The Stars are Dying : (Nytefall: Book 1)

The next few days, maybe even a week, passed in a blur of color and gentle touches. My eyes fluttered at the hands pressing a damp cloth to my forehead. Black locks around a beautiful pale face came into clarity. Davina’s large eyes creased with her smile when they met mine.

“You’re coming around well. I think another day or two and you’ll be up and about.”

Relief at seeing her flooded through me. “Are you all right?” I croaked, trying to sit up, but her soft hand on my shoulder refused me.

“Yes. I have a way of remaining out of the king’s sight if he tries to go looking for me before everything.” Her expression was cunning, but I didn’t question it when I had so many other buzzing thoughts to voice. “Oh, Astraea, I’m so sorry I kept things from you. I hope you’ll let me explain—”

“It’s fine. You can tell me later,” I said, trying to muster a convincing smile while inside the twist of betrayal wouldn’t relent. I diverted. “Zath—is he okay?”

Davina’s face fell, and my nerves rose. “He’s healing. We’ve set out to find a human mage who will help him along faster, though, and for you. Zathrian has been helping to calm Rosalind, which isn’t doing him any favors. They had to detain her. She was rather spirited in her demands to see you. She’s owed a lot of explanation too, but it’s difficult to get her to listen.” Davina gave a chuckle that was partly amusement, partly to cover her nerves at speaking about Rose.

“I don’t understand what’s happening.”

“You will.” She gave my arm a gentle squeeze.

I didn’t think I had ever truly seen her. Not this version that had been lying beneath the surface. While Davina was gentle and kind, witnessing even a glimpse of her in combat was like ripping off a mask.

“You’re not a handmaiden.” I stated the obvious.

She curled a guilty smile. “It’s not my first occupation, no. But I like to help people.”

“Did you know…about Nyte this whole time?”

It only took a heartbeat for me to read the confirmation in the flinch of her brow.

“He isn’t always the monster he’s painted to be,” she said.

Not always. I cast my eyes to the ceiling. How could I trust that? Sadness swept through me with the realization I didn’t know if I could trust Davina either. Another spy for Nightsdeath.

“Zath was never under his control,” I whispered to myself, the truth finally settling despite my denial.

I couldn’t trust anyone.

“No,” she replied softly.

As if I were made of glass. That was exactly how I felt as each new revelation cracked my fragile world.

I felt him before I saw him. Shadow always caressed the room when he was near, and something distant within me tugged. Davina looked over her shoulder. At seeing Nyte there, she gave me one last smile—as though she longed to say more but she answered to him. Without even a command, the world answered to him.

Davina left, and I looked at the open cell door. My mind filtered through the many ways I might elude him to reach it and run free, but my body had become too heavy to stand. All I wanted to do was sleep. No longer did the craving for those pills I now despised torment my most wicked thoughts.

Nyte came by the side of the cot and crouched down. I couldn’t fully decipher him, but there was always a note of pain.

He dipped into his pocket before producing a small pill my mouth salivated to, but my sight targeted him in bewilderment.

“It’s not the Starlight Matter, of course,” he said, voice so gentle. “Your blood levels are low. I think it’s from the years of taking the powerfully suppressive dose and how often he took your blood. Too much of it, too often. I can’t be certain if this deficiency is permanent, and I never would have drank from you if I’d realized sooner.”

My neck tingled with the mention. In pleasure. Sparks that skittered over my collar and rushed heat between my legs. Nyte’s eyes flared a fraction as if he sensed it but his regret remained. I had to bite back my insistence to him I would have asked for it even if I’d known. Stars, my sickness-clouded mind protested it wouldn’t be the only time I felt those sharp teeth inside me.

Nyte went on, “Your blood is very powerful. There’s no fae or vampire alive who wouldn’t crave it if given the opportunity. And none of them would stop until it killed you if given a taste.”

I shivered to the slip of protection that wrapped like something tangible from him to me.

“What did he do with my blood?” I dreaded to ask. My arm pricked and I rubbed the phantom pain.

“He traded it to vampires as a treaty to keep his establishment clear of them. They obeyed because it would have become a lifelong addiction and he was good at keeping you very hidden.”

