Chapter 12 Astraea
Astraea
Revulsion for where I was—right outside the familiar white door of Auster’s room—rose to the surface. There might be a few new chips in it than I last remembered, or maybe I’d never stalled long enough outside it to notice all the minor imperfections in the wood.
He’d summoned me here and I had to grit my teeth against the desire to run before discovering why. The guard who’d escorted me had left, and that rattled my unease even further.
Don’t run. Don’t run.
I heard shuffling beyond. Was that also voices? My pulse skipped when the footfall grew louder toward the door and a chill gripped me when it swung open.
Auster’s deep frown of annoyance at the intrusion smoothed out when he saw me. My jaw locked tighter as he played ignorant as to why I was here.
It wasn’t just his presence that urged everything inside me to retreat, it was the fact he stood there shirtless.
My eyes only trailed lower to take in his missing left arm, now replaced by metal and strapped by leather over his shoulder and torso. I started to wonder about the beautiful craftsmanship—how could it not be too heavy when it appeared made entirely of silver?
Then my awe vanished when I remembered what had happened for him to need it. How the key had eroded his arm in punishment for killing me. If I hadn’t been his bonded, it would have killed him instead. I couldn’t even gloat over his instant penance.
He’d lost an arm, and I’d lost my life.
“What am I doing here?” I ground out.
“I wanted to talk.”
He wasn’t alone. When the woman came into view, Auster dropped his right hand from the doorframe so she could slip out.
My stomach immediately turned. In all my years I’d never come across anyone with hair like mine, yet here she was, with silver hair and arms covered with silver tattoos that, despite whatever starlight matter enhancement potion she took to imitate me, weren’t right at all.
She gave me a sheepish smile, looking perfectly composed with her clothing and hair impeccable despite what I must have intruded on. She slipped out, and I watched after her with a million thoughts.
“A frequent courtesan of yours?” I asked.
“Yes,” he answered unashamedly.
I dragged my sight back to him with more disgust from discovering his particular desires rolling in me.
Auster stepped aside so I could enter his rooms, and I had to tear my feet from the roots binding me to the floor.
The familiarity hit me, spinning my mind as I took in the surroundings as flashes of memory stole me away. The worst part was that they weren’t all unpleasant.
In the armchairs by the blazing fire, we’d talked for endless hours into the night. About our wants, our dreams, about Vesitire and Althenia, and about nothing at all.
In his dining area we’d shared countless meals, and I could almost hear the echoes of our laughter.
On his bed …
I spun away from looking at it, having to close my eyes just to breathe.
I thought back to the times when it was easy between us.
Simply as friends. Very good friends. Then we grew up, and the idea of marriage and romance felt expected because of that childhood closeness.
For a while, in our early adulthood, we both suspected the bond.
Auster started to lean into the idea of a Bonded life together, and I tried to reciprocate.
If I hadn’t found love and passion with Nyte, I might never have discovered what that truly meant in a life with Auster. But I still wanted Auster in my life back then; I still loved him on a different level and always would.
“Why wasn’t that enough?” The pained whisper slipped out of me before I could bite my tongue. When I opened my eyes, I turned to him, relieved he’d put on a plain white shirt. My voice picked up with grating resentment. “Why was my friendship never enough for you?”
He considered me for a moment, moving idly toward the bed.
“It wasn’t that. It was who you rejected me for. You’d turned your back on everything we’d built, for him.”
“You didn’t give me a chance to explain.”
“There was nothing to explain.”
“Your perception had always been singular and biased. After all we’d been through you didn’t give me any grace to explain to you what I saw in him, why I fell for him.”
“You think I wanted to hear it?” he snarled. Then he laughed. A single venomous sound. “You really are so fucking selfish, Astraea. And naive. And damn stubborn.”
“I’m selfish?” I seethed, feeling livid now. “You can’t keep pretending all you’ve done is in the name of your duty and protection of the people against Nyte. You couldn’t set your pride aside and consider the possibility that maybe we were all wrong about him.”
We drowned under the flood of our past.
“You could have found love with someone else,” I continued, my bitterness festering. “You couldn’t let go of me because of the power and status I would grant you above your brothers. You loathe me now, yet you’re still grappling with the idea of us. Why?”
“To break you as much as you broke me.”
We exchanged our words like knives, and I didn’t know who would bleed out the fastest.
“I didn’t break you, Auster Nova, you did that yourself.
You can pretend all you want, but it wasn’t just me who felt passionless when we were together.
There was always something else on your mind.
” I laughed, a little deliriously. “I thought it was me, that you weren’t attracted to me.
But I felt your love in every way except when we tried to be intimate.
So when I felt what was missing with Nyte, I thought…
” A new piece of my heart broke off as I stood watching our anguish tighten; there was pain in his eyes too.
“I thought for one moment of fantasy you might be happy for me.”
Auster’s hand tightened on the bedpost he leaned on. His expression turned scarily firm.
“Happy?” He bathed that word in acid. “You thought I would be happy to hand over a reign that was rightfully mine? My Bonded, a person who was supposed to be mine. You thought I would be fucking happy to watch the most heinous creature in our land have it all instead? No, Astraea. The moment I learned of it from Nyte’s father, I wanted to kill Nyte more than ever before.
I wanted to kill you. I wanted to stop the plan the two of you started to contrive together when I didn’t know how far ahead you had gotten.
I saw only one option, and that was that you had to be stopped. ”
“Nyte’s father?” My focus latched onto that one detail that cut me with new shock.
I’d always assumed Auster had found out through a rogue vampire from the resistance or some other slip of intel.
