Chapter 24
Star watched the sky as they completed check-in, the horizon beginning to tint with an etching of colors, both beautiful and ominous. His stomach flipped over at the idea that the darkness would bring sentient shadows.
Yuri wrapped his arm around Star’s waist and stared up at him. “You okay?”
“Yes. Of course. I think we should get to my estate. We can rest for the evening and explore tomorrow.” Best to let them all think Yuri needed to be safe and well rested rather than Star’s fear overwhelming him.
“Is it not safe at night?” Yuri asked.
“It’s very safe,” Lucian said. “Lots of music, plays, poetry events, dances, and the like.”
“My estate overlooks the city,” Star offered. “The view of the city lights is nice.”
“We can grab some food in the artisan’s courtyard,” Theo said. “They had tasty sticks.”
“Sticks?” Yuri asked.
“Skewers,” Lucian clarified. “They have a spiced skewer with vegetables and some meat. There are pastries, too. Though none of them are as divine as yours.” He grabbed Theo’s hand with one of his and took Yuri’s free hand with his other.
“Let’s get some food, maybe find a place to sit and eat while watching a play. Tomorrow we can explore the market.”
“We shouldn’t stay long,” Star protested, but everyone ignored him, heading out onto the cobblestone path, Lucian in the lead, walking toward the city center.
“It’s fine,” Radu said, trailing beside Star.
“It’s not,” Star said.
Radu slipped his fingers around Star’s throat, forcing him to let go of Yuri and pause. “You promised you’d make different choices,” Radu whispered with his lips only a breath from Star’s.
Star gasped and swallowed hard as his cock hardened from the rough, teasing touch. It was unfair that Radu was the epitome of his most divine creation and could turn him on with little effort.
“Everything okay?” Yuri asked. He stood up on his tiptoes to give both Radu and Star a kiss on the cheek.
Star deflated. “Can I take him to my estate? Explain things, just the two of us?”
“You don’t want our support?” Lucian asked.
“It’s not that…” Star didn’t know how to articulate what he felt and wanted to say without feeling like an idiot. His gaze found Theo, the sweet, perfect little angel who came to terms with his newfound emotions easily.
No, that wasn’t true. Star remembered how conflicted Theo had been about even the simple touch of water on his skin. No one had turned Theo away for struggling. Why did he think they would flee from him? Were Gabriel’s poisonous words still eating away at his mind?
He swallowed twice, then opened his mouth and let the words spill out: “I’m overwhelmed and struggling to understand what I’m feeling,” Star admitted. “Fear. I feel fear. Anxiety, maybe?”
“About?” Yuri asked as Radu let Star go.
“The shadows,” Star admitted.
Yuri flinched, and Star’s gut churned, his heart racing. None of the others seemed afraid. Rather, they all gathered close, giving Star and Yuri a barrier from the small crowd wandering around them.
“Talk to me,” Yuri whispered. “Shadows? Aren’t they gone? Spread between all the worlds?”
“Yes,” Star agreed. “And no.”
“Star?”
Star glanced at the others, looking for help, affirmation perhaps that it was okay to reveal things that Yuri’s delicate mortal body couldn’t remember.
It wouldn’t take much to stir the memories from the deep abyss of past lives shared, but would Yuri break again, or remain with them?
No one offered to help, but neither did they look worried.
“It’s okay,” Theo said. He burrowed his way between Radu and Star to latch onto Yuri. “Star’s trying to think of how to say stuff. It’s a little heavy, and he’s still new to the mortal need to articulate what he feels.”
Lucian chuckled and said, “He’s not wrong.”
Yuri put his arm around Theo, and rested his palm on Star’s face. “Help me understand how to help you.”
“I don’t need help,” Star said. “I just don’t want you to be afraid or angry.”
“Okay. I can’t promise how anything makes me feel. Emotions are wild like that. But tell me what you mean by the shadows are gone, but not.”
“Some worlds were destroyed,” Star said. “From within. Wars, among other things, killed off all living things. And without the living, there is nothing to feed the shadows. The darkness moves to other places. Sometimes it pools and becomes sentient.”
“Like what created the worsening Fracture?” Yuri asked.
“Yes. But on a much smaller scale,” Star said. “Only a handful of worlds lost rather than hundreds closed.”
“And they are easily scattered now,” Radu added. “It doesn’t take a particular sword or anything special to crush a sentient shadow and send it back to the places of darkness. Most places have little magic and the shadows there can’t do much.”
That was the truth, but, “They are attracted to me,” Star said. “Because they fed on me forever perhaps, or because they seek to return to where they began…” Which was Yuri, before he’d split himself to wrangle the ultimate darkness into something usable.
