Fall From the Moon (A Bánalfar Novel Book 1)

by CS Hale

  “Your first?” I asked. Cadalin nodded. “How exciting,” I said, unsure of what blessings or congratulations to offer. I would have to ask Daria.

  “And what are you working on, my queen?” Laera asked.

  I blushed. “I’m practicing new skills. I’m afraid I’ve spent more time with papers and books than a needle.” A hiss rang in the air as Laera and Vienne inhaled sharply and looked at one another, eyes wide.

  “Did your mother not teach you?” Laera asked.

  “She tried. I was too clumsy then. It wasn’t a skill I needed as much as reading or languages, so I never learned.” The older women turned back to their sewing, eyebrows raised so high that deep furrows appeared on the little space left on their foreheads.

  “Languages?” Niah asked. “Do you speak more than one?”

  “Yes,” I said, thinking of the thousands stored on the chip in my brain. “More than I can count. I have something of a gift for them. I didn’t even speak yours when I first arrived.”

  “Really?” Cadalin’s eyes lit up. “You speak something different on the moon?”

  “It’s very nice to meet you, Cadalin,” I said in English.

  “Mee … tyoo,” Cadalin said. She laughed. “How strange that is on my tongue.”

  “Yes, my tongue often got twisted when learning unfamiliar phrases.” I began to rattle off greetings. “Hajimemashite. Goshorahane. Adjo foramayno.” The younger girls began to giggle. “I spent my days translating and checking protocols.” I held up my sewing. “This is new for me.” My fingers tightened on the frame as another piece of Astrid Carr ripped away. “So many things are new for me. But I’m glad to learn.”

  I bowed my head and blinked, concentrating on the pattern before me, afraid of what they might say next. Or questions they could ask.

  “And we’re glad to have you,” Laera said, though she sounded anything but glad.

  I bit back a sarcastic response to her tone, though I should have said it. The Moon Princess surely would have. But I knew what was behind their behavior, and I feared their asking the questions that I couldn’t answer. What are you going to do about the outsiders? How are you going to save us all?

  So I concentrated on my sewing and held my tongue. It was a relief when Ean knocked on the door and announced that my birds were hatching.

  DARIA FOLLOWED ME down to the aviary and stood off to the side as I took my place on the stool next to the nest. I ran my hands over the eggs as I’d seen Valemar do.

  “Hello, little birds,” I said. “It’s time to hatch.”

  Valemar had sung to them but I knew no songs for birds.

  Like a bird on the wing … The Scottish lullaby my mother had sung to Finn and me rose in my mind. “Onward the sailors cry,” I softly sang, picking up the song. “Carry the lad that’s born to be king.” My fingers followed the rise and fall of the five speckled eggs. “Over to the sea to Skye.”

  The egg under my fingers cracked. I pulled my hand back and watched as the pieces were tossed away by the shake of the chick inside. It squawked. Its head bobbed, searching, and I brought it close.

  “Loud the winds howl, loud the waves roar. Thunder clouds rend the a-air.” Though I sang, my mother’s voice was all I heard. I could almost feel the touch of her arms, folded around me. The chick squawked again, and I gently ran my finger over its naked, unseeing head. “Baffled our foes stand on the shore. Follow they will not dare.”

  My mother had sat in her nursery and held me like this, stroked me like this, softly singing the same tune. Now, she was gone. I was gone. And my only children would be these birds.

  The chick pushed against my finger as I stroked it. Its squawks slowly changed to match the rise and fall of my voice. The adult karawack stopped their thrumming and fell silent, listening.

  I held the chick until the next egg cracked. The chick screeched when I exchanged it for its sibling but soon fell back to chirping with me. I brought the new chick close and continued my song. Over and over I sang the haunting lullaby.

  My body began to move in time with the tempo, to sway back and forth as though I were in a rocking chair. My mother had rocked me like this every night when I was little, curled up in the blue-striped chair, telling me stories of her own once the night’s book had been read.

