37. Nyte
37
N yte
The breath I drew when I woke speared in my chest with panic. It started ever since I’d been free from my underground prison. Sometimes I was pulled from the depths of hellish nightmares, other times the sleep had been restful, but the moment I woke was when a flicker of terror seized me. All because of her.
I pushed up from my stomach-down position with a tightness growing behind my ribs. A confusing torment that I was still there in the cave behind the veil, and Astraea was still gone. It left me unable to breathe.
With the cold, empty wrap of the room, my teeth clenched with the sharp pain attacking my head as I got out of bed. I’d fallen asleep. I hadn’t meant to despite Astraea’s scolding.
Astraea.
She wasn’t back, and somehow I knew it had been far too long and she should be here with me.
I’d fallen asleep.
I tried to pull myself together, getting changed numbly. Sweat trickled down my skin. It wasn’t from the exertion of dying; I was in perfect health. No—my dizzy sweeps came from a disease of the mind that had crawled its way into parts of me that became overwhelmed with fear. Riddled by treacherous anxiety.
I can’t lose her again.
Bracing a hand on the table, I scrunched my eyes shut, beginning to tremble with anger at myself when I was only delaying myself from her longer in this pitiful state.
I’d breathe right again as soon as I saw her. Right in front of me. Safe and unharmed.
Thinking of her I reached for the thread of her that was bound to my soul. The only bright piece of treasure in such a dark and twisted place.
I wrapped my whole being around it as I pushed through the void to find her. To my relief, I felt nothing bad in the essence of her that lived eternally in me.
When the world stopped moving and my feet felt ground, I didn’t know where I was.
I didn’t care.
The head of stunning glittering silver hair that faced away from me weakened my knees with the weight of relief.
“Astraea.” Her name barely escaped me in a breath with my throat still so tight. My pounding heart started to calm as she turned.
I took a long, contented inhale when her icy blue eyes met mine. On the exhale I began to take in more of where I’d found her.
We were on the rooftop of the establishment we took lodgings in. I would have been confused yet when I looked at what Astraea was cradling… I was slammed by shock.
She’d done it. Astraea had hatched the celestial dragon egg.
“His name is Eltanin,” she said preciously, like she was holding a sleeping child.
The small beast was breathtaking. A dragon with feathered black wings and feathers that ran over the crown of its head right down to its very long tapering tail that wrapped around her wrist. It had flickers of violet on the leathery skin of its legs and chest.
“How did you do it?” I approached carefully, in awe of the creature but more so of her.
“It needed moonlight; then I had to hear its name if it was willing.”
“Is that where you’ve been all night?”
She nodded.
I needed to touch her, slipping a hand over her waist. It was an invasive habit I hoped she would never grow repelled by. I couldn’t help it, when it was the only thing to truly settle the beast of fearfulness that was always clawing in my chest, my mind, my soul, when she wasn’t within reach.
Her existence felt too fragile. I’d lost it once before in the blink of an eye.
“Drystan told you,” I assumed. That’s why he wanted me to show her that memory. “What did he want to gain from it?”
Astraea dropped her eyes to the sleeping dragon, patting a careful hand over its head.
“He wanted to see if he could bond with a dragon,” she said quietly, with a hint of fear, and I pulled her close.
“He won’t get to take him from you,” I assured.
Even if he wanted to, if the infant dragon had chosen Astraea, I thought it would be pointless to try to take him from her.
Astraea didn’t respond, seeming to lose herself in thought looking over Eltanin with a pinched brow. Something else weighed heavy on her mind that she didn’t speak.
“They don’t age like most creatures,” she said. “He won’t be so little for long. Every full moon they age. It takes four to six for them to stop growing.”
The dragon gave a yawn, emitting a sound something between a caw and a rattle. One eye slipped open as if checking whether it was worth waking fully yet and I was taken by the starry purple of it, split by vertical pupil.
“He’s beautiful,” Astraea murmured.
The dragon was, but I couldn’t stop watching her. How dearly she admired this creature in her arms. I leaned in to kiss her temple.
“It’s freezing out here. Are you sure he’s not got the power to cause juvenile destruction if we take him inside?”
“I’m not sure, actually,” she said.
As we moved, Eltanin seemed to object, climbing with sharp claws on his four feet up her chest, over her shoulder, before burrowing in her hood, his tail circling her neck now.
I smiled as she giggled, cringing with the feathers tickling her skin. Every time I saw Astraea it was a gift, but right now, I was utterly enamored.
It was hard to imagine the small, adorable creature that could fit in her hood now would grow to a huge, terrifying beast in four to six short months. I thought about the one we’d faced in the library so long ago—even in its agony it was terrifying. Astraea had no idea of the weapon she had allied with tonight. Even if it never attacked, for her to be the only dragon and rider in existence was going to shake the continent.
“Do you think it breathes fire that burns?” she asked in wonder as we headed inside.
“The one in the library we found—its breath was like shadowfire. It can burn in a sense but not like amber flame. It would drain the life from anything that it touched. Rot it, essentially.”
