“What are we doing here?” I asked, growing uneasy now.
“Don’t waver your trust now,” Gweneth said with a note of amusement that was lost on me. She walked a few paces ahead.
“This isn’t a good idea,” Drystan said to me.
“You should stay outside,” I said.
His lips pursed together as he weighed whether he should immediately help us to fight if we were ambushed inside or if it would be more of an advantage to get aid if he detected foul play from outside, assuming he could escape. “I can’t hear your thoughts and feelings like I can hear Nyte’s, so scream particularly loud if you need me,” he grumbled, crossing his arms and scanning around for any hint of threat.
The eerie creak of the door we entered crawled over my skin. The ominous stillness that held me upon passing the threshold was a cold ghost of the joy that once brightened this place. A dark passage opened up into a grand hall with two levels. I’d been in a theatre like this before—it’s where Davina had once held one of her fae resistance meetings in Vesitire. That one had been long neglected too.
An ache built in my soul for what the loss of these venues represented. A world that had been so upturned by war and greed that the time, or perhaps thepassion, to enjoy such performances as would be held in these halls ceased to exist.
We weren’t alone here. Gweneth stopped past the first couple of rows of torn, dusty velvet seats, and I found what—who—held her attention.
A woman with long gray hair was upon the stage. Noise came from the towers of discarded instruments she searched through as she muttered quietly to herself.
“My mother. I am named after her.”
Gweneth didn’t approach her mother. We stood there merely observing, and then I started to notice her strange behavior. The elderly woman appeared so lost but energized. She moved around the stage, occasionally stopping to smile and bow as if her own audience existed in her mind.
“She is ill?” I asked carefully.
“A sickness of the mind. No mage or healer can help her. She doesn’t remember us most days, and every evening she comes here, reluctant to leave, but father comes for her by bedtime.”
My heart cracked for this family. How terrible it would be to have a loved one not remember who they are.
“What happened to this place?” I asked, barely a whisper in this space that felt sacred.
“It was destroyed and abandoned long before my father became the reigning lord. But my mother used to perform with a traveling circus. She wanted to restore this place one day but there was so much else to rebuild that it stayed a dream for too long. Then her illness came on fast. We’ve tried all we could to help her for ten years.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
Gweneth tore her eyes away from her mother to look at me and I felt her sorrow. “Do you think Rainyte could help her?”
I swallowed because hope felt like too fragile a token to give.
“I really hope he can. And one thing is certain—I know he’ll try to the very best of his ability.”
She smiled, believing me, believing in Nyte despite the scars he left behind on these lands.
“There’s a reason you’re our Goddess of Justice, Astraea. Our star-maiden. People say you fell for a monster, but you were simply the first to have an open mind and the patience to hear his story. Too often people judge harshly from what they hear and close their eyes to anything that might shed a light on what they’ve condemned to the dark.”
Pride and relief swelled in me. Every new ally we gained brought us closer to the world Nyte and I dreamed of together. My hand hovered over my wound where Nyte’s blood was spreading slowly. The ache was dull, but everynow and then it would emit a sting like a warning, a cruel taunt never letting me forget my days were numbered. I didn’t know if I would get to see the future I wanted to build with Nyte, but I wouldn’t stop fighting and living as though I might.
33Astraea
I sat on the edge of Nyte’s bed, changing the cool cloth on his forehead. His fever had been passing over the day he’d been lying here after the healers did all they could yesterday. His torso was bare and bandaged. The slash would have to heal naturally from now, but they were confident he’d be well enough for travel in a few days.
Drystan lingered by the door to the closet, staring intently at the frame. His fingers lifted, brushing down the wood. Curiosity caused me to stand when I finished checking Nyte over, and I drifted carefully when it was like Drystan wasn’t present; he stood in a past time.
I understood when I saw the scores in the wood; next to each one were single initials: D or N.
My smile bloomed with a tender skip in my chest at the markers of Nyte and Drystan’s physical height growth over the years they grew up here.
“I didn’t know these were his old rooms,” I said quietly.
Drystan’s touch dropped, and he took a long breath, reeling back.
