Stars May Fall (Stars May Burn #2)

9. Kasten

KASTEN

T he garden was hushed by twilight, and both Sophie and I were lost in our thoughts as we stood on the veranda.

She spoke without facing me. “Kasten, do you want to have children?”

I couldn’t have been more unprepared for such a question which had no preamble. Her face gave nothing away. “I suppose I have never thought of them as a possibility. But if we were to have children, then I would…cherish them. Though I’m not exactly natural fatherhood material. The only thing I could teach them is how to wield a sword and freisk knife. And how to outmaneuver a Kollenstar army.” I said the last with some humor, but she didn’t laugh.

“Hm.” My answer seemed to satisfy her, and still her face gave me no clue as to what she had been looking for in such a question. She didn’t seem distressed, so I didn’t push her further.

I turned to look at the castle grounds, drenched in the long shadows of twilight. I didn’t like to think about my own mother. My memories had rough edges that scratched and irritated my mind. When I considered her half-remembered face, I felt too adrift. Too uneasy. Lost. She represented part of me that I would never know. I had long learned to shut her from my mind. But Sophie’s question and the quietness of the evening pulled my thoughts to her. Had my mother wanted children? Had she wanted me? Had she replaced me by having more children in a proper family?

She had been banished through no fault of her own, but it was still hard not to feel the sting of abandonment. I wondered if she still thought of me often, or if she had learned to suppress my memory like I did hers to null the pain.

It was hard to imagine having children of my own. But if we ever did, one thing was certain: whoever tried to banish me, I would never abandon them.

Funny that thoughts of children came to Sophie and memories of my mother came to plague me now when we should be thinking of Adenburg and the big decision before us. I pushed the uncomfortable feelings from my mind.

Sophie rubbed her upper arms and shivered ever so slightly, though her gaze was fixed on the golden autumn light falling behind the trees and outer garden wall.

The soft golden glow bronzed her cheeks, and her lips were parted in wonder. Her hair had darkened in the dusk light to a deeper gold.

I shrugged out of my coat and laid it around her shoulders, startling her, though I had been here all along. Sometimes she seemed to grow lost within whatever she was concentrating on as if she were becoming one with the beauty surrounding her.

She pulled my coat so it overlapped across her chest and leaned back against me. I wrapped my hands across her front in case she was still cold and rested my chin on her head. I looked out at the sunset since it was no longer easy to see her face.

My thoughts returned to what Callum had said and Sir Egbert’s report on Whitehill, which I had still not read. Deep down, I knew what the report was going to contain. I just didn’t want to process what that would mean.

The king had summoned us, and all my peace had shattered. Could I continue to obey a king who was so desperate to get me killed that he sacrificed the lives of countless others?

I’d been abandoned by one parent. And the other was a monster. What did that make me?

Sophie spoke softly. “Why do you think all the birds sing at dawn and dusk? It doesn’t get them food and they don’t seem to be mating calls. Do you think they know that it is beautiful and wish to add to that beauty?”

I hadn’t even noticed the birdsong. Now she pointed it out, it was rich and varied and, yes, beautiful.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I once heard somebody say that they sing at dawn to celebrate that they have survived the night and to inform the others in the flock that they still live.”

“Hm.” She listened for a moment longer. “We survived the night too.”

I tightened my arms around her. “We did.”

“Will we always be like the birds? Will there always be night after night to anticipate and try to survive?”

I stepped back and pulled her around to me so I could see her face. It was strangely expressionless. This quiet, pensive version of my wife was the hardest to read by far. “Sophie, the whole reason we stood up to Lord Lyrason was so we could live without fear of death. I won’t let myself or my men be put in vulnerable positions ever again. We are stronger now.”

She pressed her lips together; a crease appeared in the middle of her forehead. “The king could be summoning us because he has a chance to arrest us in Adenburg. He knows he can’t reach us in Kasomere. He’ll want the power of the starstone, even if he doesn’t understand what it is.”

My heart clenched as I saw the worry in her face. “If you’re worried about this, we’ll just stay in Kasomere and refuse to follow the king. We can close our borders and shut out the world.”

