Starrise,
Starfall,
Grant me this wish,
The one I desire most of all . . .
Caelestis hung in darkness, awash in wishes as he was every night. Some were petty, others banal, most hollow. These were the ones he’d learned to ignore, letting them blend and fade with the static of space. His siblings twinkled around him, and he wondered if they, too, were restless. The space between them was vast and lonely. If there were air in the interminable void, he would have sighed. It had been so long since he’d been pulled to the little blue planet below to serve his duty.
Then, as if his own had come true, a wish came. The star leaned forward, trained on the sound. The purest wishes rang like bells—some deep and resonate, others high and silvery. These were always accompanied by a shift that felt at once familiar and terrifying—the way it feels when the world unexpectedly falls away from you.
Unbalanced.
He had learned that word on Earth, as balance wasn’t a concern in the weightless nothing of space. And that’s how this wish, with its crystalline tinkle, made him feel as it reverberated through him and burrowed to his core. There it tightened into a fist, and he lurched forward, the desperate plea pulling him from his home in the heavens and toward the ground far away.
Without further warning, Caelestis fell.
Shooting through the sky, his wake rent a silvery gash in the darkness. He howled against the familiar rip and burn of atmosphere, squinted against the blinding light of descent. In a grating skid, he landed, having hurtled his way through tree and earth. When he opened his eyes, he no longer looked down at the tiny planet but up at the twinkling sky.
He sat up, stretching and twisting in an effort to work out the rude kinks set into his bones by the suddenness of gravity. How long had it been since he’d last fallen? He hadn’t remembered it hurting this much, but it had never been easy.
Opening and closing his newly formed fingers, he marveled at the novelty of his broad palms, the weight of his hands. Pale skin stretched smoothly over bone and tendon, the thick pads at his fingertips sensitive to every touch. So real, so firm.
Different from the formless glow of his astral body, his corporeal form always amazed. He stood slowly, adjusting to the precarious fight to gain balance between weight and gravity, and turned his gaze toward the sky. His brothers and sisters hung above him, not much farther than usual but more distant than ever. With a bit of effort, he found the void that marked his place in the sky—a blackness beyond blackness—and he felt the fleeting pang of homesickness.
Behind him, marred trees cut a long scar well into the distance. He breathed deeply, respiration a newly burning necessity. The air carried the scent of charred wood and friction-heated soil. Scent was one of the things he liked best about Earth because space had no odor.
Scrabbling from the crater, he stumbled onto a bed of sweet-smelling summer grass and lay down on his stomach. The earthen scent of life filled his head. Plucking a single blade between his forefinger and thumb, he rolled it back and forth until it hung, pinched and limp. Touch.
He put his fingers to his nose. Smell.
And then to his tongue. Taste.
The wind rustled the leaves in the trees above, dark shadows against the clear night sky. Sound was one thing he had in space, but not like this. Not the whispering song of leaves, nor the creak of wood. At home, his ears only filled with the endless stream of wishes before they passed into nothing.
With that, he remembered the wish that had brought him down. Closing his eyes, he strained his ears, searching for and then turning to the sound. That helpless cry, which had pulled him from the heavens, called again. Rising to his feet, he cracked his neck and moved his shoulders as if shrugging into a heavy coat, although a midnight robe light as a moonbeam was all he wore.
He began walking. Moving in slow, deliberate steps, he used the muffled cry and the undeniable tug in his chest to guide him. The person that had brought him hurtling to Earth was near, somewhere beyond the woods. He walked a fair distance until the sound grew louder. At last, he came to a Moon Pool. These small reservoirs were scattered across the earth and collected the tears of Mother Moon. On Earth, the vitreous black liquid, which reflected no light, had no real magic. But the pools were held as sacred and believed to amplify the wishes of those in need.
He stood in the shadows of the tree line and observed the clearing. The pool was of modest size and surrounded by boulders and the remnants of gifts brought by pilgrims and wish makers. A gray-cloaked figure sat on the edge just across from him.
The trees around Caelestis whispered, causing the figure to raise its head. He could not make out any features under the darkness of the hood, but the person beneath drew back in shock, fear, or both. These were common emotions, one for which he could not blame the humans. After all, each of his footfalls left a glowing trail of stardust in his wake, and his skin gave off a faint, silvery light. Caelestis had learned that humans responded well to smiling, so he let his face lift into an easy, practiced one. To his satisfaction, the figure’s shoulders relaxed ever so slightly.
“Are you all right?” His voice, now having a substrate on which to travel, came in warm, vibratory tones. He extended his hand.
