The Stargazer

Stargazer (chapter one)

Aislinn came to land on an upper balcony of Lough Lean as the moon set and the first pale traces of dawn lit the horizon. Droplets of water from the constant mist of the waterfall dampened the hardened leather of her hunting gear and glittered on the jeweled tones of her wings. The guards that stood sentry on either side of the opening pointedly looked the other way as she came through. Pushing aside the stab of pain at their unhidden dislike, she flicked her wings dry and tucked them away, continuing to move as she hooked her crossbow on her belt.


Behind her, her brothers landed in a soft shush of sound. They had no wings. Unlike her, they didn’t need them to fly.


Ciaran, the youngest of the triplets, wrapped an arm around her waist, hauling her to a stop with a grin. Dark hair fell over his brow giving him a rakish look that wasn’t entirely an illusion. Her mischievous brother was definitely a favorite of the Sidhe court and the fluff-brained ladies therein. They didn’t seem to mind that he was night to their silver star in coloring the way they disdained Aislinn’s fiery curls. Perhaps in the dark it made no difference to them.


“I want to hear you say it,” he nudged, a chuckle twining through the words. “You lost. Pay up.”


Aislinn sighed as Brendon stopped beside them. Fixing her gaze on her boot toes, she forced the words from her mouth.


“You’re the best hunter in Realms, the best brother, and my favorite person ever.”


That it was said flat and without intonation didn’t dent his humor. He laughed and kissed her cheek. She shoved him away with a huff, not really minding his teasing.


“You’re also an ass and I don’t understand why Mother didn’t feed you to the wolves when you were born,” she added crossly.


Brendon, ever the peacemaker, ruffled her hair and pulled her away from Ciaran, inserting himself between them to end the squabble before it began. Her fair-haired brother looked in every way the perfect Sidhe yet he preferred the company of his misfit siblings to the regal and often snobbish lordlings his age.


“Leave her be, Ciaran. You’ve rubbed it in enough. Aislinn? You should know better than wagering with this one when it comes to hunting.”


She did know better. She was faster in the air than either of her brothers but no one bested Ciaran when it came to the wild wood.


Around them, the fading moonlight sparkled from cut crystal, lighting the stairs as they descended toward the family quarters. Ciaran dodged around them, walking backward and still talking. How he didn’t fall and break his neck she didn’t know.


“I have to admit, you nearly had that troll, Ash.” He shrugged and then grinned. “Have to be quicker next time.”


“There won’t be a next time,” Brendon warned. “You need to stop tweaking her and find someone else to bother.”


“But she’s too much fun to tweak, aren’t you, Ash?”


Aislinn refused to respond. Brendon and Ciaran continued to banter as they went, paying no attention to the looks that drifted their way from the Sidhe who flew overhead. Disdain for earth lovers whispered around her, as loud as any dared speak against the Queen’s children or her choice of husband and consort. Their father’s Tuathe de’ blood made them an easy target for such narrow minded contempt though the stairs they trod had been carved into Lough Lean at the beginning for those of the Sidhe who were magically weaker and couldn’t control the air enough to fly. The same was true for the staircase hidden within the waterfall itself.


They paused on the landing and she saw Ciaran catch a lady’s eye, his smile and wink promising things that made the maiden blush. She nodded slightly, gathering her skirts and flitting away with a coy look back over her shoulder. Brendon took a swipe at his brother who ducked, backing away, his humor undimmed.


“Relax. I’m not the one who has to worry if a maid is looking at me or the potential crown on my head.” With that, he was gone, hunting the fluttering skirts of the lady.


Brendon growled. “I hate it when he says things like that.”


“You hate that he’s right,” she countered.


“You’re first born. You should inherit.”


“You’re the only one the Sidhe would accept taking Mother’s place and you know it. Ciaran and I are too different from them.” As much as he might wish otherwise, Brendon was the only choice for Heir and, in spite of his own misgivings about it, he would make a good king. “I’m going to rest for a bit, Brendon. I’ll catch up with you later.”


He nodded absently, his mind still on Ciaran’s words, and she left him to his thoughts. In her rooms, she quickly stripped and washed, donning a thin gown that left her back and shoulders bare. She had just settled on her bed when a soft knock sounded on her door.


“Come in.”


