Fall From the Moon (A Bánalfar Novel Book 1)

by CS Hale

  “How will you keep the boy from talking?” Children, in my experience, had a hard time keeping secrets. I looked at Valemar’s face and lurched to my feet, barely making it to a corner before my stomach emptied. Valemar held my hair as I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand and moved away from the smell.

  “You killed the rest of his family, too, I suppose.”

  “Astrid, can you imagine if anyone else found out about this? No one would be safe. The Cordair, the Hormani … they wouldn’t need poison. They’d just creep in at night and slit all our throats.”

  “That’s why the Shororato have made cloaking illegal.” I sank into my chair. I wished I had a handkerchief or something to breathe through to filter the sour smell that followed me.

  “We only use it for reconnaissance. Nothing else. Nothing that could give away the secret.” And then he said the thing I’d been afraid he’d say ever since I realized what was going on in that room. “This is what will allow you to sneak aboard the Hormani ship.” And then, even though I covered my mouth, I threw up in my lap.

  Iree cleaned me up, bathed me, and tucked me in bed where I sat, leaning against the headboard. She left me with a basin and departed. Valemar climbed up next to me. I hugged the bowl tighter to my chest. He brushed the hair from my face and ignored the angry tears rolled down and dripped into the basin. I understood why he’d had the family killed. I understood, but it didn’t make it right.

  Lethal. That had been my first impression of him. I’d forgotten that in the intervening months since Glábac, but it was true.

  “If you know where the ship is, why did you send Alill out cloaked?”

  “Cloaked. Hmm. Interesting description.”

  I ignored the sweat that broke out on my brow and concentrated on keeping what little was left of my stomach contents. “Earth had legends of cloaks of invisibility. You throw a cloak over something to hide it.” I closed my eyes and swallowed.

  Valemar took a cloth and wiped my brow. “We know where it is. We’re watching their movements. It’s difficult since the cloaking effect lasts less than a day. By morning, Alill will be completely visible again and very thirsty. Any dilution of the blood, any food or water, and the effect goes away. If the heichdar have a predator, that keeps them from becoming invisible as well.”

  “And I’m going to have to do this,” I said.

  “Not have to, Astrid. I would think you’d want to. This will allow you to call the Shororato. This will allow you to save us all.”

  “I need to think about it,” I said to Valemar. My eyes stung. I handed him the basin and laid down, turning my back on him.

  I faked sleep. Eventually Valemar got up from the bed and left me alone. It was all coming crashing down on me, and I didn’t want to go there.

  My eyes flew open. I’d had the same thought months ago when I’d stared out the window at the planet that was then Teridun Four to me. I hadn’t wanted to come. I hadn’t wanted to change. Back then, I hadn’t wanted to change me. Now, I didn’t want to change everything.

  Really? a small voice in the back of my mind asked. Are sure that it’s not you that you don’t want to change?

  We were both right. It was my everything that I didn’t want to change.

  MY STOMACH STILL churned in the morning, but I’d begun to come to grips with what I needed to do. I looked at Valemar’s arm draped over me, at the circle of barat leaves that wrapped around his forearm, and came to a decision that would prove to myself that I could do anything and, like the cut on my finger, give me something that would stay with me always.

  I brought his arm to my lips and kissed the tattoo. Valemar groaned as he awakened.

  “Good morning,” he said and kissed my ear.

  “Good morning.” I ran my fingers along the barat leaves. “This tattoo is a sign of protection, if I remember correctly.”

  “It is.”

  I rolled over and traced the chain along his chest. “Was it painful?”

  “Very,” Valemar answered. “Why?”

  I laced my fingers through his and raised his arm. “Because I want these. The arm ones.” Valemar sucked in a breath. “If I am going to do this, if I am going to walk into the enemy camp and change your whole world, then I want Bánalfar’s protection to go with me.”

  I looked at Valemar’s horrified face and kissed him. “Don’t worry. I’m not asking for the one that goes around my neck and chest. As much as I would like to protect my heart, I’ll settle for quick, sure hands.”

  “Why?” A mask of confusion contorted his features. “Why would you want to put yourself through that kind of pain?”

  I looked down. My hair fell, hiding my face. “You’ve been training me as a warrior. I would like to be marked as one.”

  “Is it really that important to you?” Valemar brushed back the curtain of hair and tucked it behind my ear.

  “It is,” I said, keeping my eyes averted.

  Valemar ran his fingers through my hair and slowly inhaled. “I suppose you’d want to do it as soon as possible.”

  My head snapped up. “Yes, please.” My fingers traced the leaves on his chest. “I’m sure it won’t be many more days before —” The word caught in my throat. “Before you know the Hormani schedule, before you send me out. I should have as much time as possible for them to heal.”

  Valemar stroked my face. “I do not think you a coward, you know.”

  “I know,” I whispered. “But I am. I want the barat leaves so they may provide me with strength.” I would need every bit I could find to actually do this.

  “Very well.” Valemar rolled us over. “Then I want your arms around me while they can still grasp something.”

  I blinked and smiled up at him. “That I can do.”

