The Stars are Dying : (Nytefall: Book 1)

It had been right there. And he had tried to warn me.

You need to get better with your words.

They were weapons. Tricks. Somehow I was always tripping over them.

Nightsdeath.

His shoulder blades tensed as if he knew what I was thinking. I tracked the way Nyte moved, so confident and different, nothing compared to the casual, lax way with which he carried himself below. Now he was a dark force to be reckoned with.

“Good. You remember.”

I shook at the cold tone of a stranger.

“So why do you not bow?” He raised his hand, and when his fingers stretched and poised like a master puppeteer, strangled chokes echoed through the room.

My blood ran cold.

All at once, over two dozen guards were forced to their knees by some invisible force.

Nyte.

Stars above.

He let them all go, and no longer did any of them seem like monochrome statues. For the first time, they shed real emotion. True terror. As did I upon witnessing the scale of what Nyte was capable of. And I’d been the one to unleash the deadly monster.

As Nyte strolled over to one guard, he shuffled to his feet.

“Bring me the one who fired the arrow that hit her. If I have to go looking for them myself, many more of you will die in my path.”

The guard nodded. “Yes, lord.”

I couldn’t believe the title, the way everyone in the room reacted to Nyte, and I had been so clueless all along, so content to believe my visions of him were the only reality. Not this cruel depiction.

Nyte stalked around the room as though looking for his next victim while they all tried to avoid his eye, on their knees. My throat turned bone-dry, but I wanted to speak, to ask him to take me away so we could erase this nightmare.

“I want Hektor Goldfell,” Nyte commanded to the next vampire he stood before.

I trembled, suddenly not wanting to be here at all. Not near him when I was about to witness something so dark and bloodthirsty.

When that guard scrambled off, he stopped again. “I want Calix Salvier.”

“Not him,” I said without thinking. My heart leaped up my throat as I realized I’d interrupted this being I couldn’t recognize right now.

He didn’t even pretend to hear me, allowing the one he’d tasked with Calix’s delivery to scurry away like the previous two.

Nyte drew a deep breath, casting his eyes through the glass roof as he walked to the center of the hall. He turned and took the few steps up the dais toward the purple velvet throne. Nyte passed me, but he didn’t spare a glance down, and my heart ached, wondering how I could have been fooled so deeply.

He traced a hand over the back of the seat—an unlawful act and a mockery to the royal bloodline coming from someone who wasn’t a part of it.

But Nyte was.

I swayed with the realization that hit me too late.

A prince. One who had been captured, held, and tortured by his own father.

Against the cage of my chest my heart was a furious beast. Could Nyte really have the power to overthrow him now? Nyte was undeniably powerful, but Nightsdeath had once been an ally to the king, and I couldn’t piece together what had gone wrong to see him chained and bound behind a magick veil.

Had he tried to overthrow him before?

“No,” Nyte said coldly.

I shuddered at the answer he gave to my flailing thoughts. I couldn’t bear to look at him, riddled with the same submission and fear that had kept every guard down after he’d forced their bow. I didn’t believe him. Not when his freedom thus far could only be explained by his thirst for power.

“Leave us.”

The guards scrambled from the room, unable to squeeze through the doors fast enough.

My eyes pricked. This was all my fault.

Nyte was before me, emerging from a shroud of smoke and stars, and my gasp was strangled. I backed up until I’d taken one step down the dais. It was the wrong thing to do; now he towered over me more dauntingly that ever.

His jaw flexed at my reaction. “Ironic, isn’t it, how much more monstrous I seem without the enclosure and chains?”

“You weren’t capable of so much then,” I said.

“I was capable of so much more, thanks to you.”

My blood. Even the first few drops had done something to him.

“Tell me you didn’t know about me—” Breathing became difficult, my heart so desperate to see the male who had helped me, saved me. This was not him. “Tell me you only realized at some point during the games. Not this whole time.”

He didn’t drop my stare of misery. Maybe for a split second he even matched it.

“I can’t.”

My head bowed in defeat.

“I knew exactly who you were long before you ever stepped into that room of the manor.”

I was slowly breaking. My existence had always been a fragile one, but nothing had been able to shatter me completely.

Except him.

I sharpened the edges of the pieces he’d made of me with my searing anger. “You’re a despicable liar.”

Nyte chuckled without humor. “I am many things, and yes, despicable might be one of them.” He stalked to me, and while I still feared what he could be capable of, I didn’t retreat. “But I never lied. You were not ready to hear it. You would have faced it with denial and been helpless in your own game. Though there were times I thought you would see it, feel it. Times where it was like you’d never left at all.”

Nyte’s betrayal bled through me. But hearing that stole my fight.

“What happened to me?” I breathed. I wanted to rage and scream and fight him. But Nyte could be the only person to hold answers I longed for.

His fingers grazed my chin, and something like sadness managed to crack through his cold exterior, making a warm honey flicker in his eyes. “Once upon a time, there was a war between stars.”

A riddle I’d known this whole time.

“Did you…?”

“I would never harm you. Do you believe that?”

