Page 3 of Darkness Births the Stars #1
CHAPTER
Rada
N octis didn’t grant me the mercy of passing away peacefully.
I tried to busy myself with scrubbing away the water and bloodstains from his entrance into my house.
The haunting groans from my bedroom competed with the raging storm outside.
Each moan sent a jolt through my heart, my hands tightening around the cleaning rag.
Undeterred, I scrubbed with renewed determination.
Was that my name amid Noctis’s groaning? My flimsy pretense of indifference cracked like a thin coating of ice on a shallow puddle. Bucket in hand, I fled into the kitchen. Casting an exasperated glance at Bane, who was perched on the counter, I rinsed out my soiled rag.
“I won’t help him,” I told the cat. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think the bastard was doing this on purpose to torment me.”
Bane tilted his furry head, his amber gaze unwavering. My eyes flicked toward the corridor leading to my bedroom.
“I’m just having a look,” I said, dropping the rag into the water-filled bucket with a splash and moving around the counter. “This doesn’t mean I’m helping him. ”
The cat’s fluffy black tail twitched with condescending amusement.
Stepping inside my bedroom felt both like a relief and the acceptance of defeat.
“No, Father, please. I promise I will do better…” The desolation in Noctis’s voice brought me to his side in an instant. I reached out to touch his sweat-drenched hair, but stopped myself. Stars above! I may have lost my powers, but my cursed weakness for him remained.
Suppressing my turbulent emotions, I assessed Noctis’s state.
His previously pale face was now flushed.
A swift touch to his forehead confirmed he was burning with fever.
Despite his frail Human vessel, he fought with every ounce of strength to stay alive.
That was something he had always been skilled at—refusing to give up, battling against impossible odds even when all hope seemed lost.
I had wondered if destiny led him to my doorstep, his intrusion into the simple existence I had built for myself a last act of atonement.
For us both. Or perhaps it was a test. The thought of such cruelty made my jaw clench.
I once believed in the Allfather’s unwavering love for us, his children.
Now, I wasn’t so sure. If our Maker expected me to condemn Noctis’s soul and end his life, I would disappoint him once more.
I had refused to be the instrument of his judgment before, and I would not accept that role today.
Decision made, I rushed to the kitchen and opened the cabinet next to the hearth. Bandages, disinfectant salve, a sharp knife, towels. I gathered the supplies and set a pot of water on the stove, reigniting the fire to heat it.
After a moment’s hesitation, I opened another drawer, my fingers gliding over the smooth wooden surface.
A press of my thumb, and a hidden compartment sprang open, revealing an unobtrusive box.
Never had I been more grateful that my friend Tanez convinced me to take it with me when I went into exile.
Light glinted off my face as I opened it, my gaze drawn to the three small objects nestled inside.
Lyr -stones, their different colors denoting the type of magic they held. My fingers closed around the gem that shone in all shades of blue, from the darkest azure of the seas to the soft tone of cornflowers, with glimmers of white and red floating within.
A healing stone. Brimming with the pure, untempered power of one of the Aurea themselves.
Unlike the smaller lyrin -stones I used to illuminate my rooms, which had been imbued with a specific spell anyone could activate, a real lyr -stone required the ability to weave the raw strands of magic governing our existence.
My possession of a precious healing stone like this, along with two others, would invite unwanted scrutiny if word got out in the village.
That was why I always ensured no one caught a glimpse of them.
I carefully pocketed the blue gem and returned the box with the remaining stones to its hiding spot before gathering the items I needed.
I had hurried, but somehow Noctis looked even worse when I stepped back into my bedroom.
The chilling thought that I might have waited too long and now couldn’t save him struck me.
And wasn’t it typical that an almost unbearable agony pierced through me when, just this morning, I would have sworn a thousand unbreakable vows that seeing him again was the last thing I wanted?
Maker, I hated him.
I fiddled the lyr -stone out of my pocket and put it on his forehead, centering myself.
The touch of my mind awakened the gem, causing glowing threads of magic to flow from it, enveloping Noctis in a shimmering aura that mirrored the colors of the stone.