  ###

  I had one more request that angered him so much, I feared he would change his mind. “I think I should have both arms done at the same time. Two artists working at once.”

  “What!” he roared and jumped up from the bench where he’d been pulling on his boots.

  “If it’s as painful as you said, I can get them done in half the time. Twice the pain but shorter session. Or is there only one guy who does them?”

  Valemar closed his eyes and muttered something. Then he sat down, pulled on his other boot, and stood again. “I’ll check.” Valemar opened his mouth, closed it, and then left the room without giving me a kiss.

  Iree dressed me in a short sleeved tunic and pants. She kept my hair simple, just caught it with a tie at the nape of my neck. No braid to press against my head while I laid and got my arms tattooed. I spent the next couple of hours distracting myself with a book on the raising and care of darana.

  Valemar arrived well before lunch with a plate of food and a large glass of fruit juice. “You’re sure you still want to do this?”

  I slipped a bookmark into place. “Yes.”

  “Then you’ll need to eat. It will take several hours, even with two artists working on you.”

  “No wine?” I asked, taking a seat at the table.

  “You’ll bleed more if you have alcohol.”

  “Okay, then.” I hoisted up a smile. “Fruit juice it is.”

  Valemar didn’t join me in the meal. He sat and silently waited while I ate. And I pretended that things were fine. I had to. If I told him the real reason I wanted the tattoos, he’d stop me. He’d stop so many of the things that I needed to do that I paid the price of his silent disapproval.

  When I finally wiped my mouth on the napkin, he rose. “You’re still sure?”

  “Still sure,” I said, not meeting his gaze.

  “Very well, then. Follow me.”

  We went up a floor to a room that overlooked the river. Large windows filled the space with light. A rectangular table had been spread with blankets. Two smaller tables had been set against it at right angles, forming a large cross. Two men were organizing supplies on a small table near the top.

  “My queen,” the older of the two
men said and inclined his head. He gestured for me to take a seat on the table.

  “May I?” the younger asked, motioning to my arm. I sat and extended it to him. “Her arms are so small,” he said to the older man. “Can we get three on here?”

  I held the other one out to the older artist. He turned it back and forth, looked from my inner arm to my outer and back again, measured a distance on it using his index finger and thumb. “Just two would be silly.” He picked up a thin black crayon made from tallow and began sketching a good six inches up from my wrist. The younger man watched the pattern evolve.

  Valemar stood near the table, arms crossed, as the two artists created a template first on my left arm and then a matching one on my right.

  “Do you want us to start on the outside of your arm or the inside, my queen?” the older asked when he and his partner were satisfied with the pattern.

  “Does it matter?” I asked.

  “Inside will hurt more,” the younger said.

  “What does it feel like?” I asked.

  He held up one of the tools. Rows of needles had been wrapped around the end of a stick. It looked more like a prickly knife edge than anything else. “Ever get a needle scratch?” he asked.

  “Yep,” I said, thinking of all the times I’d poked myself with the needle while sewing with Daria.

  “It won’t hurt as bad as poking your finger. Not as many nerve endings and we won’t be going that deep. But it is going to hurt. More like a burn.”

  I’d burned the tops of my feet in Vanerife my first day out by the Aelon Sea, and the pain had stayed with me for days. This wasn’t going to be fun. But then I needed it not to be. I needed to prove to myself that I could do the painful things. “Let’s start with the inner arm.”

  They had me lay down on my back. I placed one arm on the adjoining table and then stretched out the second. It was then that the idiocy of doing both arms at once became apparent. Open, exposed, no arm to curl protectively over my chest or drape across my eyes. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and tried not to flinch when the tool began to cut into my skin. Valemar would suffer soon enough. He didn’t need to be tortured, watching me wrestle with the pain.

  My arms tensed, straining to fight off the needles. The artists tightened their grip. Then, after a few minutes, after poke after poke after poke, my body began to relax. The pain was still there. The burn was still there. But my body didn’t fight it anymore, accepted this as the new normal, and it gave me hope.

  I don’t know how long they worked before they had me flip onto my stomach. Each artist now had the opposite arm than they’d started with. The back of my arms was less painful than the inner had been. I drifted. The movement of the needles became like a painful metronome — tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Then the outline was finished and a whole new pain began.

  I’d been able to trace the outline of the barat leaves, follow the curve as the tattoo knife worked, but now it traveled over entire sections of my skin. I was glad I was still lying on my stomach, the blankets pressing into my heart. I set my jaw as the knife punched away, burning the leaves onto me. The sensation was a reminder that if I didn’t succeed, if I failed in my quest, it wouldn’t just be my arms that burned. It would be the barat trees.

  A hand gently touched my shoulder. “Time to turn over, my queen.”

  There was respect in the eyes of both the young artist and the old when I sat up and turned over. Valemar still stood by the head of my table, but I didn’t look at him. I laid down, offered up my inner arms, and closed my eyes. Valemar gasped through his nose when I winced.

  “You don’t have to stay, you know,” I said to him.

  “Yes, I do.” he retorted, his voice choked. “I promised to shelter you.”

  I gave a small laugh. “You are. You are providing me with the protection of the barat trees.”