The huddled figure tilted its head. Two hands emerged from the folds of the cloak. Small, delicate fingers with skin like rich mahogany pushed back the hood of the cloak, revealing the tear-streaked face of a young woman.
Caelestis blinked at her and swallowed. Her almond-shaped eyes sat wide on a face framed by profuse curly black hair, parted down the middle. Her strong face was careful yet curious, handsome but decidedly not beautiful.
Even so, he found himself unable to look away from the swell of her high cheekbones or the moonlit darkness of her skin. There was something haunting about the way she watched him with irises—the color and depth of the Moon Pool—gravid from desperation.
“Who are you?” she asked, not breaking her gaze.
“I am the star, Caelestis. You may call me Cael if you wish.”
The young woman’s eyebrows rose.
“You called me here,” he prompted.
The woman pulled her cloak close to her as if it might quell the subtle trembling of her body. “You—you heard me?”
“I did.” He smiled again, marveling at the way the muscles stretched over his face. It was a good feeling; stars didn’t get to smile. “What is your name?”
“A—Anush. My name is Anush.”
“That’s a pretty name. Anush.” He tested the word, liking the soft whispering of it as it passed between the hardness of his teeth.
“Is it true then?” Anush’s eyes glittered. “You’ll grant me a wish? Anything at all?”
“Yes. One wish, anything your heart desires.”
The young woman’s eager face broke, her eyes filling with tears. She put her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking. Cael frowned. He did not like it when they cried. It was not an emotion to which he could relate.
With a certain amount of effort, the woman regained her composure. “I’m sorry.” She sniffed. “It—it’s my sister, she has fallen ill and desperately needs your help.”
Cael cocked his head to one side. “The wish isn’t for you?”
The woman shook her head, her dark eyes now full of worry. “Will you still help me?”
“Of course. I didn’t travel all the way from the heavens to leave without fulfilling your wish.”
Relief passed over her face, pulling the corners of her mouth into a small smile. Just that tiny change filled her features with warm radiance. But that warmth was quickly gone as the lingering shadows of sadness settled back over her, the smile frozen on her lips. She began to weep once more. Caelestis did not understand sadness, but the odd combination of crying while smiling was an even greater mystery.
Anush led him down a well-worn path that wound through a pine forest. Clouds drifted overhead, covering and uncovering the moon, plunging them into dark and light. The sun would rise soon. In fact, Caelestis could just detect the faint glow at the edge of the sky. According to Anush, they’d make it to her village by daybreak. He guessed it wouldn’t be much longer now.
They walked in silence for a time, Anush glancing at him sideways as if she expected him to vanish at any moment. The attention didn’t make him uncomfortable. Humans, he’d found, were prone to staring. He supposed they couldn’t help it. It seemed a reasonable reaction. Even so, he felt different under her eyes. Unlike most of the humans he’d met, there was no ambition or pretense, only genuine curiosity and gratitude.
“Cael.” She cleared her throat. “Can I ask you a question?”
He nodded.
“Why did you come to me?”
He looked at her curiously. “You called me, didn’t you?”
Anush nodded. “Is that all it takes? To just ask?”
He chuckled. “If asking were all it took, I’d never go home again.” He looked down at her. “But you, your voice rose above all others and pulled me to you. It is a rare thing that happens, perhaps only once in a generation.”
The smile returned to her face, this one wider than the last. Once again, the shadows lifted from her countenance and revealed an even brighter radiance. She turned her face to the ground, but not before he started to consider that she might be prettier than he initially thought.
“Is there anything else you’d like to know?” he asked.
She turned back to him and bit her lip.
“It’s silver. Your hair, I mean.” The words came quickly as if too much thought would otherwise hold them back. “Just like starlight.”
Her fingers reached out as if to touch it, but she made a fist instead and lowered her eyes back to the ground. “It’s beautiful.”
He regarded the young woman, her head down in an effort to hide the embarrassment he had briefly seen in her eyes. Hers had been a statement, simple and without appeal—unlike most others who had fawned, poked, or made demands for locks to carry as talismans.
“Will it make me stand out in your village?”
She shook her head without looking at him. “It’s a trading post. There are many unusual strangers who come to our town.” She glanced behind him and gestured at his stardust trail, its glow much softer but still impossible to miss. “But that will.”
“It diminishes as I walk,” he said with a quiet laugh. “You needn’t worry. It should fade entirely by the time we reach your village.”
She nodded, and another layer of shadow fell away.
They both went silent for a long while. Birds sang to one another in the thicket of trees—greetings to each other and to the day.
“Does it hurt?” she said.
“Does what hurt?”
