Chapter Text
From the moment when she first drew breath — in the middle of the night under a thick cover of stars, Yasmin Khan has lived a life completely devoid of excitement.
Her birthplace was a town called Wall, named such because it developed next to a remarkably long yet remarkably unimpressive wall in the countryside. Due to its isolation from the rest of the country, Wall is an insular place, full of other people who were born there and never saw the point in leaving. Yaz, too, has never left.
She sees the same people day in and day out. She knows the intimate details of the lives of everyone around her. She breaks up the same fights night after night, when she patrols the town in exchange for her measly wages. If asked, she could diagram all the ways in which the people of the town interact, and there is nothing thrilling in that. Nothing in Wall ever changes, and no one in Wall ever escapes.
She feels hopelessly, restlessly, horribly trapped.
There are times when she wonders if anyone else in this place feels quite as awfully as she does — town festivals when she stares at the joyful faces of the assembled crowds and searches for someone — anyone — who might be half as sad as she is, but she never finds one. Either everyone else in Wall is content with the way things are, or they are much better at hiding it than she is.
There is a period when she thinks that perhaps things might be better if she simply falls in love. After all, people always speak of falling love as though it is a life-altering event. For a while, there is hope in that idea, but that hope shatters all too quickly. It turns out that it is rather difficult to force love. No matter how many dinners or nighttime walks she takes with her eligible peers, she never feels her world shift. She never feels her heart flutter. She never feels her pulse race. She begins to think that love might be reserved for those select few people who are predisposed to happiness. The people who do not stand in their own way. The people who look at Wall and see contentment and possibilities, rather than a cage of brick and stone.
And she gives up.
At her lowest point, she sits on the roof of a stable with her younger sister, Sonya, staring up at the very same stars under which she had been born. There is a slight chill in the air that speaks to the coming winter and the looming date of the harvest, and Yaz is not dressed for the weather. The constant breeze slips below the collar of her linen dress, sending intermittent shivers down her spine. Her dark hair is loose, hanging down her shoulders in windswept waves.
Sonya was slightly more prepared for the evening. She has a woven blanket draped around her shoulders, staving off the worst of the cold. The stars reflect brightly in her eyes as she stares up at the sky, lending her a bright expression. Though Yaz would never admit it, she is jealous of that look in Sonya’s eyes, of the happiness that she, herself, has so long found elusive. After a while, she turns her eyes away, focusing on the dark, jagged horizon line of trees that sits just on the other side of the wall.
“Do you ever want to just pack up a bag and leave?” Yaz asks after a long period of silence. The question is hesitant and halting, and each word takes an enormous amount of effort. She has never admitted this to anyone before. The fantasy of leaving Wall behind was always a secret, guilt-ridden idea, best kept to herself.
Still buried beneath her blanket, Sonya yawns and stretches. “Why would I want to leave? My life is here. Ryan is here, our family is here, and I have to find out what happens with Kieran and Magnus. I have been waiting for that to resolve for ages.“
That flare of jealousy in Yaz’s belly intensifies. She wishes for the simplicity of Sonya’s desires, wishes that she could be content with small town gossip and the love of the people around her, but there is an itch beneath her skin that longs for something more. She doesn’t know what exactly would sate that itch; she just knows that she hasn’t yet found a cure.
“They’re going to marry,” she says flatly. “That’s all anyone around here ever does.”
All vestiges of tiredness have vanished from Sonya’s face now. She’s fully awake, with her head propped in her hands, her elbows propped on her knees, and her starry-eyed face far too close to Yaz’s own. “You think so?”
“I know so.”
A contemplative hum breaks through Sonya’s lips.
Yaz bristles slightly. Trust Sonya to miss the point entirely. Though they may be sisters, Yaz often feels as though she and Sonya live on different planets. It is difficult to have any discussions with her, especially serious ones. If she was going to spill her deepest secrets, she probably should have picked someone else, but she doesn’t know who else to tell. She has no friends, no confidants, no real prospects.
There is just her, alone, even when she exists in a crowd of people she has always known. Her tongue and throat grow dry at the thought, and she struggles to swallow.
Sonya, ignorant to Yaz’s discomfort, continues. “Kieran was at the barn dance several nights ago, but I didn’t see him dance with anyone. Magnus wasn’t there. Alaya said he was downing drinks in the tavern, but the innkeeper does not recall seeing him. Someone suggested that he might have crossed the wall, but I don’t…”
Eventually, Yaz stops listening, allowing Sonya’s voice to sweep over her in a wave of meaningless noise. As long as she nods every so often, Sonya won’t know the difference. She tears her eyes away from the dark and distant trees and focuses on the dark and distant sky instead, counting stars and finding the shapes that lurk between them.
In the center of the autumn sky is a hero of legend, wielding a club as he faces down an monstrous beast also entombed in the stars.
If she cranes her neck, she can spy the ship above them — the twenty stars that mark the hull and the mainsail set in a curved arc bisected by a line.
