Chapter 6 Astraea #2
“Any crown placed atop your head would slip with madness beneath it,” I said, loud enough for him to hear in the tense silence that had fallen. “It’s only a matter of time before everyone sees it.”
My fists kept tightening with my loathing, weaved with heartache, to be face to face with him now.
Vengeance for what he’d done clashed with fond memories that flooded over from the past. Our long history of growing up together, bonding as great friends before anything else.
There would always be a part of me that ached deeply for what we’d become.
“Seize her!” Auster bellowed.
Even his own soldiers hesitated. When they did act to his demand, my magick flared to life in warning, creating sliver threads weaving over my palms and a warm swirling wind. More space grew around me as people tried to gain distance.
“This is between you and me, Auster Nova. Or are you too afraid to face me yourself?”
“You’re bold to come here,” he said.
“I’m not afraid of you,” I challenged. “I won’t hide while you foster fear and lies about me in the minds of my people. And I won’t let you hide behind the villain you’re trying to make of me either.”
“It is your actions that have caused devastation to this realm, Maiden,” Notus said.
Murmurs of agreement around me rattled my composure.
“Where is your Bonded, Astraea?” Auster goaded. “Where is the monster you chose over your own people and duty to protect the realm?”
I realized he was trying to make me stand trial in front of the gathered city.
I said calmly, “You don’t fear him for what he’s capable of. You fear him for the mirror he shows you.”
Gasps echoed and my marked skin glowed a little brighter.
“Why did you come?” Notus asked.
I didn’t dare glance at Zephyr, but I knew he stood tense beside them, likely wondering if I’d lost all sense of self-preservation in being here.
“You’ve been looking for me. Well, here I am.”
“You’re alone,” Auster said daringly. He unclasped his cloak at his shoulder; someone took it from him as he stalked forward. Then he removed his circlet. “Did you come to fight me?”
“If I win, you let Eltanin go and leave Vesitire,” I said.
His smile sliced cruelly and viciously.
“And if I win…” he said, hanging a pause for his delighted suspense. “You’ll stay with me. I’m not beyond believing our Maiden can be reformed. That I can bring you back to righteousness.”
His vile delusion broke awe through the onlookers. How merciful it was for him to find forgiveness after all I’d done.
He was good at this, I had to admit.
Maybe there was some truth in the new perception of me as the villain he was painting in the minds of my people, because while he was masterfully composed, I was ready to burn this city to the ground to reclaim it.
“Fine.”
I was sure Drystan would be cursing me if he was watching. I hoped he was rescuing Eltanin beneath the library right now.
“I admire your will,” Auster said, his voice growing closer as he came down the castle steps. More space was created around us, but all that existed to me was him.
Auster and my simmering fury.
“I can’t say the same when yours has always been spineless.”
“It’s all a matter of perception, really. You’ve made me your villain only because I had the will to do what needed to be done to stop what you have become.”
I kept careful attention on him as he stopped, facing off with me. He didn’t retrieve a blade and neither did I.
“Like you said, a matter of perception.”
I moved first, not in attack toward him, but around us.
As I aimed my hand down, my magick cracked through the ground, digging deep; it took reaching for a touch of Lightsdeath to conjure the strength to shift back my legs and push down with everything I had.
A flare of light broke in a jagged line, creating a large serrated circle around us.
With a battle cry, I gripped the stone with my magick and lifted my palms as if I held it in my physical grasp.
I floated us high on the platform now suspended above the gathered people.
“Impressive,” Auster remarked.
“I won’t let you hurt my people.”
It took constant focus to keep the platform floating, but this was only between Auster and me, and if he reacted with his own magick against me, it would be catastrophic on the ground with so many innocents nearby.
“If you hadn’t run from me when you came back five years ago, things would have been so much different,” he said.
The bastard had the audacity to seem pained.
“I’m glad I did. Had you captured me after my memories were taken, being forced to live a life by your side would have been worse than what I’d suffered with Goldfell.”
When I fell back to land, I’d awoken with my memories for a brief time.
Auster had been waiting for me in the temple of Alisus; he knew it was where I’d be.
I remembered he was the one who killed me, and I’d run from him, barefoot and freezing through the woods by Goldfell manor.
The next person to find me was Drystan, who made sure I got away, letting me run into the arms of Goldfell, who kept me hidden in his manor for five years.
