There was too much purple smoke, too many bodies. I searched for the tether to him that would always live within me from our bond, unless he was dead. Spinning, I pinned his direction, catching a small, tight band of guards, who could only be guiding one important person.
Pushing through the bodies, my balance was precarious, but adrenaline kept me stumbling through the crowd toward my target.
“AUSTER!” I yelled.
He heard me. His harsh brown eyes cut into me through the gap in his guard detail.
Auster began to face forward again, intending to resume his retreat.
My vengeance overcame my reason.
I swiped a small blade from the belt of an unsuspecting person close to me, acting on nothing but pure instinct and rage. The dagger was only in my possession for a second before it flew through the air, making its mark in the nape of the guard at Auster’s back. When that body fell away, Auster whirled to me in outrage.
Running for him, I swiped up the sword of the guard I had killed just as Auster lifted his.
Our blades slammed against each other; the high pitch of steel against steel cried the sound of our anguish.
“You can talk big words, Auster. But your actions are always small and pathetic,” I seethed, sliding my blade against his and attacking again as best I could.
I knew I was outmatched right now. The blade I wielded was too heavy for me, the starlight matter still weakened my muscles, my dress made movement difficult, but I was so fucking angry I didn’t stop trying anyway.
“Are you behind this?” he demanded, defending himself easily against me. “Look at the bloodshed you’ve caused. These people’s lives are being carelessly lost for your cause, Astraea.”
“These people fight with purpose in their hearts. They fight against tyrants like you.”
I wanted to strike him so badly I became obsessed, needed to see him bleed even a few drops.
He said, “Your poison runs deep through these lands, but I am the antidote.”
I laughed, delirious and beyond exerted. But still my sword continued to lift and swing and fall. Until Auster backed up two long strides to avoid my next attack and I panted, collecting my breath and sanity in that pause in our battle.
“Let’s end this, Auster. Right here.”
“I won’t fight you like this.”
“Why? Only when I’m weak do you ever feel powerful.”
Auster’s stare darkened; blue lightning reflected across his eyes with a storm brewing beneath their surface. I braced, lifting my sword when he threw a bolt of his magick toward me. Shifting my leg back, I tightened my body for the impact, letting the steel absorb the current while the remnants coursed through me. I was no stranger to his magick, and I would not let it strike me down.
Contrary to what he hoped to achieve with the attack, the last of the lightning humming through me helped expel more of the starlight matter’s influence, which was holding me back physically and mentally.
“Seize her,” Auster commanded.
I snarled at his cowardly order, having to split my attention between him and his guards, who closed in, herding me as I backed away.
Auster’s glare threw chips of ice at me before he began to turn, retreating from the fighting and leaving it to others todetainme.
“You cannot escape me, Auster Nova,” I yelled, causing him to pause, his shoulders to stiffen, but he didn’t look back. “For when the dark descends, I will rise from shadow… and you will fall into it. Seeing my face as your reckoning when the light goes out.”
His hands tightened into fists at his sides, and for a second I thought he might turn back, but he didn’t.
A glint in one of the guards’ hands caught my attention. More starlight matter. Were they all equipped with it and it was just a matter of who got close enough first to sedate me again?
Beginning to lose my confidence in this confrontation, I tried to calculate a way to run instead, even though the distance that stretched between me and Auster made me want to damn all odds and charge for him.
I was moments from being captured again…
Until I saw a little black bird fly over the heads of the celestials in front of me.