  But I’d never feel her arms around me again. I’d never have a child of my own to tell stories to, or a soft, downy head to caress.

  My voice caught in my throat. The chick in my hand gave a peeped a question: Why had the music stopped? I laughed, though it too caught in my throat and came out more as a sniffle.

  The next egg cracked. Five. I’d have five downy chicks that would imprint on me. Five chicks that would grow up and follow me anywhere.

  When I’d sung to the last and returned it to the nest, I slipped my hands under my legs, sitting on them, to keep from scooping the newly hatched karawack back up and holding them to my heart. They needed their real mother and her warmth. I pressed my thighs harder against the stool when Ean reached into the nest to retrieve the chicks. They squawked in panic as he lifted them away.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Ean whispered to me as he picked up the last one. He gently stroked the chick. Its frantic peeping tore at my heart. “The birds respond and bond. But with you … five years is the most people get with them. Five years and then they look for a mate. But yours —” He looked up at me with something akin to awe. “Yours may have imprinted for life. Whatever you sang to them created a powerful link.”

  He placed the last one in under its cream-white mother. She met my eyes and bowed her head to me, then silently settled the last chick under her wings. Five heads poked out and searched for me.

  “Tomorrow,” I whispered to them. My throat had grown too tight for any other sound. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Ean walked with me to the door. “What was that song?” he asked.

  “A lullaby my mother sang to me.”

  “Lul-la-by?”

  It wasn’t unusual for me not to know when the chip didn’t translate and my native language emerged. “Songs that mothers sing to their children to calm them. Cradle songs?” I said, trying again.

  “Ah.” Ean’s eyebrows lifted.

  It had been a morning full of babies, and I was now weary from it. “Thank you, Ean. I’ll be by tomorrow to see them.”

  I took Daria’s arm and leaned on her the few steps to the base of the stairs. “Back to my room to rest, I think. And maybe some of the Mödatal’s tea.”

  I sat on the floor at the foot of my bed, my back against the footboard, and cradled a cup of tea in my hands. There was no window seat to nestle in or I would have curled up there instead. Pain flowed from my heart with every beat. I’d lost so much and the little I did have could be taken away at any moment. Even my birds.

  I was the Moon Princess only because of a lie. Laera and Vienne had shown me this morning they didn’t believe it. They would have treated me with respect if they had. Or awe, not that I wanted it. Even Valemar’s acceptance of me was based on that lie. And while he treated me with respect and tenderness, what would he do when the mask of the Moon Princess fell away and he was left with only me?

  I shuddered and let the steaming liquid slip down my throat. I pressed the cup to my chest where it warmed my heart. But brought no relief.

  I gulped the last of the tea and got to my feet. In my wardrobe, I found the red lace veil and covered my head. I needed to confess my sins to the one person who would understand. The person who had gotten me into this mess.

  I walked alone to the Cair. A guard peeled off from the line by the main gate of the High and followed me into the city, but he kept his distance. My veil spoke to my destination and, even covered, my height spoke to my identity.

  Once I passed through the side door of the sanctuary, I turned the veil back and let it drape across my shoulders. I found the door that led to the Mödatal’s rooms and knocked.

  “Enter.”
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  She wasn’t surprised to see me. “My queen.” She gestured to the chair in front of her. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  But she knew. The look in her eyes and the smile on her face said she knew.

  “I’m not who you think I am.”

  She laughed. “We’ve been through this before.”

  “I am not the Moon Princess.”

  “Did you fall from the sky?” Her eyes flashed with the challenge. “Are you the daughter of kings?”

  I ground my teeth and answered. “Yes, I fell from the sky. But you can hardly call me ‘the daughter of kings.’ They lived and died nearly two thousand years ago.”

  “But you are a daughter, and they were your ancestors.” Her eyes danced with glee. “Blood will tell.”

  I shivered. On Earth, we have the same saying. “That doesn’t help me now! I’m no princess and they want a princess.”

  The Mödatal shrugged. “They expected a princess.”

