There was just enough cornmeal left from Saul's last venture into the town market that I was able to make a few fritters for our breakfast before he was to leave. The fried cakes of course meal turned out a bit too small and burned slightly on the bottom, but Saul made no complaints. He ate my poor cooking with his usual ravenous zeal, taking big gulps of our little remaining ale to help wash it all down.

"I'll need to buy some more sweet-ale as well, it seems." He muttered, his thick greying beard bristling beneath his nose as he pursed his lips at the now empty bottle of honeyed brew.

I frowned puzzledly at his shopping list as I added ale to it with a quill that scratched dryly against the paper, in need of fresh ink. That too would need to be added. "Do you think you'll be able to get enough for all this with just that one quilt and a couple of mackerels to barter with?"

Saul stood from his seat with a grunt. His movements were becoming stiffer as the years went by. In the mornings he moved as if his legs ached him as badly as my own. "Aye," he said, his sunbaked cheeks creasing with lines of age as he smiled. He crossed the room to me and laid his knobby-knuckled hand on the freshly made quilt I'd draped over the back of his rocking chair. It was a simple thing that I'd pieced together with bits of old clothing and fabric I'd weaved on my loom over the course of many years. I'd chosen paler colors for this one, which made it easier to make as I didn't have to fool with dye. The patchwork of white handkerchiefs and pieces of old nightdresses was decorated along its seams with silver fish that leaped over and dove under each other. The border of the quilt was decorated with a silver sea serpent whose smiling maw chased its finned tail round and round the quilt, corralling those fish with its coiled spine. I'd made other quilts like it in the past and they had sold well enough, but this one had more detail than the rest. I had never stitched the serpent before. I might've added some playing mermaids or dolphins in years past, but never a serpent.

It seemed almost a dangerous thing to do to copy The Serpent's likeness even if it was only supposed to be a common sea monster.

"It is your finest work. I'll accept no less than a king's ransom." Saul said, his voice ringing with fatherly pride. It made me happy, the sound of it, the joy on his face, the gentleness with which he traced my stitching with calloused fingertips. "Are you sure you are willing to let me sell it?"

"What else are we to barter with the seas as barren as they are?" There was a reason only Saul and I lived here and why he alone worked the waters here. Most fishermen had gone east, following the fish to calmer waters, less full of beasts. That reason was me. He stayed and struggled for me. To keep me safe from those that wished me dead for reasons I knew not.

I packed the remaining fritters into a napkin for him to eat on the road and carried it out to him as he was hoisting himself up onto his horse, a blue roan mare with a streak of white now the length of her face he affectionately called Fish. I ran my fingers through the piece of mane that covered her forehead as I gave it to him. Her ears swiveled towards me, and her large dark eyes fixated on my own. She almost seemed to hold her breath in my presence, going still as a dead thing. I took away my hand and moved back from her until she moved again. Her whole body visibly relaxed. She'd never acted that way before. Saul had owned her since I was two and I'd never seen her act so afraid of me before.

"Please be careful." I said, turning my attention back to my father. I tried to smile, to hide the hurt and the fear that was now tightening my ribs around my lungs.

I could see on Saul's face that I had failed. His thick eyebrows furrowed with concern, but he did not ask me what bothered me. He knew. He was already patting Fish on the side of her neck, trying to calm her down. "Aye, I will, and you do the same. Stay close to the house and lock the door while I'm gone. If a stranger shows up, hide like I taught you, and if you must, run for the sea. I have the boat prepped, ready to set sail should you need it."

"Yes, sir," I said absently. I had heard this speech a thousand times before and would hear it again with each of his journeys.

"Don't talk to the Trickster either." He added, wagging his finger at me. He smirked beneath his beard. "Don't think I won't know it if you disobey me. I can read you like a book, girl."

That made me smile. "I've never seen you read a book in my life."

Saul pushed my hat further down on my head and into my eyes playfully. "Only because you keep me too busy worrying... I love you, my girl. You know that don't you?"

His words took me aback for a moment. Saul was no usually so forthcoming with his feelings. "I have never doubted." I smiled up at him. His dark brown eyes looked at me with warmth and affection and in that moment, I wanted nothing more than to live the rest of my days here in this sheltered homestead as his daughter, no matter the length of those years that yet awaited me. His familiar hand slipped from my head and with a tug on his reigns he turned Fish towards the path that led into the woods, calling back to me to behave while he was away.