“He was taking it himself… it’s how he survived my attack.” From Hektor’s taunts to me in the maze, I knew it was true.

Nyte nodded. “He wouldn’t have survived a stormstone blade in his heart, but you were a few fractions off. I won’t forget we need to work on that.” His mouth quirked but it was short-lived. Between us his palm extended to me. “This will help the deficiency in the meantime while your body is adjusting from the Matter. Though it should be manageable with the right balance of diet and care.”

I stared at the pill with cutting memories of Hektor. How long I’d let him place a similar capsule in my mouth unknowing it was a slow poison of control.

I shook my head. When I met his stare, I braced for his insistence. Nyte’s brow only flinched. He understood. So his fist enclosed around it and when his fingers relaxed again the pill was gone.

“Do you trust me?”

I huffed a laugh, but it turned to a violent cough that ended in a pitiful sob. My ribs felt bruised and my throat like some beast had clawed free from it.

Nyte’s hand was on my back as soon as I pushed myself up to curl over the bed in case I threw up. I didn’t have the energy to protest what he was doing when he took the opportunity to slip in behind me. I craved his warmth as soon as I knew how close it was, and I didn’t fight it when he gently took my shoulders; I lay back against his front.

“I trust you won’t kill me,” I answered, so tired I could barely stay awake.

Nyte’s fingers brushed slicked strands of hair from my forehead before he pressed the cool cloth there again.

“Like everyone else, you want to use me for something.”

I couldn’t care anymore. I was no more than a chipped game piece for the highest bidder. Or the most cunning winner.

“After we won the war, I spent two centuries under the control of my father. I killed for him. Terrorized for him. I didn’t want the praise of a crown for it, but everyone knew I wore the face of their fears—as Nightsdeath. It was only supposed to be for one century, then he would let me go. Until he demanded another, and when the next arrived I refused. He had pushed me so far past any morals that I threatened to kill him instead. I didn’t want the crown. Maybe I simply would have rather watched this world burn itself to the ground. Yet he finally agreed to give me what I needed.” Nyte’s fingers combed through my hair. “A way home.”

“You said you’ve never been where you’re supposed to be.”

“No.”

“Then where?”

“Somewhere far, and there was no guarantee I would make it back. But I had nothing to lose anymore. I didn’t kill my father sooner because he brought me here, and he was the only one who knew the place where I could attempt the leap back. He held that over me, and I exhausted every lead and resource I could to figure it out myself, but it was hopeless. Until now.”

My brow pinched and my slick cheek met his chest as I rolled stiffly. Nyte kept the damp cloth from falling. His tender care was agony.

“This isn’t because I’ve forgiven you,” I mumbled, settling on my side. “You just have an annoying…certain type of warmth.”

I could practically feel him smiling.

“Your fever is breaking. It’ll be over soon.”

I tried to nod, but my head felt like stone. “If you figured out how to get home, why not leave sooner?”

“My father trapped me before then. Led me to the library, beneath it, and told me it was down a passage. I knew what I’d fallen into the moment I stepped past the veil. He’d used that to trick me too, because from it, I felt you.”

“Because I’m the star-maiden.” I finally said it aloud, still not truly believing the weight of what that implied, but it burst with what I had been searching for my whole short life. Something that was mine. It would be a long road to figuring out what it meant, and the past that was attached to the name frightened me even in the small fragments I was gathering. But I wanted to know.

“That’s not what you are to me.”

I hadn’t felt much of my heart at all these past few days. In my sickness, there were times I’d hoped it would die to spare me the misery. Now it fluttered, something light and warm echoing from within.

“How did you save me on the lake?” I tuned in to the hard beat in Nyte’s chest, moving with his deep inhalation.

“I didn’t think I could. When I watched you run onto that ice something dormant awoke in me. A desperation I’d only felt helplessly once before. Until that moment, even during the times you yearned for me so hard the world felt convincingly tangible, my physical body was still always behind that veil. The ice broke and you fell, and I don’t remember anything except my complete determination that I couldn’t lose you. Not again. And maybe there was an answering from the gods who otherwise despise me that bent the law of magick for a suspended moment. Just enough for me to push through the Starlight Veil, and then there I was.”