“I saw a shooting star. It seemed so close, but then it flashed in the sky and was gone.” She gave him a shy, furtive glance. “Was that you?”
“Yes.”
“Does it hurt when you fall from the sky?”
“Yes.” He looked down at her, watched the way she tucked an itinerant strand of hair behind her ear and, for the first time, felt the urge to touch someone else’s hair. He ignored the nagging feeling. “The air against your skin burns like fire. Landing feels as if your bones have been crushed into dust. You break a lot of things—trees, boulders.” He inhaled deeply just to feel his lungs expand. “Then you stop. Eventually.”
“But you aren’t broken.”
A broad grin spread across his face. “No, because I do not break.”
She touched his face then. Her fingers were soft against his skin and burned in a way no less intense but wholly different from the sensation of falling.
“What?” he asked.
She pulled her hand away and shook her head. The plume of dark curls moved too, a beat behind. “I just can’t believe you’re really here.” Dark eyes penetrated his.
His skin still burned where she had touched him, and he suddenly found it hard to meet her gaze. He cleared his throat as though it would clear the strange emotions rising in him. “Why don’t you tell me about your wish? What is it that you want?”
“It’s my sister, Sani.” Her gaze broke from his and dropped to her feet. “She’s my twin.” One edge of her mouth pulled up as if remembering a happy memory. “We don’t really look alike. She’s beautiful and I—well, I’m just me. But she is sweet and kind with a smile brighter than the sun.” Her mouth turned sharply down. “And . . . she’s sick.” The last word came out as a bitter, choking sound.
There it was. She would ask him to heal her sister. Selfless, he thought. Most asked him to grant them love or wealth or sex—or all three.
They arrived at the edge of the wood and the thatched roofs of the village could be seen past the rolling hills, in the valley below. Tender columns of smoke twisted toward the sky. Beyond, the horizon brightened with the coming day. Anush stopped and turned to him. Tears now streaming down her face.
“Sani isn’t just sick.” Her breath caught. “She’s dying. No one can save her.” She lifted her dark eyes to his.
His chest clenched, the depth of her despair physically painful to him. His insides twisted at the sight of her sadness, a sensation new and completely unpleasant. Yet he had the fleeting thought that if he could take her pain into himself, he would without hesitation. He reached out to wipe a tear from her stricken face, but thought better of it and placed his hand on her shoulder instead. He touched his other hand to the vial of dark liquid that hung by a cord around his neck.
“I can,” he said.
The sun hung well above the horizon by the time they reached the valley floor. Caelestis guessed it was midmorning when they entered the tall wooden gate set into the stone and mud wall. It was a market day, and the village pressed against them from all sides, overwhelming his unaccustomed senses: riots of color from the farmers’ stands, the call and answer of the fishmonger and the butcher, the taste of dust and blood and spice on the air, the press of strange bodies against his.
Anush had been right: no one so much as batted an eye at his towering stature or silver hair. The villagers bustled about, haggling, squeezing, and sniffing wares in a kind of communal intimacy. A dog ran down the market street chased by a handful of laughing children. Lower now, the moon still hung in the sky. He sent a silent prayer of thanks to his mother; it was a lovely day to be on Earth.
As they walked through the market, the commotion around them began to lessen until it stopped. They turned down the nearest side street and followed its winding path. The buildings became shabbier and more run down until the huts gave way to hovels in various states of disrepair.
Anush came to a stop in front of the worn wooden door of a small shack. Checking that Caelestis was still behind her, she pushed the door open and gestured for him to follow her inside.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the feeble light filtering through the single, grime-stained window. When his vision had adapted, he saw that the house was made of only a single sparsely-furnished room with a worn table set in the center. The hearth was on one side, two beds sat on the other. The only privacy a set of moth-eaten curtains.
“Mama!” Anush rushed toward a woman who sat with her back to them, hunched in a chair by the meager fire.
Startled, the woman looked up, her mouth framed with worry lines. “Anush! Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick.”
A small, round head popped up over the mother’s shoulder. “Nush!” cried the boy. Two dimples sank into grinning cheeks.
“Hi, Lor,” she said to the child before he dipped his head back to his mother’s breast. “I’m fine, Mama. I went to find help for Sani, and I did. I found . . . someone.” She gestured toward Caelestis, and he stepped farther into the gloom of the hut.
Anush’s mother looked up at him, her eyes growing wide just as her daughter’s had done. He attempted the reassuring smile, but his senses were still muddled by his walk through the marketplace. He hoped he had managed something that would at least ease her worry about the presence of a strange man in her home.
“He’s all right. His name is Cael and he’s here to help us.” Anush gestured for him to step forward. “Cael, this is my mother, Emese.”