  Every comment I’d held back, every sideways look and snide remark that I’d endured, found its voice as I shouted at the seer. “I’m not what they expected!”

  “No. You’re not,” she said simply. “And this is not the life you expected.” She let the words sink in. “The place you expected … Can you change that?”

  “No,” I whispered.

  “So, you must change your expectations.”

  “But it’s a lie. It’s only a matter of time before they discover I’m a fraud.” I sank back into my chair as the word echoed in the room.

  The Mödatal sighed heavily, the sigh of a mother explaining something to a child for the hundredth time. “Did you fall from the sky?”

  “Yes, but —”

  “Are you descended from warrior kings?”

  “Yes, but —”

  “Then you are the Moon Princess, the fulfillment of the prophecy.”

  “I can’t save anyone!” I wailed, drowning out her other words.

  The Mödatal clenched her jaw. Anger lit up her deep blue eyes before she closed them and inhaled deeply. The hairs on my arms lifted as the energy in the room changed. “You could not save the others. But their job was to bring you here. You gave them a proper funeral.”

  Her lids opened. Nothing but white showed in the sockets before her eyes rolled back into place. She stared hard at me for a moment. “You are right. There are too many expectations on you.” My jaw dropped. Now she was agreeing with me?

  The Mödatal set her cup down, uncurled her legs, and walked over to the fire. “What do you want to do about it?” she asked, staring into the flames, her back to me.

  “I —” But the words faded in my throat. Confess to Valemar? Not if I wanted to live.

  I pressed the scar on my index finger, a butterfly of flesh and skin, red and flayed and still healing.

  I had sought life when I’d hidden in my cabin after plasma flooded the ship. I could have gone out and tried to help. And died. But I’d stayed put. Out of the way. Safe.

  I’d sought life when I broke the rules and took the escape pod. I’d sought life when I accepted Valemar’s offer of safety.

  I looked at the Mödatal, the light dancing across her red hair, causing it to glow like the embers in the grate. I’d keep my mouth shut to keep my life. And she knew it.

  “You think you have me all figured out,” I said, my voice hoarse with anger.

  “I know you better than you know yourself.” Her chin lifted as she continued to stare into the flickering flames. “It’s what scares you. It’s why you fear me.”

  “You’re so certain of my future.”

  Her gaze moved from the fire to me. “Pieces. I see pieces.”

  “And you’re willing to trust pieces?”

  Her laugh echoed in the room. “That is the definition of faith. The assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

  I’d heard that somewhere before but couldn’t put my finger on it.

  The Mödatal turned from the fire. “What do you put your faith in, Astrid?”

  I tried to wet my tongue to answer. “That life has a purpose.”

  She smiled at my answer. “And what is your purpose?”

  She’d backed me into a corner, backed me into the place where I had to face the voice that whispered, This all happened for a reason. She stayed silent, letting that whisper work its way into my head. Then she spoke again, as if she knew my heart wasn’t yet ready to hear it.

  “They expected someone like them. They expected a rescuer who’d drive back the Cordair. You have no army …” She paused. “And you look too much like the Cordair.” I gritted my teeth, tired of hearing it. “Would you abandon them?”

  “No.” I’d abandoned enough already.

  “You do not yet know who or what you are. You dropped — literally — into something beyond your imagining. Give yourself time. Give them time. Have faith that all will turn out right.”

  I walked back to the High glad for the veil, for it blocked the world from me. I’d stripped away the mask, bared myself to the Mödatal, and it hadn’t fazed her. I couldn’t bear to put the mask back on, and so it was me who walked under the veil — Astrid Gabriella Carr. Not the Moon Princess. Not the Queen of Bánalfar. And no one knew because of my shroud.

  I didn’t go down to dinner. I sent Daria with my regrets and hid away in my room.

  Valemar came up as he did every evening. This time cautiously, peering around the door he never bothered to knock. “They said you were ill.”

  I went to him and put my arms around him. Listened to his strong, steady heartbeat under my ear. His arms came around me and he held me close.

