The Shadow Behind the Stars (12 page)

Everyone had heard of her beauty, and of the raid on her village as well. We learned that after the raiders had gone, the neighboring villagers had come to put the bodies of Aglaia's family and friends to rest. They had been burned in a great fire out in the nearby fields; no one had picked through the remains to tally every person.

That she lived seemed a wonder to these people.

“Poor little thing,” we heard from our innkeeper one evening; he had given her a room the night before. “All alone in the world!”

“Not alone,” his daughter replied. “Didn't you hear? She won't be alone for long.”

“Hush,” the man said. “That's only a rumor; we don't know for certain yet.”

After we'd gone to our room, Serena wondered aloud if the girl might have heard some news of Aglaia's pregnancy. I only shrugged, but I had a different idea, and that very next day we started to hear another name entwined with hers.

Endymion.

I hadn't told my sisters about him, but Endymion was a
hero to his people; soon enough we knew all the tales. We learned how he had fought a dragon and pierced its flaming heart. How he had led his soldiers into battle, again and again, helmetless so that his locks flew back in the wind and his war cry echoed against the sky—how he inspired such fear in his enemies and such loyalty in his men, numbers of soldiers did not matter, only courage, only bloodlust. How he had sailed across the sea and come back with a gleaming crown set with jewels never seen and the head of a giant whose eyes opened wider than cart wheels.

He was a myth already, and he was still a young man.

The people we met were sure that Aglaia was headed toward Endymion's city. He ruled them from there; he was prince over all the land we traveled through. And he was loved. The people's faces glowed when they talked of him. He had brought peace and prosperity to his land.

We had been told, the second night of our travels, that it would be a six days' journey to Endymion's city; as we grew closer, it seemed that the rumors of Aglaia and this prince became more precise by the hour—and more joyful.

“She has come to marry him,” a miller's wife told us as she passed with a wagon filled with bags of flour. “She was glowing with her gladness.”

A wheelwright standing in the sun outside his shop confirmed it. “There is to be a wedding. He thought her dead. We all did.”

“Was
he happy to know that she lived?” Serena asked. I could not stand the hope in her voice.

“Happy?” The wheelwright turned an unbelieving face toward her. “It is the best thing in his life.”

He loves her
, they said.
She loves him
. Again and again, everywhere we went. The hero was to marry his love; the beauty was to marry her prince. The whole land was to celebrate.

“It is too bad,” I said once to a girl who was walking her geese alongside us, “that the lady's family is not alive to see her married.”

“Oh,” she said, “but it is a miracle that she survived. That is what she says. A miracle that she lives to be wed.”

So, not a whiff of grief was to darken Aglaia's wedding. Not a hint of trouble to worry her bridegroom—who was also the father of her child, I was certain. This prince was not used to refusal.

I could see the moment my sisters began to believe in Endymion's glory. I saw how they walked with lighter steps, how they breathed freer and smiled at the people we met. They thought the girl was on her way to destiny. Not one that shrieked and shattered, but something full and beautiful, the nicest sort of end.

I let them believe it; I had to, didn't I? I couldn't expose them to the twistedness, the rot I had smelled on Endymion's thread. I had to keep it from them for as long as I could and hope that Aglaia's future would be happier than her past, that this journey would end with us seeing the girl settled into as contented a life as my sisters dreamed.

It was all I could do: stay silent as we heard the stories of this brave young prince and the things they were saying about Aglaia—
Lucky girl. He always loved her. Now she'll have a chance to be happy!
—and pray that my sisters wouldn't notice the darker underbelly hidden on the flip side of these green leaves.

A DAY BEFORE WE WERE
to reach the city, the scent of Aglaia's thread veered off to the east. We stood at the crossroads, smelling it. We knew the way to Endymion lay straight ahead. When a woman came by with a basket of freshly picked flowers, we asked where Aglaia's road would lead us, if we were to take it.

“Oh, that,” she said. “Just a few villages, some fields. If you're looking for the city, it's on ahead.” She pointed in the direction we had been heading.

“Nothing else?” I said. “Only fields and villages?”

“Well . . .” She thought, and then she said, “I suppose, a good day's walking, there's also that sad ruin. The village where our Aglaia used to live, the one who's to marry our prince. Nothing's left of that, though. There's no reason to visit.”

