Wattys shortlist 2021. One morning the sun rises a few hours early, striking levitating skyscrapers in Soliara ahead of schedule. People in the streets stop to look up at the sky and then down at their watches. Most of them, puzzled but disbelieving...
Days after the youthful Cytheria of the future proposes the kidnapping and execution of her child, Cristo returns to her for the plan.
This time he meets the young old woman on her back patio. The only hint that anything is wrong with the world outside is that Cytheria let the wilderness invade and overtake her garden, a canopy of wild and unchecked vegetation that was doing very well, proliferating over her estate in a curtain. Trees and bushes that haven't been pruned in three or four decades flourish in her negligence and moss creeps up their trunks, the only break in the lush green a growth of red mushrooms at the tree roots, and even the light that filters through the foliage comes out green.
They sip cool tea while they plan.
"They must have been trying to capture Tian and Terra for weeks, months. How can I do it if they can't?" he asks. No time to be delicate — these are her children she's planning to sacrifice, or maybe only one of them, if they're lucky. But she doesn't need to be coddled.
She answers immediately, unfazed, and the callousness reveals how old she really is behind her doll eyes and smooth doll skin. "I will tell you how and when to bypass the security measures on the house, that's how. I'll hand my children over."
"One of them might suffice," Cristo reminded her. "You won't choose which one?"
Again she is callous and pragmatic. "You decide. I will tell you how to get to each of them. Execute whichever plan is more likely to succeed." But then she could have only been more tough skinned had she chosen which to send to his or her execution, and which to give new life.
"What is more important," says Cytheria, "is that you impress on me, the me of the past, the severity of the threat to the company. And tell the past me that Justin Marius will have both of my children killed if he becomes company president."
"Will you believe me if I tell you I'm from the future?"
"No," says Cytheria right away. She's already thought about questions like these. "Say you have magic to show you into the future, and offer me some evidence. I will believe that."
"And if I tell you that your child's murder is my fault and I'm sorry?"
"I will kill you," she says right away. "I'm glad you asked." The tiny glimmer of a smile is the first break in her gravity, but that doesn't break her stride. "Do not confess to me, Cristo. I forgive you. I won't forgive myself, but if you change the past, I'll never know it was my own idea, will I?"
"Theoretically speaking," says Cristo.
"Theoretically speaking," Cytheria agrees.
And her pretty young eyes look afraid of the alternative, revealing the chink in her armor; it's a dangerous moment, because if she asks him not to do it, but to save both of her children, he would have tried, but she doesn't.
Instead, at her weakest, all she says is, "Tian. Please save my son," and frenzied she rushes back to her plans.
For a moment he wonders whether it even happened at all, but she continues in her rush to outline the plan for Terra's murder, and the secret a mother could never reveal is bare naked in the green sunlight. She loves her son more.
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Thank you for reading Stars Rise. This book will be updating faster from now on, since I'm trying to get it complete in time for the Wattys :) Multiple chapters will be up this weekend, thank you for reading! Please leave a star if you have been enjoying the latest developments!
