The Stars are Dying : (Nytefall: Book 1)

I couldn’t become that frightened girl again. I couldn’t allow her to crawl from the fresh grave I’d laid her in.

That was all I chanted to myself as I equipped myself for the final day of the Libertatem. I hadn’t slept. My room was surrounded on the prince’s order, and I didn’t stop watching the building beyond the balcony.

I knew who you were from the moment you arrived.

I couldn’t shake the prince’s words. Not out of incredulity that he’d seen through my disguise. No—there was something deeper nagging at me. Since my library visit with Nyte, I hadn’t touched the book I’d been drawn to before reaching The Book of Bindings.

I flipped through the pages of the book I’d taken that day, lifted away on some otherworldly road as I read, absorbing words that should have shocked me, pummeled me with fear, but each page was like a story that already lived somewhere within. I squeezed my eyes to think of that day in the library, struggling with hard breaths to come to terms with what I was learning. Then my thoughts quickly became consumed by him.

I feared the worst.

No—Nyte couldn’t be gone.

I hadn’t realized how familiar I’d become with his presence, but I’d never felt so hollow in his silence. Even when he hadn’t spoken, he was always there in some echo.

I left the castle. Retrieving my map and overlay, I knew the final destination. A place called—

“The Maze of the Mad Serpent.”

I nearly crumpled the map at Drystan’s approaching voice. “Doesn’t sound pleasant,” I said flatly.

“Would you rather a slaughterhouse be called a rose boutique?”

I cast him a glare, but I must have done a poor job at hiding my fear beneath it because he chuckled lightly.

“Merely a point.”

“Are you following in case I decide to run instead?”

“You wouldn’t get a foot past where you’re supposed to be if that were your intention.”

“Then leave me the fuck alone.”

“Where have you been hiding this feisty nature? I rather enjoy it.”

I ground my teeth. Ignoring him might have a better impact. “He told me not to trust you,” I said, unable to stop the slip of anger. “I never did, but I wanted to believe they were wrong.”

“They?”

Shit. I couldn’t implicate Rose.

With a flush of dread, my palms clammed at the thought of her, unknowing of where she was, which also made my stomach twist. I wondered if Zath was safe too.

“I hope the king kills you for this betrayal,” I sneered as a diversion.

We weaved through the paths that were eerily quiet despite it being daytime. My eyes caught flickers on the roofs, sometimes down alleys—the Golden Guard were tracking us too. All except Rose’s, unless he was exceptionally elusive. I prayed to the damned gods it was because he was still tracking her.

“My father is nothing more than a puppet who can’t see the strings.”

Drystan was the true puppet master.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Everything, my dear. And you’re going to get it for me.”

It seemed we were both dancing around calling each other out. I didn’t use his other name. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

It took coming down to the center of the human city level to stare up at the curved sign:

The Maze of the Mad Serpent.

A shudder ran thought me at the thought of what the name could mean, and even more so for the destination that led down. Down and down until nothing but darkness engulfed the entrance.

“The trial awaits,” Drystan sang. “I’ll be here to escort you afterward.”

“Charming of you,” I muttered.

Drystan slipped in front of me. I tried to move away, but he gripped the folds of my leathers. My hiss at him was smothered when I beheld what he slipped into my jacket one by one.

Three keys.

“Try not to take too long.”

I met him with incredulous eyes, wondering how he knew I had Arwan’s key and had found it. He must have taken possession of Enver and Draven’s keys too now they were dead.

I decided these weren’t answers that would do me any favors right now.

Every muscle protested my journey down. My throat seized, and swallowing became painful but necessary to combat my dry mouth.

Down and down…

It reminded me of my first time venturing to find Nyte. My chest squeezed as his face appeared at the forefront of my mind when I entered true darkness. But he wasn’t here—not even a hint in my mind. This darkness clawed with despair instead of comfort.

Down and down…

Until there wasn’t another step to take. Ahead my vision was broken by a flicker of amber. Come threat or relief, I had no choice but to head for it. No sound but my boots against stone disturbed the silence, amplifying the thump of my heart.

