“You killed my brothers,” Notus seethed. It sounded as if he was justifying his allegiance to Dusk as much to himself as to me.
“I killed one them, but that was only fair; he killed me first. Zephyr died nobly to stop the gods you aid now, and you stand beside the one who killed Aquilo to take his place. You are a traitor to them.”
Notus’s anger pulsed tangibly, but he was at war with himself more than me. His loathing for me won against his logic. He lunged for me again, and I drifted easily around his attacks.
He wouldn’t go back on his chosen side now, and I was running out of time.
I didn’t need the key to kill Notus; he was trapped in my magick already. All it took was a lift of my hand, a mere thought, and the silver flames he stood in began to burn. Not hot but a slow icy blaze that devoured him. Notus screamed and I caught the key as it fell, not staying to watch as silver engulfed his body and spilled down his mouth to kill his screams. I ran for Dusk, shifting the key to a blade, raising it for a killing blow.
His hand thrust out, fingers jabbing precisely in the wound on my abdomen Auster had dealt me.
First, agony seized me, then my pain surged beyond my limits and I thought I was falling. Endlessly falling. My vision blurred, seeing flickers of the silver flames and a set of boots heading toward me.
It can’t end like this.
A battle cry tore through the silence of my suffering.
Nyte. He was still alive. We were still alive, and it couldn’tendlike this.
My will to live for him dragged me to the surface of my awareness. The key was right by my head, and I rolled onto my stomach, slapping my hand over it and rising despite death’s grip squeezing my heart.
Nyte was on his knees, his head bowed at Dusk’s feet.
He was so still… so deathly still.
Then a poem weaved into my mind, a song above the battle that raged around us.
At dusk, the amber heavens sway…
Through the flames, a cry of rage and passion cut through. My dying breaths shuddered as I watched Zathrian lunge out of the arms of silver, his blade aloft to come down on Dusk.
The stars emerge, a bright ballet…
I staggered forward as Rose emerged too, attacking Dusk from two angles, but they were no match for him. Surges of twilight power struck my friends, and I screamed with heavenly anguish, charging forward as my friends risked their lives distracting Dusk.
Through twilight’s veil, where shadows play…
The night is crowned with…
“Astraeaus!” I yelled his true name with the full force of my power surging in my grasp.
He whirled to me, eyes blazing and wild.
My friends had granted me the opening to race forward with Dusk distracted.
The key shifted to a dagger… and I plunged it into his heart.
His mouth opened wide, but no sound came from him. No movement. Dusk became particles of stardust singing in the silver flames that began to die out too.
The key fell from my hand as I crumpled. My eyes barely lifted to see Nyte had fallen, lying so peacefully on his back as he bled out. I tried to crawl, but my elbow gave out as soon as my hand met the ground.
The land rumbled violently, and all I could do was look up at the sky.
The stars were falling more rapidly than ever. I didn’t know if they were souls or true cosmic sources. If they were the former, Death had lied. He’d said if I killed Dusk and Dawn he would take the souls trapped in our stars to rest in his realm where they belonged.
My eyes fluttered, too heavy to keep open anymore.
“Nyte…” I whispered. The world was breaking around us. “Did we win?”
