“You need to go,” she said to Nyte.
He glanced at her, his cold stare softening just for a moment. “I’m not leaving you here when he’s like this. I could feel your terror.”
“You’re the terror of these lands,” Auster spat. She’d never seen him so angry that he was shaking with hatred.
“I am. But never to her.”
“Lies.”
“I can see your denial spinning into madness. Just accept it, Nova: she chose me.”
Nyte reached to slip an arm around her, but a flash of blue accompanied Auster’s sound of rage and warning. The key quickly became a staff in her hand to repel Auster’s lightning, but Nyte’s starry darkness engulfed it first.
Then before she could intervene, Nyte and Auster became engaged in a vicious power struggle of lightning against darkness.
This had gone from bad to much fucking worse.
She had to stop them, but stepping into the middle of their storm would be deadly. Astraea growled under her breath, angry at the both of them for this display of dominance. Using her as the catalyst to unleash the feud between them.
Unglamouring her wings and conjuring a sphere of light around herself, Astraea flew between them before she dropped down, bracing to take full force of their magick battering into both sides of her shield. The darkness swiftly eased, but the lightning grew stronger. Astraea had to shift her legs, twisting her full focus to ward off the violent blue currents that snapped over her gale of light.
She didn’t want to hurt him, but he wasn’t stopping. Was he so lost in hisdetermined hatred that he didn’t see her? Didn’t notice he battled light, not dark, now?
Astraea saw only one way to snap him out of it. She let go of her shield, taking the impact of Auster’s lightning, which slammed into her chest, projecting her through the air.
Nyte caught her, but Astraea could hardly feel him while her body seized tightly with the remnants of electricity sparking through her. It felt as though she’d held her breath for minutes, so when the shocks finally eased she swallowed air greedily, choking on it.
Nyte was muttering assurances to her, smoothing back her hair as she came around.
“Astraea, I didn’t mean to…” Auster sounded sincere, and she didn’t blame him.
She pushed up to sit and accepted Nyte’s help to stand. The wrath from him was palpable, and she feared they’d break into a fight again.
“You need to leave,” Astraea said.
Auster’s eyes turned desolate, but Astraea shifted her gaze, meaning those words for Nyte.
A muscle in his jaw worked. He said, through their bond,“I don’t think I’m physically capable of it if he’s still breathing.”
“I must speak with him. To try to make this right. He won’t hurt me.”
“He already has.”
“I let him.”
Astraea’s chest hurt with Nyte’s resistance.
Nyte let her go. Though he didn’t leave without pinning Auster with a lethal warning look.
“If you harm a single hair on her, I’ll burn this province to the ground before I throw you into it.”
He wasn’t helping Astraea’s case to acquit him of villainy.
Nyte lifted a tender hand to her face, barely grazing her skin as the void opened up for him to step back into.
“If I don’t see you in the bell tower in an hour, or if I feel even a note of fear from you again, I’m coming back for you.”
With that, the darkness took him away. Her heart strained to go after him, but it was also yearning to mend her shaken relationship with Auster.
