Chapter 9: Light Behind the Stars

"In the presence of all the witnesses here and in the name of the divines, especially Mornwyn, patroness of love and marriage, dost thou, Afadir, receive Bylja unto thyself, that she may be thine portion and heritage during the trials and joys of this life, and that with her thou mayest bring forth children in piety, benevolence, and truth?"

"I do take thee unto myself, Bylja, that all thou hast may be mine, and all that is mine may be thine."

The cleric then turns to Bylja and speaks similar words, and she responds accordingly. Elmariyë smiles deeply at her friends' long-expected and long-delayed union. Afadir and Bylja were closest and dearest of friends since their early childhood, inseparable in play and exploration, and later inseparable even in work. Others their age often teased them that they would one day wed so that they could keep doing for the rest of their lives, officially, what they had always done spontaneously. They would only laugh at this and dismiss it, saying that friendship was more important than romance. And they were right. This in particular is what causes Elmariyë to smile now: that their marriage will be all the more beautiful because it houses something so much more than romance, so much more than mere love (as many understand it). Rather, the love that her dear friends know and have known for so long, she too has come to know and experience in her devotion to Niraniel. It is like a light beyond all things, pure and chaste and free, unhindered by all possession and clinging, which nonetheless, precisely because of its purity and freedom, shines within and permeates all things.

Elmariyë is stirred from these thoughts by the conclusion of the ceremony and the words of the cleric, "Now let the procession unto the house of gladness begin." She joins in the group of people who, accompanied by song, escort the newly wed couple to the house which Afadir has prepared. Following this, there shall be a short and sober feast for all, and then the departure of the guests. It is a long tradition in Telmerion that wedding celebrations are simple and that the man and woman are soon left alone to celebrate in the way that only two hearts so bound can celebrate.

After the feast and the proper farewells, as evening twilight paints the sky red and orange, Elmariyë walks out across the grassy fields of the valley, singing softly to herself. A gentle and surprisingly warm breeze billows through her white dress, and she delights in the calmness of evening air upon her skin and in her hair, hinting already of the coming stillness of night. She feels great peace burning within her heart after the celebration, lingering in her bosom in a profound gladness for her childhood friends as well as, even beyond this, in a simple joy at the very fact of existence, of life, and of love. She allows this feeling to carry her as she walks, and, her dress flowing behind her and dancing upon the grass as she steps, she feels almost as if she is flying, flying free across the earth with her toes only grazing the blades of grass as she passes. It is sweetness. It is light. It is joy.

She passes on, with hardly a thought, across the fields of grass and flowers swaying, with the evening light shining through and illuminating the growing things of the earth with the undying things of heaven. The great boulders and standing stones of the plains stand erect, silent and still, lit on their westward faces and dim, almost black, on the faces opposite the descending sun. They cast great and long shadows across the earth, and Elmariyë passes through these shadows, feeling the first taste of nighttime's chill, only to emerge again almost immediately back into the light and the warmth. She wends her way eastward until, just at the brink of darkness when the sun hides its face behind the mountains and the first stars of night appear in the sky, silently twinkling, she comes to the cliffside that borders the valley of Telonis, with the steep escarpment leading down to the plains far below. She looks out—standing in perhaps her favorite place in the entire world with the exception of the temple of Niraniel—and drinks in the expanse of the plains, barely visible in the fading light, until they too are lost in the cloudy darkness of night and become only a mass of black under a star-speckled sky.

And even now she stands unmoving, wrapping her arms around herself for warmth and turning her gaze upward to the sky. Once again, after years away, she stands on the soil of her childhood home and looks up at the starry firmament—something she has been doing frequently since returning here, as it is here more than in the house or even among her family that she feels at rest. But this night feels different. It is different because she carries a joy still sweeter and a peace still deeper than usual. That is the simple fruit of today's celebration and also of the time of leisure, play, prayer, and fellowship that she has enjoyed since coming to Telonis. But her heart goes out now also to the people in Ristfand, both those with whom she has shared life over the previous years as well as the many people who live within the city whom she does not know. And to her surprise, she feels a strong desire to return surge deep within her. No, it is not only a desire. It is a conviction, a calling. But even as it comes she wonders why it does so. It is almost like a weight descends upon her heart, not eradicating the peace and joy that she feels but rather being held within it, housed within it. She feels as if the people of Ristfand and the troubles and tales of the city and all its inhabitants somehow come to take up abode within her heart, and she holds them close, holds them deeply.