We thanked her, and we let her go her way, and then we turned east.

That night I asked our innkeeper a few pointed questions when I went down from our room to fetch some food. Yes, Aglaia had passed through here only the day before. Yes, her old village lay to the east; we'd reach it late tomorrow morning if we set out early enough.

Yes, he could tell me where the oracle lived who had given the children of that town their prophecies. She was the same oracle he had asked prophecies of for his own children. His round face brightened, and he began to tell me what those were, how they had been promised contented lives, luck, lots of love.

I cut him off; I think he was offended. But I could not stand his naïveté, and after I'd grabbed some bowls of soup, I turned from him and walked away.

I did not tell my sisters that next day where I was going; I left them as soon as we were out of town. I said there was a place I had heard of, with views to the north and the east. I said that maybe I could catch a glimpse of the sea, or maybe Endymion's city.

Serena offered to come along with me; I shrugged her off.

“The path would be steep for Xinot,” I said, and when my eldest sister snorted, I went on, “Oh, leave me alone, will you? If
she
can run outside in the middle of the night and we aren't allowed to follow, I think you can let me climb one hill all by myself!”

Xinot said, “What's this
about not being allowed to follow?”

“Oh,” said Serena, “I told her what you said about feeling penned in by all these people.”

“Penned in!” said Xinot. “I never said that. I sound like a sheep.”

“Yes, you did. You know you did.” Serena was beginning to look harried, and I grabbed the moment.

“If Xinot can feel penned in, then so can I!” I said, and started up a nearby hill.

“Of course you can,” said Serena, hardly paying me attention now. “You can catch us up along the road. Go safe!” And she turned again to smoothing Xinot's ruffled feathers.

It wasn't far. A few hills, around several copses of trees. No crop fields grew near her cave; it was a wild area, with brush and bushes and rocky streams. There was a large, flat stone in the valley just to the south of her place; it was scattered with brass coins and some wilted blue flowers.

I paused before it. I thought of sweeping them off, these meager offerings. But then I pulled my cloak tighter around me to hide my anger, and I climbed the final slope to the entrance of her cave.

“Who goes there?” The voice came almost at once, drifting on a chill breeze down the winding passageway.

I stepped in toward it. One turn, two, and the cave opened out into a large round chamber. I'd no need to blink away the sun; I saw in the dark as well as any owl or lion, and still I could not see all the corners of this room.

She sat in a sort of chair made of cave rock in the center, her hands placed flat along its rough arms, her feet flat against the earth. Her hair was long, and it hung down free over her shoulders as mine usually does. She must have rushed over to this seat as she heard me entering and positioned herself where she'd seem the most akin to our magic.

“Who are you?” she said. “What do you seek?”

Now I saw how a clever jutting of rock hid another tunnel, off to the left. She'd have an actual home in there, with a bed and a place to cook. If the offerings out in the valley were any indication, she lived much better than most dwellers of caves.

I didn't come any closer than the end of the entrance tunnel. It was cold here; I didn't mind that. It reminded me of the wintry days on our island, when the wind scratched and bit. I breathed in this misty place, and I felt my fury at this woman growing.

“There was a girl,” I said, as calmly as I could manage.

The oracle tilted her head at me, and I hated its haughtiness. “There are many girls.”

“You gave her a prophecy.”

“As I do.”

“Not like this one. You gave her three words. The first was
beauty
. The second was
clarity
.”

I stopped, and she said, “Beauty, clarity—a good fortune.” There was no uncertainty in her voice. There was no fear of me, or of what she had done, or of the power she had played with so cavalierly.

If I had wondered before, I knew now. Any true oracle would have known me on sight.

“Not the last word,” I said. “It was something that made her parents look at each other with fear.”

There was silence in the cave. “What does it matter to you?”

“It matters,” I said. “I will not go until you tell me that third word.”

“Will you not?” She stood; she came a few steps closer, and she squinted at me. I looked back at her, not straining at all to see the gray hairs on her head, the slight limp as she walked.

After a long moment, she turned, and she went back to her chair again. She sat tall in it, and her dark dress melted into the stone and earth and cold.