  His hand hesitantly touched my head. “If this is too much …” And I knew he didn’t mean the needles.

  It was distracting, an extra thing for my brain to process, but I merely swallowed. “I’ll let you know if you need to move it.”

  Valemar drew up a stool and sat behind me. I seared the moment into my memory — my husband’s hand on my head in blessing while the protection of Bánalfar was being driven into my skin. No matter what came later, I would be at peace.

  Again, I drifted, letting the pain wash over me. But unlike all the pain I’d suffered since I’d arrived in the Teridun system, this pain was welcome. Much as a mother must suffer with labor pains. It was fitting. This was the birth of a new Astrid — an Astrid who was willing to be the Moon Princess.

  “We’re done, my queen.”

  The voice lifted me from the fog I’d been floating in. Cream of some kind was rubbed into my arms. “Do you want to look before we wrap them?”

  I nodded and sat up. My bands were not as spectacular as Valemar’s. Just one barat leaf was visible at a time, with the top of one leaf and the tail of another framing the one. Still …

  “They’re beautiful. Thank you,” I said. The young artist smiled and wound a cloth around the one on his side.

  The older artist tied off his bandage and handed a pot of salve to Valemar. “You know how this works,” he said to Valemar who nodded. The artist then turned to me. “The bandages come off later today. They’re only there to absorb the weeping. Scabs may form. Don’t pick at them. Your tattoos should be completely healed in seven days. Until then, mind what they come into contact with so they don’t get infected.”

  “Thank you,” I said again. Valemar took my hand and helped me from the table.

  The artists began cleaning their things up and putting them away. “The honor was all ours,” the older one said with a smile.

  Valemar led me to one of the smaller rooms he used as a dining room, not far from the place I’d been tattooed. Lunch, or a meal at any rate, had been left for us. “You can have that wine now,” Valemar said. “Do you need anything for the pain?”

  My arms burned, but I shook my head. “Wine should be fine.” My stomach protested at the sight of the food. I’d spent too long processing the pain.

  I accepted a glass from Valemar who handed it to me with a frown and sat down. He had no trouble pulling over a plate and digging in. Just the smell was enough to turn my stomach.

  I sipped on the wine. “If that’s what you’re like when I get tattooed, what are you going to be like when I actually go out?” I asked.

  Valemar shot me a single glance before returning his focus to his food. A scowl twisted his features. “I’ll be sitting in a room with a karawack by my side.”

  I arched my eyebrows. “Won’t that give away the fact that I’m gone and you’re worried about me?” Valemar’s chewing slowed but he didn’t raise his eyes from his plate. “Everyone knows I’ve been training. That hasn’t been kept a secret.”

  “Then I’ll have the bird brought up now,” he said. “And we’ll start sending you out with Erris for longer periods of time.” Valemar raised his eyes and they were filled with fear. “I knew something had happened — well, we knew — in Vanerife, when Daria died. Your birds went crazy. We knew you hadn’t died, but that some kind of trauma had occurred.” Valemar set his fork down. “It was agony, waiting for the karawack from my mother.”

  “I’m sure I’d do the same thing if you were out on campaign,” I said.

  Valemar reached out and cupped my face with his hand. “In all my training, I never thought what it must be like to be the one left behind.”

  I smiled. “It took men on Earth a long time to get used to dealing with that. They find it easier to do the leaving. Women often get viewed as the weaker sex, but look at what we go through. And childbirth.” A sad look crossed Valemar’s face. “I’m sorry, my love,” I said.

  Cadalin was due any day. It wouldn’t be long before the High was filled with the sounds of crying.

  “It’s not your fault,” he said. “I was the one who interpreted ‘new life’ t
o mean a child … that you’d be the one to break the curse that has settled on my family. That this ‘new life’ will be a world connected to the stars and the Cordair reined in, that’s enough. And I will have you.” I forced a smile onto my face. “Please come back, Astrid. You have to come back.”

  My heart broke. A thousand little spider webs shot through the pieces. I took his hand. “I’ll do my best.”

  Cadalin’s son arrived before Valemar decided they knew the Hormani schedule well enough to send me out. Erris and I had slowly lengthened the amount of time we spent away from Aedenfal, and Valemar now spent his days in the company of one of my imprinted karawack. I ran through what I’d need to do to reach a comm panel every time Erris and I went out. Since there were no layouts to memorize, no file full of schematics, I’d just have to do my best.

  My last bit of preparation was to write Valemar a letter. There was still one, well two, major things that needed to happen if I was successful in contacting the Shororato. Only one if I was successful but didn’t return. So I put it into a letter to Valemar. I poured out my love and my thankfulness, told him what needed to be done, and left it with Iree.

  “Only if I don’t come back,” I told her. “You need to swear to me that you won’t read it, to give it to Valemar if I’m captured, and to return it — unopened and unread — if I do.”

  Her eyes went large but she swore to follow my instructions and to hide it well.

  My tattoos healed nicely. I loved tracing the pattern of my permanent green bracelets. Valemar fingered them often enough that I teased him.

  “I’m not getting the necklace,” I told him one night as we lay spooned together and his fingers traced the path it would have taken on me.