Sophie looked down and closed her eyes. “Life’s not that simple, though. The people here will suffer. Families will be separated. It will be harder to trade for resources. Fenland will set embargos.”

I hated that I couldn’t take all her fear and worry away. “Still, I can make it work. Sophie, we may not have a choice. If the king tries to arrest me or you, or if he doesn’t believe us when we claim that I’ve lost the power of the starstone and demands it for himself, I’ll have no choice but to resist him here in Kasomere.”

She nodded. “If we have no other choice, then so be it. But…” she looked up at me with tenderness in her eyes. “Kasten, do you remember what you said when I asked what you’d like to happen to your father? You said you wanted to be free of him without being the cause of his death. But you also said that if you found out that he was a monster, working with Lord Lyrason to create the halfsouls, that you couldn’t let a man like that rule.”

I clenched my jaw. “That was before I almost lost you. When you were dying, Sophie, I realized the only thing that mattered was you. I won’t put your life in danger if I can avoid it.” The words came out harsher than I had intended, but she didn’t flinch.

The corners of her eyes tightened. “Do you want to know if your father played a part in orchestrating the halfsouls?”

I blew out a breath. This was the question that had been tormenting me all week. “No.” I pushed my hand through my hair. “Not anymore.”

Sophie took my hands in hers. “Is that because you fear that he is involved? And once you know for certain, you will feel like you should intervene? But instead—now—you want to stay here where we’re safe.”

I grimaced. “We’ve been through so much, Sophie. We’ve achieved so much. Isn’t it time somebody else worried about these things? Annabelle is determined and curious. She’ll work out what to do.” I squeezed her fingers.

Sophie frowned slightly and raised our entwined fingers to my heart. “Kasten, though I wish I could keep you all to myself here forever, you have this power inside you. This great and terrible power. You can change things that nobody else can. That is something that can’t be ignored.”

My heart rate picked up. The last of the dying light left her face shadowed. Her hair was becoming pale silver. “What do you want to do, Sophie?” Part of me dreaded her answer, yet I knew she would be right.

She took a deep breath. “You understand these matters better than me, Kasten. And I understand if the king forces our hand, we’ll become outlaws here. But so far, he hasn’t. There’s still so much information we don’t have. We don’t know if the halfsouls have been dealt with once and for all now Lord Lyrason has been exposed. We don’t know what they were for. We don’t know if the king still plans to use them. If the king is truly immoral, we need to know who we can trust and vouch for to take his place. We need to know more about Prince Stirling, Princess Annabelle, and Prince Clarence.”

As she spoke, it was as if she’d crystalized our future around us. A small smile tugged at my lips at her boldness. “Are you saying that you wish to know if the king has and is still going to use halfsouls? And if he is, you want us to lead a coup to dethrone him?”

She swallowed and let go of my hands, taking a half-step back. Her voice became more determined. “Yes. If he is going to create more of those creatures, he must be stopped. And we are in the best position to stop him. We have the power and resources.”

Her selflessness made my chest clench. I hoped she never lost this fierce ability to hope in something better.

Sophie looked down and wrung her hands. “But…he is your father. And while he has wronged you far more than me, I understand if you don’t want to challenge him. However, I also worry that if things stay unresolved, they will haunt you, no matter the distance you put between them.”

“He is not my father. Not since I was very young. He has long forfeited that right.” I saw how the bitterness in my voice caused Sophie’s face to become sorrowful and gave her a quick, teasing smile. “I never put you down as an orchestrator of treason, Sophie.”

She took another little step back. “Well, I…I…”

I huffed a laugh and kissed her forehead as she became flustered. “If anyone is guilty of experimenting and murdering their own people, we will make them fall. Then nobody will become halfsouls again.”

She nodded, the tension leaving her body, and a relieved smile curved her lips. Meanwhile, I could feel the tension entering mine as hundreds of scenarios played out.

“But I refuse to lose you again.”

She took my hand and looked out over the darkness of the garden with a determined expression. “You won’t.”

The strategic part of my brain was already starting to take over. We had much to do in a small amount of time, and we had few allies in Adenburg. There were hundreds of ways this could go wrong. But if we failed, we would likely only be back where we started; outlawed to Kasomere.

The sound of birdsong died, stolen by the night.