I remained there, watching him until he disappeared into the forest, thinking of all the chores I would need to get done. It was quiet at the house without him, empty without his presence. It never felt that way when he was out fishing. Only when he was gone to that place I had so little knowledge of did it feel like the world I knew was hollow and empty of life, like a sea without fish.

I glanced towards the willow, seeking the comfort of Tariel's company, but when the willow's drooping branches swayed in the sea breeze, the space that Tariel always filled was empty. Fear seized me at once. It shook through my bones and made it harder to breathe. I was alone. Completely alone for the first time in my memory.

"Tariel?" I breathed out in a voice I didn't recognize.

The direction of the wind turned, shifting from west to east and I felt something, a sensation like liquid heat shot down my spine from the crown of my head to the back of my heels. I could feel a heat against my back and a light like the sun radiated around me, stretching my shadow out in front of me as tall and thin as many of the trees that surrounded my home. No, that light was coming out of my skin. I lifted my hands, marveling at the rays of light that poured out of me, flaring outward like the petals of a flower...or the points of a star.

It burned my eyes to look at myself. I screamed in fright, buckling to my knees while I shook and burned with terror. I could feel something dripping down my face. Silver tears dripped from me and sizzled on the grass, turning it black as it burned it away.

"Quiet,"

The windchimes that hung from one of the willow's branches changed its song as I turned around to see who had spoken.

Saul slowly approached me from the direction of the beach. He held out his hand, moving with a caution due a snarling beast. "Breathe. I am here. You are safe." He cooed to me. "Think of the stars and quiet."

He'd been telling me that since I was little. Every time I grew upset or angry, he would tell me to think of the stars, of their silent peace and it would soothe my wraths. I thought of them, and I breathed. Little by little, the light escaping my flesh dimmed until it was gone. Saul gathered me in his arms and held me tight.

"I thought you were gone." I said hoarsely, my fingers clawing at his back, disbelieving he was really there. He'd only just left.

"I ran into some men marching this way on the village road and I heard you scream. I raced back here as fast as I could."

"Where's Fish?" I asked, not seeing the hoarse anywhere.

"There's no time, we have to leave now." Saul grabbed my wrist and tugged me up to my feet. "We have to get you to the boat. Those men saw your light just now. They'll be here any moment."

He started to drag me towards the beach but as the black sand of the shore came into view, I dug my heels in and pulled back. "Stop wearing my father's face, Tariel."

Tariel gave me a dark look then, my father's eyes suddenly mean and cold. He yanked my arm, pulling me flush to him and linked his arm around my waist. He hoisted me up, holding me up off the ground so that my legs swung uselessly, unable to find purchase. Every attempt I made to kick him met no resistance as if my blows were meeting nothing but air.

"Let go of me!" I screamed, clawing at his arm, which turned to misty smoke with each scrape of my nails.

"There are men coming. I must get you to safety." He snarled at me, hissing as my skin began to shine again. "Stop that, damn it." He growled under his breath. "You're going to lead them straight to us." I had no control of it. My light flared brightly, burning him. I could hear his flesh sizzling, hear him groaning in agony between pained breaths, but still he held me, refusing to let me go. He managed to get me onto the beach. His feet kicked up black sand as he charged towards the small fishing boat docked at the water's edge.

"I said let go!" Light flashed outward from me in one quick burst. Tariel screamed in pain and released me, letting me fall into the wet sand as he staggered away. "You've been trying to get me to leave with you for years." I growled in a foreign voice, low and gravely with anger. I pointed an accusatory finger at him. "Why should I believe you?" I demanded. That liquid heat pulsed down my spine and would not dissipate. If anything it was growing stronger. I stalked towards him. The Trickster crawled away, trying to get out of my light. I had burned away his disguise. The shadows that enveloped him were thin in the glow of both the sun above us and my own and I could see a monstrous thing hidden in the gloom, a fanged mouth, hollow eyes with only a pinpoint of light within them to show that he even had eyes at all, and a skull ringed with small sharp thorns like a crown.

"Because if you don't, you will die. Those men. Your brother is leading them." He said, his voice as sweet and alluring as usual. "They're here to kill you, Maris, and I cannot let that happen. You are far too important."

"I'm not important to anyone but Saul." Helplessly curious, I turned my head towards the path to the house and wondered how far away my brother, that missing half of me, might actually be.

"Do you really think he would want you dead if that were true, Maris?" Tariel said. He looked so small cowering there, curling his body inward as he seized with pain. "You and he are special. You fell for a purpose. He is the king of men and you...you are our queen. Our Starfelled Lord. That is why he wants you dead, because you are meant to take the world from mankind and give it back to us."

