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CHAPTER TWELVE. ━━━━━━━━━ If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE ━━━━━━━━━
HIS MOTHER IS THE ONE who first teaches Arthur about the stars, where they lie in the sky and what shapes they make, the ancient Rhoynish legends behind each one, and it is Prince Lewyn who teaches him how to use them to navigate. A warrior need never lose his way, he says, so long as his eyes are sharp and the sky is clear.
Arthur thinks it is fate's blessing that brings them together, in the beginning. Indeed, it is hard to think of any other possibility, not when they fit together so effortlessly, so ardently. Not when he can map Astoria's body as well as he can map the skies, not when he can make her smile even at her saddest, not when they stare up at the heavens together, bare and blissful, not when calling her his becomes his greatest dream.
He should have known he had it wrong.
Astoria is the sun and Arthur is a star.
The sun is the brightest star, but when does it burn? It burns when he does not, lighting up the day where he is confined to night. They are opposites, destined not to remain as one but instead to forever be apart save for a single glimpse as twilight falls. He could chase her forever but never would they truly be joined.
And who is he to protest? This is no foe he can fight, no man he can run through with his blade, no dragon he can slay to save the princess in the tower. The sky is the gods' domain and he is but a man. Even kings are bound to the will of the cosmos.
Worst of all, it makes everything fall into place, all the things Arthur thought were mere injustices, the things he didn't understand. He can see her, talk to her, love her, yet never have her, never call her his.
Yes, he should have known.
It would have been better for them both if he'd never loved her at all, but the very thought feels like a punch to the stomach. It had always felt inevitable, like it had happened before and would happen again. Perhaps that is his curse, to have her for but a breath only to lose her. To another man, to death, to anything the gods desire. They would wink out like dying stars, one then the other, her then him or him then her, only to start all over again, ignorant of the pain to come.
Round and round and round they go, forever.
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