I took a few more breaths, trying to draw a clear one free from the sensation of inhaling smoke.
“You can kill me a thousand times, I’ll never tell you.”
It was a full moon today, and I slipped my sight to the red sphere in the sky out the long stained glass window with a tight yearning in my chest. Part of me was terrified that Nyte would come, in case Nightsdeath managed to kill him and take over his body. He would become more deadly with Nyte’s ability to bend minds.
Nyte would win.
I would fight by his side andwewould win.
Nightsdeath snarled with the snap of his patience. He hauled me up with a tight grip around my throat and I choked. Just as fast as he reacted in violence he switched to quiet tenderness, pulling me flush to his body with an arm around my waist, his shadows caressing my skin, snaking over me curiously. I couldn’t decide which side of him was more frightening.
“Why haven’t you tried to fight me?” he asked, almost to himself as he studied my face and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear.
“Does it harm Nyte if I do?” I dared to ask.
He sighed, a hint of disappointment. “I almost want to carve out your heart so it can stop being such a pathetic influence to your mind. I expected far more fight from you, but you’re perfect prey for me to bend and break here as I wish.” His light fingers tipped my chin. “You are so disgustingly, terribly beautiful. I want to have you almost as much as I want to kill you.”
Being around Nightsdeath was like walking an endless plank across a deadly ocean. I couldn’t predict him—whether the next moment would bring a soft touch, fleeting and disarming, or a poisonous strike sharp enough to cut through me, sending me plummeting into oblivion. His presence was both magnetic and perilous, a constant tension pulling me closer even as survival demanded I keep my distance. My heart raced, not just from fear, but from the maddening thrill of the unknown. Every breath I took in his shadow felt like a gamble, a step deeper into the abyss where I might drown—or worse, never want to leave.
“The feeling is quite mutual,” I said, nearly lost in his deadly seduction.
But I had to start figuring out his weaknesses.
Reaching through the void, I retrieved my stormstone dagger and pulled my arm back enough for the momentum to plunge it with both hands through his heart.
My pulse slammed, filling my ears and spiking my anticipation. Nightsdeath made no sound and barely gave a flinch.
“This is more like it,” he said in delight. Reaching to wrap his hand around mine, he pulled the blade out slowly.
I didn’t know what to expect, but I’d hoped the attack would at least wound him even if it didn’t send him back to the veil between life and death.
His amber eyes became more alive, like I’d pleased him with what I’d done. I tore my stare from them to look down at the blade as it slipped out of his body fully. The plunge of it had felt as good as any flesh; it slid out of him with a stomach-churning slickness like a real body… yet there was no blood. No wound. He was completely unharmed, confirming the worst of my fears: he couldn’t be killed, not even temporarily, nor could he even be wounded by any mortal weapon.
In my horror and fear of his retaliation for my attempt, I summoned my magick on instinct. He anticipated it, instantly smothering my light with his darkness, but I didn’t give up.
Lightsdeath hummed through my veins like liquid silver, peeking to the surface.
My next attack pushed distance between us, but he deflected easily, stalkingme with a slow smile that dared me to keep trying.Wantedme to give in to my world-ending power completely. Only so he could manipulate it for himself.
I stopped, gathering my breath and backing myself against the wall as he closed in.
“Is that all you’ve got, my star?” he purred.
“I’m not going to give up Nyte, so get on with it,” I said coldly.
A muscle in his shadowy jaw flexed. “You desire me too,” he said, drawing me closer again with a slithering arm around my back. “With Rainyte, you wanted to see me take over, you wanted me to crave you instead of seeing you as nothing more than an insufferable light to be extinguished. Your heart has always called to darkness.”
But you don’t get to become it.
That missing line from what Nyte had said to me before was what separated his dark mind from his good. The side of him that wanted to watch the world burn hand in hand with me and the other that wanted to help me salvage this world even if it came to that.
“You’re a kernel of dark power that only grew from his pain… and that makes you a piece of him I will always love.”
“Poetic,” he said, inching his lips closer to mine. “Then why do you resist me?”
“Because he could have become you long ago. He could have let his pain take over completely and damn the world. Yet he fought through everything to not be the merciless villain he was portrayed to be, and I won’t let that be in vain.”
“So weak and vulnerable, your mortal hearts.”