“You mean us,” Yuri said. “They are attracted to us?” The alarm on his face was impossible to hide.
“Yes,” Star said, but gripped Yuri’s arm. “I won’t let them touch you.”
“Choices,” Radu muttered.
Star cursed.
“Can they hurt me?” Yuri asked. “Or you? Or any of us?”
“Not really,” Theo said.
“Yes, and no,” Star hedged.
Lucian’s sigh was audibly annoyed.
“You can scatter them or choose to catch and keep them,” Star said in a rush, needing to get out the words that felt like a betrayal and a confession all at once.
“Okay, what happens if I catch them?” Yuri asked.
“Your magic will return,” Radu said.
“But so will the hunger,” Lucian added.
Yuri’s gaze flipped between all of them and back to Star.
“It would take a long time to get as bad as it was,” Star said. “And you’d have more control now that the worlds are open. But the more you call back, the more worlds close, and the more shadows gather.”
“What would be the point of that? Gathering shadows, closing worlds?” Yuri asked. “Wouldn’t it cause another Fracture?”
“Power,” Theo said. “Right now, you’re human without magic. The shadows would give you magic, as it would restore some of what you are. Without them, you will age.”
“Only when you’re not in the realm between,” Star added. “You won’t age there.”
Yuri studied him, his gaze too focused. It made Star squirm, but he refused to pull away. “Do you have shadows that give you magic?” Yuri asked.
“Yes,” Star admitted. “You and I are the beginning and the end.”
“If you freed them, what would happen?”
“They would scatter through the worlds,” Star answered, though he knew it wasn’t the answer Yuri wanted.
“And to you?”
“My power would fade. I couldn’t hold the world between. We would have to pick a realm and settle there.” He let out a long breath, his heart aching with the admission. “You’d eventually die. We all would. Though some of us would live longer than others.”
“But death is a cycle, right? So, we’d be reborn?” Yuri asked.
“Yes. And have to find each other again. Which will be much harder to do between worlds.”
Yuri blinked and stared into the distance for a short amount of time, processing the information. Something pulled from his memory giving him clarity. “I collected the shadows in the past?”
“Yes,” Star said.
“To gain power,” Yuri said. “To find all of you.”
“Yes. But I will always find you. No matter which life we are in.” He would always be willing to carry the darkness. “It’s nothing now. Not like it was…”
Yuri stared at him, and Star wished he could still hear what Yuri thought. “But traveling to other worlds for short periods of time should be okay, right? I won’t age decades overnight?”
“No,” Lucian agreed. “And we are the same. I am part human. Theo and Radu may be another species, but we will all age when we step outside of the realm between. There are no true immortals anymore. Not even the new incarnations of the previous archangels.”
“Does it hurt you to hold the realm between together?” Yuri asked Star.
“No. It helps that Raphael, Uriel, and Michael have added power to it. But I keep it small because I don’t have to use much to create our little paradise. I only want it for us. Some place we can be together and safe.”
“Why didn’t Gabriel just create something like that?” Yuri asked. “Why go through all he did?”
“Because it wasn’t a place away that he wanted.
It was power, control, and worship,” Radu said.
“He created a world of rotting flesh and worms to always be above them. Now he doesn’t have enough magic left to open a door to dream about another realm.
The shadows won’t come to him because he is death, not life. ”
“Why would we ever want to leave then?” Theo asked. “Why would we want to age and die?”
“To learn,” Yuri answered. “To evolve. To step into the next adventure. Our realm only changes if we change it, right?”
Star winced. If Yuri ever vanished from his arms, he would unravel.
“I’m not saying I want that. At least not right now. But it happened in the past, right?” Yuri asked.
“Our time together was never all that peaceful…”
“Boring,” Lucian added. “However will the great and mighty Morningstar ever live without the glorious battles that made him a renowned general?”
“Asshole,” Star muttered.
Yuri smiled. “Excitement? I can see that being a thing. Our little space between is quiet. But if we take brief visits around to other places, it will give us time to explore, and take a very long time for us to age. Am I understanding that correctly?”
“Yes,” Radu said.
“Or you can gather shadows,” Lucian added. “Which would give you power. If you started slowly, learned control, you could add power to our world between or manipulate other worlds. You will always be the catalyst, even if you’re only the human shell of him right now.”
“But that will attract more of the darkness,” Radu added. “Once you call them, they will seek others. It, too, is a cycle. You will hunger. We can feed you, but that will take away from our energy. Right now, we only have to feed Star.”