I wanted to say yes as my heart cried out to the memory of last night. How safe and warm he’d felt, and I would have locked myself away in that tower with him for years.

But I whispered, “No.”

His hand dropped, and I was glad to see the pain crack more of him. Piece by piece I thought I might be able to break him and not have to lift a weapon at all. Words would be enough.

Then he raised a barrier against me, and a slice of the past shocked through me. Nothing whole or clear, only a sense of war…and we stood on opposing sides.

Nyte said, “The king might rule as the face of the people. I never wanted that. But they feared him because of me, and since he locked me away his empire has been crumbling. The vampires have been rising against him to find a new leader. He might not care for the human lives at stake, but he has been letting slip the control he spent so long chasing. His hunger for power was always doomed to be insatiable.”

“Why did he lock you away?”

“You seem to be making fine judgments on that yourself.”

“Because you haven’t given me anything else.”

What made him flinch I could only decipher as hurt. I wanted to believe it, if only to keep the hope there was some human feeling in him. Morality.

“I thought you were different,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “Yet just like that, you have forgotten everything that came before now.” Nyte extended his palm to me. I stared at it as if his flesh could be poison. His touch I knew would set me alight, but maybe that was the trick.

“How do I know it was real?” My chest began to constrict so tightly I thought I might stop breathing. “You’ve been in my mind. You’ve altered how I see things.”

“You’ve felt me there every time.”

“How can I trust there were times I didn’t—?”

“I can’t answer that for you. I have told you my truth, Astraea. There is nothing more I can say. The doubt you cling to can only be let go of by you.”

Nyte didn’t drop his hand, and the moment I slipped my palm into his I wanted to sob. From the warmth, the sparks that shot over my arm, and because I wanted to be back down in that cave, still in denial of the monster whose hand I held now.

I hadn’t decided to trust in him, but I had to figure him out. To end him.

Cassia had come here to end him.

With our joined hands, since his expression had turned to steel seconds before arriving in the throne room, Nyte finally resembled the male I thought I knew. It was unfair how much I wanted him to pull me closer.

Instead he guided me back up the dais, much as my body wanted to lock against it. If the king saw me here, there would be no hesitation on his order for my death. Yet Nyte moved over the imperial space as if he owned it, until we were standing before the throne, and only when he coaxed me forward alone did I finally root myself to the spot.

I shot him an incredulous look. “You can’t expect me to sit there,” I said, blanching at the thought.

Nyte gave way to a teasing dark smile. “A queen doesn’t sit on a throne; she owns it. How exquisite you would look doing so.”

I was caught between spluttering with embarrassment at his mockery and laughing in astonishment if he was being serious. “You’re out of your mind,” I said, coming to the conclusion it was the latter from the way he stood firm with the offer.

“Don’t you recognize it?” he said, casting a glance back over the tall, ornate seat clad in purple velvet.

A thread was being pulled in my mind.

“Your trial of greed and envy.”

My hand slipped from his in shock, but I couldn’t peel my stare away from the throne, recognizing it in every perfect detail, the memory unlocking in my mind.

“That’s not possible,” I said vacantly. I had never been in this room before now.

“We’re only just getting started on the impossible, my Starlight.” His fingers grazed my chin, just enough for the sensation to drift my horrified look to him. Nyte remained so calm and in control.

My hand pulled back before I knew what I was doing, and my palm stung with the force with which it connected with his cheek before I could stop myself. “I’m not your anything,” I hissed.

Nyte’s ethereal eyes darkened a shade. He remained silent, as though he knew it would trigger the impulsive rise of my hand again, and this time he caught it. When he twisted us, the backs of my knees hit something solid, and I had no choice but to fall.

The moment I sat on the throne…

Time sucked me through into a new dimension. A new version of this room.

It was bright with the moonlight flooding freely through the dome roof, and as my eyes chased to find it my breath caught. Constellations floated across the ceiling by what had to be some influence of magick. They moved—so slightly most would miss the ever-changing shift of the stars. One would give its final flicker before beginning to fall like stardust. Then another few would be welcomed anew.

A vibration along my cheek yanked me back, and I blinked away the beautiful image to set my gaze upon the twin blazing suns looking down on me instead.

“I’m sure you would like to try that again. This is the one time I’ll warn against it,” Nyte said, uncurling his hand from my wrist and dropping the other from my face.

I wanted to launch up and strike him. Fight him. Break down and demand why he’d brought me here to witness his retribution, the first victim of which was being dragged through the doors. A single flailing guard, dangling a bow in his grasp, was pulled in by two of his own companions who didn’t appear any less afraid.

Nyte descended the few steps, and I couldn’t move—could only watch with a chilling sense of foreboding, his lethal calm making his every move entirely unpredictable.

“I-it was a mistake, my lord! I-I swear it! I never would have if I’d known—”

“I understand,” Nyte said in a low taunt.

He reached for the discarded bow, examining it for a second only to grow the suspense. Then Nyte moved fast. All I heard was the snap of the wood and a strangled choke before my eyes fell to the source.