  What had I imagined when I’d fallen from the sky? Not this — that I would find comfort in the arms of a king.

  Valemar stroked my hair and placed his lips on my head. “What is wrong, Astrid?” he murmured. When I didn’t answer, he lifted my chin.

  It was not the Moon Princess who looked into his eyes. Or even Protocol Specialist Carr. It was broken and bruised Astrid who had no idea in hell what she was supposed to do.

  Valemar simply held my gaze and brushed the hair from my face, unafraid of what he saw.

  What would I have wanted when I’d fallen from the sky?

  This. Someone to hold me and comfort. Protect me.

  I reached a hand up and stroked Valemar’s face, then pulled his lips down to mine.

  I SANG CHILDREN’S songs to my karawack the next morning, not lullabies. Songs I remembered from school: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star; On Top of Spaghetti; and How Many Toes Does a Thorian Have? One by one I lifted the chicks from underneath the cream-colored mother, cradled them in my hand, and sang complete nonsense, comforted by the fact that Ean and the others didn’t speak English and therefore wouldn’t be alarmed by my loss of the meatball or its disturbing journey. Or by the fact that you could tell a Thorian’s age by counting his or her toes. I spent half an hour being thoroughly and utterly me.

  I ran my hand down the cream-white mama after I’d put the last chick back. She stretched, pushing herself against my hand as I stroked her.

  “Sari may become yours, too,” Ean said from behind me as I closed the door to the cage. “I don’t know that such a thing has happened before. Not with an adult bird.”

  I clicked the latch into place. “Whose was she?”

  “Adan’s.” Ean caught my puzzled look. “He was the steward at Snow Reach, Bánalfar’s southernmost stronghold.” Ean clucked to the mother bird. “We never did find out what killed him, but Sari here cried as soon as he died.”

  “They know when a person dies?”

  “Aye. It’s the bond that connects them to their person that allows the karawack to find them anywhere. When their person dies, a karawack shrieks from the loss of that bond.”

  I looked at the five small heads poking out from beneath Sari’s feathers. How far would the bond reach? As far as Earth? If we had karawack on Earth, would my family know I was still alive? I s
uspected they wouldn’t know what to think. I was alive, but where was I?

  I had every reason to believe that none of the messages from the Palmas Cove had gotten through. I suspected the Hormani had blocked them. The Cove would have just vanished into the blackness of space. No message of our being in the Teridun system. No message of my supposed journey to the sun.

  No Shororato to come looking.

  I laid my hand on Ean’s arm. “Thank you. I’ll be down again tomorrow.”

  I’d thought about children the night before as I lay in Valemar’s arms after our lovemaking. At some point, he’d begin to wonder. At some point, I’d need to explain genetics to him and how it was basically impossible for us to conceive. Humans and chimpanzees share about ninety-five percent of the same genes, but we can’t crossbreed. Within the galaxy, there are species that can but it’s rare. And frequently their children are infertile, as with mules on Earth.

  Which would be harder to face — an empty cradle or no grandchildren? Either would mean the loss of Valemar’s bloodline for he was the only child of an only child. I hadn’t been able yet to ask Padrid about it. What would they do if Valemar had no heir? What would Valemar do to me when I told him?

  I’d listened to Valemar’s heart beat and envied Cadalin and her swelling belly. New life. Something creatures everywhere craved.

  I determined at that moment to help Cadalin, if she’d let me. Sew clothes or provide resources. Anything. The karawack would be my only children, but I could help the Alfari welcome a new life.

  And so, with that resolve, Daria and I made our way to the solar once I’d sung to the chicks. There was still the bodice of barat leaves to work on if Cadalin turned me down. Or if Laera and Vienne blocked my attempt. They’d been trying to freeze me out with their icy demeanor but it wasn’t going to work today. I was the queen. They were my subjects. And Astrid Carbrev, Queen of the Alfari, planned to be useful.

  They shared a glance when we entered. Laera and Vienne vacated the best seats by the window for us, eyes downcast as they took their new seats.