He bowed his head. Emese’s eyes slid from him to her daughter, and she shook her head. “I don’t understand. How can he help us? We’ve asked every shaman and every priestess known to walk this valley for help.”
Emese cast a glance toward the beds behind her. For the first time, he noticed that one was lumpy with a figure huddled under a mass of quilts.
Anush spoke next, her voice barely a whisper. “How is she?”
Emese’s eyes cut to his before dropping to the boy at her breast. She shook her head.
Cael walked silently to the bedside. He expected the girls’ mother to stop him, but she didn’t. Her face hung slack, the expression empty, gone with her hope. A girl with the same build as Anush lay in the bed, draped in heavy quilts. Her black hair spilled over the pillow, her skin greyed and sunken. He placed the back of his hand against her cheek. It was cool to the touch. Anush appeared at his elbow.
“What’s wrong with her?” he asked.
“Stone’s Plague.” She carefully brushed a wisp of hair from her sister’s face.
He shook his head, not understanding.
“She’s”—her voice hitched—“hardening. Turning into stone. It’s getting worse. Some days she can barely move. Other days are better, but these last few have been very bad. She won’t eat and insists we take her portions, that we need them more than she does. So she grows weaker. There’s no cure, and even if there were”—Anush glanced toward the hunched figure of her mother—“we couldn’t pay for it.”
He watched a tear slip down her cheek. As if aware of his gaze, she brushed it away with the back of her hand.
She turned to him, her deep eyes begging, the familiar tug at his core. “Can you help her?”
This time when he smiled, his focus was clear. “I told you, I can do anything. Are you sure this is how you want to use your wish?”
Anush nodded vehemently. “Yes.”
“The wish is yours and can’t be forced on another. She will have to agree. Can you rouse her enough that I may speak to her?”
“I think so.”
“Good, then all will be well.”
Anush spoke softly to Sani, her hands gently shaking her sister’s shoulders as her mother watched from the chair. The little boy, Lor, had climbed off his mother’s lap and now played on the floor with a ragged doll by the hearth.
Caelestis, having lifted the vial from around his neck, studied the crystalline container. Vertically divided into two, the dark liquid sloshed inside, a small glass stopper atop each portion.
A loud rap at the door startled everyone in the room. Anush froze, her eyes clouding with trepidation. Emese jumped to her feet and headed toward the door to peek through the cracks. With her hand to her mouth, she stepped back, her face showing the first sign of emotion Cael had seen in her.
“It’s Kamen,” she whispered as another loud rapping came against the door.
Anush scrambled to her feet, hands shaking.
“Who is Kamen?” he asked.
Anush frantically grabbed each of the tattered curtains and pulled them closed, concealing the beds behind them. “Sani’s betrothed. He can’t see her like this.”
Lor, sensing the tension, toddled to his mother’s worn skirt and clung to it. “Mama, Mama,” he cried as Emese opened the door.
The vacant expression vanished, and her face cracked into welcoming smile as she greeted the young man on the other side. “Kamen, what a treat. We weren’t expecting you.”
A stocky young man with thick brown hair walked into the small home without further invitation. His nose wrinkled at the deficiencies of the hut.
“To what do we owe this pleasure?” Emese asked. Her calm voice was betrayed only by the tremble of her hands. She wound them into her gown.
“Nothing. Only the desire of a man in love to see his betrothed.” His cold tone belied the warmth of his words.
“She’s gone for a walk,” Anush offered, staging herself just in front of the curtain. “You know how she is.”
Kamen turned to her sharply. “No, I don’t think I do. For whenever I come to call, she is never here. Now tell me, how is a man supposed to get to know his bride if she’s never home?” The words hissed between clenched teeth.
Caelestis stood quietly at Kamen’s back, as yet unnoticed. He’d had too many encounters with humans of this type, and Kamen wasn’t making him feel particularly optimistic.
Kamen spun away from Anush, his eyes falling on the other man. “And who is this?”
Anush exchanged a nervous glance with her mother. “A cousin, Kamen. Come to celebrate the wedding of course.”
Kamen stepped toward Caelestis, squinting at him in the dusky light. “Not much of a family resemblance.”
“He comes from my husband’s side. A distant relation.” Emese spoke through tight lips. “He’s traveled a long way and is unfamiliar with the language.”
Caelestis, taking the cue, nodded politely to Kamen. Kamen turned back to Emese and Anush. “I will return tomorrow—with my father. I expect her to be home.”
“Of course,” Anush placated. “I’ll be sure to relay your request when she returns. I’m sure she’ll be most happy to comply.”
