Alone with him, she turned to Auster and it was like gravity demanded their embrace. Relief relaxed her. They could get through this. She believed their bond of friendship forged over many decades could survive.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he muttered into her hair.
“I know,” she whispered.
But as the words left her… she didn’t know if she believed them. She’dfelt his power amplify when it switched from colliding with Nyte’s darkness to contending with her light. Astraea wanted to push the most horrible thoughts away, but it was like they fought for her to truly consider… could Auster, the man she loved and respected, who’d been her close friend for most of her adult life… intend to cause her great harm?
27Astraea
I hadn’t been able to get out of bed when Nyte brought me back to Nadir’s home. I was told a few days had passed since. It wasn’t the wounds on my body that weighed me down, it was those that were still raw on my soul after my battle with Auster.
You were my everything.
Auster’s final words tormented me. Because my heart squeezed at them, but my mind knew that every one of his actions heinously contradicted what those words should have meant.
He hurt me more than anyone. Yet he loved me more than anything.
No, that wasn’t true. He loved what I could have given him, or he wouldn’t have betrayed me.
At least that was the war raging on in my mind.
Lilith helped with my wounds, and my side was almost healed from being impaled by wood. As for the smaller puncture I’d sustained from the blade that had Nyte’s blood on it… the skin around it had become gray with dark veins, and we all knew my life was on a countdown if it continued to climb toward my heart.
Someone entered my room. I didn’t turn from my position on my side, staring out the window. I knew I couldn’t lie here for much longer in my grief.
“Hey, Stray,” Zath said gently.
My brow crumpled when I heard his voice, and when the bed dipped I rolled over to face him, wincing from my tender wounds. He cast a warm smile at me and sat against the headboard. Zath reached to brush a lock of my hair from my cheek.
“I’ve missed you,” I croaked with my voice hoarse from days of silence.
“Of course you have; I’m far more delightful company than Nyte,” he teased. Then asked, “How you holding up?”
There was something about that kind of question that broke the strainingdam holding back my emotions. When I sniffed, his face fell knowingly, and I shuffled closer until my head was partially on him.
“I’m angry that I’m sad,” I confessed.
“I understand.”
“Auster doesn’t deserve my grief after all he did.”
“Then why do you cry?”
“Because I miss the person he was.” I broke. Ugly sobs wracked through my body, but Zath’s gentle strokes along my spine helped soothe the pain. “I wish he didn’t have tobecome that.”
“You can’t long for the past, or you’ll always be stuck there.”
“What if it was my fault? It’s because of me he ruined himself.”
“We cannot shoulder blame for someone else’s actions, even someone we love. You’re thinking you could have fixed him, but people are not mechanical. You would have always chosen Nyte; nothing would have changed Auster’s reception to it in the end. Unless you regret that choice, you have to find peace and let go of anyone else’s feelings or actions.”
“I would never regret choosing him. Never.”
While I’d lain here for days I’d been reliving memories of the past, as if I might find the moment I should have known Auster loathed me enough to want me dead. The vision of the day I told him about Nyte kept replaying, like new details would unveil something then…
I pushed up suddenly, wincing at the sharp pain around my ribs.
“Where’s Nyte?” I asked.
