27. Astraea
Chapter twenty-seven
Astraea
I’ve never felt death so intimately. I didn’t know the woman who took her last breath in my arms, but her pain was visceral.
I’ve been a witness to plenty, forced to live through the brutality of my father.
I’ve felt the pain of losing loved ones, but I have never held a life in my hands and been forced to watch helplessly as the soul connected slips away.
Never been this close to when that line is crossed, and there is nothing left but the husk of a life once lived—until today.
“Shula?” Kyros’ voice is soft as he hesitantly crouches lower to the ground, where I have yet to move from.
I can’t lift my gaze from the sandy cobblestones splattered with a deep crimson.
Both new and old, they are just another stain on my soul at my father’s hands.
Connard’s hands. He is killing more people—because of me.
Kyros’ fingers curl under my chin, and I close my eyes as he tilts my face toward his.
The silence lingers longer than the moment probably should last. I allow myself to feel the pain.
The anguish from all the death that this town has suffered…
and it is because I was merely here. Disjointed and bleary-eyed, I finally focus my gaze to see Kyros’ shadowed face, where he looks down at me.
The sun is probably gone now. Gray light filters through the broken windows of the cottage we are now in.
That time between night and day of endless gray seems fitting for the despair that fills the air.
“I have to go back.” Dryness coats my throat, changing my voice into only a hoarse rasp.
I don’t know how long I have sat here holding my knees.
Long enough that my limbs have grown tingly from lack of movement, but that is nothing to the numbness that is spreading to places inside of me that are far more consequential.
A cold rage spreads through me with every second I sit alone with my thoughts.
A bitter, chilling ice curling around my heart.
“We will. I promise, we will, but going back unprepared will only cause us more loss.” His promise is a forbearing refusal.
I can’t look at him. I can’t take the pity in his eyes.
Shaking my head, I let my lashes brush my cheeks once again.
“Look at me.” It’s a gentle demand, followed by the soft stroke of his thumb at my jaw.
His warmth makes me want to bend to his will, but that frigidness has taken so much.
However, I concede to his command, and my eyes flutter open—pure ice clashing with raw black Tsalalerian steel.
I wish I could take some of the unwavering strength and determination he radiates.
Every time we find ourselves in a situation that cuts me down at the knees, Kyros is there, standing on two feet and always ready to pull me back up.
Even before I really knew who he was, he found ways to remind me that I’m only as weak as I allow myself to be.
How can a man so hardened by the world offer me such softness?
“What if it’s Mavros or Zinya next? What if they come find us first?
How prepared can we really be?” Each question my voice becomes quieter, more broken.
Asking the questions aloud makes all of this sound even more absurd.
We’re never going to stay ahead of them.
We were just clueless children when this all started, and we are still just as naive to what is going on.
“We don’t even know what battle we’re fighting!
” Kyros nearly flinches, but he recovers smoothly.
“Come with me.” He offers me his hand gently, palm up, and I look at it. Heated rage filling my gut and thawing some of that ice within me.
“You can’t just take me away to see somewhere pretty and take my mind off things.
I’m done running, Kyros. I want all of this—” I gesture to the death-filled city that surrounds us, “—to end.” Still, I put my hand in his.
He pulls me to my feet. The pins and needles feeling in my limbs is on the verge of pain as my blood rushes back into the unused extremities.
Kyros’ lips press into a firm line as he turns with my hand still firmly in his grip and begins dragging me along behind him like a petulant child.
Viltarin is outside now, though I know he hasn’t been there long.
I saw him talking to Kyros even if I couldn’t hear what they were saying.
He’s sitting on the steps of one of the small homes along the edge of the city.
He looks up from a piece of wood he is carving into with a knife, with grief etched on his face.
“Keep everyone inside as night falls. I want a strict curfew on everyone remaining in Aithne.” Kyros says as we slow, though we don’t stop walking past him. Viltarin nods, the look of concern only growing as we pass.
“Where are you going?” Viltarin finally asks.
“Showing the princess The Pit.” Kyros says without looking over his shoulder. I do, though, when Viltarin hesitates to respond. He purses his lips and shakes his head as his eyes trail our wake, his arms crossed over his chest.
“What is The Pit?” I ask Kyros, but he doesn’t give me an answer.
He pulls me a little quicker toward the growing darkness within the skirting treeline.
I swallow my nerves and hurry after him.
Not that he gives me many other choices.
His grip is firm on my hand, but I know if I wanted him to drop his hold, he would.
Glowing insects float through the dwindling light of day like embers from a fire, and much like Eathian, as the night closes in on us, it leeches the heat from the air.
Kyros sets a quick pace. His long strides make it nearly impossible to keep up with him.
The cobbled streets quickly turn to dirt, and after only a moment, we are thrust into the darkness of a forest once again.
The trees that border Aithne are nowhere near as dense as the other tree-populated areas I have now ventured.
Even so, the blanket of smoke from the fires in town blocks out much of the light that the early stars might provide.
The further we move into the trees and away from the border of town, the more the air clears.
The smell of smoke eventually being somewhat replaced with the sweet-honey, floral scent of the silvery-leaved branches that surround us.
Several minutes pass with only the sounds of the forest and crunching debris under our boots before we finally come to a stop.
The numb feeling in my limbs has well and truly faded now, and a frenzied sort of anticipation is buzzing under my skin as the trees open up to a glade.
The pale green clover-filled grasses are lit silver by the moonlight now peeking through the muddled night sky, but a darkness in the center of the field is what catches my attention.
We slow our steps and only stop when we come upon the edge of a giant hole in the earth.
