Page 12 of Darkness Births the Stars #1

Oh, I had forgotten. Forgotten that wounding each other was effortless when you knew each other’s every weakness. I preferred not to imagine that particular conversation between the two beings in this world I once trusted the most—the two I had wounded the most in the name of my ambitions .

“You want to discuss the unfortunate necessities of war now?” I asked, my voice turning harsh. Attack had always been my best defense. Even toward her. Perhaps most of all toward her.

Baradaz appeared unimpressed as she prepared new bandages on the table next to me. “A sad necessity of war is to show no mercy to one’s enemies,” she said.

“Do you consider me your enemy, then?” I shot back, half expecting her power to spark up in answer to my deliberate provocation.

Her magic stayed oddly dormant, though, and she replied with a blank expression on her face. “Have you ever been anything other than an enemy to me?”

She had given up on me. On us. It was clear in her indifferent tone, in the way she turned away from me to gather the healing supplies, her back rigid.

After years of clinging to a fragile, impossible hope that we could be more than a regrettable mistake—a faded stain in both our histories, only kept alive by desperate encounters that left us both reeling—she had finally moved on.

Unfortunately, I had not. But then, I had always been a stubborn bastard.

Without thinking, I extended my arm toward her, hesitating just before making contact, aware that she would probably reject my touch. My hand hovered awkwardly in the air between us.

“You are not my enemy,” I said, my voice raspy and strained. “You have never been my enemy.”

It was the truth. Even in the depths of my madness, when I had imagined setting all of Lyrheim ablaze, when I had wanted to drown the entire world in Chaos and Darkness, my urge for destruction had never included her.

I had only desired to make her see that I was right.

That together we could create something worthwhile out of the ashes. That together we could be glorious .

“That is hardly a comfort.” Baradaz’s attention shifted back to me, her gaze flicking to my outstretched hand. “Not being your enemy cost me everything.”

Another truth, this one even less welcome than the reminder of my impossible dreams. Resting my hand back on the pillow next to me filled me with a profound sense of defeat, surpassing even the most devastating losses I had endured on the battlefield.

“So that’s what happened? Aramaz waited until he was victorious and then branded you a traitor?” The accusation against my brother was nearly instinctual. But then, he was the one to blame for her current circumstances. Along with me. I wasn’t delusional enough to forget that.

A wry twist of her mouth in answer. “As you said, the war was won. My presence was no longer required. ”

Odd choice of words. I sensed a story there. A rift.

“No, you were needed one last time. To punish me.” If I pushed just a little more, she would tell me what I wanted to know.

“You tried to destroy the world.” Baradaz didn’t raise her voice, but the emotion in it made the words crackle with ice.

She abandoned all pretense of being occupied with the medical supplies, her hands tightly clenched around the bandages, wrinkling them.

“You brought ruin to countless beings. What did you expect?”

I had been wrong. She wasn’t indifferent toward me at all. She was as furious with me as she’d been at the end of the war, only keeping herself carefully in check from the moment she entered the room.

I was at her mercy. It would have been clever to soften her toward me. Seducing people to my side, using their hidden desires and weaknesses to influence them, had always been something I excelled at.

Not with her, though. All my cunning burned away in the face of her anger like mist in the morning sun, her scorn only stoking the flames of my own ire. The betrayal that had gnawed relentlessly at my heart since she chose a side in the war—a side that, again, wasn’t mine—prompted me to retort.

“We always said there was no judgment between us.”

For a long moment, she stared at me as if she couldn’t believe my audacity. She could destroy me with a single thought in her anger. It wouldn’t be the first time she had used her powers against me.

Yet Baradaz only hissed, “You killed an entire company of soldiers in front of me to teach me a lesson.” She raised the hand with the bandages as if contemplating smiting me with it. “You did things…”

Her voice caught; the sight of her struggling to rein in her temper, her whole body trembling with fury, was nearly painful to witness.

I shouldn’t have come here. Far from her, I had been able to deceive myself into believing she didn’t hate me. A desperate illusion that was now shattering into a thousand pieces. There were no bridges left between us, their burning debris filling the air with an acrid smoke that choked me.

“I am sorry,” I ground out, unsure what else to say. Knowing it was not enough. That nothing I did or said could ever be enough.

