2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

“I said some horrible things, too,” he murmured.
“I didn’t mean it,” I blurted. “I meant it more about myself than you. And I’m sorry.”
He watched the stars for a moment before he replied. “You were right, though. I stayed
away because you were right. Though I’m glad to hear my absence felt like a
punishment.”
I snorted, but was grateful for the humor—for the way he’d always been able to amuse
me. “Any news with the orb or the queens?”
“Nothing yet. We’re waiting for them to deign to reply.”
We were silent again, and I studied the stars. “They’re not—they’re not stars at all.”
“No.” Rhys came up beside me at the rail. “Our ancestors thought they were, but …
They’re just spirits, on a yearly migration to somewhere. Why they pick this day to appear
here, no one knows.”
I felt his eyes upon me, and tore my gaze from the shooting stars. Light and shadow
passed over his face. The cheers and music of the city far, far below were barely audible
over the crowd gathered at the House.
“There must be hundreds of them,” I managed to say, dragging my stare back to the
stars whizzing past.
“Thousands,” he said. “They’ll keep coming until dawn. Or, I hope they will. There
were less and less of them the last time I witnessed Starfall.”
Before Amarantha had locked him away.
“What’s happening to them?” I looked in time to see him shrug. Something twanged in
my chest.
“I wish I knew. But they keep coming back despite it.”
“Why?”
“Why does anything cling to something? Maybe they love wherever they’re going so
much that it’s worth it. Maybe they’ll keep coming back, until there’s only one star left.
Maybe that one star will make the trip forever, out of the hope that someday—if it keeps
coming back often enough—another star will find it again.”
I frowned at the wine in my hand. “That’s … a very sad thought.”
“Indeed.” Rhys rested his forearms on the balcony edge, close enough for my fingers to
touch if I dared.
A calm, full silence enveloped us. Too many words—I still had too many words in me.
I don’t know how much time passed, but it must have been a while, because when he
spoke again, I jolted. “Every year that I was Under the Mountain and Starfall came
around, Amarantha made sure that I … serviced her. The entire night. Starfall is no secret,
even to outsiders—even the Court of Nightmares crawls out of the Hewn City to look up
at the sky. So she knew … She knew what it meant to me.”