At the end, the open archway led into a room. Torches lined the windowless stone. A firepit expanded across the far end, where it played host to tall chairs. I thought I was alone in the stillness. Until a musky scent with notes of whiskey filled my nostrils and within me roared an instinct to keep my distance.

I saw their polished, pointed boot first. It uncrossed from their knee, and as they rose my mind wanted to paint their hair a different color, switch the irises that finally turned to me, dancing for my reaction against the flames. I wanted the image to change to anyone else in the world except this one impossibility.

“Hektor,” I choked out. Just to be sure I could speak.

“Hello, darling.”

I shuffled one step toward his advance, shrinking right back into the terrified pet I was to him. He may as well have brought a leash since I was a fool for ever believing I had torn off my collar.

“You’re not real.”

Hektor tipped back the contents of his glass before setting it down. “Then come here and feel how not real I am. I have missed you more than I can say, Astraea.” His tone was so soft, familiar. Reminiscent of those times when I’d been too frightened to move and he’d had to coax me back.

“How did you survive it? I-I killed you.”

His expression flashed with an anger I knew all too well. With Hektor’s next step toward me, I freed my stormstone dagger. It only fueled more rage when he spotted it.

“I wanted to give you everything, Astraea. I was prepared to risk everything for you.”

“You were going to sell me.”

His fist clenched. “I had a plan for both of us, and all you had to do was be compliant.”

That boiled something inside me, taking my cold fear and turning it into a wrath that could match his. I clutched my dagger tighter, not afraid to have a second try at ending him.

“I am not property,” I seethed. “It felt good to drive this through your chest the first time, and now I’m granted a second.”

His smile teetered between rage and amusement. “Do you know what saved me?” he taunted. “You. More specifically, your blood.”

My blood. Something even the soul vampires thirsted for.

I’d spent five years in the arms of betrayal.

“You’ve known all this time there was something different about me. That’s what you kept me for.”

Hektor laughed—a mocking, resonating sound that pricked my eyes with humiliation. “I think only you could look in the mirror and be convinced you weren’t special, darling.”

“Because of you!” I shouted. Pitiful tears for the girl I’d let down so badly threatened to fall.

“How easy it was,” he said.

“Did you ever truly care for me?” I whispered. Why did it matter? It wouldn’t stop the pain within me at knowing all this time I’d been nothing more than a possession. Knowing my own poor will had succumbed to that existence, perhaps I was desperate for anything to explain why I hadn’t broken free sooner.

Love, even in its most manipulative form.

“Of course,” he said, brow pinching with disturbance now, and I believed him. “I care for you now, which is why I am here. It is not too late.” He extended his palm to me, coming close enough for me to take it.

A flicker in my vision caught my attention. I hadn’t known there was another presence with us, concealed behind his tall seat, and when he stood, reality mocked me, threatening to unravel what I believed to be real and true in that moment. This was a trial—was it possible for both of them to be a twisted illusion? I prayed it was, but something felt too real.

My lips cracked to whisper, “Calix?” I posed it as a question in the hope he would deny it or turn into some other beast, because anything was better than believing his cold hatred was true. The last memory I had of him threatened to pull me to my knees. The heartbreak and misery of his final look as he’d cradled Cassia’s body. It would forever haunt me.

“How dare you pretend to be her?” he seethed.

My mouth opened, but I floundered for a response, my gut twisting with a sickening guilt. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I did what I had to do. I had to try to do this for her.”

“I never knew what she saw in you. You’re weak, a coward, always appearing in her path like a weed.”

“Stop.” I couldn’t take it. The hands he sank into the wound Cassia’s death had opened tore it wider with every word, exposing the lie I was within.

“I’ll make it all go away and it will just be us again,” Hektor intervened softly. “No punishment. I promise.”

I studied the lines of his hand. I’d felt its softness and its harshness.

Calix took careful steps forward, face firm with loathing. A glint off the fire drew me to the blade he freed slowly.

My heartbeat measured the countdown to decide my fate.

“You are the punishment,” I whispered to Hektor.

Then I struck.

