✧ ೃ༄

          SHAME WEIGHED DOWN her steps to harden themselves into the stone stairs she climbed. Each sob she swallowed was an added stone at the self-destructive dam obstructing her breath, already heaved. At that moment, she wished not be shown a mirror, for it was all to clear her face has turned almost as red as her hair, only to now be reduced to a ghostly paleness inching to describing the sickness that has been twisting her stomach, trapped beneath the traditional wear's corset she wished to tear apart.

She wished.

Oh — her wishes were bubbling pearls to blur her sight. She wished to have been stronger ; could she have perhaps been able to avert these disasters had she simply been born a son to her father? Had her interest laid in swords and arrows, would he had been alive? She wished with every fiber that he would return and gather her tears, execute the traitors, so she never has to look them in the eyes again.

That crown upon her head was a heavy mockery, because had she been stronger, it would have meant more than it did then, outshined by a wedding she did not consent to. But what else could she have done when dragons roared outside the chapel, shattering windows with their noise, making the mountain shake from their trot across the roofs above streets too narrow to fit them. Three fire-breathing dragons sniffed outside the doors and she couldn't have said 'no' to the hand of the enemy's son without saying 'yes' to a death in flames.

She should have claimed her nature as a pile of ashes while she still could, because dancing with the Prince of Zerrikania felt like an insult to the chapel, an insult to the whole city and especially a spit down on her father's early grave. After all, didn't the rumor say it was one of his older sisters that claimed Vyatrov's head?

That question hammered Alia down instantly. Her knees fell upon the hardness of the stairs, bruising their frail skin in a conscious stripping impact before she slid on the silk fabric of her dress. Her only saving anchor against slamming her face on the stone became her hands: her palms pressed down and her nails dug into the cold steps until pain irked her to stand with a ragged groan. Thundering, her heart claimed a full reign over her senses, numbing everything else to a fuzz.

Details have been commanded to dissipate and she, an obedient servent to the weak carcass in which this defeat has rendered her, accepted the oblivion to how she gathered herself off the ground and hurried the last feet towards her chambers. Though she recalled not when the dam broke, she hoped the walls outside her last corner of a home did not see the shimmer of her tears and the moans of her whimpers. Defeat riddled every sound.

Though this room whose lock she fastened had its bed, it was not the chambers in which she would be expected. Atop the highest tower of the Citadel, this room, with walls painted not in color but in shelves, book spines and maps of the sky, used to be her mother's. She had died when Alia was too young to understand how much she'll regret not having memorized her own mother's features. She died in that room, in the cushioned chair besides the balcony and though her father never dared come near the tower, he let Alia dance around the passion that birthed her, fantasising her faceless ghost sleeping in the cushioned chair besides the balcony.

In that dark hour, she didn't dare look at the chair.

Remembering too little of her mother, she had not even the slightest clue to how she'd feel about the corner her daughter has walked herself into. It was for the better to avoid seeking the illusion of her ghost, because she'd sooner find her own judgement laughing back at her than the truth.

Instead, Alia opened the glass doors of the balcony, letting the wind of the night mountains blow the thin curtains back. She flinched forward, but did not yet manage to complete that single step needed of her to disturb the dust settled on the once white stonws of the balcony. With only snow covered mountains and forests below the tower and on her horizon, it was inevitable for a chilling wind to braze her skin; it returned to her a nuance of her clarity, sufficient to have her blink the last pearls of sorrow blurring her sight and wipe her cheeks clean of tears while her hands climbed up to remove her crown.

Where she was going, she had no need for riches rendered useless weighing her down.

Alia dropped the silver crown down on the study table, letting it throne amongst unfinished drawings of constellations, but didn't leave the room still. She removed her furs, stripped herself of her shoes, of the white tights ripped from her previous fall. Unlike the violence with which she wished her hands had strength to act, she removed her corset with care for the embroideries it held, undoing alone each knot and braid of thread. By the time she bowed forward, towards the table, Alia was left wearing only a looser version of her cornoation dress, unbuttoned and occasionally ravaged. From the darkness below the table's chair, she collected a step stool. Only with it in her hand did she finally drag her steps outside, where the cold was quick in nipping at her skin, commanding winds to blow from peaks towards her until several strands of her wavy hair escaped the many braids that red wilderness has been tamed into.

The stool clicked down, set on the very edge of the balcony, beneath the railing's shadows. Nights were hardly ever pitch black for Zvezdnaya — a myriad of stars glimmering above around a shameless moon of silver usually made of the nights luminous moments, rivaling the day, oftentimes plagued by clouds and snowstorms. Starlight came alive on the shivering skin of her cheeks, kissing the dampness left behind by rivers of tears. Alia gulped and stepped on the stool, bowing forward so her palms gripped the railing and her eyes widened to stare down at a landing she couldn't even distinguish how rough it would be for a fall, but only guess from vague rememberings.

She wished she had been strong enough, but hesitation grew roots into her mind and twisted vines of fear over her better judgement.

Her knees quivered and she collapsed, bruising them once more down upon the wooden stool. With her hands still grappling the railing, Alia was brought into a position from which looking up at the sky was inevitable. Feeling that she had tarnished too much in her own kingdom that day, she feared the stars would not show their face for her, but a whole tapestry of pure light awaited to flicker a reflection in her eyes.

They worshipped stars in Zvezdnaya.

Alia's hands joined, fingers interlocking, before she drew them near her heart. "I'm alone," she confessed to her divinity. "I'm alone and I have lost the great war that my ancestors have fought perpetually for as long as this city can remember. I am at fault for our destruction and I know I deserve not your mercy... but I wish for it regardless. I beg not to be left alone in darkness and I beseech humbly a violent end, rather than the slow death I will have besides mine husband and his devilish dragons. Please... My allies are all spent. Those sworn to me have hatred in their eyes and those a monarch must trust are the conduit by which the enemy poisoned the heart of our city. Let me join my father amongst your ranks and I shall be happy to be even the darkness amongst your stars. Please, do not leave me here alone."

Breathlessly realizing the heat of her prayer has lowered her eyelids until her eyes had closed unbeknownst to her will, Alia opened her sight again to a sky now completely clouded. There was not a single star in sight. The moon had hidden itself away: a true night upon Zvezdnaya was the clearest answer she thought she could have ever received.

With a newfound fatigue creeping in her bones, she inhaled the cold night air one last time before returning to the room. She abandoned her stool and paid no mind to closing the doors to the balcony. Instead, Alia made a beeline to the bed, ghosting thoughts of penance, of years of repent she had been sentenced to by the Heavens. She had been forsaken by everything, at last, so even her death would come as nothing short to the opposite of a tragedy.

As soon as her head buried itself in a pillow, thoughts scattered and she plundged into a deep slumber from the cradle of which only the faintest silver light tickled her eyelashes to flinch. At first, her sight had been too blurred to distinguish the full of what was happening, but one by one, the details focused: starlight danced outside, brighter than ever, the wind had stilled itself to a gentle breeze and beside her lay a shadow.

Alia sat upright in her bed, her heart scared into beating faster. However the shadow besides her was no monster, no enemy... in fact, she's never before seen the man now sleeping beside her.

Wind blew the thin curtains aside and starlight revealed the man's silver hair and the pendant around his neck, both shimmering in answer to the heavens.

Could this be it? She was alone no more.

To test her most hopeful theory, her hand climbed to his face, breathlessly remaining quiet. Her fingertips touched coldness but threatened to pass right through his ghostly skin. It felt like skin, but it was nothing but an imitation of a flesh vessel.

"They've sent me a star," Alia whispered and her star opened his eyes — precious gold stared her back and she revived her smile for this miracle.