Chapter 49 Astraea
Astraea
The tall statues of Dusk and Dawn loomed proudly and dominatingly in their temple in Vesitire. The last time I’d stood here to reach out to them, it hadn’t been pleasant. Now they had mortal bodies; I didn’t know if they would hear me.
Their mortal depictions were a far cry from the faces of Katerina and Aquilo they’d stolen to walk this land. I wondered how they chose these faces to appear to the first of humanity long ago, giving them this image to carve into stone for mankind to kneel and pray before.
“I know why you made me,” I said; my voice rebounded eerily through the hall that thickened with judgment. “It wasn’t just to lead mankind and set an example for them. That’s what you chose to appoint four High Celestials for, long before I came into creation.”
I swallowed because my throat kept drying out.
“I was an experiment, wasn’t I? A show for you to watch and discover what being mortal meant.
If it could be worth giving up godhood for.
You tested me time and time again, hoping I would prove that being a god is above being mortal.
That I would want to come back to the stars rather than suffer on land below as part of mankind.
Yet despite every trial … I proved you wrong. ”
It had been turning over in my mind. Why the gods were being careful.
“You want to stay,” I said. “As gods you sit above us, untouched by time, by pain, by death … but what is eternity without ever being touched by love? Without feeling a moment as precious when time is endless? You don’t hate mortals … you envy them. You envy me.”
The final part of my theory pricked my skin. I scanned the cold, haunted hall as though Dusk or Dawn could lunge for me any moment.
“The vessels you chose can’t sustain you much longer; they were always a temporary solution, and your time is running out.
But I’m a fragment of each of you. Created, not born.
A vessel strong enough to contain a god.
You haven’t come to end me, you’ve come to take my place … and only one of you can.”
That’s why they weren’t working together. Why they had to bide their time and coax a High Celestial onto their side to drive the key blade through me.
Dusk had Notus, and Dawn …
My heart skipped and I ran from the temple.
Now, knowing their objective, I feared more for Zephyr and his children.
I’d thought Dawn wouldn’t care about Zephyr; she and Dusk still had Notus to wield the key since they couldn’t.
But the gods were against each other in this race … and Dawn needed Zephyr.
I flew fast and desperately, needing to see Zephyr and his children were still safe.
Landing, I burst through the threshold of Nadir’s home without a knock.
The scene I faced slammed my steps into a wall of dread.
The calmness contrasted with the company.
Everyone was still here. Zephyr sat at the dining table with Raider opposite him.
Nadir was in the small kitchen, chopping vegetables, a jarring activity considering the tension that tightened my skin.
Because at the head of the table stood Dawn … holding a blade to Antila’s neck.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” Dawn said kindly. As though Astraea were merely late to dinner.
Antila’s eyes were wide and her body trembled stiffly under the knife resting across her skin.
“Let her go,” I said carefully, as though any one of my words could trigger the swipe of the blade.
“Give Zephyr your key,” Dawn instructed.
Her calmness was chilling. She knew she had me.
Unstrapping the key from my hip, I set the baton it had been condensed to onto the table in front of Zephyr. His face was firmly set and unreadable. He didn’t look at me as he picked it up.
“There, now let Antila go,” I warned.
Dawn brushed a tender hand down the young celestial’s blond hair, making her whimper. I gritted my teeth, but then Dawn obliged, and Antila rushed for me the moment the blade lifted, crashing into my side with a tight embrace.
“How did you find them?” I asked.
“I told her,” Nadir chimed in, tossing a piece of cucumber into their mouth.
Rage boiled in me. Had their help always been a deception? To what end? I caught the glimmer of the dark iridescent blade they used … it was familiar …
“You supplied Auster with the material that greatly harms fae,” I accused.
Nadir held up his blade, admiring it. “I have an interest in the dark properties of magick, you could say. This particular material has many names; it is not grown on these lands. I was able to recreate its effects from the odd shard I traded from a merchant years ago. Yes, I may have told Auster Nova about it when he came to me.”
“Why?” I seethed, but through my anger I was hurt over the betrayal because I’d come to consider Nadir a good friend and ally.
“The reason that corrupts most, I suppose. Money and power.”
It didn’t make sense, but I had a bigger threat to deal with right now.
“Go to your brother,” I told Antila gently, peeling her arms from around me.
