“Where’s Nyte?” I breathed, trying to swallow the terror threatening to keep me down.
A wicked smile curved his mouth and his eyes, blazing like twin suns, locked on mine.
“I’m right here. Only now I’m free from the weak, cowardly parts that I’ve been plagued with for eternity.”
I shuffled back a fraction as it started to make sense. This was Nightsdeath.OnlyNightsdeath. A creation that started as a death-given power that fed on pain and suffering. My eyes stung realizing everything Nyte had endured over his life was what made this side of him so strong.
What stood before me was a raw representation of Nyte’s tortured soul given form.
All his pain and suffering had become a creature that wanted to shroud everything in his path. His misery fed his cruelty. To inflict pain on others was the only way to claw out some of the agony festering in himself.
“How are you here if Nyte’s body… his right mind… is not.”
“Who are you to say I am not hisrightmind? I think far clearer without thewrongside that tries to conform to your ways in a world that is long overdue to be purged of its sins.”
It was puzzling, confusing to my heart and mind, to understand that this was Nyte in a way. What stood before me was Nyte with his humanity detached. The part of him I would reach for to pull his humanity back to the surface was gone, but I hoped it lingered somewhere safe. Waiting for me to wake him from his curse.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“The rift between life and death. I was hoping you would make it here sooner or later before you woke me in your realm.”
I shuddered, realizing Nightsdeath had been here all along. Waiting for me.
“Why?” I dared to ask.
“Because when you do find a way to break the curse, I want full control of our mortal body. I want the part of me you call Rainyte to be buried so deeply it can never see the light.”
“No,” I breathed. I would never let that happen.
I had to get out of here.
As I threw out a gale of my violet power, Nightsdeath hissed, conjuring a cloud of pure darkness to engulf it. Unlike when Nyte used shadow magick, this was devoid of stars, another distinguishing feature that separated Nightsdeath from Rainyte.
I scrambled to my feet, racing though I didn’t know where I could make it out, only that there was a beast on my heels and I couldn’t let him keep me here.
Was this where Nyte went every time he died? The thought of him wandering alone through the lost, barren land ached in my soul.
Had there been a time, perhaps several, he hadn’t wished to come back to life?
I’ve died many times. I’m pretty good at it.
Of course he was. He was masterful at harboring more pain than any person should have to endure. He had every reason to let Nightsdeath take it all out on the world that hurt him so reprehensibly, yet he fought that part of himself every day.
For him, for his humanity, I would never stop fighting to remind him there wasgoodin him, and he deserved far better than the cruel hand life had dealt him so far.
My magick built steps, which I climbed frantically. Shadows crept around my ankles in a soft caress. I couldn’t find a direction on land, and so I chased the sky, the only course toward a break of light in the thick, sad clouds.
A whimper fell from my lips when I didn’t think I would make it to thebright window of escape that could be a figment of my desperate imagination. I raced the shadows that began to wrap around me, the slow embrace of Nightsdeath like a cold lover’s touch.
Then I leaped off my next step right as his hold began to tighten, and I let myself fall to freedom or doom.
8Astraea
Agony seared through every muscle, each sharp pulse a brutal reminder of the moments before I’d woken here, sprawled in a twisted heap, wedged deep within a narrow crevice. The memory clawed its way back—the catastrophic descent of the falling star, the raw surge of power as I tried to halt it, and then the crushing impact as it slammed into me, driving me down into the earth.
I could still feel the heat radiating from the ground around me, faint traces of the star’s energy echoing through the broken rock and debris. My limbs were leaden, pain lancing through every inch of my body as I tried to move, each sensation telling me just how close I’d come to being completely destroyed. My vision blurred and I stopped trying to move.
Wiggling fingers gave me a small sense of control. I had to get up. Yet for a moment, I found serenity in the tinted red sky blinking with stars. I searched the constellations for Cassia and Calix—my two dear lost friends whose souls I’d sent to the stars when they died—to not be alone in my agony.