“It looked like your magick,” she said. “The dragon’s breath in your memory. You could feel it.”
“Yes. It was peculiar.”
“Then perhaps it should be bonded to you instead.”
“We don’t know if it has the same magick.”
“I think he will,” she said, and it was like a new spirit had lifted her this night.
In the main room of the pleasure house, I wanted to suggest we just retire for the night.
People sought more distance than necessary as we passed. I was used to the dejecting nature of my presence and didn’t pay it any attention. Their separation from us made it easier to find Astraea’s companions.
“I think they’re scared of Eltanin,” Astraea said, leaning into me.
“I don’t think they’ve noticed the beastie in your hood.”
He blended in like fur in her dark cloak.
“There’s our little Stray,” Zath called over. He was drunk.
Zath’s personality became far bigger with alcohol. Rosalind wouldn’t look at me, but I thought the edge was taken off her usual thick distaste around me. She even smiled to Astraea.
“Oh my stars!” Davina gushed, hands covering her mouth as she bounded over.
“Is that real?” Lilith shot up from the bench too, eyes locked over Astraea’s shoulder.
“His name is Eltanin.”
“Eli!” Zathrian announced the new nickname. He jostled Rosalind into his side. “We’re godparents.”
Rose didn’t seem enthused by the way he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and imposed the declaration on her.
“ We aren’t anything,” she said flatly.
Zath waved her off. “You’ll come around. Let me see our godson!”
“How the hell did you get a baby dragon?” Rose asked, but she was curious enough too.
I let Astraea lose herself with her friends and their admiration of the dragon. It would be interesting to watch it grow and I imagined how mighty they would look ruling side by side.
She was magnificent.
I leaned sideways against a wooden pillar mostly cloaked in shadow—an attempt to make my presence as small as possible.
Drystan wasn’t here upon my quick survey. I expected to find him flirting with some man or woman.
“Not one for social scenes either?” The rogue’s voice trickled from the other side of the post I leaned against.
“I’m enjoying myself just fine,” I said.
“You look like you’re contemplating turning this place to ash,” Nadia countered.
A table of three men kept sparing wary looks in our direction. I’d have admitted their attention was starting to grate on my nerves, until they stood and shuffled out.
“See? You’ll quieten this place down in no time. Keep doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Standing there.”
“How do you know it was me? You’re not exactly the most approachable either.”
“They’re human men and I’m a beautiful woman.”
“That could kill them in the blink of an eye.”
I watched a slow smile of satisfaction curl her face as she leaned like my mirror reflection, watching the crowd.
“Vampirism has its perks.”
I dreaded to ask, “Have you seen my brother?”
“He’s been good at avoiding me; I have to give him credit.”
“If he hadn’t changed you, someone worse could have,” I said. “We might have our differences and a lot has changed in him. But if he wanted to use the power he had over you, he would have by now.”
“Doesn’t mean he won’t. Perhaps he’s biding his time. You’ve led many armies and fought in many wars. Your strategies are legendary yet you’re blinded by the fact he’s your blood. He has an army ready to command, and you’d be a fool not to consider he’d turn on you with the might of it and he’s just waiting for his chance.”
“Perhaps. But if that time came I would kill him myself.”
Nadia slipped me a look. She didn’t believe I would. I didn’t like to dwell on what ifs. To calm my rising irritation, I found Astraea.
The little dragon had awoken, prancing around the wooden table while they marveled over the creature. A nearby table evacuated in their cowardice regarding the unknown.
I could relate to it—a pitiful realization.
It coughed a small cloud of black smoke, and I was curious about it. Wanting to feel it even if satisfying that curiosity got me hurt.
“Seems pointless,” Nadia commented, watching the group with me. “For a celestial to have a dragon for a pet when they both have wings.”
It was a peculiar thing. The celestials were like kin to the dragons from what I knew, but the dragons would often bond to the fae—it acted like a treaty of nature.
Astraea met my eye with a grin from watching Eltanin knock over cups and snap with juvenile innocence at people’s fingers.
“I think he’s hungry,” I said to her mind.
Her face fell as she looked at the dragon with new consideration.
“What does he eat?”
“My brother coaxed you into dragon motherhood without adequate instruction?”
She cast me a flat look; I couldn’t suppress my hint of a smile too.
I said to Nadia, “You might be the best candidate to take the creature hunting.”
“I’m not risking suffering the consequences of whatever untrained power could unleash from that thing.”
“I think it could hardly char bread.”
“Yeah? Well, you take it.”
I shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
The ground rumbled and I straightened. The quake shook through the establishment as a dormant warning that awoke to rattle through my bones. It turned time to stardust slipping through my fingers as I gravitated toward Astraea in the commotion.
She met my look with concern; our thoughts aligned but I didn’t care. Not about the many ways this world would try to tear us apart. As long as she still called for me, I would always come.
If the sun never rose again, I would come for her in total darkness.
If magick died out for good, I would run, or walk, or crawl.
If a void split and tore us apart, I would step through worlds to reach her.
I took her face in my hands with the ground raging its warning, and I sealed those promises with my lips on hers.