The memory settled back into him like a hand returning to a familiar instrument, and he opened his eyes.
He blinked a few times to adjust his mind back to the present, and he found that below him, the world still turned nearly imperceptibly. The oceans were still blue, the land still green, and the mountains still young and bold. So many colors wrapped into one design.
The Voice had made the world beautiful, Sadhi realized, not for the first time. And he had the view all to himself.
Not because he wished to be alone, but because everyone else seemed to be busy. Busy exploring, making friends, and simply enjoying the life that had been given to them. Occasionally, Sadhi would drift near where such things were happening, but participation always felt like an uncomfortable thought.
And so he had found himself time and time again at this edge, watching.
After all, watching was part of what he had been made to do. The Voice had set him among the first watchers of the growing world, to see, to remember, and to rejoice in what was being made.
So, when observing people became too tiresome, he would retreat again to the edge of the skies and continue his solitary vigil over the infantile planet turning gently beneath him.
He was alone, but he found a measure of comfort in his solitude.
It gave him time to experiment with new melodies, to shape different sounds, and to craft the small devices through which he brought those sounds into the air. It was peaceful. Beautiful.
And there was so much to revel in.
Mist gathered and scattered. Seas breathed against the shores of continents. Forests stretched upward in green waves as the winds braided themselves through branches that had never before known motion.
Sadhi loved it all.
He loved the way the Voice had woven such hidden wonders into the fabric of existence. Things that sang softly to anyone who stopped long enough to listen.
And he loved—
“Does it actually do something, or are you just waiting for it to?”
Sadhi turned.
A young star stood a short distance away, her glow dusted the air around her like falling snow. Cool in its quality, the way Night Court stars often were, and yet something in it ran warmer than it should have. It gave the impression of an unpolished brightness about her, as if she had not yet learned that her court expected a certain solemnity.
She was slight in the way that made her easy to overlook until she had already crossed the distance between you, which apparently she had.
“I’m Siri,” she said, as though this explained both her presence and her question.
Sadhi found that he liked that about her.
He also found, without quite understanding why, that he was still looking at her.
“It does do something,” he said calmly. “Every moment.”
Siri drifted closer, studying first his expression, then the view he had been watching.
After a few quiet moments, she spoke.
“The ocean still looks like the ocean.”
“That is because you are looking for change,” he replied. “You should be looking for the pattern.”
Siri tilted her head.
“Pattern?”
Sadhi gestured toward the horizon.
“The wind has shifted twice. The current beneath the mist has begun turning north. In a little while, there will be rain over that western coast.”
Siri squinted suspiciously at the sky as if she might catch the weather in the act of preparing itself.
After a moment, she huffed.
“I think you’re making that up.”
“You’ll see.”
Siri looked him up and down.
“What do I get if you’re wrong?”
Sadhi gave a soft laugh—quiet, but genuine.
“What would you like?”
Siri considered this with unexpected seriousness, as though the question deserved genuine thought.
“Your name,” she said at last.
Sadhi looked at her.
“Don’t you already know it?”
“Well, yeah.”
She tilted her head, looking at him with great seriousness.
“But that’s something a friend should give you.”
“Even if you already know it?”
“Especially if you already know it,” she said, with the certainty of someone who had thought about this before. “It’s a verbal confirmation that you are willing to be seen. By giving someone your name, you are saying—”
She dropped her voice low and set her expression into something grave and weighty, leaning slightly forward as though the words themselves required reinforcement.
“‘This is the most real part of me. And I trust you to hold it.’”
She held that for exactly one beat before her voice returned to normal.
“And when you use someone else’s name, you are telling them—” this time her voice rose into something slow and warm and unbearably gentle. “‘I see the most you-est part of who you are. And I think it’s beautiful.’”
She returned to her normal voice again, as though nothing had happened.
“It’s quite the intimate affair when you think about it. Someone’s identity, wrapped in a word.” Her voice softened slightly. “There must be very few things that are quite that precious.”
Then she looked at him—directly, seriously. Her eyes held more weight than her easy manner had suggested, and there was something almost imploring in their expression.
“You’re more than just the Keeper of Song. I can see that. But I need you to let me see it if we are going to be friends.”
Sadhi was quiet for a moment.
