49. Astraea
Chapter forty-nine
Astraea
I can’t help but smile a little as I look down at myself, even though it's laced with grief.
He thought of everything. Of course he was thinking ahead.
A heavy sigh escapes me as I tuck the gifted black blades into the holster at my chest, and I look up to see Colette's half-shadowed face smiling back at me.
“Hi,” I force the tears to stay away, and I bite my lip.
“You’re going to be the most badass queen Eathian has ever seen.” She says, looking over me approvingly.
“Yea, maybe,” I say, swallowing hard, trying and failing to prove to us both that I'm okay.
I'm far from it. I never wanted to be a queen at all, and much less a badass one. I doubt that’s what these kingdoms need anyway.
The people have had enough pain to last a millennium just since the Great War alone; they don't need a scorned queen bringing more heartache to the throne.
I hate to dwell on the sadness in my heart, but after everything that the divine has handed me, I can't help but feel a little wary about what's to come.
“I won't do it without him.” I search her eyes for understanding. “I can’t, Cole.”
“I know.” She says, tugging on the end of my braid and then throwing it over my shoulder with a small smile. “You won't have to.” She says with ease. It’s anything but easy, though.
“Cole, there's no way you can know that. What he did…” I shake my head, turning and pacing along the dark alcove that I tucked myself into so I could change.
“I don't even know what I'm doing anymore. I didn’t want any of this.
I don't know anything about magick, and even less about the kind of bond that he just forged! How could he do this?”
To me.
The words linger in my mind, but I don’t say them aloud.
How could he do this to me? How could he do this to us?
Right when my hope was restored. Heat burns at the back of my eyes, but the tears won’t come.
I won’t allow it. He had to have had a plan.
I know he did this to protect me. I could feel how much it hurt him to say the words he did.
I lift my chin, and when my eyes clash with the familiar green ones I love, I let out a shaky breath.
“I’m scared.” I admit, rolling my lip between my teeth.
“I know.” She pulls me in close, taking both of my hands in hers.
“Awe, babe, I know. Really, I do. But you won't have to do anything alone. You have all of us. We’re here for you, Astraea. Every one of us loves you and Kyros, as broody of a man as he is. Still, he’s burrowed his way into even my good graces.
” She says with a tilt of her head, and I choke on a half-laugh, half-cry.
Moisture prickles at the back of my eyes, but when I look back up and meet hers, my resolve strengthens.
She’s right. I’m not alone in this. I don’t have to run away and face the unknown by myself, and that makes things a little less daunting.
“How do we move forward from this?” I ask, the question sounding more despondent than I had intended. “You saw him, Cole. He’s no longer himself.”
“Actually,” a voice interrupts, and I quickly turn toward it.
“He has somehow stepped into both sides of himself.” Shayd continues.
I can barely see his face through the shadows.
I'm still not sure how I feel about him and the very real feeling dream I’ve now seen him in.
I have so many questions, but I'm having a hard time even focusing on which one I want to start with.
“Both sides of himself? And I guess you know more about that too?” I say a little more sharply than intended. Cole looks at me confused but stands ready to argue on my behalf anyway. She folds her arms over her chest and lifts a red brow at him.
“I deserve that. There's a lot you just don't know,” he says with more conviction than I’ve ever heard come from him. And even though he looks sincere as his gaze bounces between the two of us, I can't help but be defensive.
“Well, you’re right about that,” I say, while also crossing my arms, mirroring Cole.
“Look, I know you don't understand.” He puts his hands up placating. “I don’t expect you to, but there has been so much I was still working out with Phaedra. When you just showed up and sunk a blade into me, I didn't know what to do.” I don't even have a chance to respond before Cole cuts in.
“Of course she doesn't understand. Her whole life, everything has been kept from her. What are you trying to do coming over here with your ‘he’s stepped into both sides of himself’ shit, like you know all about what's happening?” Cole says mockingly.
But she doesn't understand that there is more to Shayd than I think anyone else truly knows.
The way his focus on me says he knows that too.
There is still an underlying uncertainty to his eyes, though, that makes me even more nervous.
“Cole, can I talk to Shayd—alone?” I ask, keeping my eyes on the man in front of me. When she doesn't answer, I look over at my best friend to see her gaping at me.
“You want me—to leave?” She asks, and the way hurt pinches her face makes my chest ache. It's not personal. I'm not angry with her, but I feel like this is something I need to hear and process on my own. I'm not trying to keep her in the dark.
“We won't be long.” I promise, as I reach for her hand and give it a light squeeze, but it doesn't do anything to relieve the hurt I see in her eyes.
“Of course. Excuse me.” She turns away stiffly, and I know better than most that means she's really holding back what she didn't say, holding back the hurt.
“I was starting to think I’d never see you again—before I ran into you and Kyros in the Creshian forest, that is.
” Shayd starts, leaning back against the dark cave wall.
I swallow hard, trying to ready myself for whatever it is he’s about to tell me.
“You were so small when I last saw you.” My heart drops into my stomach like solid stone as those words tumble from his lips without hesitation, but I don’t miss the slight curl at the corner of his mouth as he thinks back on the memory.
