Chapter 22
Altair
“I’m disappointed, Altair,” Rigil said while lounging on the throne. “I thought you would have left days ago. The Aztia won’t capture herself, you know.” He chuckled at his own joke.
Altair clenched his teeth. “I know, my lord. There’s been too much to secure here before I depart, and I thought that because the Aztia was behind Nyr’s wards as it is, my time would be better spent here.”
“Yes, those wards are troublesome. Try to find a way to bring them down, would you?”
“Those wards have been up for over a thousand years. We tried to dismantle them before our banishment and were unsuccessful. And we’re not as strong now as we were before.”
Rigil’s eyes sparked as he sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Are you telling me you’re too incompetent for your job, Altair? I can easily find someone to replace you.”
“No, Alpha Centauri,” he said, his heart rate speeding up. “I’ll look into it.”
Rigil glanced behind Altair’s shoulder. “Scuti. What news do you bring me?”
Altair turned to glance at his cousin, who was bowing his head in greeting. “None, my lord. I simply came to remind Altair of our meeting.” Altair frowned.
“Anything of importance?” Rigil was asking.
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with, my lord.”
Rigil waved a hand at them in dismissal. “As you were, then.” His glare could have bored holes through Altair. “Be sure that you leave soon, Altair. My patience is wearing thin.”
“As you demand, my lord.” Altair bowed at the waist, then departed the throne room with his cousin by his side.
He glanced sideways at Scuti. “We didn’t have a meeting planned.”
“Not here,” Scuti said, his voice hushed. He dragged Altair into yet another alcove, glancing up and down the hallways before he teleported them out of the castle.
They landed within an abandoned shack, most likely in the outer circle of the city. Most stars wouldn’t be caught in this area of Athusia unless they were forced here by a superior. Still, Scuti scoured their surroundings before he began speaking.
“The Aztia is travelling towards Athusia.”
“What?”
There was no way she didn’t know the stars had congregated in Athusia. They hadn’t exactly been hiding, and some humans had slipped out of the city and escaped to Nyr. Altair may have looked the other way a few times as some families packed their belongings and left.
Why in the nine hells would Iyana choose to come to Athusia when she could have stayed behind the wards in Nyr and been safe?
Oh, he could kill her for taking such a risk. She had to know that the stars would be searching for her. That she was the only one who could banish them back into the sky, and because of that, she was a threat. But—
Altair narrowed his eyes at Scuti. “Why are you telling me this here? Why wouldn’t you give this information to Rigil?”
Scuti was staring at a point past Altair, unwilling to look him in the eye. “I know, cousin.”
Altair was instantly on alert. “Know what, exactly?”
“The Aztia—Iyana—she’s your astalle.”
His heart seemed to stall in his chest. Altair could only stare at Scuti. He knew he should be denying it, throwing his cousin off the scent, but he couldn’t find his voice.
“I won’t tell anyone,” Scuti said.
“You won’t—why?”
Scuti sighed and ran a hand through his maroon hair. He still couldn’t look Altair in the eye.
“I had an astalle. Before we went into the sky. I’m familiar with how it appears; why you seem so reluctant to hunt her down.”
Had. “What happened?”
“My astalle and I had never agreed with what the stars were doing. We joined the human resistance.” His admission shocked Altair—he’d never known.
“I didn’t want to at first. She was the one who convinced me that it was a cause worth fighting for.
I had just started working as Rigil’s spymaster, so there were many times I had vital information I simply didn’t pass along to the Alpha.
“Rigil eventually discovered our resistance—I never learned how. I don’t know if someone betrayed us, or if he found us on his own.
But he ambushed us during a meeting with some of the humans.
We fought, but the humans were all killed, and my astalle and I were detained.
We were tortured for days—her more than me—but Rigil figured out that she was my astalle and knew that simply watching and listening to her pain was torture enough for me. ”
Altair was reminded of when Iyana had been captured by Uther and was at the mercy of him and his pet rat.
It had killed him to know what was happening to her, and that he was capable of stopping it, and yet he stood idly by while she was brutalized.
He had only just kissed her for the first time and was in denial of what she meant to him.
But when he had seen the state she was in when he rescued her…
Altair understood exactly what Scuti must have been feeling.
“Eventually, I gave Rigil all the information he wanted, only to get him to stop. I promised we would help him destroy the rest of the resistance. I didn’t care about morality at this point, I only wanted my astalle to be safe.
He said that I would be kept alive, that my skill set was too valuable to go to waste, but my astalle had been sentenced to death for her crimes.
I had to watch as Rigil murdered her. She never apologized for her actions.
She never once broke. And I could see the disappointment in her when I did, but still her last words were that she loved me. ”
“I didn’t know.”
Scuti shook his head. “Nobody knew. Once we found each other, we wanted to keep it to ourselves for a bit, and then when we joined with the humans, it was safer to keep it a secret.” He blinked back tears as he gazed into Altair’s eyes for the first time during this conversation.
“She had just told me she was pregnant the day before we were caught. I was so excited…”
“Fuck, Scuti, I’m so sorry.”
His cousin took a deep, shuddering breath and smiled sadly.
“A thousand years and it still feels like yesterday. I only tell you this because you need to be careful. You’re playing a dangerous game, cousin.
One that I played and lost. I don’t want you to go through the same thing I did.
I won’t say anything to Rigil, but if I can see it, others probably can as well. ”
“Thank you,” Altair whispered.
Scuti patted him on the shoulder. “Good luck, cousin.” Then he was gone.
Altair sank to the floor and buried his face in his hands. How had his life gone to shit so quickly?
He needed to think of a way to get Iyana to safety, while maintaining his guise as Rigil’s dutiful general. Altair still was in disbelief that Iyana was traveling to Athusia. It was so stupid; an unnecessary risk. He wanted to shake her and ask her what she was thinking.
Then he wanted to kiss her and bury himself inside her. Gods, he missed her.
Altair knew, though, there was no coming back from what he had done to her.
Iyana probably wanted to kill him, and he honestly wouldn’t blame her.
But, maybe as his astalle, Iyana could somehow instinctively know that he hadn’t wanted to hurt her.
Hope bloomed within his chest. Maybe he only needed to explain his actions, that he didn’t have a choice. Maybe she would understand.
He’d need to prepare for her arrival. Altair was desperate to talk to her.
To explain. It would be difficult to do when her friends were with her, but he wasn’t concerned about them.
Iyana was capable of killing him, especially if she’d been practicing with her magic.
Gods, he hoped she had been training. She would need all the skill she could muster in this coming war.
Because Altair was sure of it now—Iyana was coming to Athusia looking for a fight.
Hopefully, she would hear him out before she killed him, though.