40. Nyte
40
N yte
I went over the probability of me being able to kill three keepers to follow after Astraea. The repercussions wouldn’t matter; I could handle further damnation to reach her. What stopped me was that I didn’t think they were creatures that could be killed, and I knew Astraea would be rather furious with me if I put her friends in danger as a result.
So I stood there for a while longer after she disappeared through the entrance and made sure these things knew I contemplated their death, at least.
“She’ll be okay,” Davina chirped next to me. Her contrasting cheerfulness grated against my sharp ire.
“Maybe you should try your way in,” I said to her, low enough the keepers shouldn’t be able to hear. Perhaps in a small rodent form, Davina could scuttle past their feet.
“She needs to do this on her own,” Lilith replied from my other side. “She’s stronger than you think.”
“I know,” I said. None of her friends knew her better than I did. Astraea was brilliant and cunning and truly I had no doubt in her.
Getting out of the keep, and saving all the celestials there, was breathtaking proof I was right to have every confidence in her to handle herself if ever a real threat emerged. If I didn’t, I never would have let her leave my side.
It wasn’t her capabilities that I considered just now. I just didn’t want her to feel alone. Never again. Especially now when I couldn’t be sure what she might learn from the guardians she always regarded fondly in the past. Not like the gods.
“Maybe I could get in,” Zath said. I had to admit I was glad not to be the only one who just wanted her to have company.
“We’re all right here if she needs us,” Rosalind said flatly, the one out of all of them who retained a steel exterior over her emotions.
I knew I was the reason why. Sometimes it was fun provoking her when all it took was a look. Though I was also aware it couldn’t continue. It meant something to Astraea that Rose and I get along and I was willing to try if she would stop spearing me with ice from those hazel eyes. I admired her resilience. Maybe one day we’d get along well enough for me to admit it to her.
“Besides, she’s probably safer in there than out here with you,” she said, casting me a look as she turned away from the temple.
Just like that, the hope of finding amity between us seemed unlikely again.
In a breath, I intercepted her path.
Zath shifted as if he would leap between the small space left between us.
“You can say or do whatever you goddamn like. But never question her safety with me.”
“I’m not questioning anything. It’s fact, isn’t it? Something has been keeping her upset despite her obvious care for you. What are you doing to her?”
“If we’re airing out other people’s business how about we face the fact of the murder you committed to be in the Libertatem.”
I’d kept quiet when it wasn’t my secret to tell, but she’d danced with my darkest past and I was going to dance with hers.
“What is he talking about?” Zath said, distracted from his defensive stance against me.
“You know nothing,” she seethed up at me.
“You didn’t win your trials so you swapped the information that was to go to the central, but someone found out before it left, didn’t they? Who was Eryn to you, Rosalind?”
“Stop.”
“The keep messenger boy, but you had a relationship with him, didn’t you? He found out what you did and feared what would happen to him for delivering the wrong papers. You got into an altercation—”
“I didn’t mean to,” she said, barely a whisper.
Her heartbeat was picking up and I didn’t know why I eased off before the memory I’d dragged out and crafted into a blade could truly hurt her.
I was growing too soft. How irritating.
Instead, I calmed the anger she’d provoked out of me when I saw the horrified look over what she’d done in her eyes.
“You did what you had to; it doesn’t make you a monster,” I said. “But don’t ever throw things you don’t know about us at me again.”
Her sight dropped and I stepped away, letting her explain the rest to Zath who looked her over with new eyes of concern and disturbance.
I understood—death and murder littered their world every day and they slept peacefully. Yet finding out they’d shaken bloodied hands became a haunting burden.
“I pushed him…” Rose admitted. “Harder than I meant to when he was fighting me in the woodland. Then he tripped and fell, hitting his head on a sharp rock. He didn’t get back up.”
I walked aimlessly around the huge gold-painted circle on the ground, listening in to their conversations out of curiosity though I already knew the full story from Rosalind’s mind. I knew how much the event had scarred her.
