Chapter 42 Astraea
Astraea
Emerging from the temple with a true key piece made my spirits soar, and I could hardly stop grinning. Nyte was smiling too, so bright and rare.
Our happiness was always fleeting in this world of terrors, and seeing Fedora, standing on human legs, had us both staggering to a halt.
“The night and the star.” She had a unique song in her voice that was deceptively soothing.
The Nymph’s raven hair made it appear as if she’d just stepped out of water, but her skin and dress were completely dry.
If what she wore could be called such. The black material barely covered her nipples and crossed around her neck, while the skirt was a thin floating strip covering her front and back.
Her legs were fully exposed and she was barefoot against the snow. She gave no reaction to the cold.
“You got your prize, I see,” Nyte observed.
Fedora’s onyx eyes gleamed with mischief and triumph, because in her hand she held the trident, which was propped against the ground and as tall as a scepter.
“With no thanks to you. It seems you fell short on your bargain to me, and I don’t like empty promises.”
“You know I tried and would have gotten it for you were it not for my father getting there first.”
Her dark brows pulled together and she pouted as if offended. Then something switched in her; a maniacal amusement widened her eyes and she smiled with cruel glee.
Fedora approached Nyte like a serpent in the way she glided.
I stiffened when she locked a gaze of playful desire on him.
She stopped close to him, tipping the forked end of the trident toward him.
I jolted a step, but Nyte’s arm extended to stop me.
My anger clawed at my mind to unleash violence, but I contained it for now, even as the sharp tip of the middle point of the trident grazed under Nyte’s chin.
“Do you even know of the power I have at my fingertips now? Enough to rival both of you. I could drown this kingdom with a thought if I so desired.”
“Someone has to rule the land and someone the sea; ally with us, Fedora. We will honor you as the Queen of the Sea,” Nyte tried to reason.
“I don’t need you for that,” she hissed. “I don’t need anyone.”
The trident cut Nyte’s flesh, and I shifted again, ready to summon what I needed to so I could contend with her.
“What is it you’ve come to me for, then?” Nyte asked.
My skin pricked with Nyte’s careful tone and approach. I was used to seeing him confident, sure he could contend with any foe, but he was afraid of the weapon and the unhinged Nymph who now possessed it.
She chuckled. Then laughed. A laugh that mocked us for something we were completely oblivious to. It turned the already frozen air that much icier.
“The night and his star. The star and her night,” she sang, toying with us now. “Such tragic poetry you are, and so shall your end be. Why would I want to ally with the two who want to return the sun? My seas are never more powerful than when the moon shines.”
“Our world is falling apart with the imbalance. The true stars are falling,” I snapped.
“Then the land will crumble and my seas will grow.”
There was no reasoning with a creature like Fedora. Her emotions were not a human’s, and she would have no care for any land species.
“Do you want to know what the first thing I did when I got my hands on this trident was? I assassinated the clan I was born into, which cast me out. I started with my parents, who had two daughters after me, whom they loved instead of loathed. I killed them too. Then I offered the next clan a chance to swear fealty to me as their one true queen. They refused and I killed them all. I still have ways to go to cover the sea, but anyone who opposes me will die.”
She was as cold-blooded as the waters she came from, but I also couldn’t fathom the pain she’d suffered being in exile all her life. Sometimes I believed everyone’s pain made them capable of villainous things if they were given the tools to seek retribution.
“We don’t oppose you,” Nyte said.
“I like the darkness. I like the night. There is one who has agreed to keep our world bathing in this tranquil moonlight.”
“Dusk and Dawn need the daylight. They are the beginning and end of daylight. Your allegiance to them won’t grant you anything,” I said.
Her depthless eyes shifted to me, and a cold smile curled her pale cheeks.
“I wish them dead as much as you do. As much as my king does.”
“Your king?” Nyte repeated.
Her smile spread wider with sinister merriment.
“The person who gave me this trident, of course. The one who holds the missing piece of your key from the temple, which I helped him to long before you came calling. During their trade, he warned the Overlord Vermont you would come, but of course you managed to escape his methods to capture you, I had no doubt in that.”
Fedora had betrayed us from the start.
“Why would you ally with the king?” I asked bitterly.
Fedora giggled, stepping closer to Nyte, and I was shaking from restraining my magick. His fingers tightening around mine was a warning not to attack her yet.
“We’re going to rule the land and the sea together. It could have been us, you know? I would have preferred it, but your father is quite alluring as well.”
“You won’t win,” I said with deadly promise.
Her smile fell. “You’re really starting to get on my nerves, Maiden.”
Fedora’s hand lashed around my throat so fast that not even Nyte detected her shift of movement.
I choked with her sharp claws piercing my neck as Nyte gripped the trident, intending to try disarming her and fighting, but power surged through the weapon, and my scream was choked as I watched it throw him back.
My magick burned her hand and she hissed, throwing me to the ground, but I couldn’t rally my next attack before water lassoed around me, coiling up my body until it latched itself to me like a rope with the rapid current.
“Nyte!” I yelled, a futile call of fear as he peeled himself up from the snow, which began to animate around him—another influence of the trident.
“You don’t want to do this,” Nyte growled; his breathlessness gave away how powerful the trident’s strike had been.
“But I’m having so much fun,” she sang.
The water holding me shifted, and I tried to reach for Lightsdeath, but I was drowning; the water compressed my body, growing over my neck, and I couldn’t reach for my magick.
I held Nyte’s look of fury and terror before it blurred, and my last breath held.
My limbs thrashed as if I could swim out of the suspended ball of water I was submerged in, but it was all wasted energy.
I thought I could hear distant voices yelling through the thrashing current.
Then a bright blue flare, and I screamed, though it cost me more of the precious air my body held.
I couldn’t see what was happening, but Nyte was in trouble.
Maybe the trident could kill him. or maybe Fedora had my blood and knew how lethal it was to him.
Darkness peppered my vision. My breath choked, and I instinctively tried to draw another gasp, and my throat was set aflame. My lungs burned. Agony became me, and oblivion stole me.