Chapter 5
Equality is folly. There can be no light without dark, no balance without chaos. The delicate equilibrium is precarious, with but one decision standing between total abandon. Dominion, cunning and devious, took full advantage to assert his supremacy, cloaked in shadow.
The Rise of Dominion
ASTRAIA DID NOT RESPOND. STEELING herself, she strode toward the woods, where the last man had fallen. He was still writhing in pain, lying on his side with the arrow protruding from his back.
She knelt beside him, close enough to smell the iron in his blood that coated the dirt.
“Who sent you?” she seethed. Anger boiled under her skin.
He coughed, blood splattering her boots. “Wouldn’t you like to know, Starborne?” he whispered, sputtering blood, a sickening smile spreading across his face.
Astraia did not falter as she grabbed the man’s own dagger from his waist and plunged it into his thigh. A shriek of pure agony escaped his lips.
“Now I can make your last moments on this stars-forsaken world as painful as when your mother brought you into it, or you can tell me what I want to know, and I’ll send you to meet Dominion with haste. Your choice.” Not a hint of pity in her voice, Astraia removed the dagger from his thigh.
Another yelp shattered the silence of the clearing as his hand grazed his now bleeding thigh.
“So, let’s try this one more time. Who sent you?”
The man gasped for what little breath remained in his lungs. “Delphi. Delphi sent us. She said she would split the bounty on your head when she handed you over to King Maelrik.”
Astraia’s breath hitched. She couldn’t be hearing the man correctly. He was dying and delusional.
“You’re lying!” she bellowed, her hands shaking.
He coughed again, more blood spraying the ground around him, and laughed weakly. “Not everyone is who they claim to be.”
He breathed one last shuddered inhale, then silence.
Astraia sat down next to the dead man. Her hands shaking, holding onto the bloody dagger as it dripped red on the ground next to her.
Why? Why would Delphi do this? How does she know about my bond?
Her bond flickered in her spine, not out of warning, but out of comfort and healing. The gash in her side from the attack was already mending, the muscle and skin melding together, whole once again. She could feel her energy being restored, and fatigue faded.
A shadow covered her.
“Are you going to sit there waiting for more of them?” His voice was low, with a hint of annoyance.
Astraia pushed herself to her feet. “You followed me?”
“I never stopped.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Were you waiting for them to wear me down first, or is that just a perk of your charming personality?”
“If I wanted you dead,” he said, sheathing his sword, “you would be.”
The wind shifted, lifting strands of her hair as silence stretched between them. Her bond hummed against her skin—Sacrifice pulsing low and warning. Not because he’d hurt her. But because he could.
She crossed her arms. “What do you want?”
He stepped closer. “To keep you breathing. Until I’m paid what I’m owed.”
Her jaw clenched. “You’re a bounty hunter.”
“No,” he said, tone dry. “I’m the bounty hunter.”
She hated that her heart still pounded—not from fear, but fury. From the sting of helplessness. “I don’t need your protection,” she snapped. “And next time, don’t bother saving me.”
“I won’t.”
She moved past him, brushing his shoulder. He didn’t stop her—but he didn’t step aside either.
“You’re bleeding.”
“Not anymore,” Astraia coldly replied over her shoulder.
He was exactly as she remembered him from the alley. His hair was golden and ash, tousled from the fight. Rough stubble covering his angled jaw, some specks of blood visible on his golden skin. And those eyes of molten amber pierced her fortitude.
A flicker of light flashed in her periphery, her hands responding to the calming sensation of the bond before she tightened her tether, stuffing her hands beneath her cloak to hide the light.
Val was still lying where he had fallen, a huge gash in his side that no longer had blood to spill. She knelt beside him, letting out a breath.
His eyes were still open. His chest no longer rose and fell. His pipe was in his tunic pocket. Astraia closed his eyes with trembling fingers.
“I'm so sorry, Val,” she whispered. The ache of another failure gnawed at her bones. Sacrifice, her so-called bond, was silent once again.
She hurried to build a pyre as was the Astradeon custom. The mysterious man simply watched from a distance, not interfering, a look of indifference on his face as the fire burned.
“May the Stars carry you to Solrend,” Astraia whispered as the flames grew taller. Her eyes blurred with tears, but she refused to let any fall. She would not give the Stars the satisfaction of making her resolution falter.
“You believe they still hear you?” That same low, husky voice sounded from beside her, a hint of surprise in his tone.
“No,” she countered. The Stars had shattered before she was even born, in the great Celestial War against Dominion.
After the Shattering, only strands of their presence whispered to the bonded.
