Page 53 of Stars Above the Never Sea (The Last Faeyte #1)

He looks as though he might pass out at any moment. His swallow looks almost painful. “My father would like to meet you, Selene. I understand—I know you’re busy, but if you could take just a moment. We would very much appreciate it.”

I look to Callan, to see if he knows what this might be about. His shoulder lifts, but he offers no argument, no reason not to as he leaves the decision to me.

I study Ryn’s pale face. “I will come.”

Ryn nods jerkily. “Now?”

“Yes.” My eyes remain on his back as he turns. Callan falls into step beside him, the two of them conversing about dying crops and lichen and people I have no knowledge of. But there is something niggling in my mind. As though I have missed a step somewhere.

He leads us to a home I recognize. My feet slow to a stop as I stare at the small entrance. “Your father lives here?”

“We all do.” He offers me a small smile, still looking pale as he reaches for the door. “My father, my sister, and me.”

The world tilts. Callan grabs my arm as I stumble. My heart thumps unsteadily, a lump appearing in my throat. “Ryn. Emryn. Your sister is Leesa?”

He looks so different. But of course, he would. Ten years have taken Emryn from a small, skinny boy to a man, and the hardness of those years shows in his face even as he pauses. Pale brows draw together. “How would you know that?”

I fight to keep my face steady. To stop it from crumpling. “I used to sit with you at the hearth, sometimes. You and your sister, and… your mother, too.”

Ria . Ria with her long, scarlet hair, husky laugh and work-worn hands.

With bright, naturally green eyes that had lit up whenever she looked at her husband or her children, even as she chased and chided them.

Ria, whose beautiful hair had been soaked by the pool of blood surrounding her when I saw her last.

His lips part, eyes widening. “ Honey cakes . I remember. You were the faeyte? I’m so sorry—I didn’t remember your name.”

“I didn’t have one then.” My chest is tight as I force myself to take a breath. “There is nothing to apologize for. But I am glad to see you again.”

“Of course.” He looks as though he has seen a wraith. “My father spoke of you often. I did not realize that you would be—well—you’ll see. But he’s not well.”

My eyes blur and tears spill over. I gather my composure, wiping my cheeks. “I would very much like to see Jonas again.”

Their home is just as I remember, and it takes my breath away.

The tears threaten once more, but I choke them back, ducking beneath the beam just in front of the door as my eyes sweep the small space.

The furniture Jonas crafted under Ria’s strict instruction is still here, the wooden dresser against the wall holding crockery and cooking pots.

The worn rug beneath my feet is faded now, holes poking through where the fibers have stretched too thin.

The back of the house has been rearranged. I follow Emryn through their common area to where the beds sit, two of them bigger now.

And in the last bed, pushed against the wall, is Jonas.

His eyes are closed. When my feet refuse to move, Callan slips past me. His fingers brush against mine before he leans over the older man with a familiarity I lack. “Jo? It’s Callan.”

Jonas was a strong male ten years ago. He had fought, and fought hard.

He had bought me time. But now his dark hair is a shocking white, thin and wispy as milky eyes blink open and he struggles upright.

Callan slips an arm around him easily, helping him upright, and placing a pillow behind him as Emryn moves in, taking a seat beside the bed.

“Da? I found someone you’ll want to see. ”

I stay back as Jonas fixes that gaze on Callan. “Lad.”

His voice rasps. Callan is already reaching for a pitcher beside the bed, pouring a few inches of water into the cup and holding it up for him to drink. “It’s always good to see you, friend. But I’m not your guest today.”

“Who?” Another rasp, followed by a hacking cough.

Emryn stands, and I slip into his vacated space. My voice sounds small. “Hello, Jonas.”

His eyes run over my face. Once, and then again. His voice trembles when he speaks again. “I know you.”

Silent, I nod. His movements are slow and jerky as he twists. “Ryn.”

“What d’you need, Da?” Ryn leans in to listen to his father’s hoarse whisper. His eyes shift to mine and then away, a small frown on his face. He ducks beneath the bed and pulls out a plain wooden box, then hands it to his father. “Here you go.”

Jonas nods. “Give us a minute.”

Callan says nothing, the snick of the door closing behind them the only sound as they give us privacy. Jonas gestures weakly to the box on his lap. “Could you…,”

“Of course.” I reach for it and flip it open. It’s filled to the brim with pieces of parchment.

