The familiar glow overhead winked like a slowly dissipating mirage. It was only part of a sky full of untouched black and silver freckles, like the kind a makeup artist would apply with eyeliner pencil for a play. As silvery as her own hair. But these freckles fell to earth and were reborn within a matter of centuries. She had lost her own freckles within a matter of months when the summer heat finally faded into the frostier fall. The sun always seemed to have that effect on her facial skin.
She gathered her legs to her chest with long arms and looked up until the back of her neck creaked in protest. She may as well have lain down on the sweet-smelling grass that surrounded her family’s Holding and made it easier on herself. But she fell asleep whenever she laid down, and sitting under the stars was a better position to be in when one wanted to get lost in thought.
The tour was still on her mind, although her father had only grazed over that subject at the dinner table. She couldn’t understand why, considering how much he had insisted that the tour was a mandatory Prime Heir function. Had someone told him beforehand about her “curious” exchange with the attendant?
“I’ve always wondered how far the stars went. They seem to go on forever.”
“They do, Lady R’lessaneia.”
“But I’ve never seen them this…close,” she went on, as if he hadn’t interrupted her. “They look like glowflies I could catch with my bare hands.”
He smiled down at her. “Who said you couldn’t?”
“Truly?”
“M’lady,” he said patiently, addressing her as a child and not as a Prime’s Heir, “there are more species and worlds among those ‘glowflies’ than you will ever know. If you can catch them, you can catch the entire universe in your hands, too.”
Now the stars seemed much farther away from this level, out here on the O’uce property, away from most of familiarity. She caught a strand of hair between her fingers and idly rubbed it. The silver of her hair glinted against her cheek, caught by the amber light from the torch, silver and amber back to back, reflecting pale on her fair skin. She glanced down at the strand, blinking against the sudden dizziness that quick action provoked, before turning her gaze upward again.
One day, she vowed, even if was only for a moment, she would see the stars’ silver light glint against her cheek as well.