“I don’t remember how I got there but I delivered the note myself. Then, when the selected profiles came through, I left as soon as the borders opened before they would have hunted me down,” she finished explaining.
“Now you can’t go back,” I said.
“No. I think the reigning lord would call for my death.”
“Probably.”
“Your concern is endearing.”
I fought a smile. “I taste the hate you harbor for me. Am I supposed to care for you?”
“I don’t hate you.”
I slipped a suspicious gaze at her.
“I want to kill you.”
“Careful, Rosalind. Those are sweet words to me. They’re often the last I hear before I hold the person’s heart in my palm.”
“You’re a twisted bastard.”
“Is this a battle you want to keep expending yourself on? You’ll exhaust yourself before I ever give one fuck about your humorous attempts on my life, let alone your perceptions that mean nothing to me.”
Zath talked to her privately and something he said caused her to concede this time. I could admit I appreciated her strong will. It had clearly served her well. I didn’t know if she would ever warm to me and I didn’t crave it. Astraea did, and it was only for her that I did anything.
“Nyte,” Lilith warned, eyes cast behind me. I picked up on the sounds of an impending intrusion as the two fae did.
I used the void to get closer to Lilith and Davina. The approach came through the forest—distant breaking of branches and scuffling rocks. Then the air whooshed with too many gushes of wind to be anything natural.
“Celestials,” I said.
“Do you think he’s finally come for her?” Davina whispered to me.
My jaw locked with the assumption I hoped was fucking false. Dealing with the High Celestials coming to claim their maiden was a power struggle I wasn’t in the mood to face right now.
“It could just be the last of the captives from the keep,” Lilith offered, but we all knew they would have no reason to pass this way.
“It’s not,” I said, slipping a hand into my pocket like it would keep a grip on the monster within me that was already priming.
There was no mistaking the distinct energy of celestial royalty that dropped from the skies.
Zephyr Luna, Aquilo Sera, Notus Aura, then…
“It’s been too long, Auster,” I greeted with a venomous edge, but I smiled. “I haven’t seen you since the war three hundred years ago.”
“Not long enough, if you ask me,” he said.
“I’m afraid you wasted a trip; as you can see, Astraea is not here. You should have sent a messenger ahead.”
“We know she’s here. You can spare the act.”
“I don’t have an act; would you like one?”
Darkness tipped my fingers and I examined them. I just had to buy time. Stall them until Astraea came out because I would be damned if they had some plan to steal her away before she could choose if she wanted to go.
“You’re not getting to poison her mind a moment longer,” Auster snarled.
He hadn’t changed. The silver circlet peaked on his forehead, the shoulder-length wavy brown hair half tied back, and worst of all, the hideous glare I felt was crafted to distort his expression this way just for me. One thing was different…
“Nice hand,” I commented.
His right fingers flexed but the left never would again having been replaced by solid silver. He’d had both in flesh last time I’d seen him, days before Astraea’s death. I knew from battle it had been his dominant side for wielding a weapon and he must have taken some time to retrain with his right hand instead.
Auster took a few steps across the courtyard toward me and I was glad he did. For now I knew it wasn’t just his hand he’d lost, as that left arm didn’t move with his walk like the right did.
“Everyone lost something back then, and everything is on your conscience, Nightsdeath. Especially Astraea’s fall, and you’re not getting to harm her again.”
It was my turn to erase some distance between us but I had to be careful. The air was charging with a dangerous challenge of dominance and I couldn’t kill him; it would erupt a war far more savage than our history holds.
“Astraea is a person with a choice—I’m not holding her, but until she says she wants to leave, she’s not going anywhere with you.”
“She already has.”
At first I thought he had to be taunting me. My flare of denial started to fade with Auster’s irritatingly smug look.
For some reason I knew I would find the confirmation with a glance to Rose, and the guilty shift of her eyes to avoid mine, then the way she lingered a familiar gaze on the younger celestial close to Auster…
Oh, Starlight, what have you been up to?
