The Fire and the Sky (Book 3 of the... - Chapter 9: Chapter 9

"I told you she'd know right away," Dom murmured. Trina rolled her eyes and slapped a wrinkled ten dollar bill into his waiting palm.
May had a million questions, but they could wait a minute longer. Breathless and on the verge of tears, she rushed forward into Welkin's waiting embrace. She clung to them tightly, and refused to let go.
"The last time I saw you, you were being swallowed up by a wall of light," she cried, releasing them only so she could look them over. "What happened? And why do you look like this?"
There was a moment of tense silence. While Welkin smiled at her, May sensed the shuffling and side-eye being shared between the others.
"Do you guys want some space to talk?" Karin asked, stepping up to be the mature one in the room. "To get caught up?"
"I just need to know what's going on," May stressed. She hated being the only person who didn't know what was happening. She still clutched the folds of Welkin's robe between in her fist as if she let go they might vanish before her eyes.
"It's alright, Ms. Price," Welkin assured Karin in a steady voice. They looked back to May. "You deserve answers, May. I didn't want to leave you and Em. I didn't want any of this to happen." For a moment they looked uncomfortable — embarrassed. They licked their lips and took a deep breath. May couldn't help but notice; she had never seen them take any kind of breath before because it hadn't had to. "I was seized and made to return to the celestial court to stand trial for my crimes."
"Crimes?" May's brow furrowed. "What did you do?"
Welkin laughed weakly. "Come now, May. Nothing about my involvement with you, Emanthy... with Astrid..." They took a moment to compose themself. May — who had always considered the Star to be a steadfast pillar of wisdom and control — found their newfound vulnerability unnerving. "I have been breaking my kinds' laws since the day I fell in love with Astrid. It was bad enough that I had granted her an unauthorized wish to give her a baby. But resurrecting Audrey's soul and creating Emanthy..."
"Oh no." May was horror struck. She knew very little about how things worked in the celestial court, but it hadn't crossed her mind Welkin had broken their rules.
"Don't pity me," Welkin said, giving May's arm a reassuring squeeze. "I knew my meddling in human affairs would catch up with me one day. I just hoped I would have time to see you both to the other side of danger before that happened."
"But how?" May asked. "What did they do to you?"
"I was cast into exile. Stripped of my power and forced to live out a mortal life as a human. According to the Council it was a fitting punishment considering my inability to leave human life alone."
Sean, with his thick muscled arms folded across his broad chest, scoffed. "That sounds about as effective as me grounding my daughter to her room but letting her keep her damn phone. You get to be with the people you love as a person. How is that a punishment?"
"It's deeper than that, Sean," Dom said. He looked to Welkin with sorrow in his eyes. "It would be like if something forced me to stay human for the rest of my life. I like being Dom, but I'm a forest spirit first and foremost. It would be like losing the biggest piece of yourself and being forced to live a lie."
"Plus there's the whole "mortal" bit," Trina added. "I guess that means you'll die eventually?"
"Eventually, yes," Welkin confirmed.
Something about the idea of Welkin's love, first for Astrid and then for their daughter, being considered meddling enough to damn them to a mortal life struck May as incredibly unfair.
"I don't get it," she growled, indignant rage growing inside her. "How is what you did a crime but the fact that the entire Council tasked their human followers with finding the wishing star okay? Look at the chain reaction that caused. People have literally died because of them. How is that not meddling?"
"Oh, it is," Welkin agreed. "But it was a decision we made together for the betterment of everyone. I acted alone and out of selfish desire. No, don't argue." They saw May readying herself to interject but swiftly cut her off. "I knew what I was doing when I did it.
"What's difficult to explain is the far reaching consequences of a Star meddling in another beyond ourselves. When we turned to the humans to help find the wishing star, we knew it would disrupt the Plan — the great, interwoven trajectory of the Universe. But fates and stories are elements we can control, we were able to rewrite the Plan as things unfolded because we knew about it. But Audrey... she wasn't part of the Plan. She had no fate, no role in the stories we had written. Her very existence threw things off balance. I did my best to mitigate the fallout, but one person can affect so much — can touch so many lives. It wasn't long before I slipped up."
"And then what happened?" Matti asked in a hushed voice. The entire room was hanging on Welkin's every word, breathlessly waiting for the unhappy ending they knew was coming.
"I was punished." Welkin's reply was almost casual. But their feigned air of indifference did little to mask the ache they were feeling. Their eyes flicked to May's and held them in an intense gaze. "I never told Audrey this. I never told Emanthy."
May felt nauseous. "Never told her what, Welkin?"
Welkin closed their eyes, waiting a heartbeat before answering. "Astrid. Her condition was not meant to kill her. By all accounts, she was going to live a relatively long life. But when my trespasses were discovered, her fate was rewritten." They looked to May, heartbreak written across every inch of their lovely face. "She was killed to punish me."
The weight of their confession smothered the entire group. Everyone seemed to hold a collective breath. May felt their stare burning into her, but she didn't break her gaze with those sad, golden eyes.
"Oh, Welkin," she whispered.
The Star shook their head and pushed onward. "It was enough to scare me off, at least for a while. My last act was to push Audrey toward Connor, in hopes that together – she my progeny and he a Wish in need of rescuing – they might form a new kind of family. Had I any idea they would go on to form WIND and put their lives at risk..." They trailed off, their gaze growing hazy and unfocused.
"But I thought you said Stars knew the destinies of everyone on earth," Trina countered. "How could you nothave known?"
Welkin stiffened. They looked away from May, but not before she caught the shame in their eyes.
"Given that Wishes were never part of the original plan, their fates are not as determined as other humans. You need to understand – the time and effort it takes to simply rewrite a human's fate is colossal in and of itself. To have to insert brand new destinies unexpectedly into the universe, well, it was a slow process."
"Wait," May said, her heart stumbling. "I'm a Wish. Are you saying I don't have a fate?"
"Not quite in the way others do, no," Welkin replied despondently "The destiny of a Wish is more... fluid, I suppose. It's difficult to describe.
May took a small step back, her world spinning. Never had she felt so small, so adrift. How many times had she found comfort in her mother's favorite mantra, "everything happens for a reason"? Every member of her family had uttered those words to her at some point while she suffered the public scorn of Kane's lies and eventual outing. And she had believed it, taking solace in knowing that one day all of her pain might eventually make sense.
"Hey, can you hear me?"
Dom's hand was on her shoulder. He leaned in and watched her with concern knitting his brows. He had been trying to get her attention, but she hadn't heard a thing.
Numb and thoughtless, May blinked vaguely at him and then looked back to Welkin who seemed to have wilted in their misery.
Everything she had discovered in the last 24 hours washed over her at once. It was so much – perhaps too much – and she was so overwhelmed with information and feelings that simply breathing seemed to require too much effort.
"I think I need a minute," she mumbled, barely audible.
Before anyone could stop her, May pushed through their bodies out into the sunlight and ran.