit of ground beneath me, dipping it into the darkness around me as if testing the chill and depth of a river. The sky proved solid and even in a way that made no sense to my mind, but I didn’t question it; I could move freely among the blackness, so this is what I did.

I wandered for what could have been minutes or hours, feeling terrifyingly small in the seemingly infinite sea of sky, with no clear idea of where to go and no easy way to mark where I’d been.

It didn’t take long for thoughts—fears—of being lost forever in this infinity to start worming their way into my mind. With this fear squeezing tight on my head and heart, I made a point to try and counter it with reason and organization as I always did, seeking out recognizable patterns among the stars, searching for constellations that I could guide myself by.

The problem was that I would have sworn some of the stars weremoving.

As I traveled on, studying and trying to memorize constellations, I came upon one that was, without a doubt, shifting. I slowed to a stop, watching the very clear outline of a woman shake out her long hair and then stride toward me. The outline pulled more and more stars toward it as it walked, so that by the time it stood before me the lines were solid and forming a tangible, beautiful woman cloaked in a long gown of silver.

A goddess.

She was not as monstrous as the Death Marr had been, nor did she appear as human as Dravyn and the rest of his court; her skin remained nearly as dark as the sky around us, but it occasionally pulsed with swirls of gold that sharply contrasted with the starlit outline of her body, reminding me she was solid. Her hair was the color of a pearl, rosy white and shining, and her eyes reminded me somewhat of Dravyn’s—silver, but far lighter, shifting almost to white when glimpsed from certain angles.

A mark in the shape of a five-pointed star graced her wrist. The same symbol featured in the headpiece she wore, and it dangled from one of her many bracelets as well, further identifying her as Cepheid, the one often hailed as the Oracle Goddess—though I hardly needed to see such symbols to recognize her.

“Look closely, potential ascendant of Fire,” she said, her voice slightly eerie and echoing, like a bell ringing out in the dead silence of a cave.

She waved a slender hand toward the sky behind her as she spoke, and as she did, a section of the stars upon her created canvas began to shift. They grew smaller, creating more opened spaces that were quickly filled by more stars, their positions all shuffling and shooting around until she held up her hand and slowed them to a stop.

“This is the beginning,” she told me once the lights had fully settled. “That is, the way your home realm’s sky appeared on the night you first arrived in this place. An exact reflection of our own divine sky, but less brilliant.”

I did as she’d told me to, looking hard at the recreated sky, memorizing every detail I could, connecting the dots of light in a way that made sense to me. I searched, as before, for patterns among the chaos. I found them, too, and I felt confident I could make sense of any shapes or starry paths I might need to, if that was the test that lay before me.

As soon as that faint glimmer of confidence rose in me, the stars were moving again.

“And now, how they look in this very moment,” Cepheid said, and with another sweep of her hand, the sky finished rearranging itself.

The stars retained the basic shapes and patterns of before, but those patterns had shifted far to my right.

“Past. Present. And now we must consider the future,” said Cepheid, “and how they might move for you in that future.” She lifted a hand. Splayed her fingers. The stars spun faster than ever before, their movement dizzying. Chaotic.

The spinning made my stomach churn, but I was determined to keep my eyes open and see all that I could.

“Seek their guidance,” said the goddess, “and beware of taking wrong paths in the night.”

“What happens if I follow a wrong path?”

“The stars can be cruel.” She beckoned at the lights around her as if inviting them to demonstrate their cruelty. “And the darkness between them is worse.”

Those lights all around us swept away. Even the goddess’s skin ceased its glowing, encasing us briefly in a deep, hopeless night.

The solidness beneath me disappeared in the next instant. I plummeted once again, twisting and tumbling with more speed than before. This time the stars did not fall with me; they grew more and more distant until they winked out of existence completely.

I felt as if I’d ceased to exist along with them.

A soft, golden glow eventually swelled in their place, and I saw the Goddess of Stars falling alongside me, her body perfectly elegant and composed, feet pointed like a dancer’s in mid-leap. Something like wings had flared out from her back, and the golden dust falling from them remained our only source of light for a long, terrifying moment.

She pointed at something below us. Our fall came to a slow end, the goddess landing delicately while I slammed hard onto my hands and knees. I staggered to my feet and fought to keep myself from vomiting.

A snap of the goddess’s fingers, and we were back where we’d stood moments before, once again facing the map of my realm’s sky. It appeared to be just as we’d left it.

“Do you enjoy the feeling of falling? The thought of drifting forever among the stars?”

My mouth was almost too dry to speak. I swallowed hard and managed to say, “No.”

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