Inyuin Celestara's Arc

Chapter 3 of 6

The rain caught Inyuin halfway back to the fallen stars. She ran with her spindles wrapped tight against her chest, but the grass turned to mud and the sky went black. A warm glow spilled from a tavern ahead. She had no time to stop, yet her feet were numb and her thread could not get wet. She climbed the porch steps and pushed inside. Heat and noise wrapped around her. A bard shouted a story over a crowd that howled with laughter. Inyuin found a corner and set her spindles down. She could not lose the light. Not now, not one night before the Ball. She pressed her cloak over the bundle and waited for the rain to break. Then the room shifted. A tall half-orc woman ducked through the door, armor still dripping, a red guard's cape pinned at her shoulder. The laughter dropped a notch. People made space for her without being asked. She dropped onto the bench across from Inyuin and set her helmet down hard. "You're bleeding light onto my table," the woman said. She nodded at the spindles. One thread had slipped loose and glowed against the wood. Inyuin snatched it back. "It's starlight. It dies wet. I'm keeping it dry." The guard studied her, not the thread. "Thora Ironheart. East gate of the castle. Six years, nothing breaks through on my watch." She said it flat, like a fact she was tired of proving. "You're not from any old family. I'd know the face." "No," Inyuin said. "I'm not." Something eased in Thora's jaw. "Good. I hate them too." She looked at Inyuin's dress, the small gold stars on her skin, the horns. She did not look away fast, the way most people did. "You're going to the Ball." "If I finish the gown." Thora leaned back. "They kept me at the outer posts six years. My blood, they mean, though nobody says it." She turned her cup slow. "You wear the sky and they still shut the door. Same wall. Different side." Inyuin felt the words land somewhere she had kept closed. For the first time in weeks, someone saw her plan and did not sneer. She wanted to stay. She wanted to hear the rest of this woman's voice, sharp and honest and warm underneath. Then she heard the rain thin against the windows. Her stomach dropped. The fallen stars were lying in open grass, and dawn was coming, and the Ball was tonight. Every heartbeat here was a star someone else might gather first. She stood. "I have to go. There's a constellation in the grass and I'm losing it." Thora watched her gather the spindles. "Nightfang Castle. East gate. Ask for me if the door gives you trouble." A pause. "I mean it." Inyuin nodded and ran back into the rain, her chest tight with two things at once. She had a way into the Ball now. She also had a reason to want to come back alive to something other than the gown. She ran faster, before either could slip away.