Chapter 13 Astraea
Astraea
Once again, I was wrapped head to toe in white for the pre-wedding feast with the High Celestials. This delusion Auster paraded around was as laughable as it was humiliating.
I arrived first to the dining hall, leaving my rooms early and giving my guards no choice but to follow.
They could have attempted to hold me, but before I dropped the lace veil over my face, they seemed to read the dare in my eyes and thought it wasn’t worth the battle.
After all, I was heading to exactly where Auster wanted me.
After wandering around the table placements, leaning in to adjust some askew silverware and the awkward reach of some items, I sat next to the head, where Auster would be, and I cast a pleasant smile at the steely-faced celestial guards, who watched me uneasily.
I didn’t know if they could see it past the lace.
Auster entered, surprised to see me already here until he fixed a mask of indifference on his face.
“You’re early,” he commented, not hiding his irritation about it.
He took his place, a statement of his rank above me, but I let my irritation about it fade. Auster could wear as many crowns as he wanted, stand where he thought fit; the more his ego grew, the more satisfying it would be when I made him swallow it.
“I’m quite famished. With the lack of meals, I was beginning to grow concerned that the castle was suffering a food shortage. I almost started without you.”
He eyed me warily, as if my cheerful tone unnerved him. I merely reached to spear a slice of chicken before scooping helpings of vegetables onto my plate, not waiting to be served. I really was very hungry.
I went to uncover my face to eat.
“I didn’t say you could remove that,” he said.
Holding his stare in challenge, I lifted the lace, letting it fall behind my head.
“How else am I to eat, Your Majesty?”
I didn’t think Auster was above hurting me here, with the guards as witnesses; I just didn’t care. His eyes narrowed, but he let it go.
“Is the veil really necessary anyway?”
“You’re supposed to remain covered from all eyes but mine from the moment our wedding is announced until we are wed.”
“That’s an archaic and bullshit tradition.”
“That is your punishment.”
My grip tightened around my fork and I itched to stab him with it.
“Am I to be your wife or your child?” I bit out.
Auster gave me a flat look. “The veil remains until the bond is forged.”
Every time he reminded me of that vile agenda, I fought against being sick.
Zephyr entered next, his presence cutting through our building tension, and sat opposite me.
Thankfully his choice spared me from staring at the hateful gaze of Notus, who joined him by his side.
We didn’t smile at each other, keeping up appearances that I despised him as much as his brothers, but I was glad to see him.
“Just like old times,” I mused, cutting my meat. “Except for one face. I’m not particularly disappointed Aquilo isn’t here to sour the food.”
Notus pinned me with a sharp look, Auster’s hand tightened around his cup, Zephyr slipped a warning look across to me. I held a pleasant smile.
“You had no right or authority to exact that punishment on a High Celestial,” Notus snarled.
“I would disagree. Aquilo got what he deserved and so should you.”
Notus targeted his rising fury at Auster. “When will she receive punishment for that act of treason?”
Auster chewed on his meat, contemplating. Zephyr took a drink, observing the three of us nervously over the rim.
“We can’t afford to have the people know of it right now,” Auster said. “As far as they’re aware, Aquilo is currently occupied with private matters in his own court.”
“The plan was to make them believe she’s as villainous as Rainyte, yet the moment you have her in your grasp, she’s dining like fucking royalty.” Notus slammed his knife down, rattling everything on the table.
“Our plans changed and new advantages were seen when she came to us; we discussed this,” Auster answered calmly.
“I’m not royalty,” I said. “That’s the title you play with. I am a god. The difference comes not with a bigger crown but a power you don’t want to provoke from me.”
Notus’s tangible loathing of me pricked my skin.
“I want her chained in the dungeons where she belongs,” Notus snarled. “I demand it. By ruling of the House of Aura. She has threatened me and I will not stand for it.”
“Then allow me to threaten you some more. You put a chain between my wrists and I’ll kill you with it.”
Notus bellowed a sound of outrage, standing abruptly, and the high pitch of steel echoed throughout the hall.
We’d barely lasted ten minutes into our food.
His stormstone blade pointed at me from across the table, and all the guards shifted closer.
Zephyr stood too, tracking Notus and the blade. Auster stopped eating.