Elmariyë does not feel threatened or in any way suffocated by this holding. Rather, she feels her heart expand from the peace and joy in which she is herself held, in the longing to hold others, to hold them in their own beauty and joy but also in their ugliness and pain. To hold them in everything, as she herself is held. And as she does this, a sense of alarm enters into her heart, almost like a silent warning. A warning of what? She stands and holds this warning just as she holds everything else, listening for what it might mean. But nothing specific comes. It just lingers. Acquainted as she is with inexplicable feelings—for she knows well that she feels not only her own emotions and experiences, but also those of others insofar as all human hearts exist like a seamless fabric or are immersed in the single ocean of being in which ripples are shared by all alike—she simply turns these feelings into prayer. She surrenders them to Niraniel, letting them be held by the goddess in the act of letting her own self be held by her. Indeed, in this act of surrender, still gazing up at the sky glittering with innumerable stars, Elmariyë feels as if her prayer of surrender is being received by all of the hosts of heaven, all of the divinities, and by the very origin of all things, the Nameless One whom she glimpses in and behind all of the divines and knows through their beauty, goodness, and care.

† † †

Elmariyë returns home about an hour later and finds her parents sitting together on a bench outside, their backs against the wall of the house and their hands interlaced. The air is quite cold now, and they are wrapped in a single blanket. Seeing her approach, Gjerinda rises to her feet and says, "You must be cold, dear! Let me get you a blanket of your own."

"Were you out here waiting for me?" Elmariyë asks.

"No," her mother replies, "we were just remembering our own marriage so many years ago. And, well, being thankful for it, I suppose."

"I am thankful for it too," Elmariyë remarks. "Without it I wouldn't even be here, after all! And even if I weren't—if such a thing were possible!—I'd still be thankful that you two shared life together."

"And we have been so glad to have you as a part of our family," Telran says.

"Thank you, Ta." Elmariyë approaches, gives her mother a quick hug and then leans over her father—who is still seated—and gives him a kiss on the forehead. "Shall I leave you two alone for a while longer?"

Her parents share a quick glance, and then her father replies, "Actually, there is something we wanted to share with you."

"Shall we go inside?" Elmariyë asks.

"The young ones are preparing for bed or perhaps already laying down, and I don't want to disturb them," Gjerinda says. "Let me grab you a blanket, and then we shall talk out here."

When she returns, Elmariyë grabs a rickety old wooden chair from nearby and sits opposite her parents. "So what did you want to share with me?"

"Someone from Ristfand was at the wedding today," says Gjerinda, "and they brought word for you."

"Is it someone I know?" Elmariyë asks.

"They said that they had never met you before," replies Telran, "so whether you know them or not I'm not sure, but they certainly don't know you. They were simply acting as a messenger. In fact they looked for you after the feast but could not find you. I told them that you had gone for a walk and that I would relay the message."

"They are acquaintances of Afadir and were here for him, but it seems that your grandmaster—Cirien Lorjies, correct?—took advantage of their visit to send a message to you," clarifies her mother.

"That is correct," Elmariyë says. "So what is the message?" In her heart, she already suspects what it will be since she herself heard it only an hour and a half earlier in the silence of her spirit.

"He requests that you return as quickly as you can," Gjerinda answers. "It is so soon. I expected that you would stay much longer. But I understand that even having you here at all was an unexpected and unnecessary gift."

"It is shorter than I expected as well," Elmariyë says. "Did the messenger say anything about Cirien's reasons for requesting my return?"

"It sounds like there is some trouble in Ristfand with which he requests your aid," Telran says, "though he did not specify what that meant."

"I suppose I will learn when I arrive."

"We will help you prepare," Gjerinda says, "and will see you off once you are ready."

"I suppose, since they indicated that it was urgent, I should leave tomorrow. Could we perhaps plan on my departure sometime in the midmorning? That should give enough time to prepare and to say farewell."

"Of course, my dear," replies Gjerinda, her eyes glistening with tears, tears of sadness but also of contentment.

"You had better get to bed soon yourself, my Mari'eä, if you are going to be traveling tomorrow," Telran says.

"I will. Again, thank you both for everything," Elmariyë says, rising to her feet and giving each of her parents another embrace.

Inside the house, she changes from her dress into a plain sleeping robe and tiptoes quietly into the bedroom which she shares with her sister, carefully avoiding the creaking floorboards. Before getting into bed, she kneels and places her forehead against the wooden planks of the floor. She has no words and needs none, and she simply lets the events of the day flow in and flow out...and to her surprise, what feels like only a moment later, she wakes up in the same position, her back stiff and her forehead sore. She laughs quietly to herself, rises, and crawls under the covers of her bed and falls immediately back to sleep.

