Chapter 110 Nox
Chapter One Hundred and Ten: Nox
My back burns as Bahira digs into it with her small blade, but I keep my eyes pinned on the man I thought was a friend.
Who I exposed Rhea to because I assumed he could be trusted.
Galen had betrayed more than just my trust; he betrayed everything he ever promised to our family as our chosen healer.
And despite his poor attempts at excusing his behavior, there is nothing that can change the fact that he had a hand in throwing Rhea back into a cage.
It’s an unforgivable act.
“I’m sorry,” Bahira whispers, my jaw clenching tightly as she pushes the blade in deeper, the pressure building until whatever is inside of me—this lock as Galen called it—begins to move.
The pain morphs into something all-consuming, an unbearable force that explodes throughout my body, radiating into my muscles and bones and blood until I’m knocked off-kilter, falling into a familiar place as black rolls in along the edges of my vision.
My chest rises with the heave of a strained breath, and I find myself standing in the Middle.
Goosebumps break out over my arms, a phantom wind carrying glittering stardust winds along my skin and weaving into my hair.
Lifting my hands in front of me, I stare at the deep purple that pulses within me, changing me from a man to something more again.
Magic rushes from that deep well, a lid blown off after weeks and weeks of suffocation.
And as it fills me with everything I’ve been missing, everything I’ve yearned to have again, it also wipes away the pain I’ve been shackled to.
I’m stripped bare of it, and in a brief flash of panic, I forget what it is to be without that pain. What it is to be me.
“Prince of Stars.” Selene’s voice is unmistakable, but so is the terror that rattles it. “You must hurry now.”
“To her?” I ask, flicking my gaze back up to the stars and galaxies that surround me, the scent of jasmine wrapping around me.
“Hurry” is Selene’s only response before the stardust begins to spin around me, faster and faster until it’s all I see.
Bright light flashes as my stomach lurches, my power thrumming beneath my skin to the beat of my heart until I am not surrounded by the stars anymore but made of them.
This space between worlds cannot contain all that I am, all that I’m capable of becoming.
I don’t fall but soar past the markers of other worlds, past even the gods rumored among them.
Past everything that has been holding me back for fucking months, and I vow that all this power returning to me will be used for only two things: bringing Rhea home and punishing those who sent her away in the first place.
That purpose fills me as my eyes open, as Selene’s voice reverberates in my ears. Hurry. A veil of purple covers my eyes when they open, my sister’s concerned face consuming my vision before she jolts back at what she sees looking back at her.
“Nox?” she breathes, one hand shaking my shoulder while the other clutches something, blood dripping between her knuckles.
She swallows, tension bracketing her parted lips as her gray eyes bounce between mine.
“You’re glowing.” To prove it, she lifts my arm in front of me, deep purple indeed flaring over my skin. Or shining through it.
I sit up, blinking until the purple haze over my vision clears. When Bahira cautions me to move carefully, I can’t help but smile.
She frowns. “What?”
I direct my magic to grab at the shadows in the corners, drawing them nearer until they hover behind Bahira like an ominous cloud.
“Show off,” she mumbles, stepping back as I stand and stretch my neck, calling my magic to settle.
“What was in my back?”
“A dragon stone shard.” Holding her hand out, she shows me the jagged chunk of dragon stone coated in my blood, its center glowing with an array of contrasting colors.
“While you were passed out, Galen told me that some of the members of the council imbued their magic into the shard.” She closes her fingers around it before tilting her gaze up to mine.
“When the guards found you on the beach, they brought you to Galen who then put the shard in you to cut off access to your magic. That, combined with the tinctures, didn’t just weaken you, it dulled your emotions.
Made you not want to care.” She shakes her head, hands bracketing her hips.
“I should have fucking known there was more to this then just you being ill, Nox. I’m sorry. ”
“No,” I say harshly, giving her shoulders a gentle shake.
“You don’t get to take the weight of that burden, Bahira.
He does.” We both turn our attention to where Galen is still kneeling, and I direct the shadows at our back to coil around his body like thick ropes, pinning his arms to his sides.