I locked an equally hateful stare on Notus as I reached across the table for a piece of bread. He took it as an insult, a mockery of his threat, which I wasn’t afraid of, and he intended for his blade to come down on my wrist, which would have severed my hand.
Instead, he met an invisible resistance as every marking over my exposed flesh shone with my magick awakening in a natural defense.
It wasn’t without great effort to push through the effects of the nebulora they kept me weakened with.
My forehead quickly beaded with sweat and a tremor shook through me.
“How is that possible? There’s enough nebulora to incapacitate a dozen celestials laced in those manacles,” Auster said incredulously.
“You really don’t know me very well,” I said, my voice starting to waver with exertion. “Not even in our past, or you would have known I’d been building a tolerance to nebulora against my skin for decades.”
Lightsdeath whispered dark chants throughout my mind. It could turn these manacles that were still suffocating a lot of my power into dust. Lightsdeath could make rubble of this castle and the High Celestials within it if I just gave over to it.
My vision scattered with silver stardust, a warning of that deadly power pushing to the surface of my subconscious.
It was too tempting while my rage stirred hot in the presence of Auster and Notus, but my right mind rang with the alarm warning that I had no experience with Lightsdeath, and this fortress held too many innocents for me to risk unleashing reckless magick.
Just let go. The power caressed my thoughts. Dark with intent, but unlike Nightsdeath, it was pure, bright starlight that wanted to become me.
I pulled my hand back, just enough to touch the tip of Notus’s blade, still pointed at me.
It pierced my flesh, beading a drop of crimson, which only made my magick more potent.
I watched my violet light scatter over the length of his sword like lightning before the stormstone shattered over the table.
I am in control. I soothed my own emotions, taming the unhinged magick pushing to take over after that taste of violence. I do not fear myself.
Notus pulled his arm back, now only holding the hilt, with absolute shock and fury lining his face. I let go of my magick, panting shallowly to collect steady breath.
He roared, a sound that declared battle between us.
“Guards!” Notus bellowed.
Those bearing his house color of gold advanced, but Auster’s guards in navy intercepted them while Zephyr’s small force in turquoise stayed put, uncertain but braced in case their High Celestial gave an order to intervene.
Conversations faltered, words falling away into uneasy silence as sharp, cautious glances darted across the room.
A quiet hum of anticipation pressed against the walls, coiling tighter with every passing second.
Watching Notus and Auster at odds stroked a dark satisfaction in me. Perhaps I didn’t have to do much at all to watch their pillars of union collapse, and I planned to make sure they would be buried in their own wreckage.
I stood carefully, facing Auster. “He’s always despised me. I have been nothing but compliant here.”
A muscle in Auster’s jaw worked as he slipped a look at me that softened only for a second before targeting Notus. “I think it’s best if you allow me to handle the Maiden here for now. You should return to Althenia.”
Triumph gleamed in me.
“You can’t be serious,” he spat.
Auster hated nothing more than for his authority to be challenged. Ironic, really, when he sat back unfazed as I challenged Notus’s jurisdiction.
As the gentle voice of reason over the palpable tension, Zephyr interjected, “Brother, we need a governing figure over there anyway. Your feelings toward Astraea only complicate things here.”
Notus’s cheeks reddened and his gaze stretched, keeping his outrage from exploding out of him. With a disgruntled sound, he stormed from the room, still humorously clutching his bladeless hilt.
“I should make sure he doesn’t take out his anger at you elsewhere,” Zephyr said, casting me one look of reprimand before he followed his brother out.
The silence that followed turned heavy. Auster’s stare slowly spread over my skin when I didn’t meet it.
“So you’ve been pretending those manacles and the nebulora have kept you incapacitated? You could have escaped any time?”
I didn’t want to expose that advantage, but I hadn’t wanted to lose a hand to Notus’s blade either. Now I had to scramble for an excuse.
“It weakens me greatly. If Notus challenged me to a fight, he would have won while I still have these on,” I said flatly.
Raising my hand, the sleeve of my white gown slipped high enough to expose the red torn flesh of my wrists and the manacles. Auster gave no reaction to seeing them; his suspicion still swirled in that brown stare of judgment.
“I don’t believe that for a second. You always have been far too cunning,” he said. The cold, distant tone braced me, and with the motion of Auster’s hand, guards advanced for me. “There’s one way to test your capabilities against the effects of nebulora.”