Chapter 41 Nyte
Nyte
Our final trial had me and Astraea opposite each other. I lurked in the shadows, which snaked and primed around me, so familiar, while she bathed in brilliant light casting from behind her.
Nightsdeath was gone, yet I glanced at my hands with the creeping sensation of that dark power within taking me over. My fingers were dipped in charcoal, and I laughed, darkly gleeful, letting Nightsdeath return.
With my repulsion of bright things, it made my deadly glare fall on the being opposite me. Not just Astraea … Lightsdeath had come out of hiding.
“It’s about time we faced each other,” I called to her.
We were separated by a wide gap in which I could only see intermittent black tiles, like a two-line checkerboard missing the white squares, which would lead Lightsdeath to the middle platform.
Over the side of the rock I stood on it was deep and dark, a the faint glimmer revealed water would catch my fall.
“We have met many times, Nightsdeath.”
“Yet you refused to play with me. Do I frighten you?”
Lightsdeath’s chuckle was a hubristic as mine. I delighted in her.
“You think I, a light that could drown you in a flare, would be afraid of the dark?”
We both paced the edges of our platform, sharing wicked, taunting smiles, like a dare for one of us to somehow cross the distance. I remembered this was a game. A test. I didn’t know the rules yet, but I was already having so much fun I didn’t really care.
I wanted to possess this creature. To make her bend each ray to the will of my shadows.
“Come to me, then,” I coaxed.
Lightsdeath studied the bridge. “I can only see the tiles of light on your side.”
“I can only see the tiles of dark on yours.”
It was clear then. We had to trust in each other’s direction to make it to the middle. The landing of neither dark nor light. The space between us was a shifting threshold, a place where contrasts collided and refused to harmonize.
“You first,” I said. Lightsdeath faced me. “A shift to your right—there. Now forward; that is your first tile.”
She didn’t immediately take the step off her platform. Her glowing silver eyes studied me intently, so hypnotizing I wanted to crawl the distance to bask in them deeper. Only to tear out the light in them.
“To your left—yes. Then forward is your first tile,” she instructed.
“I said, you first.”
“Now who’s afraid?”
My lips curled cruelly. “Together, then.”
“I think that’s the point.”
Either one or both of us could end up plunging into the black waters below. Was there a prize for deception? One of us successfully tricking the other and making it to the middle alone?
“Ready?” she called with an edge of playfulness in her tone.
Yes I was.
My leg lifted as hers did, tension tingled from my toes to my damn head, and I couldn’t be sure if I’d be thrilled or enraged if she’d tricked me and I went plummeting.
In unison we took our first long step forward.
Both of us remained on the same level.
We shared a smile, baring teeth.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” she sang.
“Likewise.”
“Your next step is forward,” she supplied.
“Yours is to the right.”
Once again our stares locked, heating with passion every time we stood here to test each other.
We took our steps … and both remained in the game.
“Make no mistake, I only want to reach you so I can smother you,” I said darkly.
“I’ll only let you reach me so I can banish you. You think yourself my equal, Nightsdeath? I am the source; you are the absence. Without me—the light—you—the dark—are nothing but emptiness.”
“And without me you are unrestrained, a tyrant of radiance. I am not your absence; I am your complement. Your light exists only because I give it shape. Together, we are not rivals but the rhythm of the world itself.”
“Poetic of you,” she mocked.
We exchanged our next steps, and they held us true, bringing the light closer to the dark with every delicious move.
“It is hard to trust you when I see how easily you can consume those who linger too long in your depths,” she said, her voice softening now.
Another tile, another slash of distance between us.
I replied, “Perhaps trust is not required—only the wisdom to know when we must share the sky.”
One tile left. We stood right in front of each other, a measure of two tiles was all that remained between us.
“I might have underestimated you,” she said, close enough now I could almost reach her.
Taste her. Devour her. Possess her.
This next exchange could see one triumph, watching the other drown beneath their feet. I studied her brilliant eyes, trying to find her deception, but her ability to withhold all emotion was as masterful as mine.
“The strongest light casts the deepest shadows,” I whispered. “We are inevitable.”
“Your step is forward,” she said, voice equally as hushed.
“So is yours.”
Our legs lifted in unison, our eyes locked on each other, then …
The dark and light collided, exploding through the room in a violent storm of night and starlight.