Kamen opened the door to step out but hesitated and turned back. “I’d like to remind you that there is still plenty of time to cancel the arrangement.” He slammed the rickety door behind him.
Legs trembling, Emese sank into a chair and laid her head on her arms. Poor little Lor stood clutching her skirts looking bewildered.
“Cael.” Anush, pulling the curtain back, waved him over. “We must hurry. She has to be better by tomorrow.” She turned back to her twin’s motionless figure and shook her. “Sani! Please, wake up.”
Caelestis could only watch as Anush tried to rouse her sister to no effect. Placing a gentle hand on Anush’s shoulder, he motioned for her to stop.
“What if it’s too late?” She choked down a sob.
He looked at her perplexed. If Anush loved her sister so much, how could she so eagerly hand her over to a man like Kamen? He could see the tender affection in her eyes but did not understand the complexities behind those human emotions.
He moved toward the bedside and knelt, placing his hand over Sani’s heart. Closing his eyes, he focused that part of him that could hear even the faintest plea in the void of space. Sani’s heart beat with quiet regularity, and her breath came easily, if shallow.
“She is not too far gone,” he concluded. Then, in anticipation of Anush’s impatience he added, “But in order for the magic to work, she must consent. We should let her be.”
Anush’s black eyes relayed the pain caused by the delay. After a long moment, she nodded reluctantly, then tucked the quilts warmly around her sister’s still body.
Anush took him by the hand and drew him from the closeness of the hut. He squinted against the noon sun and pulled out the vial once more. Anush had begun walking at an anxious pace. He followed behind as she took the path along the village wall.
She led him through a small door in the rear of the wall and toward a copse. Once inside the cool shelter of the trees, she stopped abruptly, her whole body shaking. He raised a hand to touch her shoulder when she turned and pressed her face against the midnight of his robes.
He hesitated, unsure of what to do. Then he wrapped his arms around the bereft woman. Holding her close, he found himself stroking the dark mass of her hair, his fingers lost in the soft, springy curls.
She cried against him for a while. Sobs racked her body and vibrated through his chest until they quieted into shallow, hitching breaths. Humans had such a marvelous breadth and depth of emotions. It never ceased to amaze him, and now he wanted nothing more than to take away this woman’s pain.
At last, Anush pulled back. “I—I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
“It will be all right. I’m going to help you. Just as soon as your sister—”
Anush pulled away, and he frowned, wondering if he’d done something wrong.
“I hate him,” she said, her voice low. “He’s horrible!”
“When she’s well, she doesn’t have to marry him. The man said it himself, that it’s not too late to break the contract.”
“She will never break her marriage contract.” Her voice was thick with bitterness. “Never.”
“Why not?”
She strode forward several more steps before plopping down on the weathered remnants of a low stone wall. “We weren’t always so poor you know.”
He took a seat beside her.
“My father, when he was alive, was much respected, an honorable man. We weren’t wealthy by any means, but his position under Magistrate Berk was more than enough to keep us well fed, clothed, and in a bright, dry hut with stone floors. He was a scribe for the magistrate.” Her eyes filled with a sudden pain. “Magistrate Berk is Kamen’s father.”
Anush recounted her family’s fall into poverty, and Caelestis listened with quiet intent. It had started when her father discovered the magistrate’s corruption. Anush had overheard her parents talking about it. Her father had confronted the magistrate. He had wanted to give the man the opportunity for honor by giving him a chance to confess to the king. Anush’s father had made it very clear that if the magistrate didn’t do it himself, he’d do it for him.
But her father had never carried out the threat; he had died soon after, murdered by a band of robbers. Everyone said it was just bad luck, the danger of the road, but Anush and her family knew better.
With her husband gone, Emese had looked for work. But no one would hire an enemy of the magistrate. The only value left to the family was Sani’s uncommon beauty, which quickly caught Kamen’s eye.
“He’s never shied away from showing his desire for her. But he cares not for love. It’s her beauty he wants to possess.” Anush’s voice turned icy. “She’s no more than an ornament for his arm, a prize to feed his conceit.”
But Kamen had been persistent, and the family had fallen deeper into poverty. Without even consulting their mother, Sani had come home one day to announce her marriage. She had been shrewd in her marriage negotiations. In exchange for her hand, Kamen would take care of her family and give them the same respect and honor as his own.
“She knew she was ill,” Anush said, shaking her head sadly. “She made him guarantee our place in his house even after her death.” Her voice faltered over the last word. “And if she dies before the wedding, then the contract will be revoked.”
