Fall From the Moon (A Bánalfar Novel Book 1)

by CS Hale

  “Why do you think that?”

  I hadn’t been able to tell Valemar, but something about the way Daria held me and protected me allowed me to whisper, “Because they’re all dead.”

  “Who’s dead, my Astrid?” Her hand continued its soothing strokes.

  “The people I was traveling with.”

  “All of them?” Her voice was gentle but I could hear the horror in it. I nodded. “I see.” Moments ticked by in silence before she spoke again. “Well, that would make you a survivor.”

  “I hid,” I whispered. “The plasma leaked and they tried to stop it and I sat in my room and hid.”

  Daria absorbed the information for a moment. “Was it your job?” she asked. “To help them?”

  “No.”

  “What was your job?”

  To do what I had been doing, to study the files. As my mind lingered on the now useless details of that file, Daria continued. “If it wasn’t your job, how could it be your fault?”

  But it was. It had to be. My place had been to join them on the journey to the sun, and I had cheated. I had cheated, broken the rules, and then lied. I had cheated Valemar and all of Bánalfar.

  “I deserve to die,” I whispered.

  “Hush. No one deserves to die, least of all you.”

  “But I lied. Valemar’s right, I lied. I’m not the Moon Princess.”

  Daria’s hand stilled again. “Who are you then?”

  “Protocol Specialist Astrid Carr. An outlaw.”

  I heard Daria swallow. “What makes you an outlaw?”

  “I’m not supposed to be here.”

  “Here, in Bánalfar?” she asked.

  “Here, on this planet. It is forbidden.”

  “Then why did you come?”

  “I didn’t want to die.”

  Daria laughed lightly. “That’s understandable. None of us wants to die. So, being here makes you an outlaw?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  Daria laughed and began to stroke me again. “Oh, my queen. You are here because you are supposed to be. If that makes you an outlaw … well, then I’m glad I serve an outlaw.”

  She didn’t understand. She didn’t understand at all. But I let her pet me until I fell asleep.

  I roused briefly at the sensation of strong arms lifting me up and placing me in bed. The covers were drawn over me. I kept my eyes closed and ignored the grumbling hunger that churned in my belly. I wanted no food. I wanted no company. This bed would be empty of the one thing I now found important, and no food could fill that void.

  When my eyes opened in the morning, I added a new rule to my list, the list I’d neglected to follow or even think about for weeks:

  Rule thirty-seven — Don’t fall in love.

  I allowed Daria to dress me, picked at the bread and cheese offered for breakfast but didn’t eat it, ignored the fruit, drank water instead of wine. I longed to dull the ache that had settled into my body and every corner of my soul, but I deserved the pain. When the others had eaten, I had Keyan help lift me into my saddle. I was too weak to pull myself up.

  I saw Daria and the Mödatal exchange a glance, but they said nothing to me, only clucked to their mounts and followed the lead rider out onto the Eastern Road.

  Another day in the saddle. Another inn. Again, I picked at the food Daria brought me in my room and refused the wine.

  “You’ll lose your strength,” Daria said. “Lose your strength and fall from the saddle.”

  “I don’t care.”

  Daria took my hands. “Yes, you do. You care so much that it’s paralyzing you.” She sat down on the bed and put an arm around me. “You love so much that you’re lost without them. All of them.” I blinked as tears welled in my eyes. “You chose to come here, to break the rules and come here. The reason for that may be hidden from you right now, but I don’t believe for a moment that it was selfishness. You’re going to have to trust — trust me, trust the Mödatal. And trust that Valemar’s anger will wane and he’ll forgive you.” She sucked in an irritated breath. “He was looking for the Moon Princess and he found you. Right where he was told to look.”

  “But I’m not her! I’m not her, and I should have told him that.”

  Daria squeezed my hand and bent her head until she could peer into my downcast eyes. “What did I say about trust? You don’t know why you’re here. And things played out the way they did for a reason.” She patted my hand and bit back a smile. “There are worse places than Vanerife to be exiled to.”

  I moaned. She was right. I was being sent into exile.