“This exchange will be quick, though I can’t promise that it will be painless,” Dawn said, coming around the table toward me.
“We will bleed our palms and join them. Then Zephyr will strike the key through you, and the transfer will happen. I will have your power, your body, and your life. I wonder how long it will take for Rainyte to notice. The truth? I hope he never does. As much as he has been a meddling force, I can’t deny his love and devotion to you is enviable. ”
Dawn’s delusion, to have Nyte worship her in my body, sickened me.
Nadir approached me, wearing a gloating smile as they held a knife out to me. Not the one they were chopping vegetables with, at least. Their arrogant demeanor was a mockery of the dire situation.
Zephyr stood, coming close to where Dawn and I faced off. He barely yielded any emotion. I wanted to tell him I didn’t blame him; he had to protect his children, even if it was too late for Katerina.
“Father, you can’t,” Antila cried. She was held by her brother.
Zephyr’s grip tightened on the key, which changed to its staff form in a pulse of light and energy.
“Let them leave,” I pleaded.
Dawn regarded the two children with boredom.
“I’ll take care of them,” Nadir said with an underlying hint that they could harm Antila or Raider if I tried anything.
They led the children upstairs, though I wished they had been taken out of the home.
“Your compliance is refreshing after all your years of insolence,” Dawn remarked.
“Your opinion means nothing to me. It never has.”
Dawn’s eyes flared.
“When I’m the star-maiden I will shape the world exactly the way you should have shaped it.”
“What I don’t understand … is why you chose guardians of all species to raise me when your perfect societal order always favored the celestials.”
“Favored? No. The hierarchy was decided by strength and purpose, nothing more.”
“You speak with no soul,” I said. “You cannot understand righteousness. Fairness. Equality. You are a god that feeds on greed and power, and that will never change.”
Dawn gripped my hand, yanking me toward her. Our stares pierced each other with loathing. My jaw clenched at the sharp sting as she sliced my palm.
“You are nothing but a rebellious tyrant,” Dawn said.
“I am everything but a compliant slave to your ideals.”
I took Dawn’s hand, and she let me slice her palm, unknowing the blade Nadir gave me was made of obsidian; a material incapacitating to the celestials.
Dawn screeched, yanking her hand back and stumbling a step. She recovered fast, and her eyes turned absolutely feral on me.
I shifted my gaze to Zephyr as he threw the key.
We were so fast, but Dawn was faster. She avoided my thrust forward with the key, launching back.
My adrenaline pounded through my body as I threw out a sharp blast of light from my palm instead.
To my relief, it hit her with full force.
Dawn was thrown through the air, her body crashing through the back wall of Nadir’s home and out into the snowy darkness.
I launched out after her just as a familiar roar shook the sky. I didn’t break my focus on Dawn as Eltanin pierced through the void, nor did I let her leave my sight when footfalls stomped over the snow.
After telling Nyte and the others what I suspected about the god’s motives with me, we devised a plan to lure out Dawn.
Nadir’s summons had been too easy for her to accept, believing his allegiance was to the High Celestials when it was true that he’d been the one to craft and supply Auster with the lethal fae material.
Dawn had risen from the snow she’d tumbled through; her ferocious glare targeted me.
Tonight, I would kill a god.
“Did you really believe I have been powerless all this time?” Dawn called.
The cruelty of her smile braced me to fight, but her attention shifted skyward, intending to strike Eltanin with a light that built from her palm as though she held the sun.
Starry darkness formed a shield, but, to my horror, the sun shattered clean through it, slamming into Eltanin, who roared in pain.
That was a distraction … for me.
Next thing I knew, a searing pain exploded against my chest and I was flying back. The key flew out of my grip, and before I fell, a dome of light encased me.
Dawn trapped us in a globe of piercing sunlight. My eyes stung and watered, hardly able to open fully because of the lashing surge of brightness after being in the night for so long. The dome roared and swirled as though we stood in a hollow half sun, alive and vivid.
“It’s over,” I said, pushing myself up.
Her strike had melted my leathers and burnt my flesh.
“You thought yourself cunning, but you forget you are a fragment of me,” Dawn said.
A loud boom slammed against the dome encasing us. The darkness that rippled over the sun could not pierce it despite all of Nyte’s efforts.
“You can’t kill me without Zephyr and the key,” I said.
Dawn gave her attention back to me.