Despite Goldfell’s cruel hand and spending years alone and hidden, the alternative that could have been had Auster found me without my memories—unwittingly in the arms of my killer—made me terribly nauseous to imagine.
“I mourned you long before I killed you, Astraea,” he said, a slipped confession.
I gritted my teeth, turning the pain within me into something I could wield, and my hand cast out with a gale of violet light toward him.
Auster’s blue lightning collided with my magick just in time.
Unlike when I battled with Nyte’s power, there was no desire that ran through the currents of energy between us, only pure, dark loathing.
I couldn’t die this way, but he could.
Though if I managed to kill Auster now it would solidify every evil he’d painted about me to those below. Reversing what he’d done was not going to be as easy as getting rid of him.
“Was I really that terrible of an option for you?” he yelled when our blast ceased.
We mirrored each other in our pacing around the perimeter.
“I never wanted this. It was you who couldn’t stand that I chose Nyte.”
“You never told me why.”
“I did. It just wasn’t to your ego’s liking.”
I struck again, and he ducked out of the way before sending a bolt my way. Pivoting, I threw out a light dart, and we parried like that for some time, exerting our heartache and vengeance on each other.
“You were my friend and I trusted you!” I shouted.
The tears that gathered in my eyes burned my skin as they fell, and I was glad for it. I didn’t want to hurt inside because of him. He didn’t deserve my heart.
For just a second, we locked stares and his brow furrowed in a way that haunted me.
That flicker of regret turned to detached resentment so fast, but I’d let it weaken my guard enough that his sudden strike of lightning hit my chest. Cast off my feet, I had no choice but to release my wings, which caught me in the air.
I surveyed the courtyard below where everyone was staring. Some covered their mouths in shock, clutching each other with fear.
Fear of my black wings.
A mark of death, as the people believed. As the High Celestials had made them believe.
“I’m glad your arrogance in thinking you could win against me brought you here,” Auster taunted from the platform. “You make it too easy. All I have are words, and you give them the full display of proof.”
I dragged my lethal stare back to him, shaking with a dangerous need to wipe the gleam of triumph from his face. Permanently.
Before I could fly back to the platform again, the sound of fearful murmurs gripped my attention. The people weren’t looking at me anymore; they stared past me with wide eyes. Some started pushing each other to get away, then shouting to run.
I twisted my head sideways and gasped at the blazing star hurtling at a deadly speed right toward us. There was no debating if it would miss the city this time. It didn’t matter how far away those people below got; I didn’t doubt this blast could collapse the city.
I scanned for Auster, but he was gone, now back down on the ground with his brothers in urgent conversation.
Their wings were unglamoured, and many celestials were fleeing rapidly with the help of their wings.
They and the nightcrawlers were the only ones who stood a chance of clearing the blast radius.
The High Celestials wouldn’t leave everyone to die here, would they? Together their magick might be able to slow or stop the meteor.
There was no end to my anger that boiled as they just stood there.
Fucking cowards.
Landing on the platform, I had no choice. I opened myself to the otherworldly magick that lived within me and hoped it didn’t claim or destroy me. Hoped I didn’t lose myself to Lightsdeath like Nyte could to his deadly entity of Nightsdeath.
With a long breath, I dove deep into my well of magick, surpassing my limit and letting starlight flood through me. It was all I was. Pure, bright starlight. Enough to drown the world if I wanted to.
I glamoured my wings, shifted my stance, then, as the heat grew, I couldn’t tell what source was strongest: the blaze of magick coursing through me or the devastating rock about to obliterate me as I cast out a hand.
My magick wrapped around the star, which rebelled against my attempt to stop it from crashing to the land.
The world was glowing with silver, and I knew nothing but Lightsdeath.
The rock slowed, but not enough. I pushed more magick out, ignoring the wild pounding that began in my head, my skin that ran too hot, and my stance that trembled. My brow pulled together with the agony tearing through me, but I couldn’t give up.
Both my hands pushed out now, and a scream tore from my throat.
With the greatest surge of magick ever to unleash in this world, the star finally started breaking.
Piece by piece it turned to dust with the starlight ripping through it.
Until it was no more than a large boulder that had lost its flame.
I couldn’t hold on any more, with no choice but to accept the impact of that piece slamming into me. Then death was a friend that greeted me coldly.