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On a day of clear dry summer, a star falls to earth.
Her blazing tail streaks across the horizon, catching every eye in the land. A shimmery burst that burns the skies and shakes the earth. She crashes against the peak of Mount Talon. The King of the North sends horsemen with nets and spears. The Queen of the Mountains sends soldiers with guns and shackles. A merchant, a collector of rare animals and star stuff, unleashes hunting dogs in legion. He tells them, fetch.
A star can grant a wish that bends the laws of nature, you see, and wishes are the stuff of miracles.
Those who remember are ready. A council chooses a knight in every generation to scour the earth. Every star is secured, kept safe, returned. Hana is the Hawk Knight, keen-eyed and swift. She arrives where the sky is burnt a deep orange.
Her ears ring and high above, a crater smokes. Mount Talon is a craggy range that unfolds like a napkin carelessly crumpled. Hana races up, outrunning the war horses as their hooves catch on uneven land. Crossing foaming rapids to lose the scent hounds. Over the winding pathways, she lifts her shield against the arrows from below, and runs.
Tucked away in a wild corner of the world, the earth is split open. A pungent scent burns the nose—the same metallic tang left after a lightning strike. Silvery dust, fine as any powder, glows like blood across the stones. The knight slides into the enormous smoking hole, and on the barren ground, a star curls into herself.
The knight puts out her hand.
“My lady.” She bends low. “Come with me.”
Over the ridge, dogs bark, hooves thunder, and men cry out. The star uncurls and peers into the face of a knight. Chosen for her. Handsome golden eyes stare down into her depthless black. The star trembles from her core. Beyond the pale twilight skies, the galaxy calls for her. Her eyes grow wet, but weeping is for the clouds. The star takes the knight’s hands and lets herself be hoisted up.
The Hawk Knight steals away from the greedy hands of people who would use the star. They run until the soldiers’ cries die out and are replaced by owl hoots.
Shadows gather and rocky plains stretch out in all directions. The star turns to the knight, still trembling. She can barely stand but her piercing gaze holds steady. Her voice returns, a velvet-deep thing. “You have saved me.” She sways and clutches the knight’s shoulder, threatening to topple down the mountainside. “I will grant you one wish.”
A shooting star is nothing if not good for her word.
The knight replies, “Not yet, my lady.”
The star frowns. It is an indelicate expression for stars do not know how to hide themselves.
“Eridus.” She puts out a hand. “You may call me Eridus. Grant me that.”
“Of course, my lady.” The knight brushes a kiss across her knuckles. The name echoes backward and forward in time. A shimmering string woven into Hana’s brief life.
Eridus, Eridus, Eridus.
She would not say the name. Not then.
They cross the great plains and battle the serpents hidden in the grasses. The Hawk Knight cuts off the head of beasts with teeth as long as forearms and helps the star back to her feet each time she falls. Eridus can barely float at that point, much less soar.
They travel south and rest in endless golden plains. An ocean of grasses that sway and swallow them up to the waist. The star turns to the knight where they bed down. She whispers again, “I feel ashamed. You have done everything for me, and I have done nothing for you. Let me grant you one wish.”
“Not yet, my lady,” the knight murmurs and points above. “But you may repay me with stories. Tales of your people.”
Her people are distant specks above. The star’s voice comes out coarse, immodest in her confusion. “What tales?”
The knight blinks rapidly, her chest squeezing. She is trained for everything but this—with this, her star. She stumbles over her words. “Such as . . . Where do stars go during the day?”
The star laughs, a sharp tinkling sound. She touches the knight’s arm lightly. “We’re still above. We don’t go anywhere.” She grins and it’s an indelicate thing as well. “Though, stars like me travel far and wide.”
“And what do you do then, stars like you?”
So the star begins her tales. She describes planets where it rains metal and volcanoes that erupt ice instead of lava. Black holes with planets of their own threatening to disappear within. And stars like her, that sing to one another.
The knight watches her every movement and how she glows the dimmest silver against the gloom.
They keep moving.
With trackers at every turn, the knight brings the lady to the harbors of the eastern shores. Their pursuers might lose their trail in the foaming waves. A single ship flying a black sail promises to ferry them across the waters with no questions asked.
The Feral Fox is crewed by a slippery blend of stragglers and wily derelicts; their captain smiles with jewels in her teeth. Across the Kraken Straits, the star and her knight dance to tavern tunes and drink among the sailors. They navigate monsoons that threaten to drown the star and throw rocks at enormous eagles that circle. Over many days, the star manages to hover.
Many miles from where they started and in the time before dawn, the star turns to the knight. Water laps at the hull of the ship and her skin is cracked from salt and sun. Hana hums a shanty up to the clouds and Eridus rests against her side.
The star lowers her voice and there is a promise there. “I have seen this world now. I have seen the terrors and beauty of it.” She touches the knight’s scarred cheek. “Let me grant you a wish and take away your pain.”
“Not yet.” The knight covers the star’s hand with her own. “My lady.”
It is easy, for a while, to forget. The bloodhounds lose their scent. The north king’s soldiers are deserted among the archipelagos. They arrive at a harbor with lights of every color burning on the waters and singing from the shore. Selkies twirl on land in pink silks and enormous smiles, princelings and fauns among them. Sirens raise their voices to red-cheeked minstrels playing pipes and harps. Mermaids, sharp-toothed and prideful, linger near the rocks, watching. But don’t attack.
“A festival,” a cat-eyed crewmember explains, “for the ocean and the land—and all who love in between.” Eridus smiles shyly at the knight and says how lovely a thing. How lovely they found each other.