† † †

The next morning, despite her late retiring, she rises early, before the sun. She dresses in darkness and steps out of the bedroom into the warmer part of the house, where the hearth, burning the evening before, is now but a pile of ashes. The temperature has dropped drastically overnight, though she can tell it is not below freezing. She grabs a few logs of wood from the stack and places them in the hearth, and then, within a matter of minutes, gets them to burn steadily. Gazing into the dancing flames, she lets her mind carry her in memory through the previous days that she has spent with her family. Then these thoughts carry her again to last night's conversation and to the experience that she had before that, standing at the ridge overlooking the plains. She wonders what could be so pressing that Cirien has requested her immediate return, when he had indicated earlier an attitude of patience and waiting. Has something gone wrong, or has he received some pressing illumination regarding her future path?

Elmariyë is stirred from these thoughts by the sound of rustling and muffled voices coming from her parents' bedroom. She goes then to the other side of the room, to the kitchen, and fills a kettle with water and places it over the fire. Hearing a rooster crow from a nearby homestead, she unconsciously turns to the sound, noticing that one of the thick paned glass windows of the room is still open, and cold air has been blowing through it into the house throughout the night. Hastily she pulls it shut, though the damage has already been done, even if now, with the relighting of the hearth, it is well in the process of being mended. The water quickly comes to a boil, and she has a cup of tea in her hands when her mother walks into the room.

"Good morning, Elmariyë," Gjerinda says.

"Good morning, Ma. Would you like some tea?"

"Please."

Mother and daughter are seated together when Telran also comes into the room. "I am going to step outside and feed Fenarion and Trostir," he says. "I will be back in a moment."

While he is gone, Gjerinda gets up and draws a few curtains to allow the gradually increasing daylight to filter into the room and also prepares tea for her husband upon his return. When all three are seated together near the hearth, Elmariyë says to her parents, "I am sorry that I am leaving on such short notice. I did not mean to mislead you."

"It was not at all misleading," her mother replies. "We all knew that you would be here only until you were called back."

"I agree," her father says, and then, after a moment of visible hesitation, he adds, "But there is something that we wish to tell you, and we want to apologize that we have not done so until now."

"Something you have not told me until now? What is it?"

Her parents share a meaning glance, and Gjerinda nods lightly to Telran, who then turns to Elmariyë and says, "It concerns your origin. We have contemplated many times if and when we should tell you. When you went away to Ristfand, we had let go of the idea of telling you, thinking that it was not important and that the past could be left in the past. But during your stay with us over these past weeks, we both have come to the conviction that you deserve to know."

Here Gjerinda picks up where her husband leaves off. She says, "You see—you are not our daughter in the flesh. We adopted you as an orphan when you were but too small to walk and raised you as our own. I hope you know, however, that you are the daughter of our heart and our love, and shall ever be so."

Elmariyë listens to these words and receives them in silence—with heart both pained and surprised—and her parents give her time to reflect upon them, to think about them, and to let them echo in her heart however they must. "I thank you for telling me this," she begins, softly. "I do wish that I would have known a long time ago, and I am hurt that only now do I hear this from your mouths. However, I am grateful that you both have chosen to share this with me, however long delayed." She pauses and reaches deep inside herself to the love deeper than the pain that she feels, looking tenderly at both of them. There is sorrow, yes, and surprise—almost shock—but she cannot forget the profound love that they have shown to her, and this above all rises to the surface within her now and colors even this pain that she feels. And so she continues, after a long silence, "And you need not worry. I do know that I am the daughter of your heart and your love, and you will always be the parents of my heart. My love for you shall not lessen. But I also know now very deeply, through the experiences of the previous three years and the ones I have come to know during this time, that there are bonds so much deeper than the bonds of blood. You will remain my family, even if not in the flesh."

At the words of her daughter, Gjerinda places her hand over her mouth, as if to hold back a surge of strong emotion, and then allows herself to say, "Oh, that is a relief to hear. I was so afraid that you would be angry with us—that you would not forgive us for withholding this from you. I waited so long to tell you—we waited so long—partly because we feared that it was too late to do so without hurting you."

"I...I am hurt," Elmariyë responds. "There is no way that I could not be. But, no, I am not angry with you. No...it is just...it is just that this will take time for me to process. I need to think about some things, to make sense of them in my heart. It is a change in the home that I thought I knew. To believe one thing and then to be told that another thing was always the case is quite a change, and my heart will take time to come to terms with it. And I do wish I had known all along. Just give me time to make this truth my own." She looks at both of them. "I hope that you understand."

