The Stars are Dying : (Nytefall: Book 1)

Nyte landed us on a wide-open flat of the castle roof. I couldn’t stop lingering my admiration on his tall, beautiful midnight wings. He set me down and almost eased a small smile before his hand stiffened on my waist.

“What’s—?”

“You are safe, Astraea.”

His switch of tone coiled my gut, racing my blood with alarm as I tried to find what had caused such a lethal, firm guard on his face.

“There’s something I need to do before things get too far out of my hands than they already are. Please trust me.”

Boots shuffling against stone shivered my skin. Nyte pushed me subtly—not enough to shield me entirely, but ready to intercept anything that might reach for me.

The first person I saw emerging from the open stone steps…

“Drystan.”

He gave no warm reception to my voice, but the tilt of his head to observe me as though I were someone different made Nyte shift.

“You’re in over your head, brother,” Nyte said with a deadly calm. More bodies emerged, and I almost shrank further behind Nyte at seeing the many sets of red eyes and leathery wings. “Have you brought them here to witness me take over what you pitifully believed you could lead?”

“We thought you were dead.” The new voice that eased out from the parting vampires stilled me cold.

Arwan.

“That’s not his real name,” Nyte muttered at my loose thought. He addressed him. “Tarran.”

The redheaded vampire cut a wicked smirk.

“How did you elude the king?” I asked.

“Because of me,” Drystan said bitterly. He kept his eyes of hatred on Nyte. “You haven’t been here, brother. I’ve been the one leading this army.”

“A pup running ahead of the pack is not a leader; it’s a damned fool.”

Drystan stepped forward with a flash of darkness I’d never seen before. Tarran intercepted while a few others shifted at the tension between them.

Nyte went on. “It took tricking me to try to prove something. Yet have you told them how you had the star-maiden right before you all those years ago? And you let her escape.”

My throat was tightening, my chest heaving. Why would he say this?

“Is that true?” Tarran asked.

“Of course not,” Drystan spat.

Tarran’s eyes slipped to me as if I would confess for him. I knew Drystan was lying, yet the decision not to tell this vampire was sealed in my mind. I didn’t know what was happening, nor how Nyte intended to get us out of this, but right now I couldn’t even feel comfort from him. I wanted away from them all and whatever feud this was that had placed me in its center.

“She won’t remember,” Nyte said for me.

I wanted to shake myself awake from this nightmare. How cold and distant he was as he spoke of me. How he shielded me not like he cared, but like I was a prize those before us wanted.

“Your brother has promised many things in your absence, Nightsdeath.”

Nyte laughed dryly. “He doesn’t have the power I do. He doesn’t have the star-maiden.”

My step shuffled back—only an inch before Nyte’s hand reached back to hook itself around my waist and a large, warm wing curved to prevent any retreat.

“Let me go,” I breathed, panic shooting through my nerves. I blinked against the memory of being in Hektor’s office the day he showed me off to the vultures who wanted to own me.

I thought I felt the tightening of Nyte’s fingers, maybe a wave trying to calm the storm gathering in me, but I couldn’t accept it.

“I will have power to contend with you,” Drystan said with a challenge. “Once I am Ascended.”

“You swore you never would,” Nyte growled.

Drystan only smiled as if he’d won. “Times have long since changed. And I am done being in your shadow.”

“No vampire has ever survived their attempt to be Ascended.”

I wondered if Drystan could hear the note of concern beneath the rage Nyte emanated with. It didn’t look likely as the younger brother only shrugged, enjoying the reaction he’d invoked.

“Like you, I am not just anyone. I might have been born here, but I still have the blood of another realm. I’m willing to take the risk and try.”

“What is an Ascended?” I dreaded to ask.

“Many have tried it before,” Nyte said to me. “Vampires die trying to reach the Realm of the Death God. Not a place of passing, but his realm of dark blessing.”

Where Nyte had been. What lived within him from the Death God’s blessing I thought he carried more like a curse.

“Drystan is willing to prove himself dedicated to a vampire reign. He is already one of us,” Tarran drawled. “Who knows what our god might bestow upon him as he did you?”