My lips part in awe at the sight of it. Wide and jagged, the opening in the ground is lined with sharp stone where grass no longer grows.
It has to be at least ten men wide and nearly double that in depth.
The Pit now makes complete sense. Kyros pulls back on my arm gently as I step too close to the edge, and small rocks tumble over the lip, plummeting into the dark abyss before us.
“We used to come here often when we were younger. It’s a miracle, really, that none of us fell to our deaths the day we stumbled on it.
” Kyros murmurers as he wraps me in his arms from behind.
Fluttering wings fill my chest at the simple comfort of his arms wrapped around me and the heat of his breath on my neck.
“Once I learned to portal, we found our way down there, and it created a bit of a haven for us. From the kingdoms, from our responsibilities—the demons of our past, and the ones we had yet to find.”
I can’t help but think about how this crater in the earth was almost, for them, like the secret room off of the library in the palace was for me.
Looking up, the first twinkling of stars begins to blink to life as the clouds lazily roll away from above us.
The corners of my lips curl up at the sight.
I wonder how many times Kyros and I were hidden away from the world that consumed us, staring at the same starry sky and wishing for a different life.
“What are you thinking?” His breath flutters through my hair, and I look over my shoulder, my head still resting on his chest. His overgrown facial hair brushes my forehead as he adjusts his gaze to meet mine.
“We’ve lived such different lives but still have kept such similar heartache… and the stars—they gave us the same escape.” I sigh as I look back to the dark sky. Thinking about how we are a lot like stars ourselves. Surrounded by the darkness of our world, only ever trying to survive each night.
“I suppose you’re right.” Kyros finally says, his thumbs rubbing reassuring strokes along the skin of my forearms that are crossed over my stomach.
We stand like that, silent, for a while.
I relish in the feel of Kyros’ warmth at my back.
The stillness of the glade brings the same sense of calm that finally blankets my mind too.
The adrenaline from the walk here long since faded, and the pain of death easing the weight it had on my chest, if only a fraction.
“I know we need to discuss the book and all of our findings with Rowan, but there is something else I’d like to show you.
If you’d let me?” He asks softly. This feels like one of those moments that is a gift from the gods, a calm in the eye of the storm before we are thrust back into the melee of chaos our lives actually are right now.
And as much as I want to deny it, I also want to be selfish—truly selfish—for once in my life.
“I want you to show me.” I tell him as I spin in his arms. His lips form the hint of a smile before he lays a chaste kiss on mine.
The moment is too fleeting. I blink and he is pulling me away from the edge.
The hand that isn’t holding mine pulses with darkness before he flicks his wrist and opens a dark gate for us.
I don’t ask where we are going. In this moment, I would go anywhere, so long as it is with him.
Traveling through the portal is quicker than usual.
The embers of fire that are ever present with Kyros’ portal magick fade into the darkness that surrounds us, and even though I can’t see a thing, his grip is steadfast as he holds my hand.
The noise of the surrounding forest has gone, and replacing it is the quickening rhythm of my heart.
The only light where we are is directly above.
The sky appears like a lake floating above our heads, with hundreds of submerged stars twinkling in its depths.
The edges of the chasm, where we now stand at the bottom, create a jagged frame.
“Stay right here.” Kyros says, dropping my hand.
“Wait, don’t leave me.” My heart roars at the absences of his hand. The darkness swallows me, and the stars blot out as I squeeze my eyes shut.
“I’m right here. I’m lighting a torch.” I open my eyes just as he strikes a match and holds it to a torch that had been shoved into the earthen wall. A warm orange glow from the flame illuminates the dark in a globe of light, with flickering shadows dancing along the edges of its reach.
Kyros crosses the space where the light touches to a brazier of sorts, taking another torch out and then lighting it on the one in the wall. As he approaches me, his face is lit with an amber glow. In the dim light, I see a look in his eyes that is almost unfamiliar—mischief.
“Were you scared, Shula?” He teases, holding the flame away, and he scoops me in close. It again feels like we are in our own pocket of peace when we are alone. He trails his nose along the column of my neck, and a shiver vibrates my body. I bite down on my lower lip to hide my smile.
“You portaled us into The Pit. What are we going to do now that we are down here?” The question comes out breathy and suggestive, and the way Kyros’ already near black eyes darken tells me he thought so too.
“Well…” He hums into the shell of my ear.
“We could explore.” He says, then allows his tongue to do just that.
He laps at the lobe of my ear, pulling it between his teeth and sending liquid desire to pool between my legs.
My eyes roll back as I drop my head back and nearly whimper for him to continue his exploration.
His short beard teasingly scrapes along my neck as he dips his head lower.
He kisses at my collarbone and to the hollow of my neck.
I need to be closer to him. I need this heat that is wrapping me in a vise to be released; this urge to claim him as mine quelled.
His hand comes between us as I run my fingers into the hair at the back of his head.
His palm is hot and rough as it covers my throat.
It's a gentle cupping of my delicate airway by his strong calloused hands that causes my knees to weaken.
“Shula, your heart is thundering. Are you still scared, or is that all for me?” I can’t breathe, and he follows his destructive words with a laugh that I feel rumble through my whole body, taking any breath I had left from my lungs.
I can’t respond, and he knows it. His hand flexes around my throat.
Still ever gentle. Then he lets it slide down the front of my chest and over my heart.
Our eyes meet, my lungs finally filling and words forming on my lips.
“It’s always for you.” I whisper, and his eyes flare like a black hole begging to consume. That pulls the corner of his mouth into a lopsided smirk that is the most boyish and warmest I have ever seen on his face. The wings in my chest soar.
“Good, because I have more to show you.”