Shifting one foot back, my hand sliced down, and Hektor’s cry was my victory. The palm he’d extended to claim me clutched his bleeding cheek instead, and I took off running.

“Go after her!” Hektor snarled in the distance behind me as I hurtled through dark corridors with the fleeting light.

Calix’s footsteps already drummed my pulse with their fast, scuffling advance.

“Stop running, Astraea. We both know you deserve this.”

I wanted to drown out his taunting call, wondering if I’d ever overcome the part of me that fed greedily on such nasty words. The part of me that believed them so easily it threatened my adrenaline in a chase of survival.

With the tight corner ahead, I had no choice but to slam into the wall, wincing with the sharp impact that ricocheted over my shoulder before I pushed off it again. At the end of this hallway I burst into light as though the roof had been peeled away. The walls still climbed so high I couldn’t see over them. Above me, two levels of a square perimeter where I imagined spectators would gather.

It was an arena of some sort. No—with the walls, I stood in a maze.

“I should have killed you long ago.” Calix’s snarl reached me.

I turned out of his path too late, crying out at the burn across my arm when his blade sliced down. Crimson leaked through my fingers where they pressed on the wound.

I glared at Calix. “She would be ashamed of you now.”

I expected the flash of rage on his face, but this time I was not afraid. I slipped a small blade from my belt, and Calix groaned when I lodged it into his side.

Then I ran.

My hands reached out for the walls as if they would answer me with a sure direction. I turned and turned, growing dizzy as if I were running in circles.

“Astraea!”

Stars above!

My head snapped up, and I could have fallen with a flood of relief at spying the pink hair spilling over the balcony Rose leaned over. I scanned around her, trying to focus, but all I could make out from this distance was the deep rise and fall of her shoulders as if she’d exerted herself.

“Where’s Zath?” I called.

“I lost him in the maze,” she said. When she held something up, my face relaxed with pride to see the full key. Until her gaze tracked something behind me. “You need to run!”

It wasn’t footsteps that licked cold fear down my spine; something hissed, the sound bouncing off the walls to confuse the direction it had come from. Just as I turned with a shiver, I was tackled. Thrown against the wall. My head slamming into the stone peppered my vision.

“You didn’t deserve her,” Calix snarled in my face.

I blinked a few times to reorient myself. My teeth clenched, hot retribution pulsed through me, and my knee jerked up into his abdomen. “Neither did you,” I hissed.

He doubled over and I pushed him hard.

He wasn’t winded for long. When he lunged for me, we both fell to the ground. He straddled me, and I thrashed violently.

I was not weak.

I fought him with everything I had.

Not a helpless coward.

Calix clamped my wrists, pinning them by my head. He reached for a dagger, but so did I. I hooked my elbow, jabbing it up under his chin. He choked, losing his hold on me, and I used his imbalance to my advantage. My hand formed a fist, and I acted in some out-of-body instinctual state. It connected with his jaw, sending him sprawling off me, and I was upon him in a flash.

My knee dug into his chest, and I stared at him with such anger I didn’t know how to reel it back in. This side of me that wanted him to keep fighting back when the storm was still gathering within. The spells that had been unleashed were not enough.

“You want me dead? Then keep fighting, you coward!” I punched him again, though it struck pain up my arm, and I knew my knuckles would bruise along with his face. Blood pooled in the corner of his mouth, and I delighted darkly in the sight.

“Astraea, stop,” Rose called, but her voice was a nagging note to my need for violence that was far from quelled.

Calix groaned, but he caught the next pull-back of my arm. As he flipped us, my dagger clattered out of my hand.

“It’s your fault she’s dead,” he snarled, hands clamped around my throat, and I clawed at them.

My vision blackened; the pounding in my head became amplified. I let him go. “No,” I choked. My arm fell, straining my reach. “It’s yours.”

His release on me drew out a greedy breath, and as Calix fell back my dagger slipped free from his side. My throat caught fire, but the wrath pulsing through me rolled me to my knees. I crawled to where he clutched his bleeding wound, stumbling with the exertion, but I wasn’t done.

Not until he was dead could I be done.

