Nova

Chapter 23

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

SANORA

White.

Dance.

Twirl.

Something on her head.

Teeth—no, a grin.

I jerked my gaze to the side.

The archer!

The air shifted, and I realised with a start that I was back. Back inside the dream.

I scrambled up to my feet just as she stopped dancing, her eyes finding mine before sliding past me to him.

And this time, I saw her face. Not fragments, not flashes, but her whole face.

She had the kind of beauty that made my stomach dip, so sharp and perfect it was almost wrong, too much, too.

..unnatural. She didn’t look human. And maybe she wasn’t, not with the kind of energy radiating off her when she danced.

The archer’s bowstring creaked as he pulled it taut. She didn’t flinch, neither did I. Somehow, I came to an understanding.

She knew he was there, and she knew his aim wasn’t her, but the thing resting on her head.

He loosed the arrow.

Suddenly, her body spun in a fluid twirl, white skirts blooming out in a circle around her ankles. She moved as if she wanted to spoil his shot—yet somehow, he had already accounted for it. The arrow cut through the air and knocked the object clean from her head.

I watched in awe.

She stopped moving.

Her eyes locked with his, and in that heartbeat, sadness flickered across her face. It was fleeting, vanishing when her lips stretched into a wide, brilliant smile.

I shifted, uneasy, as he started walking to where she stood in the clearing. Because his dark hair fell across one side, the rest tied back in a rough ponytail, I couldn’t see his face. His whole frame was cloaked in black.

She beamed at him, and when he reached her, she leapt into his arms, making my stomach twist because it felt like I was intruding.

The archer’s hand circled her in a careful and respectful embrace, before pressing her back a step. Her smile returned instantly, and I watched her lips move, whispering something only he could hear.

This wasn’t my dream.

It didn’t belong to me.

I was intruding, I was an unwanted guest forced to stand on the sidelines while lovers touched and laughed and moved together like the world had shrunk to only them.

But why am I here?

They started walking north, and she grabbed his free hand, holding it as she leaned into him.

And then he stopped.

Every nerve in my body tensed.

As if my mind knew his next move, I began to back into the tree, sliding behind the trunk just as he turned his head.

I didn’t know why I hid. I just knew I had to.

My instincts told me to.

The soft press of my mattress against my back brought me to reality. My eyes opened slowly, adjusting to the pale slant of morning light as I stared up at the ceiling.

What was that again?

Why was I seeing someone else’s dream? Why had I hidden when the archer turned his head, like some primal instinct had screamed at me to stay unseen?

Usually, dreams slipped through my fingers by the time I rinsed my face in the sink.

But not this one. It pressed against me as I rose, followed me into the bathroom, slipped its fingers around my thoughts as cold water rushed over my skin.

Even as I dressed. Even as I padded downstairs to the sound of knife against cutting board.

The dream loosened only when Thrax took its place.

He stood in the kitchen, his back to me, shoulders broad, one arm moving as he cut something, not even twitching at the sound of my steps behind him.

It had been three days since I’d given him the bracelet, and not once had I seen it on his wrist. Perhaps he’d thrown it away.

Our daily routine was pretty much the same—he'd wake up earlier than me, prepare breakfast, watch me eat, and then disappear until evening. By then, he’d find me wherever I’d wandered, his expression sometimes so heavy I thought the weight of the world had been nailed onto his shoulders.

Lately, I’d started going out more often just so I could feel the odd thrill of him finding me, like some silent game only we were playing.

In between those evenings, I would bury myself in books and journals, searching, and trying to stitch together research that might become a thesis worth defending.

It saddened me that I had to call the research on The Crater quit, but the last time I’d gone near it, it almost took my life, and that had scared the shit out of me.

Also, I’d come to the harsh conclusion that The Crater was a wall I couldn’t get past without offering my life in return.

So I had turned to the Soulless Man. Since the aim of my thesis was to research new things or bring old, forgotten history to light, I’d rolled my dice on him. He was old and— of course, not forgotten. Who would forget the man who made the world the way it was?

It was a widely known thing that once, there was no such thing as darkness on earth. Night didn’t exist. There was just endless daylight.

Until he killed Selvanyra’s offspring. Until her grief bled into the sky, and her wails blackened the world. The stars and moon were said to be proof that she hadn’t vanished entirely, only folded herself into the sky.

What would a world of endless day have looked like? I shook my head.

Yesterday made it two weeks I’d been in Nimorran, and today marked the beginning of another two weeks. I’d wasted the last two weeks on nothing, mostly fighting death every time I went near the hills. The rest of the fourteen days had to be very productive, unless I wanted to prove my mother right.

My gaze, unfocused, lingered on Thrax’s back, and an image jolted through me. I blinked hard, but it remained, a collision of two images, twitching against each other like a broken reel of film.

Thrax’s back.

And another’s.

I searched through my memory for whose back my brain thought was identical to Thrax’s. And came up empty. Until the back flashed again, and my mind took me back to the Archer’s back, when the silver-haired dancer hugged him.

The images fought, overlapping and merging, until they aligned. Until the two became one.

My chest constricted.

What the...

I cocked my head, staring at his back, wondering if my head was just playing with empty thoughts again. But then Thrax bent slightly to the side, reaching for something on the counter. His hair shifted with the motion, dark strands falling enough for me to glimpse something just beneath.