“Doesn’t mean she will now,” I said coolly.
My lack of reaction served to provoke him more.
I couldn’t decide how I felt about the revelation Astraea had been keeping that secret from me. Could I blame her? No. It only hurt that I’d somehow failed to acquire her complete trust in me but I didn’t yet know what Auster could have told her.
“Step aside, Rainyte. You might not be allowed to enter the temple but I am. I’m not waiting for you to whisper more poison thoughts into her mind and manipulate her.”
The allegation that I would ever manipulate Astraea in such a way drove Nightsdeath to the surface. The darkness despised the celestial’s brightness, but I held the reins against the impulse to eradicate it.
“If you want to get to her, you’ll have to pass me.”
“Do you think we’ve been idle all these centuries? You’ve been our greatest focus, with no effort spared to figure out every weakness you harbor.”
My head canted in amusement. “I’m flattered. I haven’t given you a second thought since the war and could still put you down a hundred times over.”
An arrow fired, but I’d anticipated it from the faintest signal Auster gave with his head. It didn’t aim for me, but I’d blinked through the void to catch its path before it struck Davina and that pissed me off even more.
I snapped the stick in a flash of rage but I became distracted for a split second at the ominous dark pull whispering from the arrowhead. It was a dark iridescent stone. Not obsidian.
“Your origin is fae, is it not?” Auster said, taunting me with the knowledge. “I bet you’re susceptible to materials that harm them like obsidian does to celestials, and stormstone does to vampires.”
“What is it?” I asked Davina, who fixed wide eyes on the arrow head.
“Iron can weaken us but that feels stronger,” she said in fear.
“It took a long time to find anything from your origins, but I’ll admit it turned up some fascinating things. I don’t know what they call it, but we discovered it was a mineral found in the coldest of places and with our combined magick we’ve been able to recreate the properties. We’ve tested it on the fae, a few who had betrayed us to join the king’s army, and since I’m merciful, I’ll warn you it is highly effective in incapacitating the fae.”
“Attack me all you want,” I said, beginning to tremble with murderous restraint. “Attacking any of those behind me will be your last fucking mistake.”
Auster’s chuckle dragged like knives in me. “Don’t tell me three hundred years has grown a heart in you.”
“Tread carefully, Auster. It’s not my heart that makes me dangerous; it’s the one I protect.”
“You’ve never protected her,” he said coldly.
“I have nothing to prove to you, so why don’t you retreat until Astraea is finished inside. Then we can talk.”
“I don’t trust you for a second. You’ve been hiding her from us all this time since she came back and gods know what lies you’ve spun in your favor with her memories gone.”
“Your efforts to find her five years ago were weak. Even my brother found her before any of your kind did.”
He looked like he wanted to counter that statement. He was restrained only by a a flash of bitter resentment that might have spilled something he didn’t want me to know. That took my curiosity.
I couldn’t infiltrate their thoughts as easily as I could anyone else’s, as their minds were protected by what I assumed to be from Starlight Matter. Too much could drive them insane, so if I had the will and reason, I thought I could likely shatter through the measure.
“Step aside, Rainyte. This doesn’t have to be a fight.”
Our time was up, and I only hoped my Starlight would come out very soon.
“That’s not going to happen, so do what you have to.”
I wasn’t particularly in the mood for a fight, but I supposed Auster had riled enough energy in me for it. I saw it more as a game—protect the fragile things behind me and collect the lives of those who tried to harm them.
Auster might have anticipated that, as he drew his bow and arrow and aimed it for me just as he gave the signal for a dozen of his warriors to advance. The four High Celestials stayed firm, braced against me.
“You really need to fight me four to one?” I asked, distracting them as I listened to the clang of steel from Rose, Zath, Davina, and Lilith. They were great fighters in their own right.
“We don’t have to fight you at all,” said Zephyr, the only one who didn’t pin me with the same loathing as the others.
I knew him vaguely. He had been close friends with Astraea and she spoke of him fondly.
