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They were bright, little dangling things that sent a rush to my head with wonder. Beautiful. But they couldn’t compare to what would follow them.In the sloping curve of the western part of my sky, I could already imagine the twining colors. Luscious gold, sour chartreuse, and a magical blue that was barely a shade above the black of the night sky. One might miss them, if they didn’t have forever to spend in this World and if they weren’t looking closely.
The Auriel—that is what I’d named it, as I had named everything in my World—the show of lights, and as I reached the soft and cool mud of my grove, I wondered what mood it would be in tonight. I hoped for quiet, if only because on unquietnights, all the colors converged, melding themselves into the most peculiar shapes, as if the gods I prayed to were molding them just for me.The gold may wrap tightly around the blue, shaping itself into one of the creatures that balanced in the trees on the north side of the Mountain. Small tangs of green would jump out of its pointed mouth, and I would smile softly, almost hearing the chirpy little song. Other times, the blue would engulf the warmer colors into a bubble and swim along with the stars like the fish through my rocky brook.
On quiet nights, my favorite nights, the Auriel was a cosmic wind that rippled softly against the sky, stretching from the Guiding Star to the furthest curve of the Wane. Tonight, it seemed to be so.
I sent a tiny thank you to the gods, my eyes closed in reverence. I didn’t think I had the energy to laugh through their puppeteering.
We will have fun tomorrow,I told them.I promise.
Burying myself in a thicket of clover, I stretched my tense limbs to their limits and then tightly wrapped them around myself. I rolled over to my right, tilted my chin toward the universe, and opened my eyes. A spear of panic pierced my heart just before my stomach sank into the empty belly of the night.
No.
I rose enough to snap my head to the ground and orient myself. My fingers pressed into the soil, desperately feeling for the indentation of my resting place, slightly sunk from thousands of sleeps. No, I hadn’t mistaken my grove for another.I sprang to my feet and flung myself outside of the curtains of trees, sprinting breathlessly toward the border of day and night. Dust and rocks flew rapturously behind me, my hand smacking hard to the ground as my balance slipped. Crouched there, underneath a fusion of darkness and light, my eyes shot to the sky, searching all the way west of the Wane through to theEast Bright. There was nothing.
The lights were gone.
He came for meon the dayside, three sleeps after the Auriel disappeared.
I hadn’t closed my eyes but for absolute necessity, and even then, I didn’t dare try to dream. I don’t know how I could have. Something in my World had changed. Nothing in my World had ever changed. The time before the Auriel, and the time after the Auriel–that was how I would remember my life, now. A mundane existence that had been excited. I wasn’t sure if I was more shocked or concerned.
The first two days and the first two nights, I spent every endless hour scouring the land between the Mountain and the Sea, for any sign of realignment. I walked for miles, determined to rummage through my entire World if I had to.
Surely, I could not have been the only thing here seduced by the powers of the Auriel. Would the creatures in the trees stop spouting their morning psalms? Would the water in the brook start flowing backward into the rock they ran from? Maybe the Mother would finally start talking back to me, out of self-preservation if not for reassurance. I could imagine her voice, soft and low as she apologized for being so cold and distant all this time. She would know, now, that our World was ending. She would wish she had spoken up sooner.
My hope was a bright flare that drew me through each slope of the Mountain and every bend in the night forest, moving my chafed and bleeding feet with a quick urgency. An anxious and needy feeling that would only settle once I had found the source of my misfortune and put the Auriel back in its rightful place, butwith every leaf turned and all creatures accounted for, that hope dimmed.
The only time I stopped searching for answers was when I decided it best to throw myself to the mercy of the gods, to beg the Preserver. With my center finger pressed to my forehead, I said the Prayer until my knees were stained with the earth and my arms bled from scraping against the stone of the mound. As if it were all some cosmic jest at my expense, the gods did nothing.
No, despite the fact that a monumental shift had just occurred in my life, nothing else seemed to change with it. The East Bright still shone over the hills and valleys on the dayside, glaring off the deep emerald of the high grasses. The Wane continued to reproach my attempt to find answers, projecting a lustrous gloom throughout its half of the world. The Guiding Star remained the brightest of its three-thousand and seven brethren—yes, I had counted. The Mountain had not fallen and the Sea still roared.
Then there was me. I, too, remained.
Making my way back to the grove that first night, I half expected to find the Auriel back in its rightful place, wedged tightly in between the constellations in one of its peculiar shapes. It would laugh at me for not recognizing it last sleep, but all the while flattered that I had searched far and wide for some reason as to its disappearance. I would laugh at myself, too, and let it comfort me with a dozen patterns.
But the space through the grove that hung above my head seemed even wider the longer I stared into it. A thousand small dots of starlight had flowed forward from the space where the Auriel had been. They, no doubt, reveled in my tragedy. Reveled in the freedom to shine as brightly as they wanted, now.Were there a way to curse them, I would have done it. But there was no prayer to damn the stars, so I turned my face into the soft patchof clover beneath me and did my best to ignore the tugging of my heart.Sleep evaded me, and I, it.
Even I must admitthat by the third day without the Auriel, I was frantic. There was only one place left to go for answers, one conversation I dreaded, no other time more than now.
The Mother was waiting for me, her tide slapping low upon the beach. I sulked onto her shore and sat on the packed sand where the water broke, which was as near to the Sea as my courage would allow. I had never ventured this far, and I wasn’t exactly sure of what I was to do, so I listened. I closed my eyes, made my breath scarce, and tried to decipher the erratic tempo of the waves. The rush of water drummed against the walls of my ears. Tears began to prick at the corners of my eyes, so I crushed my lids tighter against one another.
Evenshesounded the same.
When I was able to breathe again, air came through my nose in short, panicked huffs.Tell me, I begged the Mother.Anything, I pleaded.Tell me anything about the Auriel and I swear I’ll never ask you another question.
I heard nothing back but the tide as it heaved once more.
What? You don’t believe me?
Those tears I’d stifled betrayed my face. I could offer up another bargain. Such a vital trade that even the Mother would not ignore its value.
I’ll forsake the vision. I startled even myself, feeling the salted wind still around me.I’ll stay here with you forever just as we are.
The vision was all that I had to separate me from this place.The only thing that told me I belonged somewhere I was not. Without it, I would never escape. Never escapeher.
Cold water kissed the tips of my toes and I jolted back, expecting a searing burn to engulf me as the water receded, but the sand soaked up what the Sea had offered, and I found some sort of pleasant, peaceful feeling. The water lapped over me again, and I was sure that a voice came from somewhere between the hush of waves before my World fell silent again.
The Mother would need time to mull it over, and I would give that to her. If I was patient for just a few more moments, she would see I was sincere. She would be gracious with me.