But stars are not easily forgotten. Many nights before, the Mountain Queen sends her band of stone-blooded trolls. Their oars cut through the waves like knives, and they are told to find the queen a miracle or not return at all. Voices cry out and the star and the knight don’t have a chance for a single dance. Fiery arrows rain from above, burning the sails to tatters. Canons blast sides of the ship. Shrieks fill the air and sailors jump overboard. The star can do nothing but watch.
The pirate queen is the last one left, salt and pepper hair flying in the wind. She kisses the star’s cheek, the diamonds in her teeth glinting.
“You’ll have to make your own way from here, love.” Her voice is coarse as river rapids.
“What do you wish for?” Eridus asks in a breathless gasp, desperate to be of use and helpless against the sound of cracking wood. The pirate queen looks between the knight and the star. She shakes her head.
“That would be no fun.” She gives a wicked grin and leaps onto land.
Eridus turns, wild-eyed, to her knight. For a star cannot make wishes for herself. “Hana?”
She shakes her head. The Hawk Knight is trained for the skies to be burning down. “Mermaids!” she cries at the lagoon, tossing gold into the waves to hold their attention. Slim and predatory shark maidens rise to the surface. “They will write of you in every tale, in every land of your bravery and beauty for saving a star. Take this offering and ferry us to safety.” Razor-sharp smiles gleam back at them.
The Hawk Knight holds the star above the waves and covers her head with a seal-skin tarp. Her light remains lit. The mermaids ferry them to the closest quiet shore—a midnight land of caves and secrets. A place of ruins that most travelers blot out on maps.
The knight and the lady flee toward a series of ancient cisterns. Grand halls built underground and narrow passages used by the dead. Eridus touches the faceless walls of the cave, feet lingering before the gaping dark below.
“I don’t think one of my people has ever been here before.” She gives a faint smile. “I will be the very first.” Stars are not often hidden beneath the earth, even in death.
The knight wraps an arm around her shoulders. “I won’t let this be your cage. I took a vow to return all stars to their skies. You may hold me to it.”
“You’ve already done more than enough. More than that.” Her smile falters. She touches the silvery glow from her chest. “I don’t suppose I can tempt you . . . ?”
“You know what they say about vows and temptation.” She taps her own insignia, a falcon with its head covered in a hood. The knight averts her gaze, for every star wears her feelings on her face. Hana leads her by the elbow down the steps.
They travel for days through cities built underground and twisting roads made of limestone and ash. They pass places where the bats are as large as men. Necromantic skeletons crawl their way out of abandoned citadels. They bare their teeth and grin, creeping behind the two travelers like shadows hungry for the sun.
The star floats them over small gaps in the earth, and they dig their way through soil and mud and endless gloom.
The soldiers are ruthless; they give chase through the winding caverns, yelling, using sightless ghostly trackers, and trying to smoke them out. Many nights are quiet with only the smile of skeletons in the gloom beyond. Other days, bullets crackle against the walls and sweat layers the knight like a second skin. She raises her shield and parries and cuts through beasts one by one.
Days blur together and the anniversary of the star’s fall draws near. Eridus can feel the pulse beneath her fingertips, the way her light flares brighter each day. She leads the way up the volcanic stairs, slipping on the glassy ground and forcing their way toward the light. They emerge into the salty air, lengths of pale white sky above. Distantly, the star’s sisters blink back at her.
But they are not alone. The star has become bright as dreams, unignorable. Nobles and merchants and the hungry masses have tied their ships on the midnight shores. The star could cry. And yet, Hana takes her hand and they flee, one more day, one more night. Hana’s hair falls over her bruised eyes. She flinches in her sleep. Grime layers her clothing, and Eridus can tell the knight is tired. She is tired. Perhaps she wants to weep. But weeping is for the sky.
The chase pushes them to the end of all things. On the cliffs that overlook the glass ocean, they are trapped. Their backs to the rocks and bodies bruised and dirty. The soldiers hold wicked swords, mercenaries cock rifles, and beasts strain against their chains.
Finally, at the end of all things, the star steadies herself and spreads both arms out like wings. The star falls toward the foaming waves below. An indelicate smile spreads across her face as she does what all stars are meant to do . . . and rises.
“My knight.” She puts out a hand. “Come with me.”
She takes the knight in her arms and lifts them both off the sodden earth and away from the guns of mercenaries. The glass ocean reflects a streak of blazing orange. They cut away from the deserted caves and back to the mountaintops—the peaks closest to the heavens.
When they land, the knight is smiling and her eyes are wet. “You remembered how to fly,” she says hoarsely. “You know how to return to your home.”
The star shakes her head and takes the knight’s face in her hands. “You have not made your wish yet.”
The knight bows her head. She pulls the star close and whispers into her hair, “I cannot ask it of you. Eridus.” She brings the lady’s hand up and kisses her palm. “It’s what I have wished since the moment I saw you and before. The reason I fear I was born.”
“And why were you born, dear knight?” The star leans into her. The knight simply kisses her palm in answer.
“I cannot ask it of you,” she repeats and turns away.
“Ask it anyway.” The star’s eyes are wet now too. She brings the knight’s face back to hers.
The knight searches her lovely ageless eyes and sees only light. Their lips come together with the slow pull of planets into orbit. She murmurs the words into the star’s warm skin. “Stay,” she wishes, and then wishes again and again with each kiss. “Stay with me.”
That is how a star fell to earth and did not fall back up again.