At these words, Gjerinda begins to cry, silently, with tears streaming down her cheeks, and Telran himself shifts uneasily in his chair. They see now that their choice to conceal the circumstances of her birth and adoption had forced Elmariyë—completely beyond her own choice or knowledge—to believe a lie. And the revealing of that lie could not but cause pain. They are grateful that Elmariyë is who she is, so sensitive and forgiving and loving of heart, but as they witness her apologetic struggle with receiving their disclosure, they only grieve the deeper that they had withheld this truth from her until now.

"Is there anything, anything at all, that we can do to help you?" Gjerinda asks. "To ease your pain or to help you come to terms with this?"

"I would like to know more about the circumstances of my birth and my adoption," Elmariyë says softly. "I think that this, more than anything else, would help."

"Yes, yes," Telran says, clearing his throat. "Do not worry. We took you only out of desire for your welfare, out of pity."

"Pity?"

"Yes, though, er, that may not be the best word for it."

Her mother steps in, and explains, "It happened when your father, I mean, Telran—"

"It is alright, Ma. He is my father."

"Right, yes, of course... So, as I was saying, it happened when he was returning from a trip to Helasa. He came across a carriage on the side of the road—and it looked to have had an accident, or had been—"

"It had been attacked," Telran concludes. "All persons in the carriage had been slain, with the exception of a small child, still a babe, crying in her mother's arms... And I could not just leave you there alone, to die. I picked you up and brought you home with me. We sought counsel with others and tried to consider what was best for you. But suffice it to say that, when all was said and done, we decided to raise you as our own daughter. And this, precisely, is what we both desired to do."

"Thank you," Elmariyë whispers, tears now in her own eyes, clinging to her lashes and gradually breaking free to stream down her cheeks.

"We knew that we had to tell you, even if we were much too late in the telling," Telran says.

"Yes, thank you for telling me," says Elmariyë, "but also thank you...for saving me."

"My dear..." Gjerinda reaches forward and takes her daughter's hands in her own. "If you have ever felt that you do not belong or felt as if this is not your true home, I apologize. We have tried everything we could to make you part of our family, wholly and truly part of our family."

"That is not it, truly" replies Elmariyë. "I do feel part of this family. I am part of this family. If I have ever felt like I do not belong, it is not because of what you did, not even because the circumstances of my birth are different and different blood flows in my veins. No, it is simply because...because the home of my heart is not only here, with you, but also elsewhere, in devotion to the family that is both deeper and wider."

"We have sensed that in you for the longest time, from when you were but a small child," her mother affirms. "We always knew that your heart longed for more than we could offer you. I myself thought, or feared, that it was a longing for your lost family, but I see now that it is something else entirely. It is...well, it is that special something about you, that glimmer in your eyes, that spark in your heart, that restlessness in your spirit."

As these words linger in the room, Elmariyë rises to her feet and goes to the door, opening it and looking out. She sees the stretch of land laid out before her, now bright in the early morning sun, grass glistening with dew, and she hears the chattering of spring birds welcoming the coming day. Somewhere nearby, a dove gently cooes its moaning lament, its gentle song, a contrast to the higher and louder voices of the other birds. They sing to one another, they sing to the sunlight; they seem content with the companionship that they keep. But the dove, the dove is different. For she sings alone, or perhaps with a single companion of her heart; she sings a deeper song of a deeper longing, as if crying out with yearning for one who is forever absent, or perhaps always present but just beyond her reach.

Elmariyë turns back and directs her gaze to her parents. They are both standing now and looking at her. "Do you know anything about my original family?" she asks.

"Unfortunately, we were unable to discover anything more of your family," Gjerinda answers. "We had trusted individuals ask around in Ristfand and surrounding settlements and did so ourselves as well, but we were unable to learn any more about the identity of the persons in the attacked caravan nor about those who attacked them."

"I did, however," Telran says, "take a token from the hand of the woman who held you in her arms in death. And, when none could identify it, I decided to keep it as a relic for you when you were older. But only now does it find its way into your hands." He reaches into his pocket and draws something out, which glimmers softly in his hand before he gives it to Elmariyë.

She looks upon it as it rests in her palm: a ring wrought of silver with a stone of emerald set within it, with designs of intricate beauty etched into the band all around, garlands of flower and leaf and, wrapped about amid the design, a tower or temple of some kind.

"I have never seen designs like this before," she says, as she inspects the ring, "nor does the architecture of this building which it depicts resemble anything I have encountered before."

"We thought the same," Telran affirms.

"Thank you for...giving this to me," Elmariyë says in a soft voice. "Thank you for saving a fragment of my past. I understand that I may never know more than I know now about my original parents, about my family, but you both have allowed the past to live in me." And, putting the ring on her finger, she concludes, "And for this I can only be grateful."