The door creaked and her cousin Bendith poked his head inside. Aislinn smiled, her heart softening. While Bendith was misshapen and ugly, she loved him dearly. It didn’t matter that he was short or his legs stunted and twisted. He had a curious, wondering child’s heart.


“Hello, Bendith.”


She patted the coverlet and he came to crawl up beside her. In his hands, he held a thin book, neatly bound with gilt edged pages. To her knowledge, he didn’t know how to read but she didn’t reach for the book. He had a reason for seeking her out.


“You were hunting tonight,” he said quietly, swinging his feet and watching the coverlet sway with the motion.


“Yes. Ciaran and Brendon wanted to go and I wanted to spend some time with them.” She sighed and rolled her eyes. “I made the mistake of wagering with Ciaran and he made me say he is my favorite brother.”


Bendith wrinkled his nose, his dark, button eyes laughing at her. “He is.”


She thought about that a moment and then waggled her head. “No. Ciaran makes my heart laugh, but I’m so proud that Brendon is my brother, my heart is too full to bear it.”


“And me?” he asked hesitantly.


Aislinn couldn’t help it. She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tight.


“You make me happy, Bendith. I’m glad you’re my cousin.”


He hugged her back and then pulled away, his eyes going back to the book he held.


“When you marry, your husband won’t like me visiting.”


“Marry?” The idea startled her. “I’m not getting married any time soon and any man I choose will accept my family or he isn’t the man for me.”


“Lord Whats-his-name has been talking to your parents. They said they would consider his suit.”


She had no idea who he was talking about. Not that she would have necessarily have known who he was talking about had he given her a name. Neither she nor Bendith socialized with the pure bloods who populated the court.


“I had no idea,” she whispered.


“I know.” He clutched the book tighter, dismay creasing his ugly face. “I got scared.”


“Oh, Bendith.” Aislinn gathered him into her lap and held him as she would a child. Her wings flared protectively in an instinctive reaction to the as-yet uncertain threat. “I’m sorry.”


“I got scared,” he repeated, “so I went to see your grandmother.”


It was quite a trek from Lough Lean to Tir na Nog and the court of the Tuathe de’. That she hadn’t noticed his absence made her cringe. He deserved better, especially from her.


“And what did Réalta have to say?”


He snuggled closer, lifting his face to watch the gentle movements of her wings. “That you have a heart big enough to hold the world and strong enough to build bastions out of.” He frowned a little. “What are bastions?”


“Strongholds,” she answered, stunned at the pride in the words her grandmother had spoken. “A strong place of defense.”


“What did she mean?”


“That I can love you, love my brothers and my parents, love a husband and any children that come along, and I will fight to keep all of you safe, against the world or even one another if it comes to it.”


He thought about that and then nodded, settling against her and the fear fading from his eyes.


“She’s right.” He held up the book. “She sent this for you. She said it’s about a changeling you were curious about. What’s a changeling?”


“A human who was exchanged for a Fae, who lives in the Realms.”


Aislinn still did not take the book from him. He would have to give it to her completely or he would see such a move as an attack, a remnant of the memories of his life when their grandmother Luna had ruled the Sidhe. The now dead queen had made him the butt of cruel jests, her only rule that he couldn’t be killed. To allow blood kin to die while under her care would have been going too far even for a queen who thought herself above all law, above even the balance that kept the Realms intact.


“I thought humans weren’t made to see Faery? That they would go mad.”


“They do usually. The Stargazer was a rare human who kept his sanity and lived for many years in the tower where Melody and Carradoc live now.”


He shivered again and she knew why. Melody and Carradoc’s only child Raewyn unnerved him.  Carradoc’s gift of the death magic of Wilding had been muted in his daughter. Raewyn couldn’t take a person’s soul the way her father could. She just talked to ghosts and apparently Lough Lean had its fair share of restless souls.


He laid the book carefully in her hands.


“Thank you.” She turned the book, studying it. “It’s new. I wonder where Réalta found it?”


“She made it. For you.” Bendith stroked the cover. “That’s why it took so long.”


“How do you know that?”


“She told me.” Reluctantly, he moved away from the gleaming temptation of gold that inlayed in the leather cover. “I had better go. You need to rest.”