“If a single one of your people draws blood from them, they die,” I warned.
I wasn’t one for senseless killing, but I had little mercy. I thought my proposal to be fair.
“Then surrender,” Auster said.
“You speak like a child; that hasn’t changed.”
Lilith was the first to get hurt with a slash to her arm from the celestial she fought and my rage darkened my vision in the flash it took to cross the space and snap his neck. While I was here, I disarmed another, swiftly lodging a dagger in his shoulder, which crashed him to his knees with a cry.
Davina was mesmerizing with the way she moved like wind, throwing the daggers from the unique weapon she’d designed herself. Rose and Zath fought back to back but the odds of four celestials against two humans were hardly fair. I should even the scale.
The celestials hadn’t drawn blood yet from the humans, but I was beyond mercy now. I wrapped shadows around the neck of one and my own hand of flesh around the other. Both of them choked, clawing for air until they drew their last breath and I tossed their bodies aside.
“All this time and you couldn’t train better soldiers?” I taunted over to Auster. His people began to hesitate and retreat.
The High Celestial pinned me with such hatred I could almost feel the tangible heat of it. The feeling was mutual, but I wouldn’t expend such physical energy toward it.
More celestials emerged from the woods. Far too many for me to defeat alone when I had Davina, Lilith, Zath, and Rose to protect.
“It’s over, Rainyte,” Auster said. He always used my full name ever since he learned of it. As if he knew there had to be a reason I despised for why I didn’t use it myself. Even now, I never gave him a reaction but I itched for his throat each time.
“Astraea still breathes, and I still stand. It’s never over.”
“Both can’t be true in our world for it to return to the peace it was. This time, the abomination you are will be the thing that falls.”
My chest drummed with the all-consuming adrenaline right before the break of a battle. It could be over fast. I could kill every celestial here before they could even reach Astraea’s friends. But these were her people, and I had to keep an oath not to kill them all when she might condemn me beyond her redemption. Astraea held the reins to my ever slipping humanity.
So I let them attack. They wouldn’t kill Astraea’s friends; all I had to do was fight long enough for Astraea to come out. I wouldn’t let Auster get to her alone when he could take her away beyond the veil in a blink through the void.
“Did you not learn from the last time you challenged me and lost?”
“You’d taken my Bonded right against her will.”
“No Bond is a right. It was your ego that couldn’t accept she’d chosen me.”
“You forced it upon her!”
The sky broke with a boom of thunder. Auster had the power of storms. He’d attacked me that night Astraea found her wings and I didn’t tell her though now I wished I had. For I didn’t know they’d been meeting in secret, and though he didn’t deserve it, it was for her sake I didn’t want to taint her impression of him with that knowledge.
Did she not know about his direct magick of lightning?
His brothers had other strong abilities. They might rely on cosmic energy to wield it, but their gifts were of nature. The celestials were blessed from multiple deities to keep peace.
“You’re only angry like a child because your attempt to turn her against me didn’t work back then,” I said.
Tearing at old wounds made it feel like no time had passed at all.
“That was only a result of the Bond you’d shackled her into.”
“She still had full will to want to stay away from me. She could have taken your offer to try find a way to break it.”
I taunted him. Buying time. Come on, starlight.
As soon as she came back they would stop attacking.
In my distraction an arrow whizzed past me. It struck Davina through the abdomen and she screamed with the pain. Lilith rushed to her with a horror-stricken expression, catching her as they fell to their knees.
Fury boiled in me.
I was about to channel to them when fire, the likes of which I’d never felt before, erupted in my shoulder. So much that it stole my vision, my orientation.
I underestimated what they were willing to do. Clenching my teeth, I broke the stick of the arrow in me with the head still embedded. The material seized me still like poison flooding my veins.
Another archer aimed for Davina again and all I could do was make it in time to take that hit too. This time the explosion in my chest felled me to one knee. What the fuck is this?
“She’ll never forgive you for this,” I rasped, gripping the arrow stick and managing to pull this one out fully. The iridescent stone glistened with my blood.
