Page 42 of Darkness Births the Stars #1

I had forgotten. While I could see through her every pretense, could see the real her behind all the masks she had worn over the ages, she could do the same to me, penetrating all my defenses before I even knew I was under attack. Only this time, she did not use the knowledge to hurt me.

She was beside me, her hand cupping my cheek. How could her touch feel so tender yet still burn like fire on my skin?

“None of them were you.”

Rada’s voice was so hoarse I could barely make out the words. She swayed toward me, eyes fluttering shut, and for a glorious moment, I hoped…

Then her eyes opened again, and the stark anguish within them made my heart clench in answer.

“I can’t,” she whispered. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.” An endless litany, as if she had to convince herself. Her familiar inability to let go of everything holding her back —holding us back—awakened an equally familiar frustration inside me.

“You can’t? Or you won’t? There’s no one here but us. This might be our chance to finally make things right between us.” My voice grew louder with my rising agitation as I reached for her arm. “I promise this time will be different, and—”

“Like all the other times before?” Rada’s cheeks were flushed as she stepped away, her hand falling from my face, her body rigid once more.

“Every time I think it’s over, every time I think I’m free of you, you come back.

Even from the bloody dead, it seems. Saying and doing the things you know will affect me most.” She threw a narrow-eyed look over her shoulder.

“I think it’s you trying to manipulate me, not the other way around. ”

That was the thing with this eternal game we’d been playing for so long: it had become hard to know which were her moves on this battlefield between us, and which mine.

“Baradaz—”

But she was too agitated to let me speak. “Why have you come here? Because you hope to rope me into another of your evil schemes?” Her bitter laugh echoed through the room. “A powerless goddess won’t be much help to you.”

“I came here because I was wounded and needed help. