Because the Stars Asked

A Winter Court Tale by Holly Millward

 

I waited centuries for a god to find me.

When he finally did, Astraeus did not even know my name. He barely knew his own. Nor was he a god at all any longer. He was confused and diminished, out of touch with Faery and the brewing war.

It was foolish to think salvation could ever wear a man’s face. No male—human or Fae—had ever rescued me.

Except, perhaps, Cormac.

***

The memory comes to me like the tide returning. I can still taste the salt of the day I met Cormac. The Fae King of the Sea rose from the loam, his hair dark and dripping. I should have died of terror, but he was beautiful, and I had no care for what happened to me. My husband was newly drowned. Our babe had been left with my mother while I mourned the loss of my love.

“It’s you,” Cormac wondered aloud, peering at me in surprise. “I’ve been searching for you.”

“Surely not for me, lord?” I replied.

Cormac gestured to the empty sand next to me. I shrugged and let him sit.

“Yes, for you.”

“Why?”

He thought before answering. “Because the sea remembers what the stars forget.”

I said nothing. I thought it unwise to quarrel with the Lord of Tempests.

***

I shove the memory of Cormac aside. It’s been centuries since Niall cut him down, but sometimes it still feels like yesterday. I’m only sorry I wasn’t there to see Niall’s last agonized breath. I would have twisted the sword in myself. Still, Niall’s death did not bring Cormac back. Neither did it my sister.

Loss. There’s been so much of it. I’m adrift, floating in the void between what was and what hasn’t yet come to pass. The pain of emptiness howls inside me, clawing and raging as it looks for release.

Winter answers, but I mustn’t let the others see me lose control.

I flee into the woods. Behind me, the palace glows with Yule garlands and evergreen boughs, the windows spilling gold light and music into the night. Ahead lies only ice and snow. I do not walk so much as vanish into the gale, carried as its mistress, until I reach the hollow by the frozen, heart-shaped lake. It is my place of keening. Here, the pines bend like solemn mourners. Here, the ice holds me when nothing else can.

Tonight, the fury is more than lamentation. It’s avalanche. The lake shudders beneath its crust. Trees crack, splintering like bone. Ice crystals lance the air, spiking the barren boughs with glittering shards. This storm holds my rage against the injustice that swallowed my kin, the men who kept me in Niall’s harems, and the world that praises my crown but never mourns what it costs me to wear.

My fury is that of every woman told to endure.

Tonight, I will no longer.

***

The storm should drive him back and swallow him whole, yet Astraeus steps out of the white roar as though nothing is amiss. His hair catches starlight even here, in the black heart of my bitterest storm.

“You!” I spit, my voice torn raw. Does he know what it cost me to wait for him? I let the tempest ask for me.

I hurl every shard of grief I have left, every scream I have swallowed, every lonely year into that blizzard. I let it scour him, flay him, prove him false. The gale hammers his shoulders, ice striking like knives, the lake’s crust booming…

He does not fight me. He does not raise a hand to quell the gale. He endures it, each step unwavering as if he would rather be broken beside me than safe beyond my reach. Finally, he stands within arm’s length.

“Peace, Nora,” he soothes, and the storm stills a fraction, startled by his gentleness. “Cormac was right.”

The words freeze me harder than the cold.

Astraeus lifts his gaze to mine, and the wind folds in on itself, quieting to a whisper that sounds almost like the sea.

“The sea remembers what the stars forget… because the stars asked it to.”

Gods… his eyes. There are stars in them. Galaxies. Warmth pours through me. Not fire. Not battle-heat. Dawn on a distant horizon. Wonder.

Hope…

It startles me more than any blow. My blowing snow thins to drifting veils.

“I am sorry,” Astraeus adds.

For the first time in many years, my frozen grief begins to move. My vision blurs as tears spill hot across my cheeks.

I weep instead of freezing.

He does not retreat. He anchors me, solid as the stars I had cursed him for. The world lies hushed and white. Through tears and the ragged pines, I glimpse the distant Winter Star, the beacon that drew this ancient, mad god to my kingdom. Then, there’s movement in the banks of snow. A small shape uncurls from the drift. It’s milk-pale with rime on its whiskers and ribs too pronounced beneath winter fur. It’s a starving fox kit, lost from its mother.

Astraeus lowers to one knee. Gently, he offers the warm folds of his cloak. The kit creeps into it. Astraeus tucks the frail body into the crook of his arm, where the creature swiftly burrows.

It is rare to see such care in Faery.

Astraeus breathes a single word. A name. “Vesper.”

The storm has no argument left. Through the black lace of pines, the Winter Star burns steadily. The woods are dark, tender, and listening.

Astraeus turns half a degree, putting the fox kit nearer as if to share it. “Obviously, he’s lost,” he says, and I roll my eyes.

We turn toward home: the Wanderer, Winter, and the little life between us. Ice and snow crunch underfoot. The path glitters like powdered gems.

There’s no one else in these woods. Only three lost souls with one bright star to steer by.

 

Thank you for reading today’s story. The next story will be available to read sometime on the 23rd December, titled “Blind Snow“. This link will be active tomorrow when the post goes live.

If you missed yesterday’s you can go and read it here.