One
Starscaped Cage

What comfort the stars? A heat so distant it brings no warmth.
Poets and lovers lionize the stars and put the Lion in the Twelfth Star.
Starry-eyed dreamers,
Starry-eyed believers,
Starry-eyed leavers.
The stars are but a distraction from the Consumptive Darkness between.

—Tomes of the Touched

15th of Beldrên, 507th Year of Remembered Time

 Ieru’s mother didn’t give birth to her in the stars, but the night sky, bleak and beautiful, was her home. Silent stars in every direction, here in the infinite dome of Skywatch, and never one could she reach no matter how far she walked or ran across the invisible plane that kept her from falling into the Twelve Hells. Or so her family told her. Her elders spoke a thousand tales that might be truth or lies, but as with the surrounding sky, there was no telling reality from illusion. When she arrived at Skywatch, she believed in the binary nature of reality versus the imaginary—even if she didn’t possess the words. The stars wandered the heavens, circling her in such a way that often she felt the universe centered around her. Her auntie told her this wasn’t unusual for a great many children, but Ieru sensed this was a fault in their characters rather than a rational conclusion drawn from observing the heavens; after all, she was the only child living in the sky. She’d been the only child on arrival, and she remained the only one even after living years enough she should be growing into a woman and leaving the girl behind.

Seven Heavens. Seven years old. Forever. She wondered if the floor kept her from falling into the hells or kept her from escaping them.

Her clearest memory of Skywatch was her arrival on the island of Kaludor, staring up at the white dome of Skywatch as she approached hand in hand with her mother. In a world of squared buildings, it brought a sense of awe before stepping inside to realize how mundane the bubbled exterior of this legendary holy site was. The night sky drew widening eyes to stare at the stars and moon despite the sun shining outside. A dozen priests welcomed her, including the old woman everyone called her grandmother, a sweet woman who bent to kiss her forehead. It was the first time she met her Grammu and Auntie, but by now, it seemed like she'd known her kin forever, in particular now that Grammu had been dead for years.

Her waking memories struggled to recall a time outside this night sky surrounded by countless stars she’d nonetheless tried to count. She was proud to have reached one thousand three hundred and something or another once before losing track, but what she wanted more was to gaze up and count to one. “I want to see the sun.”

Niseem grinned as she always did. Auntie’s teeth were as white as when they’d first met, and not a single new wrinkle creased her brow since she and Grammu had taken Ieru into the sky. Her one gray hair had grown no companions. “Someday, my sweets. Someday.”

“When the Evil Queen is gone.”

“Mmhmm.” The woman pulled back her black hair, hair that hadn’t grown since the Evil Queen’s arrival, and tied it in a knot that hid the single silver strand. She dug a ripe red apple from her robes and handed it to her with a smile.

Ieru glared at the apple, as glaring at Auntie wouldn’t be prudent. “Where’d you pick this?” In her dreams, she walked in the grass with bare feet and climbed trees to pluck their fruit, satiating her hunger and sweet tooth at the same time, but her memories of such things faded the same as her dreams. Not even hunger remained after the arrival of the Evil Queen. No hunger, no aging, no dying, unless the Evil Queen willed it.

“Sometimes, when you aren’t looking, fruit falls from the stars. These apples were a favorite of your grandmother’s. She wandered the heavens, always looking for apples.”

“Grammu Meris liked apples?” Ieru took a bite, sugary juices bringing a moan and water to her mouth, but the pleasure didn’t last. “You snuck from the stars again, didn’t you?”

Niseem tussled Ieru’s hair. “You used to believe my stories.”

“I was a little girl, then.”

Auntie eyed her with a softness reserved for those times when memories prodded sadness. “It’s difficult to look at you and see you for who you are.”

“I want to see the sun. I want to grow up.”

“You know—”

“It’s impossible, except it isn’t. In the garden, plants grow, and so does hair.”

Brows knitted as Auntie grew peevish. “Where did you hear such rubbish?”

Irritable or not, today was one of Ieru’s stubborn days. “I heard Sotru talking last week. It’s true, isn’t it?”

Niseem sighed and rolled her eyes, attempting a tussle that Ieru dodged. “Plants grow, and so does hair, but that doesn’t mean people age. Or if they do, it doesn’t mean they age proper-like. Fruits grow too fast, misshapen, and sometimes pop. Do you want to pop, my sweets?”

The notion put a stir to her gut, but she didn’t call her stubborn days stubborn without cause. “I just might.”

“Ieru—“

“Never mind.” She stood and stomped her feet as she strode into infinite night, and the lack of chiming footsteps made her tromp harder, demanding to make noise that never came. Grammu Meris used to let her run in the musical stars, playing a song with her footfalls, sliding into a wild cacophony that always seemed to blend into almost a song. Grammu Meris was the sweetest woman she'd ever known, sweeter even than her mother, or at least, what little Ieru remembered. Like so many other things in her past, she saw her mother most in dreams, but then, if she struggled to close her eyes and see the sun, how could she expect to paint her mother in her mind's eye?

