The Willow and the Star

Fires lit the night-dark corridors of the castle, dancing with heart as she walked past. She held a candle of her own, a display of close-burning stars amongst the blue of the fallen night. Her footsteps made shallow sounds against the stone floor.

“Princess,” a girl said as she passed, her eyes wide. “Is there something you look for, ma’am?”

“Naught but the gardens by night, Miika,” she said, and her candle guttered under her breath.

The girl looked positively horrified, casting wide eyes down the corridor behind her. “Princess, I would not advise it. The Longest Day nears. The fire serpents are about.”

“Are not the fires lit?” she asked. Miika nodded. “Very well. I shall be safe enough.”

With nothing more said, the Princess walked the remainder of the stone path through the castle to the blue-fallen gardens, whereupon the sky looked and wept.

She had come for this, the Night of Falling Stars. It was a sight seen once a year, in the height of summer, a herald of the burning days and a jewel of the shorter nights. She’d watched for the falling stars since she was a girl.

And there they went, streaking across the black silk of the sky, burning up only to fizzle out moments later. She watched countless amounts of little stars chase their deaths before she spotted the Midsummer Star.

Leaving a red scar across the black, the Midsummer Star bristled in its distant white glory, dancing with the force of ten of its lesser sisters. It disappeared behind the darkened wood, reaching out a last finger of light before its much rarer death.

There was a hiss from the darkness beyond the garden gates.

The Princess lowered her eyes from the heavens. Something sang a threatening rattle through a low, ringing tone. Throughout was strung the tinkling of coins. It was always so strange to hear a dragon’s song.

A shadow with candlelit eyes slithered through the grass towards the iron gate. The Princess remained, clutching her candle, waiting.

Towering scarlet flames erupted into the night, two pyramids of fire on either side of the long gate. She did not take her eyes from the serpent as it recoiled as though stung, hissing a screeching rattle before turning and slinking back into the darkness.

“Be gone, wrathful thing,” she muttered.

“That was unkind.”

The Princess started, head snapping to the edge of the gate on her left. There stood a woman, radiant in the blue glow of the night, far enough away to remain untouched by the golden light of the fires.

“Who are you? You must come inside, quickly, or else the dragons will get you,” the Princess said, reaching for the latch of the gate.

“No,” the woman said, and immediately the Princess stopped. Her voice was like that of a silver-wrought ring: beautiful and unwavering. “I am safe enough out here.”

“How can you be?” the Princess asked, confused. “Do you not hear them? Do you not shrink from their song? Are you some kind of dragonslayer?”

The strange woman smiled, and it was sunlit, somehow, in the depths of the night. “I am no slayer. The fire folk give me no harm.”

“Who are you, then, that you are safe away from bonfires?” the Princess asked, her confusion sharpening to suspicion. “Do you come from the city? Are you a citizen of mine?”

“I am a citizen of no one,” the woman said. “I have no name.”

“You have no name?” the Princess echoed. “That cannot be true. Everyone has a name.”

“I do not.”

“Have you known no others in your life?” she asked. “What did they call you?”

The woman seemed to hesitate, her blue-washed hair stirring in a midnight breeze. The moon outlined her in white.

“I have been called once before,” she said, “By the name of Luiraa.”

“Luiraa,” the Princess repeated. “Burning heart.”

“That I am,” Luiraa said.

Perhaps that explained her favor of fire serpents. “Very well. I will call you by that name as well.”

“If I am to give you a name of mine, I shall have one of yours,” Luiraa said.

“It seems you have struck gold, Luiraa, for I have only one,” the Princess said. “I am Felja.”

“Fel-yah,” Luiraa repeated, stretching out the sounds on her tongue. She smiled, as if it pleased her to say it. “How new. How young. A sapling your name is, and so you must be.”

“I am six and twenty,” the Princess said. “Were I an oak or a pine, I would be a sapling indeed. But I am as like a willow tree, human, and therefore grown.”

“Indeed,” Luiraa said. “How fleeting it is to be a willow.”

The wind hastened, lifting her hair into its current, sending ripples through her dress. Luiraa did not shiver, did not seem at all to notice, but still the Princess asked:

“Would you like to come inside? It is warmer, and safe.”

“I tell you again, willow, I need no more safety than what I find out here,” Luiraa said. “I am well enough.”

“Very well,” the Princess said. “You will forgive me, then, if I shed no tears upon discovering your mangled and burned body.”

Luiraa laughed, and the Princess was startled again, for it was at once musical and aflame. “To think of a willow weeping for me! Thank you, human princess, for amusing me.”

***

The stars fell again the next night, though fewer and less bright, and the Princess convinced herself nonetheless it was what drove her to the midnight-blued gardens again.

And when the strange woman with the burning heart appeared again, she did not interrogate the leaping of her own.

They spoke of unassuming things, like the brushstrokes on the petal of a violet, or the distance of the stars in the sky. They spoke of mothers and sisters, of which they had none.