She leans back even further until she is lying with her back pressed against the sharp shingles of the roof. The slate is still warm from the sun’s heat earlier in the day. It’s pleasant. Her eyes fix upon the stars directly over her head. It is one of her favorite constellations — the small bear around which the entire sky revolves. She has never seen a bear in real life before, nor does she know if they even reside in this part of the world, but the bear has always brought her comfort. She imagines that it, too, is lonely.
After all, it is trapped in the same place, night after night, year after year as the rest of the sky moves around it. The heroes and their villains come and go, but the bear is always there. Sometimes it is lower in the sky, sometimes it is higher, but it never really disappears. It never gets to rest. It never gets to see the other side of the world.
Just like Yaz.
She stares at that bear for a long while before her eyes flutter closed, lured into dreary submission by the residual warmth seeping through her thin clothes.
At the peripheral edge of her awareness, Yaz is still aware of Sonya speaking. “I don’t understand why they keep doing this. They should either court each other seriously or simply agree that it is never going to work. I do not understand why they must put the entire town through the trial of guessing what they plan to do next.”
“What would you talk about if there was no gossip?” Yaz asks in the next available pause, her voice barely louder than a murmur. “Nothing ever happens in this place.”
“Is this because Inez broke your heart? Is that why you’re in this mood?” Sonya says. “You should have never courted her. I did warn you.”
Yaz’s eyes snap open as she surges to her own offense. “I was not courting Inez. Mother suggested it, and I told her that I would be better off snogging the pigs out behind the mayor’s house. I would have gouged my own eyes out rather than be forced to share a room with her for an entire evening. I was seeing Kit, but she is as dull as a brick.”
Sonya sniffs.
Yaz does not have to listen to know what her sister is going to say next. “I do not know how you expect to find love with that atti—“
Sonya does not get a chance to finish the saying. In the sky, at the very center of the bear’s nose, there is a sudden flare of light. It is so bright that its ghost burns itself into the back of Yaz’s vision — red and haunted and tapered into many branching points and rays.
The light streaks towards the ground, racing towards the distant horizon. Yaz sits up with a start, following its path intensely. This fireball is the most interesting thing she has seen in the interminable years of her youth, and she doesn’t want to miss a second of it. The crash landing is obscured behind the trees beyond the wall, and though her eyes strain against the dark, she sees neither a plume of smoke nor an eruption of fire.
“Was that a falling star?” Sonya asks, the detente between Magnus and Kieran quite forgotten.
Yaz blinks, trying to clear the ghost of the flare from her vision so that she might be able to see again. When she glances back up at the bear, she sees that it is missing exactly one star, at the very tip of its nose. “Must have been.”
“I’ve never seen one before.”
“Me neither.”
The tales that elders tell around fireplaces and bards sing in taverns speak of fallen stars as a once in a hundred years event. Those who recover the remnants often receive a reward, be it a wish, great wealth, or unbelievable glory. These events vary by the telling, as all things that have occurred beyond living memory are want to do. History is a wild thing, prone to embellishment and flights of fancy, but in this moment, Yaz wants the stories to be true.
Perhaps this is the excitement she has longed for.
Perhaps this will heal the hole in her heart.
Perhaps this is the adventure she seeks.
“I should go after it,” she says, voice trembling with anticipation.
She is tempted to slip back over the ledge and through the window, pack a bag as quickly as she can, and race off towards the unknown this very instant.
“It landed over the wall,” Sonya replies.
“So?”
“No one ever goes over the wall.”
“Then it’s about time someone tried, isn’t it?”
“I’ve heard there are creatures on the other side who will rip you limb from limb.”
“It’s not a very high wall,” Yaz observes. She tucks her elbows in close and begins to creep towards the edge of the roof. “If there were creatures who would rip you limb from limb on the other side, they would’ve crossed by now. I’ve looked over it before, and it looks exactly the same as it does over here, except there’s no town. It’s just trees and grass as far as the eye can see. I’ll be fine.” There’s a pause as she braces her palms on the shingles, bracing herself for the swing towards the open window below. “And besides, I could come back with riches. Or magic. Or whatever else one gets when chasing down a star.”
Sonya unwraps herself from the blanket. “What if you get nothing?”
Yaz considers the question for a moment. “Then I come back, and it’s like nothing ever happened.”
“The town would know. Or parents would be angry.”
“Then don’t tell anyone where I’m going. I’ll be out and back. It should not take more than a day or two. Stuff my bed and tell everyone I’m ill.”
The sisters lock eyes. Sonya seems perched on the cliff’s edge of argument, tongue ready to lash out and hold Yaz back from the promise of adventure, of change, of something more than their normal lives in Wall, but after several tense heartbeats, something shifts. Her expression softens. “Be careful, please.”
For the first time in a very long time, Yaz smiles.
“I will.”
She swings herself off of the roof, through the window, and begins to pack a bag, ready to set off towards the wall before first light has a chance to break over the horizon.