The healer shouts when I force his body up into the air, the shadow ropes binding his legs together and wrapping around his neck, coming to an end over his mouth.
Gesturing for Bahira to give me the shard, I drop it to the floor before smashing it with the heel of my boot, releasing all of the magic that’s tied to it.
Galen whimpers at the sound, and I tighten the restraints around him as I take a step forward.
Though I no longer glow with my magic, I use it to call more shadows forward, allowing them to cloak me as wisps of darkness dance around my shoulders.
“Let me tell you how this is going to go, Galen. I’m going to uncover your mouth, and you are going to tell me who in the council took part in abducting Rhea. ”
Tears trickle down his cheeks as he attempts to struggle against his bindings. When I send him a warning look—willing the shadows surrounding me to grow larger—his shoulders sag.
When I uncover his mouth, he draws in a deep breath. “It won’t matter if you go after her,” he rasps, looking to Bahira. “The council will never allow the two of them to be together.”
A noise rumbles at the back of my throat while my magic pulses in my chest. Covering his mouth again, I grasp a shadow and harden it to stone, shaping it into a baton while the cold of it bites into my hand.
I ignore the way my sister tenses as I swing it into Galen’s leg, shattering his kneecap instantly.
“Nox—”
“If you don’t want to be here for this, Bahira, I will not think less of you for leaving.” I move to Galen’s other side, drawing my arm back in preparation. “Tell me who in the council is responsible. Who did Kallin work with?”
Free of the restraint on his mouth again, he answers, “You s-said earlier that if I t-told the truth, you would show me mercy.” His eyes move to my sister’s, the plea in them clear.
“Bahira might have promised you grace, but I offered no such thing. You are going to die for what you did to Rhea. For how you prevented me from going to her.” Stepping close, I return the baton in my hand to its shadow form and release it back into the room.
“But you can make your death mean more than how you’ve chosen to live the past few months. Tell me what I want to know.”
I give Galen the time to cry and plead and beg for his life, but only so that Bahira can decide if she wants to stay or leave. She should go, but of course my resilient sister stays, gaze hard as she stares at the man who betrayed us.
Galen finally calms, seemingly accepting his fate. “When you are done doing whatever it is you have planned, might I ask for a single favor?” he asks.
“You’re not exactly in a place to ask for anything,” I counter.
“I know, Your Majesty, but it is only a small thing. Please, tell my nephew that I am proud of him. That I know it hurt him to learn I had turned his father in, but that I tried to teach him all that I could in his father’s place. Please.”
At my answering silence, Bahira steps in. “How do we find him?”
“Oh, thank you. Thank you! He’s in the guard, though I’m not sure where they have him stationed currently. I’m afraid we’ve lost touch over the years—”
I lift a hand wreathed in magic up in front of me. “Get to the point, Galen.”
“Stephan. His name is Stephan.”
The shadows around me pause, Bahira’s sharp inhale mimicking my own shock.
“It can’t be,” she says, tilting her head. “What are the fucking odds?”
“You’re the scientist,” I counter, earning an incredulous look from her.
But the odds don’t so much matter to me as the poetic justice does.
He hurt someone I love, and maybe it’s the rush of magic talking, or maybe I simply have become the monster they feared I might with Rhea at my side, but I find myself enjoying the fact that I’ll get to return the hurt that he’s caused.
“It seems fate has a funny sense of humor,” I muse as I draw him nearer, the tips of his toes dragging along the floor.
I direct magic to my eyes, hoping that his low, pathetic cry is because he recognizes that he’s no longer looking upon his king but his executioner.
“Your nephew’s a little shorter than me, right?
With shoulder-length black hair and a cruel little smirk?
He knows how to make gelsemium tinctures, which I suppose makes sense considering who he’s had as a father.
Well, father figure.” Galen’s eyebrows race towards his hairline.
“Yes, Stephan and I have met, and I’m afraid, I’m not going to be able to give him that message after all. ”
“W—why?” he asks, complexion turning red as the ropes around him tighten.
“Because I watched Stephan die,” I murmur, my lip lifted in a snarl. “When I killed him myself.”