Chapter 44 Astraea
Astraea
Waking after a battle of water and fire was a torture unlike anything I’d felt before. My entire body was burning from the inside, but I was unable to extinguish it with air when I was drowning. Again.
My panic-clouded mind couldn’t recall how many times I had died like this. My vision was blurry and darkness threatened to pull me unconscious once more. At least the suffering in between was quick.
Right before the light winked out completely, the water released me, slapping me like a wet blanket against unforgiving ground. I spluttered and gasped, but the fire in my lungs wouldn’t extinguish. I never thought I would wish for death just for a period of relief, but the agony was so intense.
“You’re already proving yourself very useful.”
I knew that voice. It made my consciousness weave together faster when being vulnerable in his company could spill a more permanent end for me.
My elbows trembled violently as I pushed myself up. I recognized the violet pattern in these marble floors that were flooded from the sphere of water that brought me all the way here.
“As promised, my king. A fallen star.” Fedora’s voice of song floated above me. Her bare foot touched my shoulder before it pushed me onto my back. It wasn’t that rough; I was just far too weak.
“You won’t have to worry about her death; it seems it’s already inevitable.” She leaned down and ripped the bottom of my tunic to display the angry wound growing over my ribs now. “Auster Nova dealt it himself. Fitting, really.”
“And my son?” Nyte’s father asked.
“I couldn’t carry them both. He’s in a block of ice in the Luna Province.”
For Nyte, I pulled myself together faster, letting adrenaline take over even if it would punish my body when I let it go.
Fedora still stood right by me, and my first reaction was to grab her ankle and pull hard. She went crashing onto her back with a shriek, and I straddled her with my hands around her throat, lost in a haze of violent retribution.
I gripped more magick, and her screams were unnatural, so shrill I winced and lost the ability to focus on my surroundings.
I was pulled off of her by two guards, but I thrashed like a wild animal.
They dropped me too when I scorched their flesh as it touched mine, but my magick was only a burning ember in my exhaustion, close to dying out completely.
A sharp slap snapped my head to the side. I was let go, too disorientated to catch myself, and I fell to the ground in a crumpled heap.
So much pain. It was all I knew right now, and I wanted it to end.
I was kicked by a boot, more roughly this time, which flipped me onto my back. My vision came and went with blurred focus and threats of darkness, but I knew the face that hovered over me with sinister intent.
Nyte’s father crouched, studying me in silence for a moment.
I jolted to feel his vile fingers grazing my bare skin where Fedora had ripped my tunic.
Then searing agony tore a scream from my throat when he pressed hard on the wound Auster had dealt.
I could hardly hear my pain echoing through the hall when inside it was like the small dose of Nyte’s blood surged up fractions higher from the pressure.
No, no, no. He was stealing my time and I had to fight.
My mind didn’t feel connected to my body to stop or fight or move. Tears spilled over the corners of my eyes as I writhed on the cold floor. All I could do was flood my thoughts with thoughts of Nyte.
My night. My mate.
I wanted eternity with him, yet it seemed cruel fate was winning. We were two hopeless souls given an hourglass of time, delusional to believe we could break it and have our sand fill a desert. Each grain a new hour, a new day, a new canvas to paint with our endless future.
Darkness surrounded me. My pain didn’t ease, but it wasn’t climbing to immeasurable heights anymore.
The darkness was so beautiful. Shadowy and filled with stars. It embraced me, and my hand reached to touch it. Maybe I was in some forgotten corner of Death’s realm where a small essence of Nightsdeath still lingered. Where the stars and night collided.
“Don’t leave me,” I whispered to the familiar, comforting dark.
It answered as a tighter wrap around my body, unable to heal my wounds but filling in the cracks of my soul.
My senses began to return, but I didn’t want them back yet. This was peaceful and warm whereas the marble floor took some of that away. My hearing flooded with commotion. Clashes and shouts and so much pain and anguish. I whimpered, curling into myself more.
I only wanted one person, and maybe it was my desperation that made me believe he was here.
Finding the will to peel my eyes open and squint through the storm of darkness, I knew this had to be a dream.
Nyte didn’t have his shadows anymore, so the starry darkness that attacked around the room couldn’t be real.
Nyte was absolutely furious. Unhinged in a way that didn’t resemble anything human anymore.
I watched him move like a nightmare given form.
Tearing flesh, snapping necks. His face contorted in such a frightening display of wrath I shivered where I lay, watching the scene of darkness and bloodshed unfold.
He wasn’t alone. Drystan was here too.
… yes, this was definitely a dream.
Because he was wielding fire.
An unnatural blood-red flame conjured from his hands and swallowed bodies whole, burning their flesh and bones to nothing in seconds.
I mistook the next flash of red for a lick of flame at first, until a blade glinted between the hands of a form that moved with such speed and grace.