“You want to be my friend?”
“You’re capable of friendship, aren’t you?”
He considered that.
“I suppose.”
“Great.”
She settled herself more comfortably, as though the matter were now established.
“Then I would like to act upon your capability.”
Sadhi laughed, genuinely, and slightly startled by the fact that he was doing it.
“Well,” he said. “Since you want it so badly. I’ll give you my name.”
Siri waited.
He said nothing.
She looked at him.
He looked back.
“What?”
“You said you would, but you haven’t actually done it yet.”
“I need to say it?”
“I told you. It’s a verbal confirmation.”
“Well,” he paused. “In that case.”
He looked at her, this small, bright, entirely unpolished star who had appeared out of nowhere and spoke with strangeness and riddles he couldn’t quite trace.
“I’m Sadhi.”
Siri made a sound that was somewhere between a squeal and a laugh, seized his hand with both of hers, and shook it with considerable enthusiasm.
“It’s wonderful to meet you.”
He looked at their hands. Then at her. Then he allowed himself another laugh. The second, in the space of a few minutes, which was more than he had ever laughed before.
Then they settled back into silence and watched as the world below them turned.
After a moment, Sadhi, not quite ready for their conversation to be over, spoke again.
“It appears we need to come up with a different reward. Since I’ve already given you my name.”
“Hm…” Siri thought about it for a long moment. “Time, then.”
“Time?”
“Yes,” Siri said simply as though this were the obvious next choice. “Time. I have a theory that it is a substance that is quite necessary for a friendship to grow.”
“Have you tested it much?”
“No, but I am hopeful for the results.”
“Indeed,” Sadhi said with a smile. “Unfortunately, I think that is an unavailable reward for our wager, as I believe I’m already giving that at the moment.”
“I suppose that is true,” Siri said contemplatively.
“What about something else?”
Siri’s eyebrows rose, and she looked at him.
“You seem to be a very generous friend. You’ve already given so much, it seems forward of me to accept more.”
Sadhi chuckled.
“Perhaps I’m just curious as to what you’ll say next. Besides,” he glanced at her sideways. “So far, you have asked for my name and my time. But I don’t think either is actually for your own sake. So tell me, Siri.” He said her name carefully. “What is it that you would benefit from?”
She thought about it.
The silence stretched between them. Not uncomfortably, just genuinely. It was clear that Siri was actually thinking about her answer. And as she thought, Sadhi realized that he would not be able to deny any request she would ask of him. And, he realized a moment after, he didn’t think he would want to.
“A story,” she said at last. “I think I would like a story.”
Sadhi looked out over the world below.
“What kind of story?”
She turned to him, and there was something bright and entirely unguarded in her expression.
“What was it like before I woke up?”
“What do you mean?”
“Before there were this many of us. Before we filled the sky like this.” She gestured broadly to the celestial courts somewhere behind them. “What was it like?”
Sadhi studied her face with mild curiosity as he tried to assign words to the experience of the time before the skies were filled. She was looking up at him with such genuine interest, and it couldn’t be clearer that she really did want to know. But he kept losing his train of thought as he looked into her eyes. They reminded him of the ocean far below them, and the deeper he looked into them, the more he could almost see waves and currents moving within them.
Sadhi turned away and looked back out over the world. He had almost forgotten he was trying to answer her question. It took a moment to piece together his thoughts into something semi-coherent.
“It was… quieter.”
“What was?”
Sadhi grinned slightly and gave her a teasing glance.
“The before time.”
“Ohhh. Right. I thought you were talking about some place in particular.”
“Well…yes. And no. The before time did happen somewhere different, but that place feels different now than it did even then. It was sort of positioned like where we are, but between the celestial courts and the Highest Court.”
Siri angled herself so she could listen more closely and rested her chin on her palm.
“There were fewer of us,” he added softly. “Only five. There were no stars yet. No courts. No light across the heavens… not the way you see it now.”
He looked out across the sky for a moment, remembering.
“It was quiet in a way that is difficult to explain.”
“How quiet?” she asked.
Sadhi thought about it.
“Not empty,” he said. “It could never have felt empty with the Voice there.”
Siri smiled faintly.
“But aside from Him… there was only us. Ilios, Marici, Aydin, Selene, and me.”
