Chapter 5 Astraea
Astraea
Climbing up into the second level of the city from our cave entrance had proven to be the most difficult part.
Many of the steps had worn and crumbled over the centuries this escape route had been abandoned.
We made it to the top after nearly plummeting to our deaths a few times—at least that had been what Drystan rambled about constantly while apparently I had nothing to worry about with wings to catch me.
Our clothes were still uncomfortably damp, and while my magick had provided us some warmth, we were miserable in our current state.
Not off to the best nor most competent start in this mission.
We pressed ourselves against a narrow, dark alley wall.
Our hoods were up, and coverings were over the lower halves of our faces.
It wasn’t uncommon to see suspicious looking persons like this around the city; they were usually assassins or unsavory mercenaries that people avoided the paths of.
Yet we had to be cautious. One tip off would turn this place into a maze of a hunting ground, which we were all but locked in.
Even if I had an opportunity to escape by flying, I wouldn’t leave Drystan.
“We need to dry ourselves and get rest before we risk our lives again,” Drystan said, still scouting the street to decide where to go.
Of course, if we were going to die in our quest to get Eltanin, better to be comfortable and energized. We were on the upper level of the city, which was thickest with Auster’s forces. Every nerve in me was on high alert.
“I am highly insulted to be worth a lesser reward for my capture than you or Nyte,” Drystan muttered, spotting a line of our wanted posters across the street.
I didn’t deign to respond to that, slipping out of our cover to head down the street.
Plain sight might be the only way to navigate the city.
There were guards around, but they roamed as nonchalantly and unaware as the civilians.
There was something highly satisfying about walking right by, undetected as their greatest enemies.
“Are you trying to get us captured before I can remember the feeling of dry socks?” Drystan hissed beneath his mask, falling into step with me.
“They’d have less reason to stop two ordinary looking citizens traveling out in the open than those skulking through the shadows.”
After a short while our misery chose the next inn we came across; we’d been trying to hold out for the most bustling and tucked away establishment to lose ourselves in occupied crowds.
We ordered stew and bread, and our leftover coin afforded one room for the night. Sitting in a tucked away corner of the main room, I couldn’t stop my sighs of appreciation when we were brought the hot food.
“If this is to be our last meal, I’m content,” Drystan said, equally lost in the stew.
“Do you think the others have awoken to find us gone yet?” I wondered with a pang of guilt.
“It should be nearing morning, but we don’t have a time teller.”
“What if they come after us?”
“We can’t really prevent that.”
“You say that like you don’t care about what happens to them.”
Drystan looked off to consider. “Should I?”
My face fell flat. “Have you completely lost the ability to invite friendship into your life?”
“I have merely grown armor in the places that were once soft, Maiden. You should do the same.”
The coldness in his tone stung. He used my title like a blade that cut back any vine of friendship growing close to him.
“You can keep trying to push me away, but I’m not going anywhere,” I said, plunging my spoon back into the stew with a scowling look at him.
His lips curved into a small smile, but it wasn’t endearing. “Didn’t seem that way as you left to come here without even a farewell when this brash plan of yours could result in your death. Permanently.”
“That was to make sure none of you meet the same fate.”
I didn’t expect Drystan to slam his spoon to the table, rocking our cups.
“That’s why I don’t have friends,” he hissed. “They will always make you weak and force you to take stupid measures to protect them. Even then, they’re likely to leave or die sooner rather than later.”
Before I could respond, two parchments were slipped over the table between us by a hand. We’d been too lost in the growing heat of our conversation to notice someone had approached. Both of our hands reached for weapons, and I glanced up … then shock replaced my fear.
Drystan braced his hands on the table to rise.
“Sit, Prince. We don’t want to draw attention. Others might notice two of the most wanted in all of Solanis,” Tarran said, low and faintly amused.
His brown eyes danced from me to Drystan, but I was still, lost in my mind, which dragged forth flashes of memory after memory until I suddenly felt dizzy.
“Here to claim the prize?” Drystan snarled low, snatching up the posters with our faces on them.
He scrutinized the parchment with a deep frown, and grumbled, “They got my nose all wrong.” When he looked over at me, it smoothed out a fraction.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost rather than just a red-headed ancient bastard,” he said.
Ancient. Tarran was an elder vampire … but he was also so much more than that.
Tarran spoke. “I hear you’re regaining your memories.”
There was a confusing note of gentleness but also tension in his voice. I could hardly bear to look up at him when I didn’t know how to react. How to unscramble the past from the present to make sense of him.
“Why are you here?” I asked, choosing to stay guarded as I cast him a hard look.
“I’m watching all sides of the brewing tide so as not to be caught on the ship that’s going down. May I?” Tarran didn’t wait for a response before sliding onto the bench beside Drystan.
“Turning us in would surely strengthen Auster’s ship,” Drystan said carefully. I noticed how his hand hovered over a small blade at his side.
“Perhaps, but I like to believe the structure comes second to the skill of the captain.” His mischievous eyes slipped to me with that.
“Just explain how you found us here,” I snapped, on edge about his presence and slippery allegiance.
“It wasn’t hard. Even cloaked and hooded you stand out to anyone who knows what to look for.” His head canted like I was prey in his trap as he leaned on his forearms. “There’s a certain confidence in your swagger that’s finally come back. It had me intrigued.”
Drystan looked at us, puzzled.
“Did you know each other in your past lives?” he asked me.
My “no” was run over by Tarran’s “yes.”
Drystan shook his head like it would piece together how that was possible.
I closed my eyes on a long exhale. I didn’t know why I wanted to delay the inevitable spilling of the truth.