The broken bow was now lodged fully through the guard’s chest.

“Unfortunately for you, my mistakes are a lot more accurate.” Nyte pushed against the wood and the guard fell back.

Dead.

The other two backed away slowly as though Nyte would lunge for them with the same lack of hesitation.

He didn’t. Instead he shuffled back, sitting on one of the steps, reclining to prop his elbow a few steps up as though he were lying there observing the end of a disappointing show. Crimson pooled out from under the guard, and the others dragged him away.

“Was that really necessary?” I asked blankly. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling. Numb. Shocked. Maybe afraid.

Nyte cast me a bored look over his shoulder. Without company, he didn’t wear his arrogance. He looked tired, like he’d lost so much more than a few nights’ sleep. It was in these glimpses I continued to fall for the guise of something real.

“Your judgment of me is still yours to make. But the moment someone harms you, they die. If it’s while I’m not there, they’d best enjoy their borrowed breaths.”

Once again his expression firmed, but it was like every new time he had to slip on the mask it wore him out more, and I feared what would become of him if he lost the strength to take it off. If he fell prey to the beast he could portray.

The next victim to be dragged in swayed my vision, and I braced a hand on the throne. It only added to my spike of nerves and adrenaline to remember I was sitting upon it and how laughable I must look to him.

To Hektor Goldfell.

The rage that coated the room in ice sent a tremble through me. Nyte rose as Hektor was hauled in casting colorful curses to his captors.

“What is the meaning of this? I have a deal with the king!”

I stood slowly, frightened by the shadows snaking around the corners of the room like looming death.

“Nyte,” I whispered, hugging myself, but he didn’t even flinch.

Instead he slipped one hand into his pocket as Hektor was shoved to his knees.

“He had an oath to the king,” Nyte said, pointing a careless finger at the blood left behind by the dead guard. “It didn’t help his case. In fact, every time my father is mentioned it makes me far more murderous in my judgment on how to kill.”

Finally, Hektor’s pride and outrage blanked completely as he took in the sight, and when he cast his green gaze up to me I could have collapsed under the stroke of terror. It would never fail to catch me with his attention no matter how much bravery I tried to grasp.

That seemed to invoke something in Nyte, whose hand lashed out to Hektor’s jaw, tilting it back awkwardly until he yelped.

“Wait! Astraea, please let me—” He yelled again at the added pressure Nyte squeezed around his throat.

“You dare to speak her name?”

“I loved her,” he panted.

A skittered beat moved in my chest. Green eyes of pain tried to slip to me.

“I lost my temper sometimes, but it was only because I feared your recklessness would get you found, and there were so many who would do you harm. I wanted to give you everything. I did everything for you.”

The conflict in my mind was almost too much to bear. Seeing the man who’d sheltered me for five years confess his wrongdoings even with a morsel of desperation…it was enough to drag me back. I wanted to forgive him, thinking he could change…

“Is he telling the truth?” I whispered to Nyte.

Maybe it was vile of me to ask him to search Hektor’s mind, but I had to be certain.

“Yes,” Nyte said. “And no. He would have done it again, and while there were times he regretted his mistreatment of you, there was always a dominant side that found power in it. Your submission to him.” Nyte spoke so calmly, but it was the most terrifying kind of rage that invoked the shadows to claw out from the corners of the room. He slipped his golden eyes to me, and the fire in them almost leaked out. His other fist trembled at his side as though he were trying to hold back from something.

The something dangerous he could become.

I nodded. It was all the closure I needed.

Nyte turned his focus back to Hektor, and I had to look away as terror paled his face with the realization he was staring at his mark of death.

“I wanted to string out your end for everything you did to her,” Nyte said. Calm. So chillingly controlled.

A sickening snap resonated. I flinched back. Hektor cried out, and I couldn’t stop the sob that escaped me with it. His arm was now bent at an angle.

“But every second you’re still alive, even in pain, makes me murderous to a degree the darkest things can’t come back from. They’re going to take your soul so it may never plague this land again. I will grind your bones to dust so you become nothing. A mere blink of meaningless existence, while she will take everything you ever dreamed of and torment your last moment with what that will look like.”

I was so cold. My blood, my bones. I sank to the ground helplessly, wishing I could be brave and face Hektor with my own vengeance, but all I wanted was him gone. All I desired was everything Nyte offered, and I wondered if that made me a coward as I bowed my head, shivering against the marble.

Hektor began to scream, and I winced, forcing my gaze up, but there was no physical torture. Nyte had moved behind Hektor but still held his neck. Hektor clawed at his skin, and I didn’t want to know what torture Nyte was conjuring in his mind.

A guard approached, and the moment Hektor locked eyes with him he was entranced. The kind of vacant stare I would never forget as the vampire consumed his soul.

“I said to aim for the heart, Starlight. But next time…” Nyte’s other hand plunged into Hektor’s back, retracting in one smooth motion. Sickness rose in me so fast I spluttered despite my empty stomach. “Make sure you can see it.”

I didn’t know what hit the ground first. Hektor’s limp body or his heart.