She gave him another quick hug and watched him go, his limping gait a pain on her heart. For all his healing power, her father had been unable to mitigate any of Bendith’s pain. His mother was the Unseelie Queen and the devouring, twisted nature of her power had twisted her only child in the womb. There was nothing anyone could do for him.


Raewyn, she Whispered, sending her thoughts on a stirring of air. I have a book about the Stargazer. I’ll be there in a few hours.


She didn’t wait for an answer and she’d rather her closest friend didn’t try. Having a ghost tap one on the shoulder to talk was not an experience she cared to repeat. Not bothering to change her clothes, she spread her wings and took to the air, heading out her balcony window for the distant line of purple mountains.


The Realms slid by beneath her, as wild and untamed as the magic that fed them. Seasons changed, faces and names drifted through, but the Realms remained unchanged by the passage of life. Rather, they changed on whims dictated by who knew what. Fields morphed seemingly overnight into hills or even deserts. The only constants, it seemed, were the Vale, Anwyn, the Meanduraug with its Fae-devouring trees, and Tir na Nog.


Life, Death, an ugly death, and the home of the people who could control the source of ugly death.


The Seelie Court wandered as it willed. The Unseelie remained in the Broken Hills though the hills themselves were subject to change without notice, sometimes tiny lumps, sometimes towering mountains. Lough Lean remained isolated above the silver lake, waterfall flowing from it to fill the basin below though where that lake was changed. Once, they had found themselves underground, waterfall crashing into a subterranean sea. That had instantly been blamed on the Tuathe de’, the court of earth. The arguments had been heated and still ongoing when, suddenly, Lough Lean had abruptly been skyborn again though no one was sure if the castle had moved or if the mountain had moved off it.


“Ash!”


Aislinn bit off a word that would have shocked her mother as she executed a neat flip in the air, allowing her brothers to fall in beside her. “Where are you off to?” Ciaran wanted to know.


“The tower. I thought you would be too busy to notice.”


He shrugged. “Half the fun of the hunt is letting her chase me.”


“You aren’t supposed to go that far alone,” Brendon reminded Aislinn repressively, ignoring their brother’s remarks.


“You do,” she pointed out, not slowing her pace.


“That’s different.”


“How?”


Brendon shared a look with Ciaran. “Well, you’re a girl.”


“So?”


“So what?”


“My point exactly.”


“What?”


Aislinn increased her speed, wishing her brothers would give up and go back. They wouldn’t. In spite of being the sort of utter nuisances only brothers could be, they loved her and were protective of her. Not to mention, Brendon had a small crush on Raewyn. Not that she’d tell either of them she’d noticed, but it was cute to watch them steal glances at each other when they thought no one was looking. Ciaran lived to pester the girl so there would be no argument from him on the subject.


She pushed her speed to the limit, the ground below blurring into indistinct patches of color washed by the wind. Her brother’s complaints at the pace were muted by the rush of wind and she ignored them. Hours slid by before her wings began to tire, the ache warning her to rest before she was unable to complete her journey. Without fanfare or warning, she dove toward the yellowing grass of a small meadow and came to delicate landing. Still flexing her strained wings to ward off cramps, she stepped away, allowing her brothers room to land.


“What is so important you have to go racing off to see ghost girl without an escort?” Ciaran wanted to know.


Aislinn ignored his grunt as Brendon took insult to the nickname. “I found the book Raewyn and I have been looking for.”


“A book?” Ciaran danced out of his brother’s reach. “That’s what’s got your tail twisted?”


“What book?” Brendon, ever the calm voice of reason.


“We’ve been trying to find out more about the Stargazer’s Tower. I mean, she lives there. She ought to know more about the place. Right?” Her own curiosity about the nearly sentient tower aside, the two had agreed to find out everything they could about the place.


“And what did you find?”


“Not much. Just a few mentions in histories where he helped a Fae in some way or other.” Her fingers curled convulsively on the book she hugged. “This is actually a compilation of stories about him. I don’t know if it’s got much as far as real information, but it’s more than we’ve found to date.”


“Grandmother Réalta helped you find it?”


She flashed Brendon an irritated look for the stupid question though she knew he was simply verifying the source of information as reliable. “Of course. She is the historian of the Tuathe de’ after all. She was the best person ask about him.”


Brendon frowned a little and nodded. “Raewyn’s mentioned her interest in the changeling,” he admitted. “I apologize. I thought there was another reason for your precipitous flight.”