"To the Serpent's children? Regardless of how I was born, I am a human being. Why would I ever help monsters attack my own people?"

"What color do you bleed, Maris?" He asked, almost pleadingly. "You are not human. It is only the shape the thing you were before chose when it broke apart and fell into this world. You are not mortal. You are the furthest thing from it, a thing more akin to the Serpent squeezing the life from this world than any creature of flesh and blood. You are older than the ground beneath us, older even than my mother. One without beginning or end. Now the only being in this entire realm that can kill your current form is at your door." He moved to his hands and knees. Clawed, frigid hands grasped at my feet, touching with reverence and desperation. "We cannot linger here. There is a land beyond this one, past the wall of sea beasts that surrounds us. They devour anyone that comes too close, but they will let their queen pass. I am to take you there. It is the one thing my mother has commanded of me, and I must see it through."

"So that was the reason you lived beneath the willow all these years." I said, more to myself than to him. "You were guarding me for your mother?" I looked beyond him to the Serpent weaving through the sky. Her head rested at its noon position just over the horizon line. Her eyes, half closed with drowsiness, looked back at me, staring, watching what I would do. "Did she tell you to seduce me as well?"

Shame filled my stomach like heavy stones. How often had we flirted with one another as we'd grown into our adulthood? How many times had I been so painfully tempted to take his hand and run from my father's protection? Even in this moment on the beach with rage burning me up from within, I recalled all the sinful thoughts and dreams he'd conjured with lies spoken with just the right, sweet tone and a stranger's stolen face. The treacherous thing in my chest still beat faster with want.

I felt a prickling along my skin just before the sound of heavy footsteps and the clatter of plated armor rang in my ears. My visitors, it seemed, had arrived at the house. I heard men shouting and the crack of wood as they kicked in the door.

"We are out of time." Tariel said, climbing to his feet while I was distracted. He lifted his hand towards me beckoningly. "Please, Maris, take my hand. I will beg your forgiveness until Mother destroys this world, but you must let me save you now."

I stared at his outstretched fingers as my heart beat hard against my ribs and an ache bloomed outward from within, searing my bones. "Tariel...where is my father?" My eyes stung with new silvery tears. "Where is Saul?"

If that had really been him that left this morning, then he wouldn't have gotten very far before he would have run into my brother and his men. He would have still been in earshot. He would have returned to me the moment I began to scream, but he hadn't. Tariel had come instead...from the direction of the beach.

That was when I heard my father's scream. I left my traitorous friend there and ran, moving without thought or care of the searing pain shooting up the malformed bones of my leg. I could hear Tariel shouting and running after me, but the injuries I'd given him had made him sluggish. He could not catch me and I stumbled blindly, alone, into the clearing as mages set fire to my home.

One soldier in gleaming silver armor held Saul's head down on the tree stump with his boot and a sword against his neck. He wore a helm over his head that covered most of his face unlike the other numerous soldiers that surrounded the house, save for his eyes. Dark hazel, cruel, eyes that instantly filled with mirth when he looked at me, like a wolf that had found an easy meal. He slammed his fist against the side of my burning house. "We found her." He said in a low voice thick with an eastern accent.

A figure walked out of the burning house, draped in an indigo cloak. His hood hid his face, but light bloomed out around him, keeping the flames at bay. They licked at the bubble of light, fighting to get inside, to eat away at him, but he walked on, paying them no heed until he was once again out of the house. His light dimmed once he was outside, and he reached up with a pale hand to push his hood back down to his shoulders.

The first thing I noticed about him was just how large of a man he was. He towered over the others and even had to duck to get through the doorway of the house. He was tall, but he wasn't thin or frail. Nor was he bulky with muscle like the man holding Saul down. His body was strong and yet he moved and held himself with an elegance I did not think men could possess. When I finally mustered the courage to look him in the face, I found him staring back. Our eyes, the same black with silver centers, met and locked. He had my face, or at least the male equivalent to it. High cheekbones, long nose, and full lips, all covered with a skin so thin and colorless that I could see the cobweb of silver veins beneath it. Though I had never met him before, I instantly had this feeling of recognition...and relief.

The man's lips curved into a soft smile, his entire face warming with a kindness that didn't belong on that of a man intent on murdering me. "I remember you." He said so quietly it didn't seem like the others heard him. Yet his voice boomed in my skull, as easy to hear as my own thoughts.