Chapter nine

There was something deeply unsettling about what Emandi was asking Audrey to do.

"You want me... to get on your back?" she asked, tugging nervously at the cuffs of her hoody sleeves.

"Of course," Emandi replied as if it was the most normal request imaginable. "It's the easiest way for me to carry you up the mountain."

Audrey hesitated. She couldn't shake the idea that it would be disrespectful to ride one of the first sentient creatures on the planet like a horse. Then again, what other option did she have? She looked at Welkin.

"What about you? How will you get up there?"

Welkin smiled as if they were trying not to laugh. They picked up Audrey's pack and held it out to her. "Don't worry about me. I'll meet you there."

With the matter ostensibly settled, Audrey shouldered her backpack and slid her leg over Emandi's back. She was in the middle of wondering where to put her hands when Emandi rose up out of their crouch, pitching her forward with a yelp.

"You'll want to keep low — you don't want to get a branch to the face," they advised. "Hang on tight!"

With that warning, Audrey took a moment to secure the clasps and straps of her backpack before flattening herself against Emandi's back. She was grateful to bury her face, red with embarrassment, into the creature's mane. With her arms wrapped awkwardly around their shoulders and her legs gripping their ribcage, she figured she looked like a rodeo cowboy who was having second thoughts about their career choice.

"Ready?" Emandi asked. Audrey could hear the smile in their voice as it rumbled through her chest.

"As I'll ever be," she replied.

"Don't be afraid," Welkin said. They gently smoothed some stray hair out of her face. "Emandi will ensure your safety, and I'll be waiting for you when you arrive."

The only response she could muster was an uncertain smile and the tiniest of nods.

"Enough chit-chat," Emandi bellowed. "Away we go!"

With a shove of their powerful hind legs, Emandi launched forward at a speed that nearly took Audrey's breath away. They bound effortlessly through the forest, and Audrey could hear the sound of leaves and trees whipping past her ears as they traveled. She kept her face tucked safely into Emandi's downy mane and breathed in their surprisingly fragrant aroma; something almost sweet mixed with notes of sodden wood and crisp, cold air. Even with her sight obscured, Audrey could tell that the incline was growing steeper by the way Emandi's muscles worked beneath her. To her amazement, their pace didn't slow even as they climbed higher and higher up the mountain. Emandi's path zigged and zagged a series of tight switchbacks, and when they pivoted into each turn, Audrey had to hold on even tighter for fear that she'd be accidentally thrown off by the sheer inertia of it all.

Eventually, Emandi slowed down. Running was replaced by careful strides across an increasingly rocky terrain. Audrey dared to lift her head and noticed that the forest had thinned into a smattering of gnarled and stunted trees. She lifted her eyes skyward and gasped. In the perfect darkness of night, without a hint of light pollution to hinder the view, Audrey saw more stars than she ever had before. These were the twinkling pinpricks of light stars — the impossibly distant burning balls of space gas, not the celestial governing body that oversaw the Plan and the destinies of everyone it touched. The sky was so full of them that it looked like someone had run a giant paintbrush dipped in glitter across the atmosphere. It was stunning.

But Audrey found it hard to concentrate on the beautiful starry sky for long. Nighttime was in full force now, and with it came a cold that was even worse up this high of the mountain. A vicious wind whipped across the alpine, uninhibited without the tree cover, and cut through Audrey's hoody and jeans like knives made of ice. She twisted her fingers deeper into Emandi's mane in an attempt to keep them warm.

"Don't worry," Emandi called over the roar of the wind. "We're almost there." They picked their way around a few house-sized boulders that brought them to a section of the mountain where the ground evened out somewhat. Over Emandi's head, Audrey could make out the silhouette of imposing cliffs ahead, and her heart sank. Her fingers were so stiff with cold that she wasn't sure she'd be able to hold on for much longer. But as Emandi trotted onward, Audrey realized the shelf on which they'd found themselves was surprisingly deep. It was hard for her to understand her surroundings in the darkness — as stony walls rose up around them, it felt to Audrey like they were walking through the cliff rather than toward it. Freezing and disoriented, she was glad that at least one of them could see in the dark.

Finally, Emandi stopped. "Here we are," they said, crouching low so that Audrey could slide off their back. It took a moment for Audrey's feet to gain their feeling back, but once they did she realized that she wasn't standing on rock, but on thick, swaying grass. Up ahead, she spotted a flickering orange glow that reached out from the base of the cliffs. Emandi strode forward toward the light, and Audrey followed stiffly after them.

The light was coming from a yawning cave mouth. Had she not been freezing, Audrey would have been in awe of it — there was something exciting about a real life cave in the mountains, like the ones that often featured in the fantasy and adventure novels she liked to read. But at that moment, all Audrey cared about was getting out of the cold. She hurried into the cave, which was surprisingly spacious with high ceilings that dripped with glittering stalactites. There, near the back of the chamber, Welkin stood stoking a blazing fire.

