I turned to her, mustering an enticing smile. “What if I said you can ride by dragon with Nyte?”
Her eyes flew wide. “Nightsdeath?” she whispered conspiratorially, checking the corners of the hall like he might emerge from the shadows.
Raider’s gaze swept around nervously too. “Is he as scary as people say?”
My mouth quirked at that. “He’s scarier.”
“Saying nice things about me, Starlight?” Nyte’s silvery voice caressed my skin.
A wave of relief soothed me as I saw him strolling toward us. If Dawn came back, these two youths now had more protection.
Nyte sensed my distress immediately. His smile slowly fell and he scanned the hall.
I said through our bond,“Dawn is here. These are Zephyr’s children, and they don’t know she’s not their mother.”
Nyte’s tension wasn’t subtle.“She’s just letting you leave with them?”
“I don’t think she has power in this form.”
“Then how does she expect to kill you?”
I was beginning to realize there were more nefarious plans that required the key than we were prepared for.
“The key,”I said.
Raider said, “So uh… are we going?”
Realizing how odd our silence was to them, I nodded, pulling Antila along this time, but she followed with a chipper step.
We made it out the front castle doors when we saw the most unexpected person walking across the courtyard toward us.
Drystan beamed when he saw us.
“Look who’s alive,” Drystan sang. “I mean me, by the way. A far more impressive feat when you see what I have.”
He wiggled a pouch that rattled with metal inside.
“We need to get away from here,” I said under my breath.
Nyte’s firm nod agreed. He said to Drystan, “Tell us on the way.”
We passed him in quick strides. Drystan gave a disgruntled sound before following.
“Good to see you, Drystan. How heroic you are, Drystan. Thank you for risking your life multiple times, Drystan,” he ranted to himself.
“It is good to see you,” Nyte said once they were through the woodland and heading toward Eltanin. Athebyne was here too. “How many temples did you manage to cover?”
“All of them,” Drystan answered with a gleaming smugness.
“That’s near impossible,” I accused.
Excluding the one in the Sterling Mountains we couldn’t reach after failing to secure the trident, there had been six more temples in Althenia for us to reach.
“Count them,” he said, tossing the pouch to Nyte. “And please, for the love of stars, tell me there’s at least one true piece for the shit I went through. There’s only one temple left in Althenia, which is why I came here. I’m glad I get to hand that last trial over to you two.”
Nyte pulled the strings loose, and I felt the pulse of the key as he did. “There’s one for sure.”
“Thank fuck,” Drystan muttered.