She blinked. He might be her sibling, but sometimes he spoke another language entirely.


“We thought Lord Burr-up-his-ass had cornered you,” Ciaran broke in and Brendon nodded in agreement.


She blinked. “Who?”


“The idiot who’s requested to court you,” Brendon snarled.


She opened her mouth to speak, to lie and reassure them she wasn’t worried about the matter when Ciaran overrode her.


“Don’t worry about him, Ash,” he assured her fiercely. “He’ll never get his hands on you while we’re still alive.”


“Mother and Father are only considering his suit,” Brendon added. The emphasis was unmistakable. “They’re only doing it to keep the peace. Lord Persimmon doesn’t have a hope.”


Lord Persimon. She had a hazy recollection of a sneering face and blond hair but that could have been any number of Sidhe lords she’d dealt with in the past few years.


“Not to mention Brendon and I will leave him bloody if he tries anything,” Ciaran promised. “We can’t stand the man.”


Brendon slid an arm over her shoulders, looking solemn. “Don’t worry, Ash. As long we’re around, he won’t lay a hand on you.”


Ciaran nodded but an evil light glimmered to life in his eyes. “He won’t bother you, Ash. I promise.”


“I worry when you say things like that,” she scolded and then hugged him anyway. Wrapping an arm around Brendon’s waist, she leaned into him. “What would I do without the two of you?”


“Be sad,” her eldest brother reminded her. “Very, very sad.”


Ciaran grinned. “Be bored. Very, very bored.”


“Yes to both.” She sighed and looked up at the sky. “I supposed we should get moving if we want to make the tower before nightfall.”


They flew. While Aislinn was faster than either of her brothers in the air, both of them had more stamina. The land rose to meet them, hills sharpening into mountains that stepped their way to the sky.  A small valley cut into the stone before the mountain thrust high once more. At the end of the lush green plateau, a gray tower sat behind a black iron fence. The rounded dome of the tower glittered like faceted crystal in the fading daylight, the scrollwork of iron and wood that encompassed the top as distinctive as it was lovely.


The Stargazer’s Tower.


The three siblings landed without attempting to cross the demarcation of iron fencing. To try would be to find themselves flattened in the grass. The Tower didn’t take kindly to intruders. Instead, they walked toward the single narrow gate. It opened for them as if pulled by an invisible hand. A quick knock on the single arched door into the tower and Aislinn pushed it open.


“Hello?”


No answer. The family must be elsewhere in the small valley.


“We’ll go find them,” Brendon suggested. “Ash, you stay here and rest. We’ll be back shortly.”


Ciaran nodded and followed Brendon out before Aislinn could respond. She huffed an exasperated, affectionate breath. She’d overextended herself to get here but she could walk around the tower to find Raewyn as easily as they. It would do no good to argue with them, however, so Aislinn stretched her wings with a sigh and settled them against her back and looked around.


Copper and oak gleamed in welcome. Between Raewyn’s mother Melody and the Tower’s tendency to take care of its inhabitants, she had never seen the living area messy. Resting her fingers gently on the wall, she smiled around at the room.


“Hello,” she whispered to the Tower. Her brother’s would have laughed at her for talking to the edifice but it only seemed polite to give thanks for the care the place gave them. “Thank you for letting me in.”


Candles lit themselves along the staircase in silent answer, leading upward. Aislinn followed them as she always did, but the small lights didn’t stop at the second floor where the bedrooms were but continued on, glimmering in small rainbows behind cut crystal sconces. Curious now, Aislinn followed where the Tower led her. Her heart beat faster as she paused before the last door on the stair. With a tentative hand, she pushed open the door and stepped inside, gazing in wonder at the huge astrolabe that dominated the center of the room.


She’d only been allowed in here twice. Both the Tower and the family that lived inside its walls were fiercely protective of this floor. No one knew how to work the astrolabe and the view through the tubular eyepiece shifted slowly across the same cluster of stars.


Clutching the book to her chest, Aislinn approached the enormous machine, peering at the various gears and wheels that formed the guts of it. A mirror larger than she was tall lay across the center. An enormous copper tube slanted across the mirror, the wider mouth jutting toward the sky and the stars that had just begun to peek out from behind the cloak of twilight.