  “Sun. Sea. Unlimited lian tarts.” Daria rubbed my shoulder. “Just get yourself there. Which will be hard to do if you’re falling out of the saddle.” She handed me my plate.

  I took it from her and set it in my lap. “You don’t care?” I asked. “You don’t care that I’m not the Moon Princess?”

  Her eyes closed and I saw her give the smallest shake of her head. “You are my Astrid, and that is enough.”

  Just who was I? The question played in my head until I fell asleep. In my dreams, I wandered through the grove at Gladama, never reaching the glade, following a voice that sounded like my own but I could never catch up to.

  When my eyes opened, I realized I’d been trying to find Protocol Specialist Carr. I’d lost her somewhere along the way and had become merely Astrid. At this point, I didn’t know what about her — Astrid — was real and what was a lie. As much as I wanted to fade away, it wouldn’t solve any of my problems. It was time to wade through the lies and figure out how to go on.

  I was the sole survivor. Truth. I was an outlaw. Truth. I was the daughter-in-law of my future host. Truth. Welcome or unwelcome? I’d have to ask Daria. I knew little about Valemar’s mother other than her name was Reina and she was from Capalnoc, the country to the west on the Aelon Sea. But based on the fact that Valemar’s father had decided to share the steppe with the Cordair, my guess was that the son took after the mother. The answer to the question was probably, Unwelcome.

  What would Protocol Specialist Carr have done about that? Current Astrid was terrified by the prospect of showing up in disgrace. I mentally ran through my list of rules.

  Collect allies. Probably my best bet, though breaking rule number eighteen — Never drink wine with a Yüzü diplomat — sounded good about now. I already had an ally in Daria. The Mödatal probably counted as another, but I viewed her more as an adversary than an asset. Without her ridiculous assertions, I would have never married, and would have had a much easier job blending into life on Teridun … Crenfor … when I arrived.

  Always know whom you’re dealing with. That was my next step. Since Daria had been a member of Reina’s household until Valemar came south in search of the Moon Princess, she could help me. But I’d wait until we’d boarded the royal barge two days from now. We wouldn’t have much privacy on the barge, but more than we currently did — out in the open, mere feet away from six other riders.

  I ate my breakfast, had Keyan lift me onto Loenir, and continued down the road with more resolve than I’d had the previous days. My goal when I’d left the Palmas Cove had been to survive. Today, I would work at stripping away the lies, find me, and figure out what to do next. It would be PS Carr who met Reina, not Valemar’s disgraced wife.

  I pushed away my heartache at the thought of Valemar. I needed to look forward, not back. That was one advantage of having been sent away — I didn’t have to see the disappointment, or hate, on his face day after day.

  Daria and Shale began to relax as I started to eat again. Shale kept her distance, usually riding alongside and chatting with the rear guard, but the air of mystery around her gradually waned. We’d ridden together from Aedenfal to Torfin, and Torfin to Gladama, but I’d never spent much time in her presence. Shale — the seer and priestess, the Mödatal — began to evolve into Shale, the woman. I still didn’t trust her. She had her own agenda, her own plans for me. Valemar had stopped listening to her. I wondered what
Reina would make of her.

  We boarded the Ruthion, the royal barge, four days after we’d set out from Gladama. I had Daria move her things in with mine. There was room for her to have her own cabin, but I didn’t want to be alone. And my cabin offered more privacy for whispered conversations.

  On deck, we sat on cushions laid out under the large striped awning and watched the ropes being untied and tossed aboard, the men running back and forth. Oars pushed us away from the pier and then took up a steady rhythm, speeding us downstream faster than the current itself.

  “Moon children?” I asked Daria with a nod toward the oars.

  “Yes.”

  “They used slaves on my planet.” Daria’s eyes widened. “They still do some places.”

  “Planet?” she repeated, and I remembered it was Valemar I’d confessed to.

  I glanced at the men, making sure their minds and their ears were focused on their tasks. “I’m not from the moon,” I whispered.

  Confusion clouded Daria’s face. “But the —”

  “Prophecy? It’s not about me.”

  Shale appeared, as if summoned, from around back of the state house. “Where did you fall from?” A look of triumph filled her face. “A satellite?”

