My body cut through the air at a deadly speed. I couldn’t see Eltanin anymore as dark clouds swallowed me. The ground closed in fast.
For a moment, I let go of the fear. The panic. I erased everything from my mind, and my only wish was that I could see the stars.
It wasn’t Eltanin who saved me.
Hands gripped mine with a touch that felt descended from the heavens itself.
Astraea’s wings splayed, and she cried out, trying to stop this rapid descent.Fuck, there was no sound I hated more than her pain. The clutches of gravity were too powerful for her to defy now. Instead of letting her keep attempting to pull me up, I reached to pull her down.
The sight of Astraea’s desolate eyes made me ache, and I held her around the waist. She unglamoured her wings, and I didn’t scold her for it.
The stars were dying, and we were the brightest of them.
There would never be a limit to how much my love could grow for her. When every time my sights set upon her I had to remind myself she was no dream though every part of her embodied the peace of one. She was no fable though her power was unmatched for this world.
She was Astraea Lightborne, and she was mine.
Eltanin roared above us, but there wasn’t enough time for him to catch us. Instead I felt magick growing around us, creating a sphere of starry darkness from the dragon’s influence, and Astraea’s light reinforcing a second shield despite her pain. I wasn’t sure if it would be enough to spare us from the impact of hitting the ground, but I held her tighter and we braced ourselves.
It was like the world exploded and we plummeted deep enough to reach its molten core.
Yet… I wasn’t too badly harmed.
I caught my breaths of disbelief, staring up at the cloudy sky from within a deep crater as the shields of light and dark broke away like stardust.
“Astraea,” I said her name as she lay so still against me, head resting against my chest.
“Nyte,” she croaked in reply.
My body slumped in relief, still furious about her suffering, but at least she was alive. With the thought, my father filtered back to the forefront of my objectives and I pushed up to sit, not letting her go.
“I need to finish it,” I said, absolutely torn to leave her again.
The fall with Rastaban should have killed him, but if there was one thing that was consistent with my father it was that he seemed to have infinite fucking lives.
Eltanin rattled, peering down at us from the edge of the crater in distress. With an arm around Astraea, I pulled us through the void to get us out of there.
“Be free, Nyte,” she said, pressing a leather pouch into my hand. “For you and for Drystan.”
I stared down at it, clenching my fist around the solid contents, which raked a hum over my skin. I kissed her fiercely, then took a long step back, letting the void swallow me.
When the shadows let me go I sat upon Eltanin and he didn’t miss a beat before taking me to the skies again.
Snow started to fall as I searched the grounds for Rastaban. It didn’t take long to find him. The great black dragon had fallen just outside the central city of Vesitire, its tail having collapsed the edge of the lower level wall. Eltanin landed and I dismounted swiftly.
Rastaban was dead, and even though it had wanted to kill him, Eltanin still mourned for the loss of kin. I didn’t want to feel the same, but when I spied a form that seemed so small next to the dragon, I couldn’t move for a moment.
I wasn’t ready to confirm his end.
Tipping the key pieces Astraea had given me into my palm, I joined them one by one. Each serrated shard snapped together with a current of raw power growing denser, amplifying with an electric vibration. It rejoiced to be reforged, but there was one missing piece.
As I joined the pieces, I slowly got closer to my father, rallying the courage to retrieve the last shard he possessed. I wished I could turn off my clashing emotions, fixing my sight on him. He deserved absolutely nothing from me.
Father lay on his back, and when I got close enough… I couldn’t decide if dread or relief pounded in me when I detected the shallow rise and fall of his chest.
Still. Fucking. Alive.
His breaths wheezed and staggered; his sight fixed wide and unblinking on the sky that wept with snowfall.