Aislinn carefully pulled herself up to perch on the edge of the metal ring that encompassed the mirror and studied her reflection in the silvered glass for a moment. She was as she had always been, too sturdy and too vibrant to be Sidhe yet too slender and small to be Tuathe de’. Too large to be a pixie, too curvy to be a sprite, she was simply herself. Unique, her father called her and that was far kinder than other words she’d heard whispered. Freak. Aberration. Cross-breed. Abomination.


She sighed and looked away from her reflection to the sky overhead, now spangled bright with stars, the occasional wisp of cloud dancing through the faint beams of moonlight. For the first time in ages, she allowed the dream to unfurl from the place in her heart where she hid it.


How she wished she could find somewhere to fit, somewhere she would be welcomed for herself and not just because her mother was Queen. Even the Seelie Court, made up as it was of solitaries and oddities, she felt out of place, too sensible for the endless gaiety of the dance.  If she wished such a thing at home, her mother would know. Star had been born the living embodiment of wishes, one of the foundations and anchors of Fae magic. A wish like that would only hurt the gentle woman who loved her daughter with all of her being. No, as discontented as she was, Aislinn would never knowingly hurt her mother.


Turning her gaze to the slim book in her lap, she opened it and began to read.


Imagine if you will, the world of long ago, when time was not counted in days and hours as man measures it, but in centuries and eons as reckoned by the Fae. Come, wander with me back to a time when dragons dotted the skies with jewel bright wings and unicorns courted in the vast depths of the forest. Come with me to the lush valley where the Fae King danced and the faerie court played their never-ending games.


Written by a human perhaps? Someone unfamiliar with the Fae, undoubtedly. There were four courts of Fae and two Kings, four Queens, and two Consorts. Curious, she read on, wanting to find the mention of the Stargazer.


Listen, and I shall tell you as it was told to me of the Fae King’s daughters and their willful ways. Shall I tell you of the games they played or the gowns they wore, woven of gossamer silk by golden spiders? Or perhaps I should tell you how the sprites milked the colors from the butterfly’s wings to weave into those gowns. Shall I tell you of the many ways they plagued their father, of his rages and frustration? Let me tell you instead of a father’s anger and worry that became the web that trapped these twelve ethereal beauties in their heart’s desires.


Twelve daughters? That was a lot for a Fae King. Most Fae had few children over their lifetimes. The birth of triplets to her mother had been an event worth marking in the history books.


Twelve, you say? So many. The Fae King had twelve daughters and not one single son. But he adored them each and every one. They knew, as all cherished daughters do, that they had but to speak a wish into the wind and he would grant it for there was nothing that was not within his power.


Centuries passed as they wished on stars and the spring time wind for passing fancies and each wish in turn was granted. But the eldest began to find that wishes were no longer enough to stave off the eternal boredom. You see, the Fae do not feel emotions as we do and have no concept of love. They play at such things, hoping to discover for themselves what drives human kind to behave as they do.


Aislinn frowned at the words. Definitely a human, then. The Fae had emotions, in fact, felt more deeply than humans. Love was something to be wary of as a broken heart could kill a Fae. Still, she read on, the lyrical words drawing her into the tale, as badly conceived as it was.


One day, she called her sisters to her in secret, asking if they, too, felt the emptiness inside their hearts the way that she did. They each in turn admitted that they felt alone but none of them had any idea of how to fill that loneliness.


The sisters planned to meet under the summer moon and go abroad into the wide world, seeking a cure for this strange malady that afflicted them. But the spring zephyr carried their whispered plans to the ears of the king and he grew angry.


“So, all the wishes I have granted for you haven’t been enough for your greedy hearts?” He shouted his anger and even the mists of time shivered to hear it. “I have given you everything you have ever wanted and now you plan to put your daggers in my heart. Well, I won’t have it.  I may be your father but I am also your king.”


A breeze eddied by her, stirring the curls that lay on her shoulders. Aislinn looked around for the source but could find nothing.


The daughters, hearing his fury, fled like leaves before a gale. The Fae King went to the tallest tower of his palace and cast his spell on the wings of the night wind. “You wish to dance and to be gay, to wear fine gowns and play at your lives. So be it. Dance you shall. You shall never be able to claim that you are bored for you shall dance every night from the time the sun sets until the sun rises the following morning, until your slippers fall from your feet in tatters.”