“I have given everything to your damn cause,” Nyte growled.

“Except…”—Tarran’s eyes slipped to me with deliberate slowness—“her. They say we almost lost everything because of your weakness for her.”

Nyte shifted, his anger weighing the winter night air so tangible I could choke on it. “Then you are all fools,” he said with a low threat. “If none of you can see that keeping her alive is what gives us the advantage and making her believe she was safe was only to keep her content. The next time someone wants to challenge my methods, they can step forward and face me themselves.”

“Nyte,” I whispered. This wasn’t him. He didn’t mean it, yet within me was a voice crying out that I never should have believed him so easily.

“You let the king get away with the key,” Tarran diverted. “He may very well become more than either of you if it’s true what he hopes to do in summoning the God of Dusk and the Goddess of Dawn. I hear their blessing combined could triumph what Death could give alone.”

“We can’t have that,” Nyte said.

Then he turned to me.

I locked stiff.

“Make you choice here, Tarran. I won’t allow another.”

“What are you doing?” I breathed, panic shaking my body.

“You too, brother. You have the chance to leave now, and make sure I can never find you, because if I do, I won’t be so merciful again.”

“Nyte, please,” I tried.

He never took his eyes off me, and the skin around them flexed. The building anticipation of what he was about to do threatened to suffocate me.

“Then let me leave with one parting gift,” Drystan said as a taunt. Though his eyes locked on me. “Since he’s too spineless to tell you himself.”

“You’d best leave now before you’re never able to speak again,” Nyte growled.

“You have another Bonded, Astraea, and he’ll be coming for you. My advice is that you don’t believe a word Nyte tries to spin on you next and take your chance to flee when the time comes.”

My world didn’t just stop; it caved in on itself. I was so afraid Nyte’s reaction would turn me to glass and I wouldn’t survive the fall.

It didn’t make sense. Bonded. The term was so vague it meant nothing to me. I didn’t feel anything for it—not like what I did for the one who was about to betray me.

“Summon your key,” Nyte said—no, commanded.

My body felt it, straining to move, but I didn’t know what to do.

Then it clicked with cold horror. “You said the bond was broken.”

“I said it would be if you left,” he said, his voice low. His eyes flexed. Only for a hint of a second, but it was pained. “Yet you ran right into my arms. Just as I hoped you would.”

In my disbelief I scanned our audience of blood and soul-thirsty vampires. Nyte was one of them as much as he was fae. As much as he was celestial. They saw him as kin and feasted with cruel smiles on my vulnerability.

I found Drystan, who looked between Nyte and me as if this were unexpected even to him. As if he might intervene.

“Summon your key, maiden,” Nyte asked again, each word more pressing with his demand.

“I don’t know how,” I breathed, wincing with pain from the bond being denied.

“Yes, you do. You’ve done it before. Call it through the Starlight Veil and show them. Now.”

My throat dried out with the sting of my eyes.

Steps advanced toward us, and Nyte didn’t seem to be the only one losing patience. He sliced them with a deadly look that kept them hesitating to come closer. My fear spiked to slick my skin as I raised a hand.

I locked onto his eyes with a plea, and maybe I caught a faint crack in his steely exterior, but he said nothing.

The bond within me forced me to remember. It felt like touching stars, dipping into water that had been given a fizz, and soon pinpricks shot over my arm. Before me a small void of glittering darkness opened, and I reached, picturing the intricate design of the key, how powerfully it had hummed through me in my possession.

As I retracted my arm the key glowed its mesmerizing purple. Exhilaration from the embrace of merging power comforted me. Just for a moment. Then the veil closed, and I clutched the weapon that was mine.

The one that had the vampires retreating now.

It flipped in my hand, transforming it into a featherlight blade, but as I spun toward Nyte with it he caught my wrist.

My fight was stolen away. Not out of fear or anger but stunned heartache as an event unlocked in my mind. The flare of purple emitting between us began to fade. So did the streak from his temple to his cheekbone. Golden irises searched mine; he seemed to see what I remembered. As though we both stood in that very memory. A time where he hadn’t been so fast, nor had he anticipated…

“I know how you got that scar,” I whispered.