Chapter 31 Nyte #2
I peeled myself off the ground and staggered after Drystan. Part of me understood why he did it, but my anger grew to be too much with the throbbing of my body. When we were alone in the hall, I pushed him against the wall.
“Father’s little rat now, are you?” I snapped.
“Better a rat than a cold-hearted murderer,” Drystan bit back.
I suffered more from that than anything physical. Not the harsh comment, but watching Drystan’s heart become ice right before my eyes was something I’d wanted so desperately to prevent from happening. He couldn’t turn out like me. One of us had to be good, be better.
Forgiveness clawed in my chest, but I couldn’t let it out. It would be so easy to tell him I didn’t blame him.
Drystan pushed me away, and his eyes threw spears into my chest. He looked like he might say something else, but it seemed we both had claws against kindness growing stronger within us. I watched him walk away with his hate washing over me in waves with every step he took.
Just forgive him.
He’s all you have.
Just forgive. Forgive.
I shook my head, remembering again that this was just a memory. This had already happened.
Where was I now…?
As I started trying to figure that out, the room spun again, but I held onto my reality, firming my mind against reliving another cruel memory from the past as if it were the present.
This is a trial.
Between me and Drystan …
A trial of forgiveness.
To break the vicious cycle we’d grown up with.
Drystan failed when he didn’t forgive me for killing his pet even though I had no choice.
I failed for not forgiving him for turning me into father.
These were only two events in our long history.
If I kept falling into full immersion in these memories there’d be centuries worth for this trial to feed on.
We have to make it out. Astraea was waiting, and the thought of her was a thread of light to keep me aware, which I clung to with everything I had.
The next time the room stopped slamming me against its walls, I landed on my feet, gripping something firm between both hands.
Only when an impact ricocheted off it with a high pitch did I register it was a blade, and when my eyes adjusted from the disorientation, I stared through crossed swords at the contorted determination of Drystan, my opponent.
“This will not end until one of you draws first blood,” father’s voice echoed from across the training hall.
Drystan pushed off first, going on the attack, but he was no swordsman.
Not even close to contending with me. This wasn’t so long after we first met Astraea.
Father had been so furious that he took it out on us, on his soldiers, on anything he could use to grapple with his shame over how easily she’d slipped right out of his grasp.
Astraea. My starlight. My light back.
“Drystan, you need to snap out of it; this isn’t real,” I said, bracing against each of his amateur attacks.
Though he wasn’t a novice swordsman now. In this memory he was missing the centuries he would spend training. The centuries during which he would force himself to become something he never wanted to be. A fighter to be a survivor.
“You’ve always been his favorite.”
“That’s not a worthy achievement,” I bit back.
I shook my head. Don’t let the trial distract you.
Keeping myself grounded made sweat trickle down my forehead.
“You’re far better than this now. You can actually contend with me,” I said, parrying around the hall at his onslaught. He had no form and little skill, but his rage was enough to inspire a commendable attack.
“Don’t patronize me, brother,” he snarled.
Father called over, “You’ve always been weak, Drystan. You’ll never match Nyte.”
Fury boiled in me, but I didn’t tear my sight from Drystan. Seeing my father was sure to plunge me deep into the clutches of this illusion once more.
“This is what he wants. Us fighting each other. Betraying each other. He wouldn’t care if one of us killed the other,” I said.
“Seems inevitable,” Drystan said, panting through his exertion, and soon he would falter.
“No, it’s not. Father has never been able to forgive anything. But I forgive you, and no matter how long it takes, I’m going to keep trying to become something you can forgive too.”
Drystan kept advancing, not breaking out of the trial’s illusion. I had Astraea to think of and keep me aware, but Drystan … did he really have nothing to reach for in this world? Nothing worth coming back to?
The next time he pushed me back … I dropped my sword.
Drystan’s blade slashed across my front from the right side of my chest to my left hip. A searing line of fire scorched the deep path of his sword. That was real. Our swords were real, not just part of the memory.
I collapsed to my knees, bleeding onto the floor.
“Nyte,” Drystan’s voice broke.
“I’m-I’m okay,” I said, but I wasn’t sure. My mind became foggy, and I hoped it was just the trial and I would begin to heal as soon as we were out of it.
“I just wanted to be like you,” Drystan confessed. He fell to his knees with me, sword clattering next to mine.
