The Shadow Behind the Stars (19 page)

She was bundled up in a thick tunic and a warm cloak. She stood a bit hunched, her arms drawn around herself and her head bent low. She didn't look up as I came over beside her, but she said, “Hello, Chloe.”

I suppose she knew my scent, the touch of my presence, as well as I knew hers. We had sat, the only thinking things, in the middle of an empty ocean, and we knew the shape of each other.

I said, “We are no
use, Aglaia. I have no prophecy for you.”

She shivered, and she drew even farther into her cloak. “I did not expect one.”

“I don't know why we're still here.”

“I wasn't going to ask it.”

I shook my head, looking out over the remains of Endymion's pyre, seeing the fire leaping, crumbling him to bits. I wished again that I could have done it myself, with my own strangling hair or teeth. “We should have left after you killed him. That was the purpose of your journey, wasn't it? And we should have left after we had found you, when we knew there was nothing we could do to help. And we should have never followed you.”

Aglaia gave a little laugh. “I've given up trying to understand what you do.”

I squinted up at my moon. “We serve the darkness.”

“Whatever that means,” Aglaia said.

“It means we spin and we measure and we cut, and we do not interfere.”

“Ah.” She glanced at me; her eyes flashed beneath her hood, and I wondered if that was how I had looked, questioning the oracle. “You put that spell on me, though. Was that not interfering?”

“It was not meant to be. You were meant to leave and get on with your life.” I sighed. “We never mean to become involved.”

She said, soft, “But you do anyway?”

I said, “My sisters do, or they have.”

“And was it such a bad thing?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, it was a very bad thing.”

We were silent. She went back to hunching over herself, staring at the ground. It was a cool, clear night. The stars shone, pinpricks, and the wheat rustled now and again, a calm sea surrounding our hilltop island.

I thought that Aglaia was crying, and I asked, “Do you regret it?”

“What?” she said. “Killing him?”

“Yes.”

Hard and certain, she answered, “No. I don't regret it.”

“Then why did you come all the way out here tonight?”

There was a pause, and I wasn't sure she was going to answer me. But then she said, “Do you know what I hate him for the most? I mean beyond what he did to my family and my village?”

I shook my head.

“I hate that he made it my fault.”

“But it wasn't.”

“He wanted me. I refused him. He destroyed everything I loved.”

“That was him,” I said. “It wasn't you.”

“Yes,” said Aglaia. There was a matter-of-factness to her voice that made me want to do something—take her hand, maybe, or beg her to look at me, to stop saying such things. “It was him, and I know it wasn't me. But it also was, Chloe. Even though I know it wasn't, I can't quite believe it.”

We stood, unspeaking, for another minute. Then I said, “If
you must blame somebody other than him, Aglaia, you could blame us.”

She tilted her head, as though listening to something, and I could see that she had shut her eyes. One hand was to her belly. She was as still as a painting. After a moment, she opened her eyes again. “When I am thinking straight, I know that it doesn't actually matter,” she said, and her voice was light again, musical. “Whether it's his fault or my fault or your fault, it's over. He is dead, and I killed him; and that was his destiny, so you killed him as well.”

“Well done, us,” I muttered.

I wasn't watching, so I didn't notice her reaching for me until she had taken my hand, until she was pulling it over toward her belly.

“Listen to this,” she whispered.

The baby was rolling, and I couldn't really hear anything, but I closed my eyes as she had done, and I tilted my head, and I felt it move, the little living thing. I forgot, for a moment. Endymion, who to blame,
pain
. I even ceased to remember who I was; I didn't even think of my wool, or my moon, or our glory.

This baby had no thread. It moved in darkness; it knew nothing of the world. It was pure, unspun potential. I was smiling at it, without knowing why.

“And this is why it doesn't matter either,” came Aglaia's voice, from above, as the baby would hear it. “Endymion is gone, and my child will live.”

The baby settled. I stepped back, opening my eyes.

“Still,” said Aglaia, “when I am not thinking straight, I hate him for it.”

I watched her blinking hard, hugging herself again. Maybe this was the pain we had been looking for. Maybe the oracle had predicted Aglaia's ongoing pain at the raiding of her village, and nothing more.

She said, “I came out here tonight to let it go. I wanted to think about him one more time, to be bitter and angry, and to hurt. When the baby comes, I want to look forward, not back. I want to choose for the future, not weep over the past.”

I nodded.

“It won't be long now, Chloe,” Aglaia said. She touched her belly again, gently.

“I know,” I said. “Here.” I pulled out Serena's gift and handed it to her. “We can't do anything useful with our power, but this is for your baby, when it comes. And I wanted to say that I was sorry, for anything we have done to harm you, and that I wish you a long and happy life.”