She stopped and spun to find the omnipresent stars without a soul around to drag her home. A shooting star whooshed overhead, and instead of saying a prayer like the fool adults would suggest, she turned southeast to wait for the stars she could count. The first always foretold the arrival of the eighty-four. Some claimed the first star belonged to Sol, King of the Gods, and the shooting stars that followed represented the war between the Seven Heavens and Twelves Hells, seven multiplied by twelve, mystic numbers she once believed and now scoffed at. On one stubborn day, she'd asked if the heavens did battle with only half the hells, would forty-two be a mystic number?

Auntie sent her to prayers straightaway without dinner.

Not that it mattered since she never grew hungry.

Ieru didn't set out with the intent to be naughty, not like on so many other stubborn days, but when the Shower of Stars appeared in the sky above like they did every repetitive day, she ran. Hoping no one saw her. Planning not to stop even if they did. The stars rained in a glorious fire show she'd watched a thousand times, and her breaths came fast, lungs swelling and burning with fatigue until she dove, arms splayed like wings and her feet high, gliding across the invisible floor on her chest. A gust of air lifted her hair.

Fresh air.

Silence shifted into a song of chaos, like a xylophone with a dozen children pinging a nonsensical tune, until her slide stopped, and the chaos of sounds took on a peculiar order. She rolled over, wide eyes staring back at the shooting stars as the last echoes of her entry faded.

She stared.

She prayed.

No one followed, and a smile spread. She crawled to stand, the universe's invisible floor tinkling at the brush of her gentle touch, took deep breaths, then ran. Each stride brought unpredictable notes, but if there was nothing random about the placement of the stars, so too was there nothing random about the pitches of her footfalls. They blended, always, hinting at a deeper meaning, a deeper sense of order in chaos, of a deeper meaning to her meaningless life.

She leaped high and drove her feet into the floor—the boom of a bass steel drum greeted her—and she rolled to leap again, a glass xylophone followed by the drum again. She waved her arms in the air as Grammu Meris taught her, as if she conducted a choir, breaths swelling her chest, puffs stretching her smile until the music disappeared into the stars.

Then her beating heart turned to stone.

A woman appeared from nowhere, sitting with her back facing Ieru, and chills froze the joy from her veins. Slender and blond, it took only a flicker to recognize even from behind that the woman wasn't from the holy enclave of her family.

Ieru wobbled, the unnerving shock of this stranger's impossible arrival bringing a quiver to her knees. The thrill and wonder of the musical stars turned into a trap, the slightest step giving her away. She eased her arms to her side, relaxed, and held her balance.

"I feel you." A young woman's voice, strong but unthreatening. "I've felt you before, but never so near."

Ieru knew enough of the powers of prayer not to doubt the woman's words. If this stranger could feel her, she might run, but she wouldn't be able to hide until she entered the shooting stars. And if the woman was who she suspected, running was pointless. An exhale let her heart beat again and loosened her tongue. "You're the Evil Queen?"

The woman rose with a queen's grace, her slender frame draped in white that caught and glittered with the light of the stars. "Is that what they call me?" She spun on a toe, the floor singing like the rim of a crystal goblet.

She was beautiful. Lips curving into an elegant smile. Blue eyes twinkling. No, green eyes. No. Blue. Ieru blinked. Blue. "They told me you were pretty, but I always imagined you ugly."

The smile turned to a smirk licked by a flick of the tongue. "My name is Eliles."

"Ieru."

"Nice to meet you, Ieru." Her head cocked. "You don't feel as young as you look."

Ieru's brow furrowed, and she stomped a high-pitched chime. "It seems I have you to blame for that."

The Evil Queen stared, her beauty dulled by her smile dimming into solemnity. "I am sorry for that."

She shouldn't believe the Evil Queen, Ieru understood this as truth, but her words brimmed with disarming sincerity. A sigh before she shrugged. "It is what it is."

"Is it so easy to accept?"

"No. It isn't. But the stars are stuck, and so am I."

The Evil Queen squinted. "The stars aren't stuck."

Ieru stared up, thousands of beads of light above. "They are. Forever moving, but forever returning where they started."

"The Shower of Stars repeats every day where you live? In the Shower of Stars? I suppose that makes sense. Do you remember how you came here?"

"Grammu told me to sit and close my eyes in the stars, and she brought me here."

"Grandma?"

Ieru hesitated but reckoned no harm in naming the dead. "Grammu Meris."

The Evil Queen's head rocked back, her forehead creasing. "High Oracle Meris was your grandmother?"

Ieru crossed her arms. "Some say you killed her."

"No. No. Her death was... a tragedy."

The Evil Queen didn't lie as well as an Evil Queen should. She didn't care enough to feel the word she used. "How did my grammu die?"

Silence followed, stretching long enough she didn't expect an answer, and once she heard it, she would've preferred it never spoken. "She leaped from the tower of Herald's Watch. Nobody knows why. Others think someone pushed her."

