Laviana smiled, but it wasn’t friendly. “Like I said, you’re a terrible liar, Astraea. We were once allies.”
“We still are. You can’t expect me to choose sides when there are far greater things at stake right now.”
“Our dearest sister always was the one with the least patience.” Tarran’s smooth voice interrupted us from behind me.
“Last I heard, you’re not to be trusted as Auster’s littlepet,” she gibed.
Tarran didn’t appreciate the term, and I winced at the look he cut toward me in accusation.
“Sometimes the best way to spy is in plain sight,” he said, slipping his hands into his pockets.
“You expect me to believe that?” Laviana scoffed.
Tarran shrugged. “I do not care, little sister.”
“Don’t call me that. None of us have been close in centuries.”
“Is that what it takes then? Severing your roots to rise to power?”
“It takes cutting out weaknesses. You’ve been gone. Then next I hear of you surfacing you’ve gathered your own following on the hunt for the key and the maiden. Did you address Astraea as yoursisterto them then?”
I was growing dizzy glancing between them and the air thickened with their rising tension. Distant cries continued to ring out, and I burned to join the battle so I could stop more careless blood from being spilled.
“Call off your forces,” I demanded of Laviana.
Her cold sight targeted me, flaring with offense.
“Two of Auster’s pets, I see.”
“No, not a pet. Your star-maiden. If you don’t call them off, I will.”
Her stance shifted in challenge to my assertion of authority, but I would not falter. Not anymore.
“Then do what you have to,” she said.
A fist remained wrapped around my heart, and it gave a squeeze at her declaration—her firming stance, ready to fight me. Would this always be a curse of war—friends turning into foes on the battlefield?
“She’s telling the truth,” Tarran called. “The dragon can’t be freed right now.”
“At least we know where it is, and Astraea is going to fetch what we need. It’s not a wasted trip when we’ll eliminate a band of Auster’s forces in the meantime.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said with a plea in my quiet voice.
It only made Laviana smirk, as if I were an insect she would flick out of her way to join the battle behind me.
“I don’t want to hurt you either. But I won’t regret it if you leave me no choice.”
“Go,” I hissed under my breath to Tarran.
He slid a look to me and whatever he read on my face made him nod and take in Laviana one more time with a note of disturbance; then he left.
“Once a coward, always one,” Laviana muttered, watching his retreat.
As she stepped forward, so did the eight soldiering vampires with her. For a while now I’d been building the magick in my palms, letting it heat to a prickling sensation through my veins. With her next step, I unleashed my first attack—a blast of violet light that threw them all back. Some hit the trees hard, a few fell over the side of the cliff, and I had to detach my emotions from the casualties.
Harnessing Lightsdeath was the only way to triumph here.
Alone on the cliff, I looked out at the beautiful, snowy mountainscape, sparkling with the moonlight. The central city was so distant from here, but the more Lightsdeath took over… everything glittered.
