Chapter 45 Nyte #2
The fall with Rastaban should have killed him, but if there was one thing that was consistent with my father it was that he seemed to have infinite fucking lives.
Eltanin rattled, peering down at us from the edge of the crater in distress. With an arm around Astraea, I pulled us through the void to get us out of there.
“Be free, Nyte,” she said, pressing a leather pouch into my hand. “For you and for Drystan.”
I stared down at it, clenching my fist around the solid contents, which raked a hum over my skin. I kissed her fiercely, then took a long step back, letting the void swallow me.
When the shadows let me go I sat upon Eltanin and he didn’t miss a beat before taking me to the skies again.
Snow started to fall as I searched the grounds for Rastaban. It didn’t take long to find him. The great black dragon had fallen just outside the central city of Vesitire, its tail having collapsed the edge of the lower level wall. Eltanin landed and I dismounted swiftly.
Rastaban was dead, and even though it had wanted to kill him, Eltanin still mourned for the loss of kin. I didn’t want to feel the same, but when I spied a form that seemed so small next to the dragon, I couldn’t move for a moment.
I wasn’t ready to confirm his end.
Tipping the key pieces Astraea had given me into my palm, I joined them one by one. Each serrated shard snapped together with a current of raw power growing denser, amplifying with an electric vibration. It rejoiced to be reforged, but there was one missing piece.
As I joined the pieces, I slowly got closer to my father, rallying the courage to retrieve the last shard he possessed. I wished I could turn off my clashing emotions, fixing my sight on him. He deserved absolutely nothing from me.
Father lay on his back, and when I got close enough … I couldn’t decide if dread or relief pounded in me when I detected the shallow rise and fall of his chest.
Still. Fucking. Alive.
His breaths wheezed and staggered; his sight fixed wide and unblinking on the sky that wept with snowfall.
I couldn’t place this moment. Not in words or feelings.
He was the villain of my origin. The nightmare plaguing my rest. He had created me and tried to end me in more ways than one.
Yet he was just … a person.
A mortal being drawing final breaths, who had the same value as anyone else in the end.
“S-son,” he croaked.
I sank down slowly to a crouch, continuing to study every piece of him as if it might offer an explanation as to why.
Why did I ever fear him?
Why did I let him control me?
Why did I ever try to gain his approval?
I didn’t mourn for him. I never would. But my chest constricted and emotions so long buried clawed their way around my entire body because I mourned for myself. All the years I let him have of me.
The glowing violet light of the key highlighted his scared face.
“You don’t have anyone,” I said. “No one who will cry for you. No one will remember you with anything other than loathing. That is the path you always walked no matter how long it was to be. Why would anyone want that?”
“To mean something to myself.”
My brow twitched, not expecting an honest answer.
“Your pursuit of meaning poisoned everything in your path.”
“I don’t expect you to understand. You were always so weak.”
I couldn’t deny that comment impacted me. After all I’d done under his command and the black soul I harbored for it … I was not weak.
Patting over his torso, I tried to feel for the distortion of the key piece. With his protection from the gods, the key was the only true weapon to ensure he truly died.
I’d let my guard down, thinking he was teetering too close to the brink of death to be a threat. I didn’t detect his movement fast enough to retract my hand back fully when he moved, slicing a blade across my wrist.
I hissed venomously, dropping the partially forged key when this wound burned through me far more intensely than a shallow slice should. There was only one way for such a cut to roar inside me.
The blade had been laced with Astraea’s blood.
A surge of otherworldly power distracted me from my urge to lunge for father with all my loathing.
The unmistakable eminence of the Maiden’s key blasted around me, and when the light dimmed enough I cast my horrified sight up, finding my father on his feet, holding the key aloft like a god triumphant.
“Don’t you see, Rainyte? You were merely a bad sample of what I was to become.”
I couldn’t believe it. Eltanin roared and I detected his preparation to strike. Father pointed the key in his direction, and I yelled, desperate for the dragon to flee, to save himself. I could only watch in horror as the violet flare of the key grew blinding …
As the power released, searing red flame clashed with it.
When it cleared and smoke choked the air, father had changed from attack to defense, fashioning a dome shield around himself. His furious sight cast up to Athebyne.
“Looking for me?” Drystan said.
Those words accompanied the fall of his skyward blade.
Father only caught a glimpse of Drystan, who’d expertly managed to creep right up to him with the distraction of Athebyne. Then father’s roar of agony stunned me.
The key fell, still gripped in the hand Drystan had severed from his elbow with a single mighty swipe.
I moved like a magnet to Drystan’s intentions. My brother caught the key, throwing it to me as father crashed to his knees.
The full glory of the Maiden’s key burst through me. Answering me as her mate. It sought vengeance and blood as much as I did, combining our anguish to fuel a wrath of gods.
As soon as Drystan had severed Father’s hand, I had launched up into a sprint toward them. Before Father’s scream died out, I reached him.
I braced, I cried out, and I plunged the key through his chest.
It lodged deep into him, and he threw his head back with a silent agony. The key flared brighter inside him until light rays shot out from his eyes and wide mouth. It burned him from the inside out.
“The punishment for your greed doesn’t end here,” I snarled. “Say hello to mother for me.”
I twisted the key, causing the crystal in the staff’s end to emit the final killing dose of magick that turned flesh to stardust, blood to ash, bone to smoke.
I yanked the key out of him and watched him dissolve into nothing.
When it was finished, I stood there panting and disbelieving.
Part of me waited to wake up from a nightmare. To discover father was still alive and I would never escape him.
A hand on my shoulder snapped me from my terrorized thoughts.
“It’s over, brother,” Drystan said.
I turned to him fully, and we shared a look of fear, realization, then … liberation.
Drystan hugged me, and I held him back, never having truly believed this day would come.
“He’s gone,” I muttered. “He’s really gone.”
We broke apart and Drystan smiled. Then he grinned. When a breathy laugh escaped him, it broke my shock into smile too. The terror of our father that had been embedded deep in us from our cruel upbringing dispersed through our delirious echoes of laughter.
“That was impressive,” I said to him.
“Did father hit your head? That was too generous of a compliment from you.”
I chuckled. “Don’t get used to it.”
The monster of our childhood and the villain of our adulthood was slain, but I couldn’t rest easy yet. Our world was still under the threat of the God of Dusk and Goddess of Dawn, and our star-maiden needed our help to claim her world back once and for all.