Auster straightened, realizing he hadn’t meant to give that up.
“I never would have thought I’d have to ally with his despicable, powerless father just to stop my own mate from ruining this realm.”
A wave of nausea threatened my balance, and I had to step away, mulling over the events of the past to figure out how I could have missed it, Auster’s shameful alliance, but there was too much.
Too much blood and disorder and arguing during that last year of my past life.
Everything felt fragile, and I knew in my soul something terrible was coming.
Auster had allied with Nyte’s father before … it made far more sense that their recent collusion wasn’t new. Just rekindled.
“Where is his father now?” I forced the question through my tight throat.
“He has a plan that will help stop you once and for all, should I fail in reforming you. Our Gods will walk among us.”
Stars above. Nyte’s father was already working to bringing the God of Dusk and Goddess of Dawn to our realm, and my parents would be coming for me. The race had begun, and we hadn’t even started looking for the key pieces. I needed to kill them before they killed me.
I breathed steadily so as not to give away my sinking confidence and rising trepidation.
“The most terrifying villains are those with friendly faces,” I said absentmindedly, staring at the snowstorm outside the window. Then I locked onto Auster’s deep brown eyes. “The worst monster is the one standing in plain sight preaching as a saint.”
“Unlike you, I have never lost sight of my faith in Dusk and Dawn. It is our gods’ grace that blessed us celestials with the power and privilege to protect the people.”
“Religion has formed firm roots of arrogance in the celestials. I won’t bow to gods who demand I bend for them.”
Auster’s huff mocked me. “Then you are the arrogant one, to believe yourself above them and beyond facing judgment.”
“I’m not arrogant. I’m free.”
To my creators, and to Auster, it seemed, I was nothing more than a failed experiment of Dusk and Dawn.
Auster sat on his bed, which I noticed was completely undisturbed despite his prior company. I couldn’t stand still, walking around and taking in new trinkets and old, discovering what had changed and what remained from centuries ago.
I said, “All that time I was gone, how could you rest easy with such delusions while the rest of the continent lived through blood and terror.”
“I am a High Celestial. My highest duty is to the celestials, and they were protected and thriving.”
“Because of Nyte,” I snapped. “He created your precious veil of protection around Althenia before the key broke after my death.”
“Don’t expect my appreciation for it when he’s the reason our realm collapsed into ruin,” he said icily, cutting me a look over his shoulder when I lingered by the nightstand.
“Even before he corrupted you, he was a parasite in our realm, and you know that is fact. He doesn’t belong here.
I might have killed you, and I will admit it was the hardest thing I had to do, but you two left me no choice.
You fell in love with a creature that damned us all.
You abandoned your one sole purpose of creation to love a monster. ”
Nothing I could say would pierce through his unyielding hatred. I decided he didn’t deserve to know how protective, and kind, and resilient Nyte was for those he cared about.
“Is that all I am—a creation and a duty without a heart of my own to follow?”
“Not all, but first and foremost. You forgot yourself, Astraea, and I pity you. You’re not born like the rest of us, you were given to us for one role, raised by six carefully chosen guardians for that role, and you threw it all away for love.”
My lip wobbled but I turned enough that he wouldn’t get to feed on my vulnerability. I found a small bottle on his nightstand, which distracted my broken heart. Lifting it, I discovered it was a sleeping tonic.
“You loved me once. Are you haunted by what you did to me?”
“Yes,” he said easily.
“Every night?” I asked, flicking my gaze from the nearly empty bottle to him.
“Most.”
“Do you want to know what I think?” I asked, setting the tonic back down.
“I think everyone harbors a monster at their core. Restless nights are a warning; that monster claws in the most silent hours because it has your full attention. It’s the people who are most composed in the daylight, too perfectly so, that have caged their beast too long and will break from the madness in one way or another. ”
Auster huffed, running a hand through his unbound brown hair, which rested above his shoulders. “Is that how you rest easy with all you’ve done?”
“I rest easy because I don’t deny nor am I ashamed of anything I’ve done.”
“Once again you display your hubris.”
“Only insecure men see hubris in a confident woman.”
Auster stood, swallowing the distance between us. His fingers grazed under my chin when he was close enough.
“Everyone has a place in this world; you’ve lost yours.”
I couldn’t help my amused smile. “Who’s really the one in shackles?”
At my boldness, his eyes flared with disdain.
“Nightsdeath wants you to reveal the locations of the key pieces as much as I do. I think he’ll be far more efficient in his methods.”
I gritted my teeth. “Because you’re a coward.”
His knuckle grazed along my cheek in a deceptive show of tenderness.
“Believe me or not, I do not enjoy hurting you.”
“Why did you call me to your rooms, Auster?”
“To tell you our wedding is set for three days’ time.”
I jolted away from him.
His expression turned cold at my reaction. “The bargain will take time, but our marriage in law will set an example for the people. It will put an end to the Dark Maiden rebellion movement when they see your compliance.”
I was running out of time. No matter what, I couldn’t let this wedding happen.
Auster added, “You will dine with me and the other High Celestials tomorrow evening as part of the pre-wedding ceremonies. We’ll receive their blessing.”
My stomach was clenching tighter and tighter the more he talked.
“Where is Aquilo?” I took the opportunity to ask. “He hasn’t been with you when you appear before the people.”
Auster’s look darkened on me.
“It was unlawful and despicable what you did to him. You had no right.”
“You don’t get to preach rights when you’ve violated all of mine,” I said, nearly shaking with anger.
“You are my prisoner.”
I stalked to the door without waiting for a dismissal. “I will be your downfall.”