The well of my power lay scorched and barren, but I could still work with the power of others, had not forgotten how to weave the magic into a beautiful pattern to accomplish my goals.
In the early days of my exile, every use of the stones had left me desolate, a bitter reminder of all I had lost. The passing years had dulled the sting to a mere ache—perhaps a sign of how Human I had become.
Carefully, I tapped into the stone’s power, gauging the seriousness of Noctis’s wounds without weaving a healing spell just yet.
Despite their incredible usefulness, the lyr -stones had a single vulnerability: if used to fuel a spell that demanded more magic than they contained, they would burn out instead of regenerating after a time, their once vibrant colors fading to a lifeless black.
The stone, indeed, emitted a warning hum, its light dimming as my probing tendrils reached the wound.
As I had feared, the injury was deep and infected, the gem’s power insufficient to heal it.
I paused. During the final year of the war, I had found solace in Namtaz’s healing tents, aiding the Aurea of Water in caring for the wounded after I had been barred from the battlefield.
But I was no healer. It had been exhausting work, even when I was a goddess.
The soothing powers of Air and Water did not come easily to me.
A skilled healer lived in the nearby village, one I would have trusted with my life.
I did not fear that Kyree might recognize Noctis. Few mortals had seen any of the Aurea up close without the regalia of our station, and the Fallen One had hidden behind his impenetrable armor for most of the war.
But while there was no power left inside the former God of Darkness, no trace of his poisonous Chaos magic revealing itself to me, I could sense a distinctive difference, having treated Human patients in the past. Something indefinable pulsed in his blood, slumbering in his very bones like a mighty beast in winter sleep.
There was also a faint whisper of Light magic I couldn’t place.
But it was so weak that I pushed aside the question of its origin .
My friend Kyree was an Aerieth, one of Enlial’s winged children.
The war had taken more than his ability to fly; it had left him with a burning animosity toward anyone who had fought on the side of Chaos.
One of the few mortals blessed—or, as some said, cursed—with magic of his own, he possessed the remarkable talent of clear sight.
If I could detect Noctis’s non-Human nature with just a touch of magic, Kyree could too.
Any other option besides Kyree was hours away, though, and I doubted Noctis would entrust his life to a stranger. He hadn’t risked coming to me, injured and weakened, without reason.
I easily removed his drenched cloak, but the black tunic beneath clung to his skin, stiff with dried blood and mud. After several failed attempts to peel it off, I resorted to cutting it away. Despite my efforts to be gentle, any inadvertent jostling elicited renewed groans of pain from my patient.
Once I had bared his upper body, leaving his breeches for later, I grimaced at the next layer of grime. Using a generous amount of the hot water I had prepared, I cleaned him enough to examine the injury hidden beneath a dirty makeshift bandage.
The sight of the discolored flesh made me shudder. A tapestry of purple and blue bruises covered Noctis’s entire right side, bisected by a jagged, partially closed cut.
I suspected a knife had caused it, and it had been left untreated for several days. The area around the cut was swollen and hot to the touch, angry red lines spreading out from it—a clear sign that infection had already set in.
Curse it. I had to cleanse that wound, or the healing stone’s power would never work.
I selected a small, sharp knife from my supplies and rinsed it with hot water.
My gaze wandered to Noctis’s face. Shallow breathing and a blue tinge to his skin.
Not a good sign. This was going to hurt, so I placed the healing stone on his forehead once more.
As I whispered the Aurean word for slumber, “ Serr ,” my fingertips brushed the glowing gem, drawing forth the essence of Water and Air, the two aspects that governed the body and mind, weaving them into the intricate pattern of the spell that would lull him into a deeper sleep.
Until now, I had relied on instinct, focusing solely on the necessary tasks. But as I positioned the knife on Noctis’s skin, my hand trembled. A harsh breath escaped my lips as I sought the fortitude to proceed. By the Allfather, I had seen worse than this. I had done worse than this.
The blade sliced into his flesh.
I had no time to recoil at the sight of the pale yellow pus oozing from the wound as my patient suddenly jolted back to life, my enchantment shattered by the intense pain. A startled yelp escaped me as a hand swung toward my face, and I caught it just before it made contact.