Chapter 47 Astraea—Past
Astraea—Past
Astraea was holding a quarterly council with the reigning lords throughout the five surrounding kingdoms of Solanis when the news came in.
An ambush. A slaughter. A battle raging on a mountain fringe just past the Sterling Mountains.
She didn’t waste a moment.
The informant couldn’t tell her who’d led the attack, but she didn’t miss the fearful whispers of Nightsdeath from the lords as she left.
She didn’t pay them any mind. If Nyte’s father was behind this, she would have known about it.
Unless it was another attack he’d called for without Nyte’s knowledge.
She didn’t have time to seek out Nyte for an explanation. Astraea flew right to the battle that expanded in a bloodbath below her. This wasn’t a battle that had just broken out, and anger surged through her over how it had taken this long for someone to summon her.
Dropping from the sky, she reached into the void for her key, but … she couldn’t feel it. Astraea had never misplaced the key, but she didn’t have a spare breath to consider where else it might be before a nightcrawler made a target out of her.
Astraea only had her dagger, but it was enough.
Launching into the sky at the last moment, she twisted in a flip around the nightcrawler, plunging her dagger into the membrane below his right talon, and it ripped down the full length of his wing as she landed behind him.
He wailed until she grabbed a fistful of his hair, yanking his head back and slicing across his throat. Then she lost herself in a mindless enemy-killing spree.
When she cut down enough of the enemy to take a pause, she scanned for someone in charge on her side, but this field was chaos. No order, only savagery. At least one of the High Celestials should be here, but she couldn’t see any of them.
It was as if this battle was secret. A pen of blood and violence tucked into a lonely pass between mountains. The location was odd. Not an attack on a village or city.
A sense of dread started to knot in her stomach.
Astraea turned around, intending to fly to Auster’s province for aid. Maybe he would have answers.
A figure dropped into her path before she could unglamour her wings.
They might have passed for an anonymous masked assassin to anyone else, but Astraea would know Auster from any angle, no matter that he wore all black, his hood was drawn, and his face covering left only his hazel eyes on display.
Relief relaxed her tense shoulders.
“I was just about to come to you. Did you know about this?” she asked.
The battle was dying out now. All that was left was the last of the soldiers with too much fury in their bones to retreat and the dying that were strewn across the land.
Auster didn’t answer. He didn’t move.
Astraea tried to shake the unease he was inspiring in her. She took a step closer, but he stepped too.
She felt the magick too late. Not until it was a bright violet flare between them did she realize what he had in his possession. Not until she dropped her horrified sight from his cold, unfeeling eyes … and saw the stone tip of her key lodged in her gut.
No. This was a nightmare. A cruel, despicable nightmare she would wake from.
Because Auster would never do this. Her best friend would never hurt her. A man she loved and trusted would never want her dead.
Astraea’s trembling hands wrapped around the staff. Light engulfed Auster’s hand, and his hiss of pain rattled through her as he let go. She looked up, finding him clutching his left arm to his chest, backing away from her.
“Auster…”
He was leaving her here.
“Wait.”
Astraea tried to follow, but she only got one step before her knees buckled.
Was this truly real?
Despite the agony that ripped her apart, cell by cell … Despite the blurring sight of Auster retreating … she still struggled to conceive it.
But if she was dying …
Nyte.
His name became the only thing that mattered to her. The only person she wanted in the world right now. They hadn’t had enough time together. She was desperate, greedy, for so much more time with him while her life was draining rapidly.
They were supposed to change the world together. Had already begun making progress toward their ambition for vampire equality. She was going to show the world who Nyte truly was, and he was going to be free from the chains to his father, as was Drystan.
Oh, Drystan … he’d become such a dear friend, and she couldn’t abandon him now. She couldn’t leave them both to their horrific father.
Astraea gripped the key tighter, and the pain from ripping it out of her body stole the last of her strength.
She fell, losing more of her consciousness every second.
This was worse than the first time she’d felt the key in her body.
Auster had made sure to strike deep, pushing as much of the key’s magick as he could tolerate into her body before it punished him.
She couldn’t even use the void one final time to reach Nyte.
There would be no saving her this time anyway, but still … she wanted to see his beautiful face just one last time as the darkness pulled at her. She wanted him to hold her in his warmth as her body turned cold. So cold.
Instead, she was all alone, lying here as one of many corpses lost in this senseless battle. Death knew no title.
She wanted Nyte to know that she called for him even if it was too late. She wanted to tell him that she would find him again. No matter what, she would find him always.
In those last fleeting seconds, she felt him so strongly she couldn’t be sure if it was her desperation, or if he’d come for her.
She couldn’t see him. Oh what she wouldn’t give to glimpse his golden eyes one last time.
But she took the last notes of his scent with her as she had to leave him for now.