But when she had needed Sacrifice the most, the Constellation remained silent.
No, the Stars had abandoned her long ago.
Anger darkened her mind, thinking of the betrayal she felt not just from Delphi, but from the Stars themselves.
She had been double-crossed more times than she could count, constantly deserted in the world.
Trust was no longer part of her vernacular.
It had been unraveled first by her father, then by almost every person she had allowed a glimpse into her heart.
No more.
Not ever.
Trust was a fool’s gamble—and Astraia Solenne refused to lose again.
Astraia rose from the ground resolutely, turning to face the mysterious man who hunted her, only to help her instead. The silence between them snapped like a frayed cord as she stepped away, boots crunching over blood-slick leaves.
“I told you—I don’t need your help,” she said.
“That wasn’t help. I’m protecting my asset.”
Astraia stopped cold, pulse hammering in her ears with fury. “Asset?”
“The king is very eager for your capture, Traia Starborne.” He drew out her name, careful to accentuate every syllable.
Astraia blinked, stunned. “What…what did you just say?”
He didn’t flinch. His gaze dropped to the blood-slick dagger still clenched in her hand, then lifted again, locking onto her eyes with a focus that made her breath catch.
Those molten amber eyes reflected the river behind her, swallowing its silver light, pouring it back as molten fire aimed straight at her.
“You heard me,” he said, voice low and sure. “You were minutes away from a full flare when I showed up.”
He stepped closer. The distance between them, already too small, shrank until the air tightened around her.
His presence was impossible to ignore now—towering, unyielding.
She had not realized before how massive he was, the breadth of his shoulders beneath worn black leather, the strong lines of his arms flexing as he moved.
Astraia fought the urge to step back. She anchored herself in place instead, curling her fingers tighter around the dagger, though deep down she knew it would be useless against him if it came to that.
Her bond stirred faintly at her spine—not in warning, but in recognition.
And that terrified her more than any blade.
“So what is this? You’re keeping me alive so you can trade me in as livestock to the false king?”
“Or until he wishes you dead.” He flicked some dirt from his leather armor, as if she was nothing but a child’s plaything that he would soon tire of and destroy for amusement.
Astraia clenched her teeth, forcing her bond down as it threatened to engulf her and melt the bounty hunter’s face off for good measure. Hands closing into fists, she glared at him. “And who exactly are you? Other than the king’s lap dog?”
“Draven,” he replied, deadpan.
“Well, Draven, you can take your bargain and blade and shove them right where Dominion reigns. I am not yours to protect or sell. And I will not go quietly.” Astraia stared into his eyes, transfixed but unafraid, daring him to try.
His grin deepened. “Bold of you, Starborne, making demands of the man who kept you breathing.”
With deliberate, slow movements, he sheathed the massive broadsword across his back.
Astraia, however, did not lower the dagger in her hand.
“You don’t trust me,” he said, almost admiring the fact. “You shouldn't.”
He stepped aside then, granting her a clear path past him. An unspoken challenge. Freedom dangled at her fingertips—but so did danger.
“You can stay here,” he continued, shrugging one broad shoulder. “Wait for other less-patient bounty hunters to find you. Or you can come with me. Live long enough to beg the king for your life.”
The ache in Astraia's spine deepened, her bond thrumming with a low warning she could not quite decipher.
Trust no one. Survive first. Question later.
“Fine,” she said, her voice like iron. “But first, I’m going to need my dagger back. The one you conveniently stole from me.”
Without a second thought, he reached for the sheath at his side. A dark black metal hilt shimmered in the sunlight. In one slow, deliberate motion, he freed the dagger and held it out with one hand, surveying it.
Her dagger. He did have it.
“Pity. I was becoming attached to it.” He turned the dark blade over once more in his hand and extended it to her, the hilt angled toward Astraia.
She did not take her eyes off of Draven as she sheathed the celestial blade, a familiar and welcomed weight pressing to her thigh. She discarded the bloodied blade she had stolen from her attackers, letting it fall to the ground.
Astraia glared at the man who could be her next betrayer or savior. “If you so much as look at me the wrong way—”
“You’ll spear me with one of your arrows,” he finished, one brow arching in amusement. He turned, heading toward the tangled tree line without waiting for her to follow. “Come on, Starborne. The night's falling fast. And you’re no good to me dead.”
For a moment, Astraia just stood there, staring after him—this maddening, infuriating, impossible man who strutted through this broken world as if it could not touch him.
Then, with a muttered curse under her breath, she followed him.
Trust no one, she reminded herself. Not even the ones who seem like they're trying to save you.
Especially not them.