“He’s not just an elder soul vampire,” I said. “He’s the son of two of my guardians. A soulless and a fae.”
The shock on Drystan’s face was what I’d expected.
“No. That can’t be true. How could you have kept that from Nyte and me?” Drystan leaned his elbow on the table, pinching the bridge of his nose, mulling over the past like he might have missed something.
Tarran said, “You could say back then Astraea and me were somewhat estranged.”
I winced; the sharpness of his words was a dagger directed toward me.
“You made the vampires and me believe you wanted to capture the star-maiden as a gain for the vampire side of the war,” Drystan said sourly. “Now I discover she’s practically your family? Are you going to try to say your pursuit of her was out of endearment?”
I narrowed suspicious eyes on Tarran. “When did you want to find me?”
“Before you arrived in the central kingdom and practically announced to the world the star-maiden was back. I killed the Libertatem participant and took his place to be close to you and make sure you stayed alive, won, and found your key. I wasn’t sure what I would do with you afterward.
Of course, Rainyte intervened and got to you before anyone else could—me, Auster, Drystan’s father. That was no surprise really.”
“So what do you want now? To gain a strong alliance with Auster by handing me in?”
Tarran’s eyes darkened on me, but he had no right to be insulted by the question given his convenient appearance here.
“Don’t you think you’d already be in chains heading to the castle by now if I was?”
“Not if there’s something else you hoped to gain before ratting us out,” Drystan said.
Tarran cast him a bored look. “What if I came to give you something instead?”
Drystan crushed the wanted poster of himself. “We don’t need souvenirs.”
The look they shared was daring, but the intensity accompanied by the slight delighted curve of Tarran’s mouth almost urged me to look away from their exchange.
“Auster has called the citizens of Vesitire to the castle tomorrow to hear his speech,” Tarran informed us.
“I already knew that,” I said.
Drystan swung me an accusatory look. “Anything else you know and haven’t shared?”
I shook my head with a sheepish wince.
Tarran said, “I assume you want your dragon back. What if I said I can help?”
“We don’t trust you,” Drystan said.
“I don’t have the time nor care to convince you to trust me,” Tarran said, bored as he reached for Drystan’s cup and took a drink.
Setting it down with a casual sigh, he stood lazily.
“Auster Nova is no fool. He won’t let his guard down for this.
My advice? The only way to distract him enough is to give him what he wants more than anything.
” His brown eyes landing on me sent a chill down my spine.
“I need to be the bait,” I said.
“Not happening,” Drystan rejected.
“My token of insight is that, while Astraea occupies everyone’s attention, I have those loyal to me posing in Auster’s vampire ranks. I can make sure they anticipate letting a lone shadow slip by into the side entrance of the library where a black celestial dragon is being cruelly shackled.”
My gut twisted at the image of Eltanin chained where Nyte once was. Alone and afraid.
“What do you have to gain from helping us?” Drystan asked bitterly.
He shrugged, looking off through the crowded inn. “What do I have to gain from helping Auster?”
With that, Tarran turned and made to leave.
“Tarran,” I dipped his name in darkness before he got one step. “You do anything that puts my friends in danger, I will kill you.”
His cold eyes sliced back to me.
“You’re good at killing, aren’t you? Auster’s words aren’t all lies about you, Maiden.”
“They’re twisted lies. Ruling isn’t without hard choices and living with blood on our hands.”
This had turned into a far more personal conversation. One brewed from a memory of the past that severed the bond we grew up with while being raised by the same people.
“You should have made sure the blood on yours didn’t leave vengeance in its wake.”
A tense silence left in Tarran’s shadow as he wove through the busy inn until I lost track of him. In truth, I didn’t know if we could trust him or if this was his wicked way of having his revenge on me.
“What happened between you two?” Drystan asked.
“I took away someone he loved.”
Drystan slumped with exasperation. I didn’t elaborate.
“Then how the hell can we trust a word he says?”
“Because there’s one person Tarran will always hate more than me, and that’s Auster, all the High Celestials, really, for how they’ve treated vampires for centuries.
He might despise me but he’s the son of two of my guardians and I …
I have to trust his heart is still a piece of theirs and wouldn’t truly want to harm me. ”
Drystan sat in silence to mull over all I’d told him.
“If we use what he offered, if you expose yourself as bait, you need to tell me you’re confident you can escape and fly to join me as soon as I have Eltanin.”
My heart was pounding at the mere thought of what we both had to do. As I stared at the sodden wood of the table, my mind processed dozens of situations that could unfold tomorrow with this new plan.
“I have my role; you have yours. The most important outcome of this is that you get Eltanin back to Nyte. No matter what, agreed?”
Drystan knew my meaning. That should something happen to prevent me from making it to join him, he had to leave me behind.
“Shit.” Drystan ran a hand down his face, then downed the rest of his drink. “If he wakes by bonding with Eltanin, and you’re not there, I am not looking forward to dealing with his rage.”
The stiffness in my shoulders relaxed when he didn’t argue. Drystan’s gaze turned to one of concern, but he slipped it away from me like he didn’t want to admit it.
“I am rather looking forward to hearing what the High Celestial of House Nova has to say. A coronation announcement, perhaps?” I said with resentment.
Drystan glowered at the wall with that suggestion. “I doubt he’ll wait much longer to claim that crown as the realm’s savior from the corrupted star-maiden.”
My heart darkened at the thought of Auster claiming my throne and spewing more false and evil words about me and my friends for his own merit.
“He can claim the crown, but he’ll never hold the throne so long as I live.”