Chapter 38 Astraea #2
Glaring at the manacle laced with nebulora, I watched it turn to stardust. The more my rage was provoked, the more I slipped away, close to becoming an unfeeling entity that could melt this golden palace to the ground.
Nyte. I was too bright, and I needed him to balance me in the dark.
My soul called for his.
“You are not a villain, Astraea,” Vermont taunted. Lightsdeath clawed my mind, threatening to fully unleash and prove to him I could became a nightmare incarnate to anyone capable of spilling innocent blood.
I sensed his movement before he could lunge forward with the vial of silver liquid he braced with. Starlight Matter.
Though it wasn’t me who stopped him.
Nyte arrived as a stroke of darkness through my senses.
He slammed Vermont to the wall, and I blinked consciously, taming Lightsdeath to make out their bodies of flesh though the edges of my vision still swirled with light and liquid silver.
Nyte ripped the vial from Vermont’s hand, and his fury, as he realized what it was, stoked the inferno already blazing within me.
“You were going to drug her with this?” Nyte said, his words cold as death.
“It’s the only way she can be tamed,” Vermont choked under Nyte’s forearm wedged against his neck.
“Tamed? You should bow before your queen, your star-maiden, who is not a thing to tame but a goddess to worship.”
Nyte gripped him, forcing the lord to his knees before me.
This reaping was mine.
Before I took his life, I turned to the onlookers pressed against the walls, clutching each other. I raised my voice to be sure all could hear me through the storming winds of my magick.
“You’ve ruled here, draped in arrogance, clinging to the illusion of power like it was handed to you by the heavens.
But look at you—you’re no god. Gods don’t falter when their masks are ripped away.
Gods don’t need to shout their greatness to be believed.
You’re just a man. Flesh and bone. Fragile. ”
“As are you,” he spat.
My smile bordered on villainous.
I gripped his wrist. “They whisper that your touch is golden. Call on it to save you now.”
Vermont began to scream when my magick spilled down his arm. Then, by Nyte’s interference, his ability to voice his agony was stolen.
“He’s just a man, trembling under the weight of his own falsehoods,” I said calmly as my light flooded into his open mouth, determined to devour the dark mass of his soul harbored in his frail body.
I let him fall. “I am your star-maiden, and you are free from a tyrant ruler who fed you lies for decades.”
After a pause of silent judgment, the robed citizens started to drop to their knees one by one.
They muttered their praises, their prayers, their wishes.
But I could hardly hear any of it when Lightsdeath strained to reap more souls, and among these esteemed guests of Vermont’s … there was too much temptation.
Dozens of innocent lives were piled before me, and all of these people on their knees for me now had just watched.
What were they to do? I tried to reason in my mind.
They would have slept soundly after the terror; they have done so before, Lightsdeath hissed as a more prominent voice in my head now.
They’ve surrendered to us.
Fear is not respect.
Respect can’t be gained by slaughter.
My teeth gritted, and I closed my eyes, battling my inner conflict with Lightsdeath.
Although I’d triumphed by slaying one evil, it only fed a hunger to hunt for more. There were endless dark souls in this world, and right now I wanted to comb the lands for them.
A touch on my arm made my eyes snap open.
“Stay with me,” the beautiful darkness said.
The darkest night.
I gripped his waistcoat, trying to fight back the otherworldly power trying to dominate me, but it hurt so badly to refuse it.
Because I didn’t want to.
Right now, I was grieving for the lives that were taken because of me.
“He killed them all,” I cried softly.
“I know,” Nyte said. “This doesn’t bring them back.”
Nyte was so dark I could hardly stand it, yet part of me wanted him. I tried to push him away, but he kept a tight hold of me.
“I’m not your enemy,” he whispered across my ear.
We stood in the eye of the light storm. My soul wept while my mind tore itself apart.
“Yes, you are,” I croaked. “Don’t you see? We’re always doomed to be right back here. Fighting each other. Everything we are repels each other. The savior and the villain. The death cursed and the god blessed. Nightsdeath and Lightsdeath. It will never end.”
Nyte took my face in his hands, and I whimpered at the pain his shadowy aura invoked while Lightsdeath raged through me.