  If I had not already been sitting, I would have dropped to the floor. The Palmas Cove had been a satellite around Teridun Four for nearly two weeks. A man-made moon.

  “The Çölka keep slaves,” Shale said. “Taluendi whispers on their desert winds. Father Sea is lost to the sands and Mother Moon bleached by the sun. They’ve lost the dance of life and stand on death instead.” She leaned against an awning post. “These are free men and volunteer their service.”

  I glanced around me. I was the only marriage-born person on the ship.

  “It’s a matter of pride,” Daria said. “Being chosen for the royal barge. They love to race.” A dreamy look entered her eyes. “Especially in Vanerife. All the men lined up, rowing.”

  “Shirtless,” Shale said with a smirk.

  I held back one of my own. “I see.” Daria smiled at me. She could eventually marry, as long as her mate wasn’t clergy or active military. Soldiers could only marry once they’d retired from service, when their reflexes had slowed and their eyesight grown weak. I wanted that for her — a husband, children she could keep. She’d make a wonderful mother.

  We watched the men work, watched the countryside slip by, fields of pilva soon ready for harvest.

  Valemar wouldn’t be too far behind me on the road. Returning to Torfin to observe the harvest. Make the King’s Wine. There’d be no Queen’s Wine, I realized with regret. One thing I could have actually done for these people — gone.

  “This year,” Shale said, as if she could hear my thoughts. She looked over her shoulder and met my eyes. Hers were filled with certainty.

  I would have asked her what she knew, how she could be so certain. But Daria was there, so I just turned my attention to the landscape moving swiftly by us. The rowers on the deck below us broke out in a song:

  “Oh, my love’s hair is a red cascade

  As bright as the moon.

  So pull on lads, pull on boys

  Get me to her soon.”

  “Blood Moon tonight,” Shale said. My heart swooped and banged against my chest before it shot up to my throat. Its pulse throbbed in my neck. “Poor lads,” she said. “It will be the draught for them tonight.” The glint in her eye told me she wouldn’t be taking it. I wondered if she had someone picked out. Keyan, maybe?

  Daria blushed. She, too, must have someone in mind. I would have gladly gotten drunk and spent the evening in oblivion if I hadn’t needed to make sure I slept alone. My bed would be empty.

  I wasn’t so sure that Valemar’s would be the same.

  We didn’t stop in Lendurig, the great town that sprawled near the convergence of the Dunna and Leisna rivers, deep within the flat plains and rolling hills of the Red Valley — so named for the amber-red grain that was grown there. I sat under the awning and studied the curved roofs of the buildings. People came out and waved as we glided by, in increasing groups as word spread that the royal barge was passing. Here, at least, I was welcome.

  We were now three days out from Vanerife. I tried to think of how far we’d come. Five days on the road at about forty miles a day. Two and a half days by river at about sixty miles a day since we traveled day and night. Vanerife was probably six hundred miles from Gladama. The karawack from Valemar to his mother would have already arrived.

  “What is Reina going to think of me?” I asked Daria that night.

  Daria hung up the dress I’d worn that day. She moved slowly, deliberately.

  “She’s very astute. She wants the truth spoken at all times, no games.” Daria turned. “Though, should you play them, she will outplay you. Tell her the truth, all of it. Don’t give her your interpretation unless she asks for it.” Daria picked up the hairbrush and began to brush my hair. “They say the Capalnoc people are much like their darana — proud and fiery. I can’t say for I’ve only ever met Reina and her brother, Rákal.” Her hand lingered on my head. The pressure of it was like an embrace. “Valemar is much like his mother.”

  “I am an unwanted wife who can bear my husband no children.”

  “What?” Daria bent around me to look in my eyes. Hers were large. “But the prophecy!”

  “What about the prophecy?”

  Daria swallowed and returned to her task, her face now out of sight behind me. “I asked Shale about it, after I couldn’t remember it that time. She —” Daria stopped, but the brushstrokes continued.

  “She …” I prompted.

  “She was hesitant to recite it to me, and it didn’t sound right when she did.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “I’m not sure. The ending didn’t sound right. The last line was, And she shall save us all.”