“And what were you doing?”
Sadhi’s smile grew warmer.
“Listening.”
“Listening?”
“Yes.”
He looked down toward the world turning beneath them.
“At the very beginning, the Voice had not yet spoken our names. Everything was still becoming. The heavens had not yet filled. The courts had not yet risen.”
He paused.
“And then He gave me the Song.”
Siri’s eyes brightened.
“The first one?”
Sadhi nodded.
“He showed me how, though even now I could not tell you exactly how. He guided me, and my hands obeyed.”
“And so?”
“And so I played the first note,” Sadhi said quietly, “and it echoed into the silence around us.”
Siri stared at him.
“That sounds terrifying.”
Sadhi blinked in surprise.
“Why?”
“What if you played the wrong note?”
Sadhi laughed softly.
“I couldn’t.”
“How?”
“Because the Voice was singing with me.
”That answer seemed to satisfy her.
After a moment, she asked softly, “So what did it feel like?”
Sadhi looked out across the heavens again as he considered the question.
“I’ve thought about it a lot, and yet I still don’t have an answer.”
Siri looked down at the world again, stilled.
“…I wish I had seen that.”
Sadhi studied her for a moment.
Then he said gently, “You are.”
She blinked.
“What?”
“The Voice is still creating,” Sadhi said. “Even now. The Song hasn’t ended. It is still growing. And if you listen closely, you can hear it.”
Siri followed his gaze again.
The mists shifted.
The sea breathed.
Far below, forests whispered in the wind.
After a moment, she smiled.
“…I guess you’re right.”
Sadhi returned the smile.
And then the silence settled between them. The comfortable kind. The kind that doesn’t need filling.
And in that stillness, something shifted in him.
He wasn’t sure when it had started. Somewhere in the conversation, perhaps. Or earlier — when she had first appeared, and he had kept looking without meaning to. There was something about the particular warmth of her light, the way she had stepped forward, the rose-gold of her hair catching the edge of the sky… something in her nature was familiar.
And then he knew.
He said nothing.
But he knew.
He had found his missing star.
Then Siri glanced sideways at him.
“You know something?”
“What?”
“You’re less strange than I thought.”
“I will treasure the compliment.”
“But only a little less strange.”
Sadhi laughed again, warm and unguarded.
And for the first time, he realized that he was no longer watching the world alone.
Time had stretched for an unknown length when he heard footsteps approaching.
Measured. Deliberate.
A star appeared at the edge of the path. Tall, composed, his bearing carrying the particular quality of someone who has been looking and has finally found what he was looking for. Something about him was familiar...
Sadhi looked at him, then at Siri, and understood: her brother.
This was her brother.
Siri looked between the two of them.
“The others are asking after you,” the brother said to Siri, to which she sighed.
“What did you tell them?”
“That I would find you.”
She sighed again, but stood.
“Well,” she said, looking at Sadhi. “I suppose the world isn’t going anywhere.”
“No,” Sadhi agreed. “It isn’t.”
“You’ll tell me more later?”
“Absolutely.”
At that, Siri smiled and turned to follow her brother.
She had only taken two steps when Sadhi’s voice stopped her.
“Farewell, Teshiri.”
Siri turned back to him—slowly—and the smile that broke across her face was wide, unhidden, and entirely unguarded.
He had said her name. Her whole name.
“Goodbye, Sadhi,” she said, and then she was gone, her footsteps and those of her brother fading down the path.
Then, just at the edge of his hearing, he heard Syrius’s voice:
“We really need to work on your informality. Don’t you know who that is?”
There was a beat of silence, and Sadhi strained his ears to hear Siri’s reply.
“I do,” she said simply. “He’s my friend.”
At that, Sadhi sat very still for a long moment.
Friend.
Not Keeper of Song. Not the formal address that everyone else carried when they spoke to him, the title that sat between him and every other star like a carefully maintained distance.
Simply his friend.
He sat with that for a moment.
As he did, the world continued below him, and everything was exactly as it had been before she arrived.
Except for him.
The silence seemed different now, and for the first time, he felt alone.
Friend.
She had called him her friend.
After a while, he rose and turned toward the Court of Day. Perhaps in the bustle and brightness there, he would be able to find another friend.