I did not have you. No matter where I went.The thought came unbidden, but I couldn’t deny it. The one devastating truth at the heart of everything.
“Who says I’m not content here?”
“I don’t doubt you are. You seem to thrive. What you’ve built here is impressive.” I could hear the smile in his voice.
It seemed I played this illusion so well, I had even deceived the one who knew me best.
“I have ashes,” I said, tired of pretending. “Scattering in the wind the moment I open my hand.”
“That is not the entire truth,” Noctis answered, not dissuaded at all.
“How did Tharion find you?” I shot back.
His silence stretched so long, I thought he wouldn’t respond. “He didn’t find me,” he said eventually. “I found him.”
Surprise flashed through me. After Vultaron’s attack, Noctis had said he always knew the Chiasma couldn’t be trusted. It seemed uncharacteristically foolish to seek them out.
“I had heard rumors that the Chiasma were stirring once more,” he continued slowly, shifting beside me.
“And what did you hope to find?” I pressed, unwilling to allow him to evade the subject now that he had started to open up.
“The rumors claimed they were attempting to resurrect me, to bring back the Adept of Chaos’s power with the help of the Chaoscrown.” The words came quicker now, like a rushed confession. They confirmed all my worst fears. He had never fully turned away from Chaos.
“To what end?” I demanded, dismay and disappointment coursing through me. Noctis breathed in deeply, avoiding my gaze. “Belekoroz! To what end?”
“Baradaz…” I recognized that tone all too well, the one he used to placate me.
“No!” Had I fallen for his tricks again? Believed he cared more for me than his fucking ambition? His insatiable lust for power? I sat up as I furiously hurled questions at Noctis. “What if Tharion and Vultaron had not tried to kill you? What if the Chiasma had sworn allegiance to you once more? What would you have done then?”
A warm hand closed around my knee. My body remained tense beneath his touch.
“I don’t know.” His stark honesty, the open insecurity in his voice, kept me in place. “Curse it. I’d been a mortal for ten fucking years. Surviving on scraps. I was desperate. I had nowhere to go…” The moonlight revealed the anguish on his face as Noctis sat up as well.
I forced myself not to pity him. “And when even that failed, you turned to me.”
“No! No!” He was so close now that our breaths mingled in the still night air. Something stirred to life in my stomach, my heartbeat quickening. “I’ve had thatlyr-stone capable of finding you for fuckingyears. I just knew it would be better to leave you alone. That you deserved peace.”
Why did everyone think they knew what I deserved?
“But then, I thought I was going to die. And… I couldn’t stay away any longer,” he said, his voice a mere rasp laden with an ancient pain. “I was telling the truth when I said I wanted to see you one last time.”
My hand ghosted over the vulnerable skin of his throat, catching the rapid beat of his heart under my fingertips. I wished I could read the rhythm of his pulse like I had once read his thoughts. Distinguish truths from lies.
“You are the only good thing that has ever happened to me in my entire existence,” Noctis said, his laugh wild and pained. “Fitting, isn’t it? Because he never intended for you to be mine. The one guiding star, shining brightest in my darkest hours.”
Those words made something within me spread its wings and soar. I longed to kiss them from his lips, to greedily swallow them and guard them in my heart forever.
My stars mocked my struggles with their eternal indifference as I lay back down in the grass. Noctis remained seated beside me, his hand still on my leg. The touch burned through me, driving me insane.
“And now you want to stay here, in the middle of nowhere?” I asked with forced nonchalance. “Do you enjoy shoveling arak shit so much?”
Noctis laughed. “Stars, those beasts can produce an amount of shit…”
Long, elegant fingers drew little circles on my sensitive skin. I felt as if I was going to scream.Damn it, woman,I admonished myself.It’s your fucking knee. It shouldn’t affect you that much.Yet there was probably no spot on my body where his touch wouldn’t make me burn.
“It depends,” he went on. “Are you going to stay here in the middle of nowhere even if we manage to deal with Deira? Or are you planning to do something about this threat to Aron-Lyr’s peace?”
“Do you think we could do something about it?” I asked. “Two fallen gods who have lost their powers?” It should have been ridiculous. Somehow it wasn’t.
