They headed to their rooms for much needed rest and heat, which left me alone with Nadir. I found their company strangely relaxing yet unnerving. They reclined in an armchair by the fire, bare feet propped on a wooden kitchen stool. Their emerald filigree pattered shirt was tucked into black pants, but most of the buttons were undone to expose the dark skin of their chest.They smoked absentmindedly while their fingers idly swirled around a teacup. Their silent glances to me often made me feel that secrets could never stay buried. Even those I didn’t know I was harboring.
“Self-sacrifice is in your nature,” they said with a knowing lilt. Their eyes wandered lazily, likely the effects of whatever was in their pipe.
“I think it’s in everyone’s nature for those they love.”
“Not everyone. Selfishness is often a victorious beast.”
I’d had various suspicions about Nadir. Could they foresee things? Was their magick far more than a typical human mage? Did what they smoked in their pipe merely give them a convincing air of wisdom beyond their means?
Regardless, I sat with them. There was something about them that made me desperate for relief even if they could only provide mindless ramblings, which I had to find my own meanings within.
They blew out their next drag of the pipe and gave a lopsided smile. Their eyes had been yellow with a vertical pupil when I’d first met them; now they must have switched the enhancement in their starlight matter—a substance crafted from fallen star matter and spelled by mages for various cosmetic and practical uses—which changed them to an unnatural vibrant green with a circular pupil.
My sight flicked briefly outside, catching on the tall thorned stem with fluorescent blue flowerings. A beautiful, deceptively harmless plant, which was poisonous to my kind. Depending on the use and strength, it could incapacitate a celestial’s magick and weaken their bodies.
“Does the nebulora make you wary?” they asked in reply to my wandering observation.
“I guess I’m wondering why you grow it.”
They shrugged, nonchalant. “It’s nothing personal to your kind. I have obsidian, which can harm the celestials too, and stormstone that is lethal to vampires. I have them all in forms you couldn’t decipher.”
That furrowed my brow. “Forms?”
“It’s not always about possessing the weapon but having the cunning to use it in ways one least sees coming.”
Nadir liked to speak in riddles. Usually I would indulge in the game, but I was too on edge.
“The nebulora is rather obvious.”
“It is nearly bloomed to perfection; then you might never see it again.”
I shivered involuntarily, eyes fixing on the glowing cosmic plant that grew from soil untouched by the white snow. When I thought of a weapon, sharp things and magick flares came to mind, but I stared at something so quiet and beautiful, knowing it could kill me in far more cunning ways.
“I left a gift for you in your room,” Nadir said.
That took me by surprise. I didn’t want to question their kindness, but it was unexpected to receive something now when we’d been here for weeks.
“What is it?” I asked warily.
“We can’t have you unequipped as well as unaccompanied.” Their eyes tilted down at me with a reprimand they didn’t voice.
This was another instance that roused my suspicion over whether Nadir had some kind of clairvoyance. I didn’t confirm I harbored any plans to leave, but I didn’t need to.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Unaccompanied where?” Drystan said, strolling into the main room. He came around the hearth, taking Nadir’s pipe and inhaling long and deep. With the immediate relaxation he exhibited blowing out the smoke, I was starting to reconsider my desire to sample, or at least inquire about, whatever root it was.
“I was going to train tomorrow, but it seems my combatant will have to be the most sturdy tree,” I lied easily.
Drystan hooked a brow at me, settling down on the rug by the fire, his knee bent and posture the most at ease I’d seen. Perhaps it was from the hope gained with our new prospective attempt to wake Nyte, and I only prayed the loss of that hope, if it didn’t work, wouldn’t crush more of his spirit.
“You have an immense power inside you, and you want to dally in swordplay?”
Nadir’s lazy gaze slipped to me, a lingering meaning hidden in his answer. “She can’t rely on one skill that could be taken away.”
With that, my attention caught on the fluorescent blue flowering nebulora outside again with a jittering unease. A warning that no power was unstoppable.
“Are the falling stars affecting your magick?” Drystan asked me curiously, like I was a thing to study in his journals.
