Once in a hundred years, the stars fall over the Hallowmere. Once in a hundred years, the elves of Silverbough let a mortal climb the stair.
Declan Rourke has walked the river border alone for fifteen years. He is thirty-seven, big and broad and freckled, with thick curly copper-red hair, a full auburn beard, a hairy chest, a scar down one forearm, and a kind face that has never once gotten him what he wanted. For two years, two elf wardens on the far bank of the Silverwater have shot arrows into his woodpile, warned him of wolves, hauled him out of the river, and emptied every basket of dried apples he left them on the ford stone.
Thalion is tall and pale, nearly four centuries old, with silver-blond hair to his waist, a silver circlet, and the patience of the trees he guards. Ithren is golden-brown and built like a wall, loose black braids, gold at his ears and around his arm, and a laugh that carries across the water, and no patience at all. They have belonged to each other for three hundred years.
Tonight they wade across the ford and ask Declan up into the high hall.
The custom of Starfall is simple. Anything asked under the falling stars must be answered with the truth. You may refuse the question. You may never lie.
And Declan has two years of truths he has never said out loud.
The elves want to hear every one of them. They want to hear him say yes. And they have all the time in the world to make him wait for it, one star at a time.