I straddled Calix, fixing my promise of death on his eyes, which were wide as though seeing his end had snapped him out of his vengeful trance. Mercy didn’t find me as I raised the blade in both hands, my breathing deep and heavy.

“I forgive you,” he let out in a labored breath.

Three words I hadn’t realized were the stitches to stop my bleeding within.

My determination faltered. “I forgive you,” I echoed.

This wasn’t me. My hands lowered slowly, disbelieving that I’d almost killed Calix in this trial that had toyed cruelly with my wrath. Yet he was no illusion. He remained firm beneath me. His wound still bled too much, and I had caused it.

“I didn’t mean it,” I said, laying down my surrender. I stared into his pine-green eyes as they filled with agony. “You did deserve her. You protected her, loved her, and she never got to tell you that she loved you back. But she told me. Her last thought was of you.” I stood, returning to myself fully. My mind was a place I didn’t want to be, but never one I could escape. “Cassia loved you, Calix,” I croaked. “And I’m so sorry.”

I looked up, trying to find Rose, but she was gone.

Seconds ticked by, and this time, with the next hiss to vibrate, I thought I heard the distant clamor of footsteps. We had to get out of here, but I was still short of the key piece despite completing the trial. At least, I thought I had, having broken through the wrath before killing Calix. I didn’t think I could take much else now I was close to crumbling inside.

“I came after you…”

I winced at Calix’s groans of pain as he stood.

“When I heard the Selected of Alisus had arrived at the castle, I knew it had to be you. I came after you to say I forgive you. And to help. I saw Hektor heading here and joined him, convinced him I was on his side to get you back. I guess he used me anyway. He’s been to the king, Astraea. He slipped out to this trial and used me, made me drink something, and afterward all I could feel was anger. So when I saw you, it came out all wrong. I don’t want you dead, though I can’t say I didn’t mean some of the things I said.”

A sharp sob escaped me. The confession drowned me. “It’s okay,” I croaked. “Thank you for coming.”

We stared at each other with a new kind of grief. One that wanted us to comfort each other, but we didn’t know how to reach out a hand.

Neither of us got the chance to break when a large form skidded around the corner.

“Zath!” I called, but my brightness at seeing the head of dark blond hair racing toward us faltered at the ghostly expression he wore.

“Lovely reunion,” he panted, not slowing as he reached us. “Now both of you fucking run!”

The ground shook, and nothing could have prepared me for the sight of the huge coiling body that slithered around the bend Zath had come from. He hooked my elbow, and my horror didn’t get the chance to stun me before his pace sent us flying. Calix came into himself enough to turn wide-eyed at the sight and race from it too.

The giant serpent rattled with a hiss, so close now the sound rippled over my whole body, almost making me falter in my desperate attempt to keep up with Zath. It stroked like temptation, daring me to stop, to fall to its mercy. Its long body hitting the walls in its chase boomed through the space, vibrating under our feet.

“Why do you run?” a voice taunted with a melodic feminine hiss.

What a wild question. I didn’t deign to answer. There was fire in my lungs, and I didn’t dare look back.

“How long have you been running for?” I asked. And where the hell was Rose?

“Too fucking long,” Zath panted. He let go of my arm, and I pushed my legs harder than I ever had before. “Rose woke it getting her key piece—after she expended her wrath on me in the trial. Then I saved her ass again from that.”

Well, shit.

“Then you know where I have to go to get mine.”

“I’m not a maze-mapper, and frankly, I’ve been more concerned about not being eaten alive. I have a debt to collect from damned Thorns.”

I couldn’t feel the disruption of the ground anymore, and the last crash had been some time away. I finally slowed my pace and braved a look around.

“It’s gone,” I said, coming to a stop.

An error. A foolish, costly error on my part when in the space that stretched between me and them, a blast through the wall had me shielding my eyes.

My arms flailed with the pull of gravity as I fell back into the giant mouth as it opened, twin fangs dripping with venom lunging toward me. I expected to slam to the ground first, but the impact never came. Instead I was engulfed wholly by the darkness of the serpent’s jaw.