“My grandmother raised me,” Felja said. “It is her they call the Butterfly Queen, for she was crowned in them when she was a girl. I have done nothing so miraculous. I know not what they will call me.”

“What do they call you now?” Luiraa asked, ever factual.

“They call me Princess,” she said.

“So you have lied to me,” Luiraa said. “You have more than one name.”

Felja gave a small, only slightly guilty smile. “Forgive me. I suppose I wished I had more.”

“You have ambition for long things,” Luiraa said. “Your names will live longer than you. What will they say of you?”

“I want them to say I was strong, and clever, and good,” the Princess said. “I want them to say I was perfect.”

“Then, you know what you must do,” Luiraa said simply. “Be strong and clever and good.”

Felja looked at her through the iron bars of the gate. She stood quite far away. “Will you come closer?” she asked, quietly.

Luiraa’s eyes made the quickest glance at the towering bonfires. She said, “No.”

***

One night led to another, the days blurred into longing. The Princess watched as they drew nearer the Longest Day, mourning the hours of sunlight that persevered. The fire serpents wove around the cities and the villages, pushed away by fires of bones, hissing a musical clatter. None had fallen to them yet, but it was the Longest Day that would prove the most trying. There were reports every day of their increasing numbers.

Luiraa was at the garden gate every night; the sun could not sink quickly enough. Felja did not understand the thread that pulled her to this woman, woven from unfamiliar wool. Never had someone spoken to her the way Luiraa spoke to her, never had someone kept her at a distance that plagued her.

“Luiraa, will you not come inside the gate?” the Princess asked, a few steps from the gate. “Will you not come closer, at all?”

“Un-weeping willow, I will not,” Luiraa said. As ever, she offered no explanation.

The next night, she asked again, but two steps away from the gate.

To which Luiraa said, “Human princess, I will not.”

The next night was the last before the Longest Day. She asked again, her cheek against the iron.

To which Luiraa still said, “Felja, I will not.”

“Very well,” Felja declared, desperation hardening into resolve. “Have it your way.”

She went to the heavy iron latch on the gate and inserted a key, turned it until it clicked. She opened the set of bars only wide enough to slip through, the flame of her candle lurching backward, as if begging to stay within the castle grounds. Felja ignored it.

The gate closed behind her. She faced Luiraa.

“What are you doing, princess?” she asked.

“You would not come in,” Felja replied. “So I have come out.”

“To what end?”

The Princess pressed her lips together, stepping closer to the woman outside the gate. She knew not to what end. She only knew to what next. Unfortunately, next had stopped when she closed the gate behind her.

“Will you tell me another of your names?” Felja murmured.

Luiraa’s mouth twisted, her lips catching a white outline from the moon. There had been no falling stars this night.

“I have as well been called Kilikorr,” she said. “By a man who watched stars.”

“Then you have lied to me as well,” Felja whispered, through a small smile. “You have names.”

“Ha,” Luiraa said. “Again you amuse me. Yes, it seems I have never learned the value of whole truths.”

Felja stepped closer. “What else have you lied to me about?”

Luiraa’s eyes danced across her face, to the candle in her hand, to the gate over her shoulder. “Do I owe you truth, willow?”

Her yellow hair curled against her forehead. Her eyes were the blue of old ice, cracked through by the candle flame. She looked so real.

Felja slowly moved her hand until the candle licked at her cheek. Luiraa did not move. She did not look at the fire on her skin.

The Princess took the candle away, and there was no blemish upon her face.

“I knew it,” Felja said, face contorting, a vast wave of sorrow overcoming her. “I knew it couldn’t be true. How could anything but an illusion behave as you? How could anything but a trick be what has stolen my heart?”

She turned away and made for the iron gate, feeling the start of tears like metal searing her skin.

A burning hand caught her wrist and pulled her back.

Felja turned back and was met with her lips. Luiraa kept hold of her hand in one and her face in the other, her breath hot and her lips cold as they kissed her. The Princess felt a mighty surge in her heart such as she had never known; she was so desperate and joyful and sad. The kiss pulled her in all directions: it nipped at her, smoothed her, flared inside her chest, her cheeks, tore at her, held her.

Their mouths let go of each other, and Felja whispered, “What a convincing illusion you are.”

“So quick to mourn your own shortcomings,” Luiraa murmured back. “I am as real as this moment.”

“Still, I am deceived in you,” Felja said. “You are not like me. You are no willow, no human. What are you?”

Luiraa kissed her again, gentle as the midnight breeze. “Does it matter?”

***

The Princess stood in her bedchamber in the small hours of the morning, wearing only her shift and bedgown. She could not even think to find sleep. Her mind was too compelled to linger on other things.

She called for her handmaiden. “Miika, I feel like reading tonight. Will you find me a book of etymologies?”

“Yes, Princess.”

