“I want you on my side,” I blurted.
I thought relieved surprise had twitched his brow for a flash. Until his lips firmed and his eyes turned ice cold.
“You killed my Bonded, Astraea. You executed Gresham for killing innocents when your Bonded is no different. How is that just and fair? Your biases make me sick.”
I paled. He was right and I think a part of me always questioned my ruling that day long ago. Until I remembered everything that made the crimes of Gresham unforgivable.
“The death on Nyte’s hands has always been collateral damage. Innocents,yes. But Gresham led a slaughter on a town full of females and young. Hetargetedthem knowing those deaths would hurt the High Celestials and their people the most, and he had no remorse for it.”
A muscle in his jaw flexed, and it pained me as much as him to tear open this wound of the past.
“The act is still the same.”
“The intentions are all the difference.”
I could see the war in his eyes and his pain broke me. I’d seen it before. Tarran had been devastated to learn what his Bonded had done, but I also understood how love blurred morality. Love tried to find reasoning in the cracks of unforgivable sins.
“I’m sorry,” I said. A slipped breath of condolence that couldn’t offer even a stitch to the permanent tear in his soul.
“I know,” he said with no emotion. “Before my parents passed on to their guardian realm, they made all of us swear to keep looking out for you. That’s all I’m doing now: fulfilling an obligation. But you’re making that damned difficult, as always.”
“You and I were close… before what happened with Gresham—”
“Before you executed him.”
I winced but nodded.
“You don’t deserve a thing from me,” he said
“I know.”
My agreement only flared his irritation, him nearly rolling his eyes.
Tarran said, “You need to kill Nightsdeath.”
He made to leave me here with that parting statement.
“I can’t be sure it won’t kill Nyte!” I called after him.
“He’s already as good as dead. Night has fallen in more ways than one. You know what you have to do, Lightsdeath.”
12Astraea
Revulsion for where I was—right outside the familiar white door of Auster’s room—rose to the surface. There might be a few new chips in it than I last remembered, or maybe I’d never stalled long enough outside it to notice all the minor imperfections in the wood.
He’d summoned me here and I had to grit my teeth against the desire to run before discovering why. The guard who’d escorted me had left, and that rattled my unease even further.
Don’t run. Don’t run.
I heard shuffling beyond.Was that also voices?My pulse skipped when the footfall grew louder toward the door and a chill gripped me when it swung open.
Auster’s deep frown of annoyance at the intrusion smoothed out when he saw me. My jaw locked tighter as he played ignorant as to why I was here.
It wasn’t just his presence that urged everything inside me to retreat, it was the fact he stood there shirtless.
My eyes only trailed lower to take in his missing left arm, now replaced by metal and strapped by leather over his shoulder and torso. I started to wonder about the beautiful craftsmanship—how could it not be too heavy when it appeared made entirely of silver?
Then my awe vanished when I remembered what had happened for him to need it. How the key had eroded his arm in punishment for killing me. If I hadn’t been his bonded, it would have killed him instead. I couldn’t even gloat over his instant penance.