“She has before,” Auster said.
Another arrow struck my chest. Then another. And another.
I coughed, splitting blood over the stone on my hands and knees.
“I don’t mean hurting me,” I said through short gasps. I was faltering. “You shouldn’t have harmed her friends to distract me.”
I had to hold on, but my heart was slowing. Dying felt like slow laps of sleep; inviting to numb the pain. I fought it with everything I was, but there came a point when the pull under was inevitable.
If something happened, I didn’t want her to believe I’d abandoned her. That I’d let them take her. So I called her name in my mind. Over and over even though it only seemed to rebound.
“Astraea.”
Darkness.
Agony.
Silence.
Then…
My brightest star.
I felt her. A prideful burst of energy expanded in my chest and brought my consciousness back enough to pull my head up. Auster looked down on me with satisfaction but I didn’t care. He wasn’t important.
Despite the three arrows in my chest, I found the will to turn around.
All was still, so tensely still.
Until up from the temple shot the most magnificent flare of light. Everyone had to shield their eyes against it. What came gliding down after was pure triumphant energy.
The star-maiden.
With her breathtaking silver and violet wings and if I wasn’t already on my knees I would have fallen to them like everyone else did now.
Astraea’s eyes glowed, her expression was ethereal, and she was dressed in gold and white and purple. Her feet gently touched the ground and her wings tucked in like a goddess descended from the heavens. The energy of her magick was breathtaking but it subdued as the brightness of her eyes and the glow of her key faded out.
I was so tired, losing the fight against the stone torching my blood and slicing my skin; my head bowed. Pride kept me awake; her presence kept me alive.
“Astraea,” Auster said from beside me.
“What happened?” she asked softly to me.
She’d disregarded him to kneel in front of me, lifting my head. I couldn’t believe the sight of the stunning angel.
“We have company,” I said, barely able to get words out, and I cursed my helplessness.
“I can see that. What did you do to piss them off?”
“I think I do that to him just by existing.”
Her smile was pained until she examined the arrows in my chest.
“Astraea,” I groaned.
“Yes?”
“These arrows really fucking hurt and I could use your help.”
“What are you willing to owe me in return?” she taunted playfully, but reached for one arrow stick.
I gave a breathy chuckle. “Absolutely everything.”
“I would have thought it would take more to incapacitate you,” she said with an edge of worry.
“They’re not just ordinary arrows.”
“This is going to be painful.”
I nodded, gritting my teeth with the pain that scattered blackness across my vision when she ripped the first free. A firm hand was planted on my shoulder to keep me from falling forward. It was Zathrian.
“Don’t die here,” she whispered to me, reaching for the next.
“I’m trying,” I said.
For her, I could defy the pull of death as long as possible.
“You need to drink—”
“No.” I halted her, but groaned to the next searing pain of the second arrow being pulled out. One left. I spoke the rest to her mind. “Don’t offer me your blood here. Your people will disgrace you for it.”
“You need it,” she argued vehemently.
“This time, yes I might agree. Just not here.”
“You won’t make it elsewhere.”
“Astraea, you must come with us. We’ve come to take you home,” Auster said, authoritative but wary of her.
“You have to be mad to think I’d see this and go with you,” she snapped.
If I wasn’t so debilitated right now, I would have shown surprise at her sharpness, her confidence, addressing him like that.
“We mean no harm to you or your friends. After what happened at the keep, you would be safer with us while the fallen king still seeks vengeance,” Auster said.
“Last one,” Zath muttered apologetically, taking over while Astraea held my head and was distracted by the High Celestial.
I did groan to the final explosion of pain that almost pulled me under completely.
Astraea’s hand slipped around my face, her thumb brushed my lips, and I didn’t know when she’d cut herself but the moment her blood was on my tongue it took every fucking ounce of willpower not to break in my state—to let the instinct take over that would have made me sink my teeth into the mesmerizing vein of her wrist without a thought of permission. My hand lashed out to her thigh, squeezing in warning, and I heard the shifting behind me. They wouldn’t be able to see that she was giving me her blood but I imagine Auster anticipated I would grab Astraea to use as a hostage right now.