“In every beginning and until every end, I choose you. Say you want to keep fighting for this.”
I was torn by the hurt in his voice. It sliced deep, but Lightsdeath delighted in it, wanting to exploit it.
Scrunching my eyes, I pushed against the power more, sobbing with the pain.
“I’m so tired, Nyte,” I confessed. “So tired of being underestimated when I could make an example out of the Volanis empire, collapse it right now, so no one would think to doubt or challenge me again.”
“If that is your action call, then I am yours to command. But Astraea, look at me.”
I forced my eyes to open and held onto his bright gold irises.
“Focus on my eyes.”
Despite the shadows hissing and forming around him, his eyes would always shine so brightly. They were my peace, my anchor; they were the dawn that could never be stolen.
He said, “I don’t care for a single person in this room, not even those Vermont killed.
They were innocents, yes, but they never meant anything to me.
It’s not who I am, and you knew that when you fell in love with me.
For your pain and suffering I would take your hand and burn this place to the ground with everyone it.
But this is not who you are. Lightsdeath will let you go, the pain will subside, and you would never be able to live with yourself. ”
Tears streamed down my face.
“Then I am weak,” I croaked.
“No. I am. Vermont is. Auster is. My father is. It’s weakness to respond with violence, inflicting pain on others to survive our own.
It takes the strongest will to fight your pain.
To be in control of it before it controls you, and that is why you are so brave, so feared by those like me.
You … Astraea Lightborne … are the fairest who has ever lived.
That is why you are the star-maiden that will bring us all peace.
And I’m going to be right here with you. ”
“I want to keep fighting,” I said, gripping him back even though it was like he was made of starfire right now. “For us. I want us.”
Nyte smiled, and it brightened the darkness his aura was shrouded in. His thumb brushed the wetness on my cheeks.
“You are pure starlight right now,” he marveled.
My tears were silver against his tanned skin.
His other thumb touched my brow. “There’s a crescent moon, on its side pointing to the sky, that glows on your brow when you harness Lightsdeath.
” Then his fingers combed through a silver tress.
“Your hair shines as though the moon bathes within.” His golden irises fell to mine.
“And your eyes have captured a thousand stars.”
Nyte kissed me suddenly and firmly, knowing the power in me would resist.
Lightsdeath hissed, lashing me within, but I gripped Nyte tighter, pressing my body to his, and he held me tight.
We’d been through this before, except Nyte had been the one in pain. He’d fought Nightsdeath for me and won time and time again. And I was going to do the same for him.
The pain began to lessen and relief started to cool my veins. The hurricane of light and wind tamed slowly around us.
“You two have to leave now if you want a chance of escaping with your lives,” a voice hissed over the gentle storm.
We broke apart to find Vermont’s son, Kairos, his arm lifted above his head to protect his eyes as he stood a safe distance away.
“You expect us to trust and follow you?” Nyte snarled. “You tried to buy her.”
“That was my father’s plan, and right now it’s either trust me or risk capture for his death.”
I glanced at Vermont for the first time since Lightsdeath had taken over. He lay in a crumpled heap, and I felt nothing but satisfied that his soul faced judgment in Death’s realm now. Kairos spoke of his father’s death as if it were nothing.
“I killed your father,” I said carefully.
“He deserved it.”
Nyte exchanged a suspicious look with me, but as the wind eased and guards started to scramble into the room, our time of distraction was up.
I took Nyte’s hand. “We don’t have time to debate.”
He was very reluctant, but I tugged him toward Kairos, having nothing but the intuitive sense that he wouldn’t lead us into a trap. Despite his sour mood all day, he’d called out to me, trying to warn me against hitting that veil with my magick.
Vermont’s son handed us two white robes, and we slung them on, drawing our hoods. With the palace in chaos, no one paid us any attention as we ran past many guards scrambling in clear violation of protocol, or perhaps they didn’t have one for the death of their overlord.
“We can’t use the void,” I said to Nyte.
“That would be my fault,” Kairos answered.
“You’re the mage who placed a protection on this place,” Nyte realized.
“Yes. You could say veils are a particular specialty of mine.”
I was quite taken aback to discover he had magick.
“Then can’t you release it, and we could get out of here a lot faster?” I asked.