“You meanusno harm,” she amended, testing him.
“You don’t know who you are harboring. The ruins that monster left thispart of Astrinus. Our reigning lord, Viscarus, salvaged it after he and his wicked father and brother left.”
I remembered exactly how we’d left. My father had spent decades here building his vampire army and granting them the spoils of the humans and celestials here. When Astraea died, and my father occupied the castle of Vesitire, his followers left too, and these lands were left torn apart from too many years of bloodshed and terror.
“I won’t let you harm him,” Astraea said, and I felt the growing heat of her skin, her magick awakening.
“It’s true what they’re saying about you, then?” the soldier said, his tone shifting to an unfriendliness that sparked wrath inside me. “You really have forsaken your people and duty to protect and defend a monster?”
“No. Your tales are twisted and we’re trying to stop the real threats to this continent,” she said. The confidence in her voice stoked my pride.
“I hope you’ll forgive me for our measures, Maiden. But it doesn’t seem you’ll come with us willingly.”
I didn’t think I had any fight left in me with the severity of my wound. But the threat in those words snapped something in me, a will that defied all physical limitations to seize the minds of everyone who surrounded us. A dozen, maybe more; I couldn’t count and would lose consciousness any second.
“Don’t kill them!” Astraea’s warning blared through the violent pulse in my head.
I only had seconds to decide. They threatened her and I wanted to kill them all, but her voice of reason would always trump my retribution. She was the only damned moral I had left.
“Then pleaserun!” I said in defeat, still holding their minds to give her that last chance.
But I knew she wouldn’t leave me. It was both the only thing that kept me wanting to live and, in moments like this, the reason I wished I wasn’t this weakness that kept her in harm’s way because of her love for me.
Astraea sunk to her knees with me, holding my face in her hands. Her stunning silver-blue eyes were the last glint in the darkness that consumed me.
“Let go, Rainyte. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
32Astraea
I stood in front of the reigning lord of east Astrinus, and I’d have the heat of retribution in my stare if he kept me away from Nyte much longer.
After we’d been escorted here, with several guards having to carry Nyte, they’d listened to my demand that he be made comfortable and a healer be fetched. Then I’d been summoned before this man with long white hair merging with his beard. His wrinkled skin flexed, and his worn hand massaged his cheek occasionally as he studied me like I was an artifact.
“I must say I never thought my years would stretch long enough to see the star-maiden in all your stunning glory.”
The compliment flushed through me, dissolving some of my hostility with his touchingly gentle tone, which croaked with the impressive years he’d sustained himself as a human.
“Why did you want us to come here?” I demanded.
“I had to see the world’s first and only fallen star, of course.”
“Is that all?”
Finally, a cautious shift in his gray eyes firmed my guard again.
“I won’t insult you, Astraea; I know you’re aware of the realm’s nightmare you keep in your company. I will be honest and admit my people would heal an old wound by seeing him publicly slain on the lands he defiled.”
My magick rushed over me in an instant, prickling the edges of my vision with stardust. Lightsdeath was one reach away from irrepressible things should this lord think to order Nyte’s execution.
“If a single hand lands on him in malice, I will sever it from the body that strikes,” I warned.
The old man’s chin lifted with the threat. “From your legends, you were not one to act out in violence. You are our goddess of justice and peace.”
“Then hear me when I say your vengeance is not for Rainyte, it is for hisfather, who’ll you’ll learn is a common enemy if you will listen to us. Hear our tale and be our allies.”
This hadn’t been what we’d come for, but this could become an unforeseen opportunity to rally more forces against the gods and Nyte’s father when the time came.
“You want me to declare Nightsdeath an ally? You insult me and everyone in this kingdom,” Viscarus seethed, the first slip of his outrage, which seemed so much more unpleasant on his kind, weathered face.