Father’s voice became too loud, piercing our ears and rattling through our bones. “You incompetent brats. Get up! Get up and fight!”
I was too consumed by Drystan’s words to be affected by the conjuring of our father in his most vicious days.
I said, “All I wanted … was to make sure you never ended up like me.” Shit, I was losing too much blood.
While it wouldn’t truly kill me, I didn’t want to risk restarting this trial.
“I’m sorry that you felt like I abandoned you.
That I was cruel and judged you too harshly, like father did.
I thought if you saw a monster in me you’d never want to become it. ”
“I forgive—”
Before Drystan could finish a flicker of movement caught in the side of my vision.
A tall form, an unforgiving twisted face, the glint of a blade coming down toward Drystan.
Agony roared through my body, lunging me forward to push Drystan out of the path and brace for it to slice through my shoulder instead.
The impact obliterated the world, and I blacked out.
“Nyte!”
The call of my name echoed, muffled and distorted, as though I were drifting through an endless ocean. It repeated, throwing out a line for me to grasp and pull myself to the surface before I could drown.
“Dammit, you bastard, don’t fucking die here,” Drystan said. His voice became assured and louder as I detected his frustration. Then pressure on my abdomen shot a new wave of pain through me, and I gasped, eyes flying open.
My vision blurred, but I kept blinking, reaching to hold onto my fading consciousness.
“Shit, this is bad. Can’t you heal any faster?”
I gulped for breath that didn’t come so easily. My body felt heavy and warm and wet. I was bathed in my own blood.
“Stop bleeding,” Drystan groaned, adding pressure again that made me wheeze my next breath.
“Stop trying to kill me fucking faster,” I barked, forcing myself up and pushing him off. I quickly scanned him over, then muttered with mild irritation, “At least one of us remained unscathed.”
Drystan ignored me, picking up something discarded beside him. The sight of the key piece made me forget my misery for a second.“Is it a real one?” Drystan pondered, examining it before holding it out to me.
I snatched it too desperately, coating it with the blood from my hand as I flipped it, waiting for something. Anything.
When I felt nothing at all, my hand tightened around it and my body slumped.
“Another fake piece,” I confirmed.
Drystan swore, standing now. I started taking in more of the room, which appeared like a long neglected storage room in the temple. Drystan groaned and his patience snapped, causing him to scatter the few old books and paper from a nearby table.
“That was all for nothing then,” he seethed.
I strained to push myself to my feet, catching my unsteady balance on a chair, but it crumpled with my weight and I tumbled, finding purchase on the desk before I went sprawling embarrassingly again.
“We need to get you to a healer—”
“It wasn’t for nothing,” I said through my clenched teeth, breathing through the dizzying blood loss and throbbing pain.
Why wasn’t I healing faster?
Drystan began to rant, “The time we wasted to get a dud piece of metal—”
“I meant everything I said in that … trick.”
I could practically feel Drystan’s guard rising at my confession, and I couldn’t blame him.
“Well, I suppose it did feel good to finally land a blow against you.”
My chuckle turned into a sharp wince. Fuck, laughing hurt my wound, but it was genuine.
“I let you get that in.”
“Don’t make me challenge you again; I won’t hesitate to do worse.”
Even though Drystan was diverting himself from the raw feelings that had been dragged to the surface from long buried depths, at least he was still able to have a sense of humor.
“Let’s get out of here. We have plenty more of these damn temples to visit. It’s likely you’ll get another run at combat with me. I warn you: I’m pretty great now.”
We headed up the endless stairs, which felt like a climb of the steepest mountain. I leaned against the wall for support, until Drystan slung my arm around his shoulder and took some of my weight. By the time we spied light at the top I was close to falling unconscious. Or dead.
Sweat drenched me, and with a body of lead, the first breath of fresh icy air was utter bliss.
My foggy sight immediately tried to find Astraea, and I blinked more the longer I couldn’t find her waiting for us.
“The dragon is gone,” Drystan confirmed, but so was Astraea, and that provided enough adrenaline for me to fully straighten, ready to push through anything to find her.
A loud gust of wind snapped my head up to see a red dragon smaller than Athebyne, a horned male, soaring across the treetops. Then, to my immense relief, I heard the most delightful sound of enjoyment and giggling from Astraea atop its back.