Baradaz let out a hollow laugh. “No, you are not. The one thing you always desired above anything else was to hurt your brother. No matter the cost.” Her expression hardened. “Congratulations. You achieved at least that.”

“Not at the price of causing you pain,” I said, wishing I could find the words to convince her. “I know you have no reason to believe me. But it’s the truth.”

Baradaz scrutinized me for a long moment, her expression giving no hint to whether she believed me or not.

“Aramaz told me he brought you to the Abyss to deliver you to justice,” she stated matter-of-factly. “How did you escape being destroyed by it?”

I frowned. She still didn’t sound terribly sad about my possible demise. It stirred a familiar self-disgust within me. If even she didn’t care if I lived or died anymore…

“You know how it is. I always find a way.”

“Noctis.” There was no amusement on Baradaz’s face as she regarded me steadily. How I wished she wouldn’t use that name. After decades of hearing it spoken with hate and disdain, I did not enjoy the sound of it on her lips. But I could imagine her reaction if I requested that she use my true name.

My mouth twisted. “He didn’t throw me in,” I said, the admission tasting bitter, so bitter I had to cover the sting with a mocking laugh. “An undeserved act of mercy. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?”

Baradaz’s face remained motionless at the revelation, not even a flicker in her eyes betraying her thoughts.

“So yes, my dear, my brother deceived you,” I pushed on relentlessly, eager to elicit some reaction from her. “Again. What a surprise.”

Instead of cursing either me or my brother to the deepest pit of the Abyss, a hint of sadness crossed Baradaz’s face. “Yes, you two always had that in common,” she said. “Both keeping the truth from me to manipulate me into doing what you wanted.”

“I never lied to you,” I snapped, unwilling to confront the unease churning inside me at her melancholy.

How could she compare my deeds—deeds committed for a reason—with Aramaz’s manipulations?

After she had lied to me for centuries, helping my brother betray me?

“It was always you and Aramaz who were fond of elaborate games of deception.”

Baradaz only nodded sharply at my accusation as if to end the conversation, her expression calm and collected as she pulled down the sheets covering me and reached for the simple black shirt I was wearing.

“I need to look at your wound.” She carefully tugged the garment over my head while curtly explaining how she had treated the injury. Much to my dismay, I couldn’t even manage these small tasks without her help. A hiss escaped me at the renewed pain shooting through my body with every jostle.

Baradaz’s touch was brief and efficient. Despite my weakened state, it sent an instant awareness through me, a pleased shiver that reached my very bones. I had missed her. I wasn’t too proud to admit it, at least to myself.

“I found your horse,” she commented. “Or more precisely, he found me. You were lucky he didn’t run off. That horse is a menace.”

“Nacin tried to bite you,” I said, briefly closing my eyes. Nacin was a trained war horse. If Baradaz had touched him without permission, she could have been easily injured.

Not that she shared my concerns. No, a self-satisfied little smile played on her full, red lips. “Only once.”

“Ah, yes,” I said with a shake of my head. “I forgot how much you love bringing unruly subjects into line.”

Despite her lack of response to my joke, I could sense the hostility between us gradually easing.

The smile stayed on her face as she resumed her task, long dark lashes shielding her eyes as she slowly unwrapped the bandage around my torso.

She nodded at my discarded shirt. “There were some clothes in the saddlebags. I see you still prefer black.”

The sight of my wound made me inhale sharply.

It looked worse than I had expected. Bruises in varying shades of purple and blue extended across my entire right side, with a prominent, angry red burn in the center that was still oozing fluid.

Baradaz grabbed a cloth soaked in disinfectant salve and began to cleanse the wound, the sting causing me to groan.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, not glancing up. “At least it looks better today. The infection seems to be gone.”

Stars, I didn’t want to know how it had looked when I arrived here. And I hadn’t even thanked her yet for saving me.

“Thank you for taking care of me. I know you did not have to.”

To keep the pain at bay, I concentrated on the feeling of having her so close again after such a long time. She had to lean over me quite far to reach my injured side, and every movement granted me a whiff of her enticing scent, the vulnerable, soft skin of her neck temptingly close.

What I wouldn’t give to bury my nose in her hair and breathe her in deeply.