"You?" But the Evil Queen was a bad liar, and her manners suggested she spoke the truth now. "Or not by you. I suppose it doesn't matter. I remember seeing the tower from our ship when we arrived. Mother pointed and told me it belonged to the Choerkin lords."

"How long were you here? Before aging stopped."

"Time in the stars is, you know... A month I think."

A hand cupped the Evil Queen's lips and chin. "Have you been outside since?"

Ieru snorted. "No. There's an evil queen out there who wants to incinerate me."

The woman laughed. "Please. Call me Eliles."

Ieru flashed a mocking smile before rolling her eyes. "Burn me up if you like. Eliles."

"Would you like to see where the stars aren't stuck? Or to go outside?"

The temptation bit at her gut, the idea of seeing the sun again teasing her. "I shouldn't. I can't trust you."

The woman grinned. "Am I a mighty Evil Queen?"

"You wouldn't be much of an evil queen if you weren't."

"So, I wouldn't need to give you a choice, but I am. I promise to return you to your people whenever you like."

Ieru sucked a bit of apple from her molars and cleared her throat. Grapes didn't fall from the sky any more than apples, but somewhere on the island, they grew. "Another time, maybe?"

"While true that we might have forever, our meeting was chance. Who is to say when chance favors us again?"

Ieru groaned with fidgeting feet, then strode toward the beautiful evil. "It seems my stubborn day is only stubborn in one direction."

Eliles giggled and squinted at her approach. "Stubborn day?"

"That's what Grammu called the days when I had a mind of my own, the one that gets me in trouble." She stopped halfway. "Why did you come here?"

A finger waggled in Ieru's direction. "A fine question. I used to come to the Shower of Stars more often, hoping to meet the adherents who hide here. Give them a chance to speak with me. Most of my time in the stars now is to see where my friends are."

"Friends?"

"People not on Herald's Watch. The stars can point me to them, even let me see the faces of those close enough."

Ieru strode with a song in her steps. "I didn't know the stars could do that. I just enjoy the music. Do you know how or why the stars make songs?"

"Whoever built this place crafted the floor from latchu, the word for unbreakable glass in the language of the Edan, but how or why it makes music?" She shrugged.

Ieru arrived by Eliles' side. "We sit?"

A nod. "The stars we see now are from an age past. Hundreds of years before your arrival on the island." They sat side by side with legs crossed, and Eliles said, "Elinwe, guide me to the stars of now."

Ieru opened her eyes wide, determined not to miss the journey like she had with Grammu. The stars spun with nature's rotation, blurring with such a speed that the dots turned to whirling streaks of white. Fascinating, beautiful, and disconcerting. She opened her mouth to speak, but her throat didn't make a sound until the stars jerked to a halt. "Wow."

The Evil Queen laughed without a hint of evil. "I agree. It doesn't grow old."

Ieru smirked. "Neither do I."

"None of us do. What do you want to do first, see where people are around the world, or go outside?"

Ieru's lips twisted. "Outside. Grapes. If they're ripe."

"I make sure some are always ripe."

Ieru stood, putting voice to the worry behind her decision. "Everyone I knew on Kaludor might be dead, and I'd rather not know.

"I pray not." Eliles sighed as she rose to her feet. "Welcome back to the five hundred and seventh year of Remembered Time." The stars rang to the steps of the Evil Queen's feet. "Follow close; the stairs are tricky to see."

When Eliles' body stepped down and appeared cut in half, Ieru ran to catch up. "Holy hells." Her eyes widened as she glanced about, expecting Auntie to appear and cuff her ear. "Sorry for them words."

The Evil Queen was nothing more than shoulders and a head when she replied, "No worries. Artus Choerkin's tongue has hardened my devout ears these past years." Then her head disappeared.

Ieru eased close, glancing down to see Eliles, but she couldn't spot a single step. "Is this some evil trick to get me to fall on my butt?"

"You climbed to get up there, didn't you?"

"Grammu lit the steps."

A giggle from below. "Gods, I never thought of that."

In an instant, a spiral stair appeared, glowing the pure white of Elemental Light, casting no shadows. Ieru strode the steps with confidence and a smile. "You didn't pray out loud. Did they lie about your Fire? Are you a priestess of Light?"

"No. Fire is my specialty, as you'll see. I have a knack with many Elements." The Light disappeared, and a ball of Fire appeared over the Evil Queen's head as she walked toward a black wall.

"You're just showing off, now."

She grinned at Ieru over her shoulder. "It isn't often I have someone new to impress. Are you studying for the priesthood?"

"Do you imagine I have a choice?"

A silent shake of the head as Eliles reached and pulled, natural light flooding the room with a blinding glare that forced a hand over Ieru's eyes. Her heart pounded as she stepped into the dry heat of day, blinking as her eyes adjusted from years of nocturnal existence.

Ieru's breath left her. She'd come to find the sun, but the sky blazed as if the sun had come to find her, swallowing the island whole.