  The line that Valemar had quoted. I closed my eyes. The one he’d spoken over Shale and received the strange look when she’d recited the prophecy to me. “Did she change it? Did you ask her about it?”

  “She did. When I said I remembered something about life being the last line.”

  I gripped my hands in my lap. “What was it?”

  “And create new life for all.”

  Of course. Valemar had interpreted it as creating a child. “If I remember correctly, the Moon Princess is supposed to drive away the outsiders. That would create new life for those in Bánalfar.”

  “That’s true.”

  I relaxed into Daria’s ministrations though I could tell her thoughts were churning. The brush strokes stopped. “But that’s not how Valemar interpreted it, is it? And you told him.”

  “The last of his line,” I whispered.

  We both remained motionless for several heartbeats. The huge finality of that statement and all its implications hung in the air like a death sentence. For it was a death. The death of a dynasty.

  Daria’s hands shook when they began again.

  “So you see why I’m wondering about my reception,” I said.

  “You’re sure?” Daria asked. “That you can’t have children?”

  “I’m not from this world. Valemar and I are as different as an anapali and a darana.”

  “Where are you from? You keep saying you can’t be the Moon Princess.”

  “From beyond the farthest stars.”

  The brush clattered to the floor. “Truly?”

  “Truly.” I laughed. “That was not spoken of in your prophecies.”

  Daria knelt down to retrieve the brush. Her eyes were wide with fear when she looked up. “The outsiders. The ones trading with the Cordair. They’re from beyond the stars, too. Aren’t they?”

  I instantly regretted confiding in Daria. The Shororato hid information about the developed galaxy from unprepared worlds to stop this kind of panic from occurring. I dropped to my knees beside her and took Daria’s shoulders. “Yes, but you can’t tell anyone. There’s a reason contact w
ith your planet it forbidden. You’re not ready. There’s so much I could tell you, but it would only frighten you. And if the —” I broke off. There was no reason to go there. No one would know. I changed course. “If you looked at me in fear, I don’t think I could bear it.”

  “I’m not afraid of you!” Daria placed her hands on my arms. “But … but if they arm the Cordair. If they can travel here …”

  I nodded. “I know. But I don’t think they will risk it. The ore they are trading for is tremendously valuable. Leaving a mark on a planet, evidence that they were here is a risk. Places like this do get checked on from time to time.”

  My words didn’t relieve her. “But you’re not supposed to be here, either!”

  “There’s no one to know,” I reassured her. I bit my lip when her expression didn’t change. “There’s no evidence,” I whispered, forcing my mouth to form the word, forcing the breath to leave my lungs. “I … sent them into the sun.”

  Daria’s eyes widened. “Oh, my poor queen!” She drew me to her. For a moment I relaxed into her embrace. Then her arms tightened. “But your ship? The one you came here in.”

  “It’s okay,” I told her, whispered into her ear. “No one knows I’m here.”

  We knelt there on the floor, holding each other. I rested my head on her shoulder and returned to my original question. “So you see, I can’t tell Reina the truth, not all of it. Valemar doesn’t even know as much as you.” Maybe he did. I could no longer remember how much I’d revealed during that fateful conversation.

  Daria began to stroke my back. “I wouldn’t tell her all of it. She’s going to think you came from the moon. Who would —” I felt her shake her head. “There’s no need to tell her otherwise. But don’t tell her you’re not the Moon Princess.” Daria fell silent. Her hand continued in rhythmic, absent minded fashion as she wrestled with this new reality. “We don’t know,” she said when she spoke again. “We don’t know what’s meant to be.”

  VANERIFE… THE GOLDEN City. I actually “oohed” when we came around a bend in the river and I caught my first glimpse of the beige-gold buildings sparkling under the ever-present sun. The glittering spectacle was made possible by tiny flecks of mica within the local stone. The roofs of the Low had been tiled in sheets of mica to better to reflect the sun and help keep them cool. But my eye was drawn to Vanerife High. Perched on a hill, it loomed above them, a white, marble giant among the more common golden stone.