He must see my shock because he quickly scrubs the look away with his hand before he cups the back of his neck, his face morphing into something remorseful.
“When I took you from one hell, only to deliver you to another.”
I guess we’re jumping right into it.
“So you admit it? You’re the reason I was taken.” My voice is so small, so coated with emotion that I hardly recognize it.
“I’ve been trying to work my way through your dreams for a very long time.
Trying to give you back the memories that were somehow hidden from you.
” He rakes his hand through his sandy colored hair, much like Kyros does when he’s stressed, and I watch his jaw tick the same too.
He shakes his head. “But to answer your question—no.
I wasn't the reason you were taken. I was the reason you were given to Connard, though. Fuck. If I had known all I do now, I would have never done any of it. You have no idea how much I regret about my past.” He closes his eyes and tips his head back on the wall.
His remorse hangs between us, nearly tangible.
I stay quiet as I watch him through narrowed eyes.
I feel as though I stand there waiting forever for this feeling in my stomach to subside. It doesn't.
“What do you mean then? Why was I taken and why did you give me to a man like Connard?” I finally ask.
He tilts his head back down, searching my face for a long moment before he scoffs out a halfhearted laugh and shakes his head.
“Did you say that you were trying to work your way through my dreams?”
“He never slipped up, did he? The coward buried everything right alongside her.” I flinch, somehow knowing that he’s speaking of my mother.
His eyes flash as he looks at me again. They bounce around my face as though he's remembering something before he shakes his head again.
Pushing off the wall, he starts walking further into the darkness.
Away from me. Away from the safety of the group.
Hesitantly, I begin to follow after him.
I need to know more, but I don't make it far before my feet falter from the unease the dark gives.
“Shayd!” I whisper shout from behind him.
I can barely see the outline of his body.
My shadows twine along my arms, coiled tighter than usual and ready to strike at my command.
He stops at the sound of his name, but he doesn't turn around. A chill skates down my spine, making my magick leak from my skin like vapor. “Shayd?” I rasp, and when he finally turns to face me, I suck in a sharp breath. For a second it’s not his face that looks back at me.
It's so brief, but for one moment I think I'm seeing a nightmare creature.
I blink, and the creature is gone. My mind is playing tricks on me.
“Did he tell you anything about her? Your mother?” He asks, finally stopping and turning toward me, and his face comes more into view.
“He only ever spoke of how much he despised her. Specifically, her weaknesses and how much I am like her in that—weak.” I admit, swallowing around the memories of what those words always had attached to them. The lashings. The punishments. The vile words whispered into my ear as I cried.
“Your mother was far stronger than that man could ever even claim to be.” The vitriol in his tone shocks me, but his words take a second to sink in.
“You knew her? My mother?” My brows cinch together as I stare at him. The reaction I receive only adds to my confusion. The disdain that painted his features when he spoke of Connard vanished, replaced by something soft. Endearing even? He sighs, looking away from me.
“I knew your mother. Yes. The world is a far darker place without her in it.
When your mother told me of the magick she had found Phaedra researching, I thought it impossible.
We both did. We were taught Kres were more legendary than even the manticore who protected the gates of Zamiel and Runerth.
Wielders of divine fire couldn't possibly be real… The possibility of one carrying both? It was not possible.” He scoffs, recalling something from the past. Divine fire?
The black flame I wield? He must see the question on my face, or in my eyes, as Kyros would always point out.
He nods once, confirming my line of thinking, but I have to hear him say it.
“I started the fire.” My eyes drop to the sandy ground as I search through every thought, every memory, anything and everything I know about magick. “When I was a child, I started the fire that burned the forest in my dreams. The burning forest you took me from…”
“Astraea, you were six years old, and you showed more strength than any adult I had ever met.
Your magick shouldn't have even surfaced that young. You tried so hard to save her, but her sacrifice was already done. She sacrificed so much trying to ensure that you would be safe, to ensure that you would be protected from those who would aim to exploit your differences for their own gain.” I'm shaking my head before he even finishes his sentence.
She couldn't have sacrificed herself. Why would she leave me alone at only six years old?
“Your mother knew that you were going to be different. Unfortunately, she wasn't the only one who figured that out early on. I wish I could have helped more, but back then…” I watch his fingers curl into a fist at his side. “By the time I realized my mistake, I thought I was doing the right thing getting you away from Phaedra. I thought Connard was the lesser of two evils. After I saw what she did to—” He stops, milling the thought through his teeth. He opens his mouth to say more, but just as he is about to, a new voice interrupts him from behind me. My hair stands on end, every nerve end burning as recognition climbs my spine and flattens my brows. Shayd’s eyes flick between mine, while mine remain buried into his.
We are not alone. I swallow before slowly turning to face the man I loathe almost as much as my father.
“Pravin.” I breathe, and his chapped lips curl and split as he looks at me like I am the bounty he has been searching long and hard for. Blood seeps from the cracks in the skin around his mouth, staining his teeth with crimson. Crazed, he eyes me with a tilted gaze.
“Princess, you have caused quite the mess in your wake.”