"There you are!" Welkin chirped when they spotted the pair through the flames. "I took the liberty of starting a fire."

"Good thing you did," Emandi replied, ushering Audrey forward. "I believe this one is a bit on the chilly side."

"A bit?" Audrey balked. She dropped her pack and scurried up next to the flames. Her teeth chattered noisily in her head and the rest of her body shivered. "I'm frozen solid! I wish you had warned me about how cold it would be up here — I would have put another layer on."

Welkin motioned for her to come around to them.

"Here, sit," Welkin insisted gently as they eased her down onto a low wooden bench draped with pelts. "Emandi and I will take care of setting up while you warm yourself by the fire."

While Audrey held her icy hands close to the blaze, Welkin and Emandi slinked into the shadows and disappeared. From the dark recesses of the cave, she could hear water being poured, blankets being shaken out, and the dull clunking of wood on wood. There was a sharp flash, followed by a crackling sound. It was only when a new source of light illuminated the shadows into which Welkin and Emandi had vanished that Audrey realized there was another chamber connected to this one. A low murmur of conversation bounced around the cavern walls, but it was too indistinct for her to make out what they were saying. Irritated at being left out, Audrey got to her feet and crept silently toward the second chamber.

I did not get dragged up a freezing cold mountain just to be left out of the loop, she thought bitterly as she pressed against the stone wall and eavesdropped shamelessly.

"Tell me the truth," Emandi's voice said. "She's yours, isn't she?"

Welkin's disembodied sigh drifted through the cave. "Obviously you've deduced as much."

"Incredible. How old is she?"

"She just turned sixteen."

"Sixteen!" Emandi sounded incredulous. "Have we truly gone so long without seeing each other?"

"So it would seem," Welkin said. Audrey noticed a note of shame in their voice. "I hope you'll forgive me. I was—"

"Preoccupied with your human," Emandi finished for them. "I assumed as much. But this..." Audrey assumed they were referring to her, "I did not expect this. Your human—"

"Astrid."

"Yes, of course. Your Astrid — is she the mother?"

Welkin must have offered a non-verbal confirmation, because Emandi let out a grim laugh.

"Don't." Welkin snapped. "She was dying, Emandi. She was dying and all she wanted was to be a mother. It was her deepest wish — how could I deny her?"

"The same way your kind always does," Emandi replied. "Honestly, I don't know where people get the notion that Stars are in the business of granting wishes."

Audrey shifted closer to the opening and turned her head to hear better. She felt like she was listening in on a particularly juicy piece of gossip, except in this case the gossip was about her. Welkin was never this candid with her questions, especially when it came to wish-granting. It was exciting to finally be getting answers.

"We do!" Welkin said defensively.

"Rarely. And when you do, it's only because it suits the Plan." There was no harshness in Emandi's words. They spoke confidently, with the air of someone who knew that what they were saying was indisputable fact. "Which begs the question: is the Starborn part of the Plan?"

The silence that followed seemed to fill the cave with its enormity. Audrey froze. The only part of her that seemed capable of movement was her heart, which tripped over itself as she waited for Welkin's answer.

For years, Audrey had been haunted by a thought. The thought had first occurred to her when she first realized that her mother was going to die. It burrowed itself into her brain like a seed, and there it stayed, biding its time until the thing Audrey dreaded most came to pass. When her mother died the seed took root, bursting into her consciousness like a weed. The thought blossomed into a fear; one that she'd carried inside her ever since. If she was being honest, Audrey was ashamed of her fear and the insecurity that came with it. She had lost her mother — she was supposed to be wracked with guilt forever, not worrying about herself. It was selfish. So, she tried her best to ignore her fear; to prune it from her mind.

And yet...

Sitting around the campfire with Welkin, in those moments before Emandi made themself known, Audrey had almost confessed to her deepest, most shameful fear: that she was nothing more than a granted wish that had already served its purpose.

She had always known that the only reason she existed was because her mother wished to be one. Her purpose had been to make Astrid Wildes a mother.

So, what was her purpose now that her mother was gone?

Did she even have one? And if not, what would become of her now?

Emandi had just asked the question that Audrey couldn't. If the answer was yes, if she was indeed part of the Plan, then she could relax; she had a destiny. The Stars had a plan for her.

But if the answer was no... She shuddered, unable to bear what that would mean. She already felt alone in the world — she wasn't sure she could handle the weight of a pointless existence too.

But that was a bridge she'd figure out how to cross after she heard what Welkin had to say. The world swam around her. Everything seemed to hinge on what happened next.

Audrey held her breath, crossed her fingers, and listened for her fate to be sealed.