“That was a very dangerous thing to do,” I said to her mind.
Her thumb slipped out of my mouth and the trickle of her blood I got was enough to give me some strength to grapple for consciousness a little longer, but I was teetering on starvation for her now that I had to focus on control.
“You can’t die here. I need you.”
My existence wove around those three little words. I need you.
“We’ve expended many resources for you. Come, Maiden,” Aquilo said.
He was a bastard. Astraea favored him least, from what she had told me in our past. I could feel the echoes of her anger and fear but I was still helpless to promise I could get us out of here if she asked me to.
“She’s not going anywhere with you,” I said, standing even though it felt like lifting rocks on my shoulders.
I would fight until I couldn’t anymore. Bleed until there was nothing left.
Hearing the next arrow fired at me, I managed to catch it, but not the second nor the third that came in succession.
“Stop!” Astraea yelled; her staff slammed to the ground and whether she meant to or not it scattered a vibration of warning energy under everyone’s feet.
The arrows dragged me back to my knees but Zathrian caught me before they slammed me to the stone.
“You can’t take much more of this,” he grumbled.
I kept track of Astraea and the High Celestials. She cast her sight sideways, finding Lilith using some kind of her magick that glowed a faint green around her arrow wound. A change shifted in Astraea, it was familiar but had been dormant until now. She’d always been protective and head strong, and seeing her friend harmed too brought her palpable outrage to the surface. She targeted that gaze on Auster, but he barely flinched.
“Why?” Astraea asked. There was no kindness in her voice.
“They fought us,” Notus replied, always the calm and indifferent bastard.
“You attacked first,” Rose countered.
“These are my friends,” Astraea interjected. “An attack on them is one on me.”
“They side with our enemy,” Aquilo seethed.
“Then I am your enemy.”
The air became thick and ice cold. Looking at Astraea now, it was hard to remember she only had five years of new existence, when it was like she’d never left at all with the authority and challenge she embodied. I was so fucking proud.
“You know nothing, Maiden,” Aquilo said. I wanted to rip his throat out so badly my fingers flexed against the stone.
Auster said, “We won’t take this to heart given your… circumstances. It’s our mistake in harming your friends, which we hope you can forgive.”
I decided I wanted to feed Aquilo’s throat to him. They mocked her with those words, belittled her confidence.
“You should leave,” Astraea said.
“You’d turn away aid from your people for him?” Notus said bitterly.
“We are not needed here, brothers,” Zephyr said as the voice of reason. “We came to see she is safe after the attack at the keep and to bring our people home. It’s clear they need us more right now and Astraea can take care of herself.”
He was the only High Celestial I might have had a shred of respect for. Astraea spoke of him more fondly than Notus or Aquilo and I trusted her judgment.
My vision blurred when Zathrian tore out one of the arrows but I thought their forces began to turn away.
Astraea could have left, but she’s right here.
“Oh Nyte,” Astraea said, sinking down in front of me again. “You really have a penchant for torture in provoking them.”
It was mildly embarrassing how many shots they managed to fire through me, but I blamed the new material they’d crafted that was a fucking hinderance, being able to incapacitate me faster and more effectively than anything else.
“They could have struck me with a dozen more and it wouldn’t have stopped me if they’d tried to take you.”
I would have let Nightsdeath take over and shown them the true villain I could become with the right motivation to get her back.
“Can you travel through the void?” Astraea asked.
My vision came and went; I didn’t have long before I would pass out.
“I don’t think so,” I said. The last words I could utter, and they felt like lead on my tongue.
I feared falling unconscious only in case Auster could be waiting for the moment I was to storm back and take Astraea from me. I tried to speak, but I knew it was too late. Astraea took one of my hands, a soothing reminder of what was waiting, as Death gripped the other, and welcomed me home.