My elbows trembled violently as I pushed myself up. I recognized the violet pattern in these marble floors that were flooded from the sphere of water that brought me all the way here.
“As promised, my king. A fallen star.” Fedora’s voice of song floated above me. Her bare foot touched my shoulder before it pushed me onto my back. It wasn’t that rough; I was just far too weak.
“You won’t have to worry about her death; it seems it’s already inevitable.” She leaned down and ripped the bottom of my tunic to display the angry wound growing over my ribs now. “Auster Nova dealt it himself. Fitting, really.”
“And my son?” Nyte’s father asked.
“I couldn’t carry them both. He’s in a block of ice in the Luna Province.”
For Nyte, I pulled myself together faster, letting adrenaline take over even if it would punish my body when I let it go.
Fedora still stood right by me, and my first reaction was to grab her ankle and pull hard. She went crashing onto her back with a shriek, and I straddled her with my hands around her throat, lost in a haze of violent retribution.
I gripped more magick, and her screams were unnatural, so shrill I winced and lost the ability to focus on my surroundings. I was pulled off of her by two guards, but I thrashed like a wild animal. They dropped me too when I scorched their flesh as it touched mine, but my magick was only a burning ember in my exhaustion, close to dying out completely.
A sharp slap snapped my head to the side. I was let go, too disorientated to catch myself, and I fell to the ground in a crumpled heap.
So much pain.It was all I knew right now, and I wanted it to end.
I was kicked by a boot, more roughly this time, which flipped me onto my back. My vision came and went with blurred focus and threats of darkness, but I knew the face that hovered over me with sinister intent.
Nyte’s father crouched, studying me in silence for a moment. I jolted to feel his vile fingers grazing my bare skin where Fedora had ripped my tunic. Then searing agony tore a scream from my throat when he pressed hard on the wound Auster had dealt. I could hardly hear my pain echoing through the hall when inside it was like the small dose of Nyte’s blood surged up fractions higher from the pressure.
No, no, no.He was stealing my time and I had tofight.
My mind didn’t feel connected to my body to stop or fight or move. Tears spilled over the corners of my eyes as I writhed on the cold floor. All I could do was flood my thoughts with thoughts of Nyte.
My night. My mate.
I wanted eternity with him, yet it seemed cruel fate was winning. We were two hopeless souls given an hourglass of time, delusional to believe we could break it and have our sand fill a desert. Each grain a new hour, a new day, a new canvas to paint with our endless future.
Darkness surrounded me. My pain didn’t ease, but it wasn’t climbing to immeasurable heights anymore.
The darkness was so beautiful. Shadowy and filled with stars. It embraced me, and my hand reached to touch it. Maybe I was in some forgotten corner of Death’s realm where a small essence of Nightsdeath still lingered. Where the stars and night collided.
“Don’t leave me,” I whispered to the familiar, comforting dark.
It answered as a tighter wrap around my body, unable to heal my wounds but filling in the cracks of my soul.
My senses began to return, but I didn’t want them back yet. This was peaceful and warm whereas the marble floor took some of that away. My hearingflooded with commotion. Clashes and shouts and so much pain and anguish. I whimpered, curling into myself more.
I only wanted one person, and maybe it was my desperation that made me believe he was here. Finding the will to peel my eyes open and squint through the storm of darkness, I knew this had to be a dream. Nyte didn’t have his shadows anymore, so the starry darkness that attacked around the room couldn’t be real.
Nyte was absolutely furious. Unhinged in a way that didn’t resemble anything human anymore. I watched him move like a nightmare given form. Tearing flesh, snapping necks. His face contorted in such a frightening display of wrath I shivered where I lay, watching the scene of darkness and bloodshed unfold.
He wasn’t alone. Drystan was here too.
… yes, this was definitely a dream.
Because he was wieldingfire.
An unnatural blood-red flame conjured from his hands and swallowed bodies whole, burning their flesh and bones to nothing in seconds.
I mistook the next flash of red for a lick of flame at first, until a blade glinted between the hands of a form that moved with such speed and grace.
Nadia.
She fought back to back with Drystan, but she had betrayed us by working for Nyte’s father all this time. Hadn’t she?
