Chapter 31 Nyte #3
“Huh, that’s interesting,” Drystan said, retrieving a journal from inside his cloak.
He flipped a few pages, lost in thought, then found a blank one with a thin stick of charcoal, which he used to scrawl across it.
“The dragons don’t typically let anyone other than their bonded rider mount them unless accompanied by the rider.
Even then they can be highly selective.”
“Did it choose Astraea?”
“I don’t believe so.”
I watched her soar in circles, and it was enough of a beautiful distraction from my wound for a while. When I next winced, the dragon came down; the vibrations of its landing trembled under my feet.
Astraea slipped off the dragon’s back and jogged through the snow toward me, her face pinched with concern.
“What the hell happened in there?” she asked, worry thick in her voice. Her mere presence soothed some of the ache.
Astraea cupped my cheek, scanning me all over until she gasped, pressing small gentle hands over part of the slash across my body that annoyingly wasn’t healing as well as it should. The bleeding should have stopped by now at least.
“We fought,” Drystan said absentmindedly, looking up from his notes toward the dragon before folding his materials away and heading toward it.
Astraea’s mouth hung open as she stared at him; then she snapped back to me for more explanation.
“It’s the short version of events, yes,” I confirmed.
Her face pulled together into adorable disapproval. “I want the very long version once we get you somewhere to heal.”
She circled her arm around my waist, coaxing me along.
“While I was making sure my brother didn’t kill me, you discovered all dragons have a liking for you?” I mused.
We passed Drystan, who approached the dragon tentatively, not nearly as relaxed as he was with Athebyne but expertly composed. He would catch up with us in the town later, as I assumed he would be staying there a while to document whatever he usually did.
“I’m not sure. I used the tears, and it was wonderful to watch the dragon come alive.
” Astraea stopped at the tree line, turning back to yell to Drystan, “His name is Alrakis!” Then she was guiding us through the small forest again, resuming her story.
“I was just waiting around for you two, and Alrakis wouldn’t leave.
I was glad for the company; strangely it was very soothing.
Then at some point I just made my way onto its back and we went flying for a while.
Astrinus is beautiful from above. So many mountains with small villages in their valleys. ”
“Yes, it keeps the kingdom very peaceful and protected from larger army attacks on foot,” I recalled.
The trek into the nearest town was arduous.
I hadn’t felt this weak and exhausted in a long time.
We tried the first inn we came across, and they had no lodgings.
The next was the same. By the third, Astraea and I shared a look and began to suspect we were being turned away because I looked like trouble in my current state or because people were recognizing us but too afraid to confront us.
“I offered that last one enough money to buy out all the rooms in the wretched place,” she grumbled.
“Money wouldn’t mean anything if the place got destroyed or they got killed. They fear we’d bring enough trouble for that possibility.” My eyelids kept drooping, as much as I tried to keep straight and present while the worry on Astraea’s face grew.
She led me around the side of a building, and I slumped onto a snow-covered barrel. It had to be crawling into night hours with how the temperature was plummeting.
“Just try my blood, here,” she said, resting on her haunches and pushing up her sleeve.
I wanted to refuse because I risked taking more than I usually would to heal myself, and that would leave her weak. But if I fell unconscious I’d leave her alone with my dead weight, and that was a greater fear.
“You’ll need to stop me the moment you feel even a little tired,” I warned.
Astraea nodded with a small, assuring smile.
Taking her wrist, I guided it lazily to my lips and sank my teeth into her flesh.
The first drop of her blood on my tongue would usually trigger an acute thirst and feverish demand, but something wasn’t right.
I pulled back, spluttering sideward at the first taste, which was like ash and smoke, turning into flame in my chest.
“Nyte, what’s wrong?” Astraea asked in panic, almost holding all my weight now to keep me from tumbling off the barrel.
“I don’t know,” I gasped.
Was it because of my blood within her that was used to harm her? No. I didn’t think that was it. I should have been healing much faster naturally, which led me to believe that the trials were particularly punishing, making sure any wounds sustained in them couldn’t be healed so easily.
“Astraea, I-I can’t … I can’t hold on much longer.” My fear was for her. To leave her alone and panicked with my dead weight in this unfamiliar territory. “You need to leave me and find Drystan,” I said desperately, fighting the dark spots peppering my vision.
“I’ve got you. It’s okay, Nyte.”
The flecks of darkness in my sight merged, slowly stealing the beautiful image of her.
Still, I fought to keep conscious enough to follow her direction.
Her strained sounds from hauling a lot of my weight were muffled in my ears.
She managed to sling my arm around her shoulders and we moved forward.
The cold wind stopped lashing us for a few moments.
Astraea used the void, pulling us both through it, but I didn’t know where to.
“We just need shelter; then I’ll get help,” she said. Astraea was right beside me yet her voice sounded so distant.
Astraea halted us suddenly, and I grappled for the fading edges of my awareness. At first I thought trees surrounded us, until they began to move, inching closer. Too many bodies, and I could hardly see them, never mind brace to fight them.
“Run, Astraea.”
Her hold only tightened on me, and my teeth gritted painfully. Some of the faces came in and out of focus; I didn’t recognize any, but all I needed to see was the constellation sigil of Astrinus pinned on their cloaks. These were guards of the reigning lord here.
“Looks like you’re going to make this collection easy, Nightsdeath,” one called out, strolling ahead of the others.
The name he used confirmed I was only known for the reputation that began right in this kingdom.
“Stay back,” Astraea warned them.
“Don’t fight for me, please,” I said, barely able to bring words to my mouth now. “Use your magick and run.”
“That’s not happening,” she answered firmly.
“Maiden,” the same soldier greeted; my only relief was that he sounded genuinely respectful toward her. “We mean you no harm, I assure you.”
“You mean us no harm,” she amended, testing him.
“You don’t know who you are harboring. The ruins that monster left this part of Astrinus. Our reigning lord, Viscarus, salvaged it after he and his wicked father and brother left.”
I remembered exactly how we’d left. My father had spent decades here building his vampire army and granting them the spoils of the humans and celestials here.
When Astraea died, and my father occupied the castle of Vesitire, his followers left too, and these lands were left torn apart from too many years of bloodshed and terror.
“I won’t let you harm him,” Astraea said, and I felt the growing heat of her skin, her magick awakening.
“It’s true what they’re saying about you, then?” the soldier said, his tone shifting to an unfriendliness that sparked wrath inside me. “You really have forsaken your people and duty to protect and defend a monster?”
“No. Your tales are twisted and we’re trying to stop the real threats to this continent,” she said. The confidence in her voice stoked my pride.
“I hope you’ll forgive me for our measures, Maiden. But it doesn’t seem you’ll come with us willingly.”
I didn’t think I had any fight left in me with the severity of my wound.
But the threat in those words snapped something in me, a will that defied all physical limitations to seize the minds of everyone who surrounded us.
A dozen, maybe more; I couldn’t count and would lose consciousness any second.
“Don’t kill them!” Astraea’s warning blared through the violent pulse in my head.
I only had seconds to decide. They threatened her and I wanted to kill them all, but her voice of reason would always trump my retribution. She was the only damned moral I had left.
“Then please run!” I said in defeat, still holding their minds to give her that last chance.
But I knew she wouldn’t leave me. It was both the only thing that kept me wanting to live and, in moments like this, the reason I wished I wasn’t this weakness that kept her in harm’s way because of her love for me.
Astraea sunk to her knees with me, holding my face in her hands. Her stunning silver-blue eyes were the last glint in the darkness that consumed me.
“Let go, Rainyte. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”