“The Starlight Veil,” I muttered. “Is that how you move? How you retrieved my dagger.”

“Yes.”

“Do you control it?”

“That dimension cannot be controlled. Some things are far too powerful, grown into their own living thing, that even the gods have no influence on them. It can be used, however—mastered. The celestials can use it to hide their wings. It can be used to transport, but that is not something to try lightheartedly. It can be dangerous if you don’t know how to use it.”

I didn’t mention that I had before. That had to have been how I’d reached for my dagger in Hektor’s cell. I stored the other possibilities.

Nyte continued. “I pulled you out of the water, and believe me, I felt it just as punishingly as you did, except my adrenaline pushed me through it because you were faltering and I wasn’t sure if I was too late. I felt you—the first touch I’d truly had in a century. The first I’d wanted in far longer than that. I couldn’t believe it. I thought maybe we’d broken the spell and I was free, that you would never have to come here, because I would have taken you far, somewhere safe. But as I carried you through the woods, I started to feel the resistance. I fought it. Gods, I fought the magick with everything I am, desperate not to leave you there when you wouldn’t make it on your own with your body shutting down. I managed to transport you a small distance to where I knew there was a manor with a fae who would help you.”

Despite the ache in my bones I pushed myself up against his chest, needing to see his face. Nyte had never looked so soft and in agony. I couldn’t believe his story. I’d thought this tale would be something of arrogance and nonsense, that he hadn’t been there, and he’d convince me I somehow saved myself or conjured an epic savior in my loneliness and delirium.

But this was the truth. Nyte had been there.

My fingers flexed, curling into the material of his shirt, recalling the warmth I’d craved from him in my frozen state. At some point my vision blurred. A tear must have fallen because Nyte’s hand rose to brush it away.

“Don’t do that,” he pleaded.

“Do what?”

“I’ve already crossed too many lines with you.” He shook his head, pain written in his eyes, making my panic surge as if he would disappear. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Before he’d come, I’d spent my day in misery cursing him, not wanting to be anywhere near him. I couldn’t explain what it was that had dissolved all of it the moment he walked in, but I didn’t ever want him to walk away.

I leaned in to kiss him. Nyte didn’t push me away, but I could sense something was wrong.

“I can’t do this to you again,” he said against my lips.

Then suddenly I wanted to take back every time I’d wished him gone.

“You already have,” I bit out. “You came into my life long before you ever showed your face. You have a history of me that I don’t have of you, and I need to know what it was.”

He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his brow furrowed as he looked me over then traced a thumb down my tattooed forearm. My skin tingled under his touch.

“I am the reason your stars are dying. Then and now. I am the reason you will always be in danger, because there can only be one.”

“One what?”

Nyte took my wrist, and I shivered when he tenderly rolled up my sleeve before doing the same to his. He held our forearms side by side, and I marveled at the different but similar tattoos we shared. The constellations still crossed over our opposite moon phases despite the bond being gone.

“God of Stars,” he muttered as if it condemned our fate. “So much energy that it’s failing altogether. Magick is weakening—it is why the celestials hide. I can’t bear to live an existence against you.”

“Did we…? Were we at war?”

“Yes.”

“You won against me.”

“Won,” he huffed—a pained sound of resentment. “I lost everything. Everything that ever mattered to me.” His heartbeat kicked up under my palm.

“I don’t understand how…”

“A god can only be killed by something it is made of. I’m not of this realm; there is no weapon that can kill me here. But you—”

I had never seen such a ghostly expression pass over his features. So stilling I trembled with it.

“The key?”

I took the drop of his eyes as confirmation.

“I think you knew it could be used against you. So you spelled it. When it took your life, the whole world felt it. The key broke. Five pieces. Then they vanished. You made it so the only person who could find them was you. Those who tried to take on your trials were tested, or they would die for ever thinking themselves true-hearted enough to make it through. My father never spoke of how many times he’d failed the trials, how many years you’d drained from him, before he finally made it to the end. I think the world heard his rage when he realized you’d mocked him with it after all that. Until the game awoke again and he turned it somewhat to his advantage with the Libertatem.”

