I didn’t tell Nightsdeath that even if we completed the trial, the key piece we gained could be a fake.
There were sixteen potential temples, and only five true key pieces to be found.
I didn’t know what I was expecting of the interior. This temple had only a few short steps onto a single level with… no ceiling. Except it wasn’t our red-infused night I stared up at, it was the dark midnight holding a million stars I’d missed the sight of dearly.
When my eyes fell back down, I gasped, stumbling, and even feeling for my wings, but we weren’t falling. The ground mimicked the sky now, as if we stood on a sheet of glass and looked down through an endless night.
“How do you suppose we reach it?” Nightsdeath said.
My brow furrowed at his question, and I glanced up, but he still stared down through the glass under his feet. I crouched carefully, searching through the layers of stars with more precision until… there it was. The key piece seamlessly disguised as another blinking star. The only thing that gave it away from such a distance was how it spun, catching a glinting light at perfect intervals.
“Auster took your wings…” I trailed off with bile rising in my throat.
“He took my celestial wings.”
I watched in awe as the shadows swirling around him moved, coming together and climbing his spine before forming into large, stunning wings of darkness. My brow crumpled at the magnificent sight of him.
“You find me more attractive with them?” Nightsdeath queried, studying my reaction.
I find you the most beautiful thing in the world. With or without wings.
I didn’t speak those words; he would only ask more questions about why. Always trying to figure out how emotions worked if only to exploit them somehow.
“Physical attraction is human nature.”
“I am not human, and I find you attractive.” A blush almost crept over my cheeks until he added, “And repulsive.”
My near smile dropped to a glower. “Can we just focus?”
Nightsdeath raised his hand without hesitation, and a blast of dark energy erupted from his palm, hurtling toward the glass in a flash of shadowed light. The force of it crashed against the glass, which shuddered but held firm, rebounding the energy back in all directions. The wave slammed into me before I even had a chance to brace myself, knocking me off my feet and sending me backward with dizzying speed.
My back struck the small stone steps behind me, each unforgiving edge digging sharply into my body. Pain lanced through my shoulder, then my hip, as I tumbled, limbs colliding at awkward angles until I lay sprawled on the cold, rough surface. For a moment, everything was still, save for the lingering hum of his dark power vibrating through the air. He hadn’t even flinched.
Groaning, I shifted to be sure nothing was broken.
“A little warning next time.” My voice was strained from the throbbing aches.
Nightsdeath wasn’t even looking at me as he wandered up the steps toward a podium I hadn’t noticed before. My irritation swam as I peeled myself off the ground and shuffled over to him.
He held a blindfold, examining it like it was some foreign artifact. On the podium a short verse was carved into the stone.
The dark is unseeing, the light is unfeeling.
It only took a minute of calculation for a breath of laughter to escape me. I straightened from my hunch, trying to stretch out the dull pains throughout my body.
“What?” he asked while I still mulled over my conclusion.
“It’s going to test our trust in each other,” I said, studying the starry sky below, then above.
“What a humorous thing,” he mumbled.
The giggle that escaped me might have been pure delirium, but it chased away some of my nerves. When I looked to Nightsdeath he was staring at me. His frown pinched deep as though he were angry but his amber eyes were searching.
“What?” I asked, touching my face, as perhaps maybe there was a bleeding cut I hadn’t felt from my fall.
His jaw worked. “Let’s get this over with.”
I skipped after him as he descended onto the glass again. “You sure you have it in you to trust me for this task?”