Caelestis contemplated the dichotomy of humans, unable to process how they could be so horrible to one another and yet so capable of such selfless love. A millennium of watching Earth and he still couldn’t understand it.
Anush seemed deflated. She massaged one hand with the other, slowly flexing her fingers. “We’re on the verge of being cast into the street. If Sani dies, then we die too.”
He took her trembling hands in his. “Sani will live.”
While they walked slowly toward her home, Anush told him stories of happier times. The radiance brightening her face as she recounted past joys filled him with an unfamiliar warmth. He remembered the heat of her fingers on his face, her slender shoulders as he wrapped his arms around her, her thick curls sliding between his fingers.
They turned down her crooked street, and before they reached the house, her mother poked her head from the door.
Eyes glassy and excited, she shouted, “Anush!” She looked nervously between their two faces. “Come quick, she’s awake!”
They rushed into the house. Again, he struggled to see in the low light of the hut. Eventually, he made out the figure in the bed. Sani sat upright, and Anush rushed to her bedside. She clasped her sister’s stiff hands between her own, their heads bowed together in silent greeting.
Cael approached slowly, not wanting to intrude. He watched them with interest. Their movements mirrored one another, a hush of whispers flowing between the two. Anush stroked her sister’s hair. Sani mirrored her, but her pain was obvious in her labored movements. They broke apart, and Anush waved him over, her eyes bright with hope.
“Sani, this is Cael. He is going to make you better.”
He knelt by the bed, his hand on the vial at his neck. He lifted the cord over his head.
Sani’s voice came as a struggle. “What is it?”
He held the vial up between his thumb and forefinger. The dark liquid sloshed inside. “They are tears of my mother, the moon,” he said. A pang of longing shot through him, the end of his time on Earth was nearing. He looked at Anush. “With this, I can grant you a single wish, anything you desire at all.”
“I wish for Sani to be well, to live a long and happy life.” Anush spoke quickly, her voice thick with emotion.
He nodded in understanding and cast a glance toward her sister, his eyes questioning.
“What about the other vial?” Sani blurted. Her eyes moved from his hand to her sister’s face. The small, hopeful squeeze she gave Anush’s hand didn’t go unnoticed.
He pursed his lips. “I can only grant one wish. The other vial is for my return.”
Anush shook her head at Sani almost imperceptibly and smiled sadly. “I want Sani to have my wish.” Her voice was firm. “Sani, say you’ll take it.”
“Will you?” Cael asked.
“Please,” Anush begged at her sister’s hesitation.
Sani’s weak smile was enough to break his heart. “For you. Yes.”
“Your wish shall be granted.” He solemnly removed the stopper on one half of the vial and held it to Anush’s lips.
“But,” Sani began.
Before her sister could change her mind, Anush snatched the vial, tilted the liquid into her mouth, and swallowed.
“Do you feel anything?” Anush’s eyes glistened.
Sani began to nod, but she didn’t have to. Her skin plumped before their eyes. Incredulous, she raised her hands with ease, watching the fluidity of her wiggling fingers. She sat up and swung her legs from the bed to a chorus of cries from her mother and sister. Caught up in the excitement, the little boy squealed as well, clapping his hands in delight as his sister stood up.
Sani rushed to Caelestis and took his hand in hers. She looked up at him with eyes as dark and fathomless as her sister’s. “Thank you.”
“Marry Kamen and all will be well,” Anush said. “He will take care of the family.”
The expression on her face confused him. She seemed relieved yet unbelievably sad. The sisters fell into each other’s embrace, joined by their mother and brother.
Caelestis quietly stepped outside, leaving them to their joy.
The sun now hung low. Like the sun, his time on Earth was nearing an end. He lifted the vial to the sky and watched the liquid shiver with the promise of return. The thought made him uneasy.
He had been drawn to Anush by a fervent wish, but the hook that had sunk into his core hadn’t released at the completion of his duty. Instead, over the course of his time with her, it had transformed into something hot and compelling. Something he didn’t want to lose. Cael didn’t belong on Earth. It was a strange place. Full of love and joy that could be dashed in a moment. The complexities of human nature confounded. Their cruelty was beyond compare.
A cold dread settled in him at the thought of the family living under Kamen’s rule. Kamen was not marrying Sani for love, and surely he would give her none. The thought left Cael feeling sour—a new lesson in human emotion.
The hut’s dilapidated door creaked behind him, and Anush gingerly stepped out of the house. She pulled her cloak around her, despite the lingering warmth of the setting sun. Together they watched it dip toward the horizon.