There was a mark, black and round-ish, identical to a tattoo. It inked against the back of his neck, disappearing beneath his collar.

Before I could stop myself, my feet moved, curiosity overriding caution. I reached out, fingers hovering to push back his hair and see the mark properly.

But he turned, catching my wrist mid-air, knife in his other hand that was rested beside a half-cut fruit.

“Hold on, I just want to check—”

His head jerked towards the stool where I usually sat. “Sit.”

I rolled my eyes, tugging my hand free, choosing not to press. I’d already overstepped once with the scar on his chest. It’d be stupid to repeat it. With a sigh, I dropped onto the stool, leaning my elbows on the counter, deciding instead to fill the silence with words.

“I had a dream.”

His quiet “hmm” urged me on.

“It did not feel like a dream. Even though it was a dream, it didn’t feel like mine.

” I adjusted, glad I was sharing it with someone.

“There was a woman in a white dress. She had long silver hair, and she was a good dancer. She’d been dancing in the dream with a very.

..brilliantly blinding smile. She was so charming.

Also, she had something balanced on her head. And there was this archer who—”

He flinched a little, and I didn’t think it was because of what I was saying because the sound of knife meeting the cutting board stopped as well.

He’d cut himself.

I was rushing out of my seat and eating up the distance between us before I could think, catching his hand.

The slice across his forefinger was shallow, and a thin line of blood welled, sliding slow to his knuckle just as the skin began to pull together.

Before the drop of blood touched the floor, the skin had stitched itself, pulling closed until nothing but smooth flesh remained. I blinked.

He’d healed.

He could heal.

Thrax had healing ability.

Heat surged through me as I looked up at him, shaken to the core, his hand growing heavy and hot in mine. The claw marks and the cut on his palm suddenly became crystal clear with the new knowledge of his ability.

He had no shadow.

And he could heal.

Who the hell was I living with?

Who was he?

“Who was the archer?” he asked suddenly, voice cutting through the fog clouding my mind.

I stumbled over my tongue. “I—I don’t really—”

“Did you see his face?”

I shook my head, unable to form words.

He nodded, relief passing through his expression before he slipped his hand through my grip. “One minute.”

He left the kitchen without another word, climbing the stairs with long skips.

I didn’t see him again for the rest of the day.

The next morning, he was gone before I even opened my eyes, and for a fleeting second, I let myself believe he was downstairs, doing what he always did by filling the kitchen with warmth and the smell of food made just for me.

But when I rushed to the kitchen, there was nothing. No food, and not even the faintest trace that it had been used.

Instead of doing anything remotely useful like I’d planned, I wasted the day drowning in my own thoughts, circling them until they made me dizzy and frustrated.

What had I done? Was it the way I’d grabbed his hand so quickly?

Or was it because I’d seen him heal, witnessing something he clearly didn’t want me to?

No, he hadn’t even cared when I found out he didn’t have a shadow.

So what was it then? Was it not me at all?

Or was I simply prying too much. Or was it just him trying to keep his distance?

By the time evening came, my nerves were frayed, and I couldn’t stay still. I dressed and went walking, dragging myself through the streets where he’d always found me before. Then I waited. And waited. Walked and waited.

Two hours passed, and still no sign of him. Usually, he’d appear, as though he’d always known exactly where I’d be, and we’d walk back to the house together. Tonight, the absence of him punched me straight in the guts.

With a sigh, I shoved my hands into my pockets and started towards the library.

Amelia was behind the desk, as always, smiling at me as I came in.

I’d frequented the library enough to be familiar with her, exchanging a little wave and a smile whenever I entered.

She was one of the few young faces left in Nimorran, because clearly, everyone else her age had moved out of town to chase bigger opportunities.

I set two books down before her, volumes about one of Nimorran’s oldest legends, one from when the moon itself still walked in a mortal vessel.

“How many days?” she asked.

“One.”

Information was exchanged, and she stamped both books, sliding them to me with a smile. Then I stepped out into the night with the books hugged to my chest.

When I returned home, I made myself dinner—if you could even call it that—before drawing a bath. By the time I tucked myself into bed, an hour deep into the first book, the front door opened.

Every instinct screamed at me to leap up and run to him to demand his reason for this coldness that had been cutting into me since morning. But I didn’t move an inch. Instead, I stayed wrapped in my sheets, knuckles white from gripping them too hard, chaining myself to the bed.

I listened as his heavy footsteps climbed up the wooden steps. Then they paused on the landing, just long enough for me to hold my breath…before vanishing into his room without so much as a knock on my door.

I slammed the book shut, anger rising to my throat. Was that his new game?

Rolling onto my side and away from the door, I faced the window, squeezing my eyes shut.

The next day was the same.

He was gone before sunrise, and there was no breakfast. I wouldn’t even have known he stepped foot in this house if I didn’t hear him come in last night.

I tried to pretend it didn’t matter, to pretend the silence between us didn’t eat at me like rot.

I told myself I could stand it, that I could breathe without him crashing into my space like he always did.

But every time I walked into the kitchen and found it empty, every time I felt his absence, my chest caved a little more.

I lost count of how many times I picked up my phone, staring at the blank message box, torn between typing something and waiting him out.

Evening came, and I went for a walk, but there was no sign of him. I read in the library until dark, and once again, he didn’t return until long after I was buried under my sheets, faking sleep.