Aglaia rubbed the hat between her fingers, feeling its softness. She smiled at me. “Is that a real wish, Chloe? Will it come true?”

I tried to smile back. “I don't know. We cannot—”

“I know,” she interrupted. “You cannot interfere.”

“Yes.”

“Well.” She looked down at the hat for a moment, and then, shocking me, she turned and stepped toward me, and she hugged me. “As one powerless creature to another, then, thank you.”

She pulled back, and I saw the peacefulness in her face,
the acceptance of the fate she'd found. I could have closed my eyes and read the future in her thread. I could have done that at any time, to know for sure which way her path bent, whether she got to keep this happiness.

I reached out, and as Serena might have done, I tucked a strand of our girl's hair back into her hood. It wouldn't do any good, to know the ending. “We'll leave after the baby is born,” I said, and I meant it this time.

She said, “Farewell, then, Chloe.”

I whispered, “Farewell, Aglaia.”

Then I turned, and I left her there, to feel bitter and angry and hurt that one last time.
Please,
I begged the stars, the wind, my moon.
Please let it be the last time.

The baby came only a few weeks after that.

Of course they were not ready for it. They had thought she had several weeks yet to go, though she was as round as an overfed pig and as slow-moving. Their faith in her strained somewhat, knowing that she had gone into labor so early; the midwives, especially, muttered to themselves and cast one another meaningful looks.

But she was theirs; they would not give up on her now. If she said it was an early birth, they would believe her. Anyway, who would they have if they didn't have her? Their prince had loved her; all knew that. She was what they had left of him, and her child was their hope.

That night we spun only one thread. It was a long labor; it began early in the morning and went far into the dark. I held
one hand ready at the spindle, the other hovering over my basket, waiting for the wool to call out the baby's birth.

We closed our eyes, and we were there with her, screaming as she screamed, rejoicing in her joy. She was in pain, but this was the best kind—she gave herself to it freely, loving it, loving what it would bring her. Our Aglaia did not shrink from difficult things. She would birth this child, and she would never tell it what its father had been. She would live a lie so it could grow up strong and free. She would watch it rule this city; she would never ask for another thing, as long as she could give this baby the world.

She screamed, and she pushed, and as the sun was blinking open his eyes, asking me whether she had done it yet, my fingers twitched, and I drew out the very first strand.

We began to sing as the wool went onto the spindle. It was the song we had heard Aglaia humming in this same room. A song of life, of long summer days. It was the song that Aglaia was hearing too, as her baby's head poked out into the air, as he drew his first breath, and then another, as his screams joined hers.

I spun, and I sang, and I passed this newest thread over to my sisters. I did not need to force misgivings away, not for this. I did not need to remind myself of my love of our work or to block out everything that was not the darkness.

The patterns were right, in the end; destiny resulted in glory, in light, in babies being born. What did death matter, when babies were born?

His eyelashes were perfect. His lips were sweet as the
dawn. He curled his fingers, and his mother wept and kissed his knuckles.

Serena was smiling as she measured the thread.

Xinot drew out her blades with her age-old smoothness, and her scratchy voice hummed and hummed.

An instant before the scissors closed, we paused, all three of us, and our song bent, and shattered.

Then
snap
.

I let my spindle fall; Serena dropped her hands. Aglaia's baby boy's thread coiled in Xinot's palm.

There it was, the word that had faded through these last few months, but never completely away, never enough that we couldn't hear its echo.

Pain.

For the rest of Aglaia's golden thread, the memory of this one would torture her.

Serena gave a soft cry. She turned from it; she put her face in her hands and her head to the wall.

I reached out a finger to touch the end of the thing. I murmured, “How long?”

Xinot was cupping it as though it were a warm egg—or a kitten, come in from the storm. She shook her head. “Not long. A few days, maybe.”

Such a beautiful snippet. It isn't true that the shorter they are, the brighter they shine. But this one was so glorious, it hurt even us to look at it.

The darkness was all around it, loving it, waiting for its end.

THE BABY BEGAN TO SICKEN
almost at once. We heard it from Hesper, of course, and she did not speak to us dryly, not about this. There were tears in her eyes, and her voice was hollow.

“Can't you do anything?” she asked, hugging a pitcher of water she'd brought for us against her chest.

I turned my face from her. It was Xinot who said, “I thought you believed that we were powerless.”

Hesper laughed, a wet gulp. “Now, you wouldn't listen to an old lady like me.”

We smiled, but we had no comfort for her.

“Please, mistresses,” she said. “It's only a
baby
. And she's only a little girl.”