I stilled with disbelief. The smile that cracked on my lips was a break from the weeks of misery, imagining the king’s torment though I couldn’t fathom myself cunning enough to be responsible. “I don’t feel like her,” I admitted.

Nyte searched me slowly. “I don’t think you’ve had the chance to yet.”

“What if I’m someone else…?” Would that change what he thought of me? This person he believed I was.

“You are whoever you want to be. You should know there are no expectations of you to remember—to be anyone other than who you are right now.”

“People are counting on her return. They think she will save them.”

I thought of one hopeful fae with deep green hair and small horns. Lilith had been so dedicated in speaking of the star-maiden that I sank with dread to know I couldn’t be that savior.

“You don’t have to be anything for anyone.” He took a contemplative pause. “It has never influenced anything for me. I sought you out only to make sure you were safe when I knew there would be others searching for you, and not all of them good. But these past months getting to know you, as who you are now, have been the privilege of my existence.”

As he pressed his lips to my forehead my eyes wanted to slip closed with the wave of contentment, but something in his tone didn’t settle right.

Then he slipped away from me.

“Where are you going?”

“You need to rest.”

“Wait—” I stood after him, but the cry of the door closing rattled my senses, bringing back his betrayal.

“I will always be your enemy, Astraea. You will see that. As soon as you are fully well, there is so much more for you to learn, and you will see.”

“I do see,” I said firmly. He was not getting to walk away so easily. “I see you, Nyte. I want to see you as Rainyte. And I’m not afraid to see you as Nightsdeath.”

“I only guided you here to free me. Now I will be doing everything I can to find my way home, and I won’t look back.”

I gritted my teeth. I didn’t care that his words cleaved through me, nor for the coldness in my anger at his rejection. “You’re a coward!” I spat as he started to leave.

That caused him to spin back around, storming to me so fast I didn’t get a second to react before he reached between the bars and his hand encircled my nape.

“Do you want to know what I am?” he growled. His chest heaved, but his storm I didn’t feel was directed at me or anything. It was raging at himself. “That day, Hektor didn’t lock the door. The balcony door, yes, and you unlocking it was real. The other door was always open, and I made you believe it wasn’t. That he had locked you in there for no goddamn reason because he had done it before.”

“That’s not true,” I said, but the denial mocked me. So instead I asked, “Why?”

“Because you never would have left. He would have finally broken you in that cage you believed could one day turn into a palace. I forced you out and I tricked you. And I asked Zathrian to go along with it too. Everything.” He searched my eyes, and I traveled through his, wishing our circumstances were different, wanting him so badly, yet feeling the desire like a knife that wouldn’t stop twisting with every new fact I learned.

“I thought I could stay away. I did—for five years, though I could have infiltrated your mind sooner. Then the chance for you to come here crept closer, and I had to meet you. I had to see for myself what I had only glimpsed through Zathrian and Cassia before, because I knew the moment I stepped into your mind I would be selfish. I thought I could do it, open your mind to me, and that it would feel convincingly real for both of us. I thought I’d have the strength to look at you and not fall. But I looked at you…and I plummeted. I didn’t stand a chance.”

My heart shattered. I wanted him to lean down and kiss me like he fought against, but the opposing side won, and his hand slipped slowly from my hair.

“Cassia…” I breathed, leaning my forehead to the bars as the pieces slid together. “Did she know?”

“No.”

My breath of relief didn’t even settle before he continued.

“But I knew Cassia’s course was to come here, and you never would have met if I hadn’t guided her onto your path. Your relationship was real—every part of it. She knew nothing about me.”

My eyes filled as I whispered, “You sent me Cassia.”

“I only wish I could have seen the danger to you both sooner. I managed to slip into her mind to wake her up when I saw it, but I was too late.”

I could hardly breathe, slowly lowering to my knees. “It was all you,” I realized. Nothing I had done had been for me. My strings hadn’t been untied; their control was simply slipped cunningly into far more masterful hands.

I was his ultimate plan.

Get me here.

Play the game.

Win the key.

Free him.

But not me. I was never free.

“Astraea—”

“Go away, Nyte,” I barely whispered, but he obeyed. The gray around me grew darker and darker. I became so hollow when the shattered pieces of my soul settled. “I wish that room had been empty.”