A Court of Three Stars

11: Someday

House of Song, Velaris

Ruhn

I dreamed that I was young again, that I had never been taken away. I dreamed of what it would have been like to grow up here, wondering who I would have become. I still would have been a Prince, but maybe I wouldn't have hated it so much. Maybe it wouldn't have felt like such a burden, the weight of the world placed on such small shoulders.

I dreamed of a life where I had grown up running around the halls of this massive, beautiful house. I dreamed of happiness and innocence, the things my childhood had lacked so deeply when Leur wasn't around. I dreamed that I had a big family who all loved and cared for me, that I would never know what it would feel like to be alone, that I would never know a cruel touch from my father.

I dreamed of beautiful night skies shining with stars and the life that could have been lived beneath them. I dreamed of a life that could still be, even if it was later than anyone would have wanted.

And when I woke again, I didn't even notice that the dream had ended.

For I woke to the sound of Leur's voice, humming a familiar melody.

Star light, star bright,

First star I see tonight;

I wish I may, I wish I might,

Have the wish I wish tonight.

It was daytime now, rays of warm light shining through that panel of stained glass. It basked the room with an array of blue and violet. Crystalline beauty in such familiar shades.

The colors of safety, of salvation.

And sitting next to me, mindlessly writing something in a leather-bound notebook was Leur. She was alone, Cassian and Azriel were nowhere in sight. But she looked more herself than I could ever remember seeing her, as if some kind of mask had been dropped, some glamour I had never known enough to notice before. Lavender shadows swirled around her hands, over her shoulders, cut through with a jet black that lingered against her neck. Her hair was pulled up, a blue sweater that looked like it probably belonged to Azriel bunched up around her elbows, violet eyes rimmed with gold scanning whatever she was writing.

She looked young, even if she wasn't.

I supposed it was the one downfall of being fae, your parents would only look like your parents for so long. I was no longer a little boy or the baby that she lost. I was grown, and we looked more like siblings than mother and son.

But she was my mother.

Singing that song, the one I had dreamed of hearing as the torture slowly killed me, having saved me and brought me to some fantastical place, sitting there zoned out while she wrote. It should have been odd, after the power I had witnessed from her last I saw her, but it wasn't.

She had always been this to me.

I knew better than to think I could sneak up on her, to try to scare her, so I just spoke, "Hi."

She glanced up from her book, a swath of deep blue light from the skylight falling across her face. And then she just smiled, set the notebook down next to her, and grabbed my hand in between both of her own.

"Hi."

Her eyes shone with something I knew, even if it had been far too scarce in my life.

Love.

"So." I sat up a bit, "I'm your son."

She let out something that was half a laugh and half a sob, her head falling against our hands, "Yes."