Page 44 of Bonds of Starfall

He released a low, shuddering exhale as he repeated his mental affirmations in a robotic loop, a false sense of peace against the existential, consuming...

Dread.

Eating him up from the inside out.

Two lives together, not including this one, and it was always that nightmare that haunted Kit. The second life. The second end.

A time when he had been able to know her for years as they hid from his father on their merchant ship in the Stars. It had been wonderful until the slow radiation consuming their planet had grown to be too much.

Everything died.Everything.

Forced to watch as their home, Veltryss, exploded, taking them with it.

In this life, when Kit and Rin had been younger, too young to fully understand the weight of their past lives—thetraumaof it—she would often console him when he woke up from one of his nightmares. They used to build pillow forts in the same living room that he was now holding her in. Sleepovers under the watchful eyes of his parents, who Kit thought were merely playing their dutiful role to make sure the young pair of Soulbonds behaved.

But it wasn’t until he was about fourteen, and she eleven, that he had understood what his parents had been doing to her. When he would wake up with a dry mouth and pounding head, he would find her sleeping bag cold and empty. Later, he’d find her in the kitchen, eyes lifeless as she sat in kitten pajamas. As if someone had dropped her there, left her there. And they had.

His parents had been drugging them, slipping pills into their dinner. All because his Soulbond, a girl he had been so blessed to find at such an early age, was an Aetherborn.

Kithatedthem. More than he had ever hated anything before.

His fingers curled tighter around her as she slept, nestled on his chest.

The news was on the television, the volume muted. He read the words on the screen. A female newscaster spoke into a mic, the green screen behind her projecting images of Lunar City: darkness, towering high-rises, unregulated Nova Zones, and noHunter’s Guild. The police in Lunar City were shitty. They couldn’t keep up with normal crime, let alone Rogue attacks.

The flashing headline at the bottom of the screen read:Illegal arms trade in Lunar City headed by Noctis leader Rhyden Valkar. Infusing Nova into weapons—smart or dangerous?

Kit scoffed lowly, half-lidded eyes focusing on the hypnotizing, spinning ceiling fan above.

His nightmare still clung to him, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. But he didn’t want to wake Rin up.

After they had left the hospital, he had forced her onto the couch, telling her not to move as he brought her blankets, pillows, food, and some fantasy book she had been reading about a stolen princess, with the pages dog-eared like she loved to do.

Her lips were slightly parted, each soft breath rustling her white hair. She always looked so sweet in sleep, like the girl she had been before—before her parents had died and his parents had wiped her memories. But even before all of that, she had been haunted.

She couldn’t console him now; she didn’t remember.

Rin sighed in sleep, snuggling closer to him. The blanket had slipped off her hip, pooling to the floor, and the pale flesh on her legs was pebbled with chill.

Slowly, Kit sat up, careful not to jostle her. He gathered her into his arms, lips tugging downward at how light she was. The blanket was bundled around her as he carried her, her cheek pillowed on his chest—as if even in sleep, she searched for him. It was comforting.

For all Lucien told Kit that she still knew, on some intrinsic level, who they were to her, it was still nice to see her respond to him—to realize she hadn’t forgotten. Her mind may have, but her body had not.

He walked her to her room, the socks on his feet padding his steps up the stairs.

He left the television on. The red eyes of the Noctis leader from the blurry photo on the screen burned a hole in the back of Kit’s head.

In Rin’s room, the white canopy fluttered above her bed, and many plush rugs were scattered over the floor. She hated the cold—always had, even in their other lives. Kit smiled.

As he placed her on her bed, he spied a gilded photo frame on her bedside table, right by a lamp with a soft, lacy shade, and a tube of cherry lip balm.

A photo of them, right after her memories had been wiped. Her grey eyes were dull as she stood beside him. In the photo, he didn’t smile. It had been New Year’s Day, and his parents had just wiped the memories of their son and his Soulbond—at least, they thought they had. His memories had never been wiped in the experimental program they used on Rin.

A blessing. Or had it been?

Because now, Kit had to pretend.

His mother’s brown hair was perfectly styled, with fake blonde highlights. Her lips were painted red. His father… Kit shuddered. The man was large, with brown hair shaved close to his skull. His brown eyes were dead, and faint freckles were scattered over his nose, just like Kit’s. It made him want to scrub them off his face.