The Fae king, angry at their betrayal and despising what he had done, banished them from the faery realm. He created a shining palace for them to live in and invisible servants to tend their needs. But every faery spell must have a loophole, a way to break the spell. It is a law that is older than the Fae themselves. Since it was love they desired, it was love that would break the spell, he decided. “If a man should come to love you and be willing to sacrifice himself to free you, the spell shall be broken. You may use no glamour to capture his heart nor shall your beauty be what he loves but the woman you are. He must prove beyond any doubt that his love is pure only then will you be free.”


The breeze pushed at her shoulder playfully and she furled her wings tight against her back. Probably a zephyr. The wild wind spirits loved to harass the Sidhe. Too bad her control of air was limited or she could chase it away.


The push came again, a little stronger this time, and she muttered an imprecation under her breath, closing the book.


“Go away, will you? Carradoc will be angry if you mess up his home,” she warned the room at large.


Laughter as faint as a whisper curled around her.


Oh, I don’t think so. Opportunities like this come so seldom.


Something shoved hard at the bottom of her feet. Aislinn shrieked, the book flying from her hands as she tumbled backward toward the mirror. Curling her body tight, she tensed in expectation of shattering glass. Dark blanked her mind before she landed.








Carradoc ap Arawn picked up the thin tome from the floor, only half listening to the argument ensuing behind him. Gilt glittered back at him from the edges of the page, the new leather still unworn by time and handling.


“But she has to be here,” Raewyn insisted, her voice low and worried. “The lights were still on.”


The brothers muttered softer, the feel of moving air rushing about the room as they searched for their missing sister.


Nothing appeared out of place. Copper and silvered glass reflected back the light of moon and candle, gleaming warm and safe. Around them, the Tower remained silent. 


The Wilding whispered to life inside him, searching for the missing soul. Violet mist led from the door to the edge of the mirror where he stood, but no trail led away. It was as if the princess had vanished into thin air. Gripping the book, he let the Wilding fade as he turned back to the young ones who were growing more frantic by the moment.


“She was here but she’s gone,” he told them.


Three sets of eyes fixed on him but he only brushed past them and headed down the stairs. Melody looked up from where she was cooking a small meal. He tossed the book onto the table.


“Aislinn is missing.” Reaching for the huge sword that leaned against the wall, he slid the strap over his shoulder and settled the weight comfortably between his shoulders. “I’m going to look for her.”


His wife moved to him, gripping the front of his shirt. “Carradoc?”


Concern filtered down their heart-bond and he slid a hand under her hair, tugging her closer. Leaning down, he whispered low, for her ears only.


“She vanished from the upper floor. I can see the trail where she entered but not how she left. Even if she passed through the air, I should be able to see it. If magic took here, there would be residue. I sense nothing.”


“But the Tower would never let her come to harm,” she insisted, her fingers tightening in his shirt.


He pressed a kiss into her hair. “I know but I have to find her. If I can’t locate her quickly, I have to take the news to her parents. Can you contact Eithné? The ráthu may be able to help if I can’t pick up her trail.”


“Be careful,” she commanded, kissing him. “I’ll have one of the boys Whisper her.”


He nodded, easing away.


“You three stay with Melody.” He raised his voice, issuing the command to the young ones who clustered together at the table, worry radiating off them in waves.


“We can help,” Ciaran argued, the only one brave enough or foolish enough to press the issue with him. “She’s our sister, you know.”


Brendon elbowed his brother into silence but met Carradoc’s gaze evenly. “We’ll wait—for now.”


An honest answer and one he could respect. The brothers would never stay put while their sister was lost. He knew them too well to expect that. He’d known their souls before they were born, after all. Brendon, full of courage and wisdom, and Ciaran, full of mischief, loved their sister with their whole heart. Aislinn, firstborn and filled with a strength many underestimated, was as precious to them as his Raewyn was to him.


He nodded, accepting the answer. “If I don’t find her in the hour, I’ll come fetch you.”


His eyes fell on his daughter who cradled the thin book in her hands, looking lost. With her long black hair and violet eyes, she was the best of him and a piece of his heart he’d never known existed.


“I’ll find her, Raewyn. I promise. Just don’t let them do anything stupid.”


Her lips quirked in spite of her worry. “I don’t know if I can work miracles but I’ll do my best.”