It was a long while before she spoke. “I’m glad you waited. I need to thank you.” She turned to him and placed a cool hand on his arm. Her dark, bottomless eyes locked on his. “You’ve saved my sister from death and my family from starvation. I don’t know how to—”
He silenced her with a shake of his head and took her hand between his own. “There is no need.”
She looked away, back to the horizon. “I suppose it’s time for you to return home?”
“Yes.” The word cut him.
“Do you have to go?”
He regarded the setting sun. “I must take my share of the vial before the sun sets, or I risk being trapped here forever.”
She turned to him now. “Then you must return home.” She took the vial and lifted it from his neck. Uncorking it, she held it to him. “Take it. Please.”
He reached for it and hesitated. “Do you not want me to stay?”
Tears welled in her eyes. “You will not be happy here. You are better off in the sky where humans can only look at you, not hurt you.”
Bitterness rose in him. Human hearts and emotions were volatile, unstable things. He didn’t understand what he was feeling. His emotions were a mess of confusion. But he knew it was because of Anush and didn’t want it to stop, which only confused him more.
“Please, go,” Anush said, her voice heavy with regret.
It was time, and once he was back in the sky, his feelings would sort themselves out, Caelestis reasoned, even as he imagined the unending loneliness of space. Anush would be happy now with her sister in good health; her family would be taken care of. If Kamen did not love Sani, her family did, and that was all that truly mattered, wasn’t it?
Only the edge of the sun peeked above the horizon now. He tilted the vial to his lips and swallowed the dark liquid. Silent, Anush leaned her head against his chest. His heartbeat quickened at her closeness. A soft wetness bloomed on his robes where she cried against him. Cupping her chin between his hands, he lifted her face to his.
“Why do you cry? Have I not given you what you desire?”
She shook her head and clenched her eyes closed, squeezing out a stream of tears.
It hurt his heart to see her like this. “What can I do? I have no more wishes left to give.”
Her eyes opened and met his. “I have one more. I wish to be kissed.”
Again, he remembered the heat of her palm on his face. It spread into his chest and burned like fire in his heart. A taste of human love, perhaps. He leaned his head down to hers, slipping closer as the sun slipped beyond the horizon. His lips turned to starlight.
Anush stood alone and cold, her face upturned for a kiss that would never come.
Mother Moon was neither uncaring nor unkind. But as mother of the stars and goddess of the night sky, she had no time to waste with mundane matters. So it was with trepidation that Caelestis called out to her. With a voice that rent the vastness of space, he appealed to her, begged to be human. To stay human.
“Child, are you not happy in the heavens with your brothers and sisters?” Her voice rang in the darkness.
“Mother.” Caelestis could hardly keep the pleading sound from his voice. “I am happy in your home. But I’m enamored with Earth, with the humanity you so graciously grant me.”
Her bodiless voice hummed. “But humans are cruel. Surely you’ve learned that.”
“Yes, they are. And I’ve witnessed it with my own eyes, been cut by their words in my heart—the heart you gave me. But I’ve also come to experience love and happiness with that same heart. It is the greatest experience I’ve known.”
Mother Moon was silent, but at last she spoke. “Is this your final wish, my child?”
Caelestis looked to the blue speck hanging in the darkness. A terrible, frightening place full of love and joy. The juxtaposition confused him. Intrigued him. Called to him.
“It is,” he replied.
“Then I will grant you one wish and command you to go and be happy with the understanding that you may never return here. But if you do not use your wish by sundown, you will forever return to your place among the stars.”
At once, he tilted toward the Earth in that strange, jolting way. Unbalanced, he thought. Consumed by heat and flame, he made his descent.
Caelestis knocked upon Anush’s door, excited to see her radiant face. Instead, he was greeted by the solemn faces of her mother and sister.
“We don’t know where she’s gone.” Emese’s red-rimmed eyes darted about. “She said she was going into the village, but she never returned.” The last word came out in a stuttering sob.
“It’s been three days.” Even with her health returned, Sani was pale. “We’ve searched everywhere.”
Cael felt as if he’d been hit in the gut.
“She’s sick. She needs to be at home.” Emese sobbed into the back of her hand.
A cold lump wedged in Cael’s throat, startling him with its choking pain. His mind spun as he tried to digest Emese’s words.
Sick.
Dark eyes, so much like her sister’s, bored into his. “Do you know where she might be?”
“No, I—” A slow realization took hold. The Moon Pool.
Without so much as a goodbye, he dashed from the hut and ran through the streets toward the city gate.
Following the path to the pool, Cael was acutely aware of the sun’s position in the sky. It was already too low for comfort. He replayed every moment as he ran, remembering every touch and word. He’d been so blinded by her goodness that he hadn’t seen what had been right in front of him. For the first time, he felt anger. At his own thoughtlessness, at the unfairness of the fleeting human life.