We gripped each other harshly; my hand clutched tightly in her glittering hair, hers fisted the front of my jacket, our stares clashed with such passion and hatred it was pure nirvana.
“Share the sky with me, Astraea,” I said, coming around from the effects of the trial I only now remembered we were in.
Nightsdeath wasn’t me anymore. That beast that paced in me was slain by Lightsdeath, unable to take over my emotions ever again.
But Lightsdeath was real in this trial and still had a hold on Astraea, who glared at me, debating if she wanted to kill me or kiss me.
I took that decision from her, claiming her mouth as the ground fell away from both of us. Frozen waters sucked us deep into their depths and tried to tear us apart, but I clung to her like she were my last breath.
We were drowning, but panic didn’t find me. I pulled Astraea’s mouth to mine again and we floated. Water turned to sky, our bodies to constellations, and here we belonged, never against each other, always necessary to each other.
Astraea held me back, her essence wrapped around every inch of me, and I didn’t care about anything else so long as she could never drift far from me.
She broke our kiss, lifting her hands that blended seamlessly into the starry night, as did mine. “We are the stars and night itself,” she said, observing her starry form.
“Yes, we are,” I said, so overcome with emotion.
Astraea’s stretching smile faltered as she choked. Panic surged in me, and I held my breath too as we fell, two shooting stars plunged back underwater.
Then … air.
Too much yet not enough.
We swallowed water and choked until we reached the shallow end and crawled out. Over rocks and snow and … stone.
Gasping on all fours, I blinked against the dizzying confusion, whipped from one illusion into another, but I thought this was real now.
The polished marble beneath my hands seemed fitting for the temple we’d entered.
Though despite there being no body of water around us now, we still suffered the effects: wet and frozen.
Glancing up, I saw an altar, which made this temple more like one of worship.
I pushed myself up to my knees, but Astraea wouldn’t move from her locked position on all fours, shivering violently, and I could hear her teeth bashing together.
“Here,” I said, pulling her upright.
My instinct was to begin removing her clothing and mine; body heat would help while she came out of her shock and became able to reach her magick to warm herself.
Astraea’s eyes were so distant, staring at nothing at all, and she didn’t respond or react to what I was doing. Her body was shutting down; her mind became unresponsive. It tore me apart.
I spied an old tapestry that was as treasured as a fur blanket in our condition. Ripping it from the wall, I returned, stripping out of my own clothing before kneeling again. Astraea hugged her hands to her naked chest.
“I’ve got you,” I said, panic slithering in my chest.
I sat, pulling her between my legs, where she curled into herself against my chest, and the tapestry was big enough to wrap us both. I hugged her as tightly as I could but it wasn’t enough. I was fucking helpless right now, but I could ease some of her pain at least.
Slipping into her mind, I soothed every sharp and icy edge that was hurting her, and I thought she was starting to calm.
“Talk to me, please,” I whispered, pressing my lips to her head.
Her hand moved, flattening on my side and slipping around to hug me back. It relaxed a fraction of my body.
“That was awful,” she whispered.
“That’s putting it lightly. Drowning is one of the worst ways to die.”
“You’ve d-drowned before?” she chittered.
“Once.”
“When?”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, what she would think if I confessed the truth. It was something I hoped to never have to admit aloud.
“When you were gone,” I said tightly.
“W-what happened?”
At least she was engaging, and I didn’t want her to stop if I refused to answer.
“I told you I’ve died many times. There are very few people who hold an assassination number for me.”
I didn’t know how else to say it when shame started to shrink me. Astraea took a few seconds to contemplate. I could tell she understood my meaning when her fingers added pressure against me.
“You … you tried to…” she couldn’t bring herself to say it.
Neither could I. Not outright.
“I wanted to follow you the moment you left,” I said.
“There’s so much more to living than just me,” she said, her voice croaking now, and that fucking cut me deep.
“Not to me. You know that.”
“You have Drystan. You could have found love again. Oh, Nyte.”
She wept, and it fucking destroyed me.
“I was born to be a weapon, or to be yours. If you’d seen all I became in your absence … there was no living, only pain. To me and to the world I inflicted it upon.”
Astraea lifted her head to look at me. Her lips were still faintly blue and her eyes glistened. Her palm reached to my cheek with such sorrow written on her face.