Nadia.
She fought back to back with Drystan, but she had betrayed us by working for Nyte’s father all this time. Hadn’t she?
This illusion was becoming too ridiculous, yet my consciousness was coming back more and more in grim awe of the way the trio tore through the enemy effortlessly.
Just as I was beginning to muster the awareness and strength to push myself up, I was forced up with a tight grip of my hair, and I screamed, not sure what part of me was hurting most.
“One more move and I snap her pretty neck,” Fedora sang chillingly close to my ear.
The fighting ceased, but Nyte, Drystan, and Nadia had finished off the flood of guards anyway. The throne room was a bath of blood and fire and bodies. It was too real … too real.
It was real.
My gaze of horror found Nyte, who stood across the room like a furious storm. Despite all he’d expended, he wasn’t close to being finished expending his wrath.
“I will turn this castle to rubble with everyone in it if she’s not returned to my side in the next five minutes,” Nyte said, his voice so removed from mercy. He wasn’t bluffing.
“I only want one thing from you right now, then you’re free to leave,” his father said.
Nyte’s gaze of liquid-gold targeted him.
“You will get nothing but a painful death.”
“Give me the key pieces and no innocents have to die.”
“I don’t care who dies with you.”
I hardly had the voice to reason with Nyte. All he knew was vengeance, and he deserved to feel this way. But I couldn’t disregard the number of people that were in this castle, with no way to call for an evacuation.
My pleading eyes met Drystan’s. He spoke to Nadia, who looked ready to protest, but after a short exchange, she left in a run.
Was she going to try to get as many innocents out as possible?
Time was too quick in this situation. Less than five minutes wouldn’t be enough.
“You have a true key piece from the underwater temple,” I said to Nyte’s father; my voice was a painful croak.
“Indeed. Now hand over the others.”
I chuckled dryly even though it hurt. “You really think I would have them with me? I’m not the fool here.”
Nyte’s father seethed at me, his anger protruding along the vines at his temples and over his neck.
“It’s about time you faced your inevitable demise,” Nyte said, words that slithered down my spine along with his next. “Time’s up.”
Those two words were followed by a deafening blast of stone. Only it wasn’t caused by Nyte.
He reached me, throwing up a shield of darkness from the fragments of the back wall that tumbled through the throne room. I couldn’t believe the sight of the huge taloned foot that had torn through the castle as if it were paper.
Rastaban roared, and in front of the terrifying black dragon, Nyte’s father stood. Unafraid. A slow, dark smile started to grow on one corner of his mouth …
“That fucking bastard,” Drystan seethed behind us.
Rastaban had bonded with their father. Or at least allied with him for now.
“I believe I have you to thank for handing me such a formidable ally,” Nyte’s father goaded. He turned, beginning to climb over the slope of rocks to mount the huge beast. “Do you want to reevaluate your challenge against me, son?”
“Not in the slightest,” Nyte growled.
He stood, sending his shadowy magick hurtling toward beast and rider, but Rastaban heaved a breath, and Nyte was forced to defend again, creating another dome around us with his magick. With the way his stance shifted, the dragon’s breath of pure black had to be a reckoning force.
The attack cut off suddenly with more than one mighty dragon roar. We all watched in stunned horror as Eltanin swooped across like a stroke of death, slicing his claws along the neck of Rastaban, who howled in pain and fury. The celestial dragon was gone again in the blink of an eye.
My heart stopped.
Rastaban didn’t hesitate. The dragon adjusted his footing, causing more of the castle wall to crumble. Then we were almost thrown back with the wind force of his wings as he took off after Eltanin.
“Stop!” I yelled, trying to command Rastaban, but it was too late; my dragon voice was weak and Rastaban shot too quickly out of range. My head whipped to Nyte. “You have to go!”
Rastaban was too big; his claws or jaw could kill Eltanin, which became the most imminent threat and fear.
Drystan was already running out, but Nyte hesitated, painfully conflicted.
“I’m fine. Please, don’t let him die.”
A muscle in his jaw worked. “You’re injured,” he assessed tightly. “Badly.”
His furious gaze surveyed around, and he growled, “Where the fuck did Fedora slither off to?”
“I can handle her if she comes back. Nyte—”
More roars shook the sky, and my desperation was immeasurable. Nyte tensed with a groan, balancing a hand against the ground. Eltanin was hurt. Nyte could feel it.
“He’ll kill him!” I said desperately.
Steps came rushing into the room, and we found Nadia racing toward us. “I’ll stay with her. Drystan is already in pursuit of your father on Athebyne.”
Nyte regarded me one last time, his eyes cleaved with misery as he cupped a hand to my cheek.
“Stay alive,” I whispered to him.
He nodded; then he was gone through the void.