At last, he reached the clearing where the Moon Pool lay. A solitary figure sat hunched by its edge, just as he’d first found her. He knelt by her side.
Anush turned toward him, her movements slow, the pain written clearly on her face. “You came back.”
His heart burned in the friction between joy and abject loss.
Bittersweet. The humans had a word for everything.
“Of course I did.” He took her hands, held them to his lips, and kissed her cold fingers.
Anush’s brows knitted together. “But why?”
He reeled at the question. Did she not know what he felt for her?
“I came back for you. I love you, don’t you see?”
“You do?” She shook her head in disbelief.
He pressed his forehead to hers. “I asked my mother to grant me a wish. And she did, so that I may be with you.”
She drew back, pulling her hands from his. “But I am dying, Cael.” Her voice broke.
Tears stung at his eyes, but he blinked them back. He took the vial and lifted the cord from around his neck. “No, I can save . . .”
The words died on his tongue as he stared at the last wish he would ever grant. The crystalline vial on his palm contained only one dose of the black liquid. This time he could not stop his tears, and they burned bitter silvery streaks down his cheeks.
“You take it,” he said, holding out the vial.
She shook her head. “But what about your wish?”
His eyes went to the sky. The sun would set soon. “I will return home to my mother where I will forever stay. But you will live and that is enough. Besides, what would my life be on Earth without you?”
Anush started to speak, but a wrenching tremor shuddered through her body. She cried out, toppling. He caught her and held her close.
She placed a chilled hand against his cheek and tilted her lips toward his. He bent to her, his lips warm against the cold creeping in her veins. Time stilled, silence falling around them as heat blossomed through his chest.
Love, he thought.
In a moment that stretched into eternity, there was only the feeling of her lips against his, her smell, her taste. The sound of her breath and of her heart.
Until there was not.
Cael broke away, but Anush did not move. She sat perfectly still, a fine-grained statue of jet, lips permanently upturned in the joy of her lover’s kiss. A single crystal tear streaked down her cheek.
Caelestis stared with sightless eyes at the vial in his hand. The light in the woods had a dusky quality now. He knew that he could not navigate the curious twists and turns of this human world without Anush by his side, nor soothe the tearing pain in his heart without her.
In an instant, he made his decision. Uncorking the vial, he swallowed the liquid down, then kissed his love for the last time.
Sani awoke early the next morning and arose as easily as a feather lifts on the wind. The feeling of lightness was short lived at the sight of her sister’s empty bed. Her thoughts turned heavy and gray like the rain clouds in the valley. When she considered that the strange young man hadn’t returned, they threatened to burst in a torrent of despair. Her stomach sank as she recalled him standing in the doorway, his starlight hair catching the late afternoon sun. It made her think of the Moon Pool, and she smiled to herself sadly.
Anush had never believed in magic, not even when they were children. She had always said the pool and its mysterious black waters were “for crones and lost souls who had nowhere else to turn.”
And now Sani had nowhere else to turn.
Through the gate, she followed the winding path out of the valley and into the woods until she stood in the clearing, the Moon Pool as fathomless and black as she remembered. Across the pool stood an unfamiliar sight—a statue. She took in the shape of it, her heart stopping in a painful moment of familiarity. Before she knew it, she had burst into a sprint, stumbling forward on unsteady legs. Upon reaching the other side, she fell to her knees before the jet figure and stared at a face so much like her own: her twin frozen in a silent monument to selfless love.
With tears in her eyes, she stroked her sister’s cold cheek and choked back a heaving sob. She would have squeezed into the circle of her sister’s arms if it hadn’t already been occupied by a second figure, one of the brightest moonstone. For here in the space between Anush’s hands and her heart, which had always seemed so infinitely large, sat the stranger with the starlight hair. His arms encircled her waist, hers his neck. With smiling lip to smiling lip, Anush pressed into Cael’s eternal kiss.
Sani sat for a bitter moment. The strange man had gone with Anush to a place where Sani could not follow. Beside her, the pond rippled. Her breath caught in her throat; she’d never seen so much as breeze disturb the surface of the depthless pool, nor any glimmer of light reflect from its surface. But for a brief moment, she saw the moon looking up at her. Sani lifted her eyes to the sky where the silvery orb hung, full and strangely melancholy.
At last she understood. She turned back to the statue of Cael and placed a hand on his shoulder. Head bowed, she sent up a prayer of thanksgiving for the sister who died so that she and her family might live and the man who gave up the heavens, the Earth, and all the stars to follow her into the unknown.