Jonas is watching me. “Your mother came to me.”

My heart turns over in my chest. I shake my head. “The Mother? She’s gone, Jonas. All of them are.”

He reaches inside the box with fingers that shake badly. “Not now. Before . She told me you would come back.”

I stare at the curled parchment he tugs free, yellowed by age.

Jonas does not offer it to me. He turns it over in his hands. But his eyes look clearer as our gazes meet. “She told me you would be important. That I needed to help you, when the Caelumnai came. And I needed to take care of this, for when you came home once more.”

He folds my shaking hands over the parchment, keeping his hand over mine. “She told us you would save them. My Ryn. My Leesa. She sat with us, Ria and I, and she told us things we should not have known. We saw what our fate would be in her shadows, and we knew what we must do.”

Tears spill over my cheeks. “I don’t understand.”

A soft smile curls his lips. “I have waited a long time for you, Selene Amaris. To complete this, as your mother requested. But I miss my Ria very much. And my fate is nearly complete. Ellas calls me home to her, and I am ready.”

His hands pull away. Jonas traces over the other pieces of parchment inside the box.

So many of them that they nearly spill over.

“She would write to me, you know. Always, leaving notes and letters wherever she could. And when I would find them, she would read them to me, for I could not. It was a game between us.”

His fingers stroke over the edge of a letter. It looks almost smooth, as though he’s worn the edges away. “I cannot read them. Leesa is learning, but she is still young. Emryn, a little, but Ria died before she could teach him all of his letters.”

I swipe the back of my hand over my cheeks, placing the rolled parchment carefully beside me, my fingers lingering on the sprawling script of my name. My hands itch to reach for it once more, to tear it open, but I turn back to Jonas.

My voice hitches. “I would be honored to read them to you.”

***

When I slip out of the low doorway an hour later, a sleeping Jonas behind me, only Ryn is waiting. He sits on a small bench that looks out over the hearth, his back leaning against the wall of his home. He does not look at me.

I hesitate before taking a seat on the bench beside him, breathing in the pungent, earthy scent that comes from the vast pots of stew balanced over the cooking fires across from us. “You should go in.”

I do not need the shadows to tell me that his father’s life in this world is drawing to an end, and it will be soon. The door to Ellas is cracked open and waiting for Jonas.

I pray that Ria will be waiting for him.

Across the open, cobbled, stone beneath our feet, Callan speaks with several of the elders, gesturing.

He rakes his hair back in a show of impatience, the cool breeze that surrounds us sending bronze strands dancing before he steps over to the large cauldron.

Working with another man, he carefully lifts the pot from hooks atop the iron bars and sets it on the ground, sending steam rising lazily into the air as he wipes at his face before grinning and saying something to the male opposite him, who laughs.

My feet shift against the cobbles as I look away. Even here, where there is little plant life to be found, the lichen strangles even the tiny weeds that grow between each stone, cracked lines of black spreading out over the ground like the web of a spider.

If the lichen is the web, then the Caelumnai are the flies, slowly entrapped without escape.

“I know what this means, you know,” Ryn says eventually, and I turn to him. He stares at his oil-stained hands. “He was only waiting for you.”

I don’t know what to say in response to the pain in his voice. “He has done me a great service, Ryn. I had feared the worst for all of you.”

He shifts, head shaking in remembered disbelief before he looks up to the sky. I follow his gaze, waiting for him to gather his words.

The sky here above the land does not change, I’m beginning to realize.

Where Asteria once experienced all weathers—sunshine, rain and thunder, glorious sunrises and clear blue days, there is now only this unending, murky gray that feels heavy .

Each day must be the same, for I’ve seen nothing else since I arrived.

It’s as though Asteria is suspended in time. Waiting.

What are you waiting for?

Humid air weighs down on my shoulders, the only relief a faint breeze that whips my hair against my face.

In the distance behind the stone lines of homes opposite us, I can see the Sea of Stars.

A curtain of darkness, and the faint glow of Hala’s moons against the black.

A reminder, perhaps, that she is watching.

Ryn’s words are as heavy as the air that surrounds us. “We shouldn’t have survived the Shift at all, you know. If Callan hadn’t been there, we would all have entered Ellas that day.”

My eyes flick to him again. He’s watching, but he turns away as my gaze lands on him. “Callan?”