Felja flipped through the linen pages until she found the word Kilikorr, bordered in illustrated flowering vines. It was a very old word, discovered from a shard of a broken stone tablet, of which there were few other pieces. They were attributed to a star-watcher, a man named Malosh the Astronomer, who lived some eight hundred years ago.

Together, the pieces of his broken tablet seemed to name a tailed star that had fallen from the heavens in his sight, and that he had never seen again. He called it Kilikorr, summer’s tear. It had fallen days before the year’s shortest night.

Felja turned more pages until she found Luiraa. Not so old, for she knew it meant burning heart, but she didn’t know it had been used by a poet of four centuries ago whose work had been thought mere ravings during his lifetime, and was only dissected long after his death. He’d used it often in refrains of a comet whose beauty seemed to plague him; he’d wasted away spending the remainder of his life chasing where it had fallen, dying in everlasting search of a bright star. Luiraa, Luiraa, mine own heart doth burns liketh yours!

His descent had begun not long after the solstice.

Felja shut the book with a clap. Her mind was a tempest. Her heart was a thunderstorm.

Could it be mere coincidence that she was given names that had also been given to the Midsummer Star?

Luiraa. Burning heart.

That I am.

Was she not an illusion, but instead, a disguise?

How fleeting it is to be a willow.

A star turning human! A comet that she could touch! The sensible woman laughs.

And yet the truth was there. Felja’s eyes had not lied to her when her candle failed to harm Luiraa. Her skin had not deceived her when she felt the kiss that burned and froze. Her ears had not missed every time Luiraa had called her willow, as if she wasn’t.

Thank you, human princess, for amusing me.

Felja lay down on her bed, and forgot that the next day was the longest.

***

The sun rose early, and it rose slowly. Fires of burning bones circled the city, pockmarked the villages, surrounded the castle. No dragon was permitted to breach a human residence.

“Why do we use fire to deter fire serpents?” the Princess asked her handmaiden. They looked upon the city from a window in the stone castle. “Does it not seem…ineffective?”

“The bonfires are built of bones,” Miika replied. “The fire folk burn of a heavenly source. It is fire of the earth against fire of the sky.”

Fire of the sky…

“What is that?”

The Princess followed the direction of Miika’s attention. Something bright shimmered in the distant hills, winding like a starlit snake toward the city. The little red wyrms were maggots in comparison, parting like a writhing scarlet sea for the great creature that shone like a thousand jewels.

“It is a dragon,” the Princess said.

“I’ve never seen one so large,” Miika said, in awe. “Where could it have come from?”

“Where do any of them come from?” the Princess countered.

“Where is it going? I think it…” Miika gasped in terror. “It’s coming for the castle!”

Nearer now, the Princess could see what made it shine so: its scales were gold, reflecting the light of the sun as does armor, as does a ring. Miika grabbed her hand and pulled her away from the window.

“Come, Princess, we must hide away!”

“No,” she stopped her handmaiden. “Go to my grandmother and be with her.”

Miika’s eyes were wide. “Princess, please, you must be safe inside!”

“I will be safe enough.”

With nothing more said, the Princess made her way in haste to the gardens by daylight.

***

Through flashes of green, dark and light, sparked the orange stars across her sight. It was all she could do to curl away from them as she neared, their searing touches wanting to melt her scales. The smell of their smoke tasted rotten, tasted dead. They infected her senses as she fought to reach the tree under whose shade she could safely lie.

Un-weeping willow.

She found it at the edge of a stone house, rooted among the grass. More of those awful fires burned behind her, scorching the dragon’s nostrils. She tried to spit out its sourness.

Luiraa!

The tree spoke. She looked at her, small and straight among the grass and stone, her voice a new familiarity.

Luriaa, I know it is you.

The dragon lowered her head to the small tree, nearly weeping for her voice amidst the onslaught of bone fires. It was terrible when they had done this the last time, and it was terrible now.

You are the Midsummer Star, the tree said, And the Midsummer Star is a dragon?

She blinked her streaming eyes.

Are the falling stars also dragons? the tree asked. Fire of the sky?

She made a small sound, a cutting of her song. It clinked and hummed.

The tree reached forward with a human hand and then recoiled. Her scales were too hot.

Am I so unlucky as to be one of those who has fallen for you, a star in the sky? the tree lamented. An astronomer calls you summer’s tear. A poet wastes his life in search of you. What will my tragedy be?

The tree seemed to weep. Go now. Perhaps I will have the miraculous name I asked for; the Princess Who Loved a Dragon. Felja Dragonheart, for it is one that holds mine. I briefly dared to wish I could have the love of you and of history.

Go now. If I will never see you again, I cannot look a moment longer.

She turned away from the weeping willow and toward the sun, leaping into its ether. Like a rippling gold ribbon, she flew to the burning eye in the sky and disappeared with a glimmer into its brightness. The red fire serpents, seeing the ascent of the greatest among them, followed until the sun set in scarlet.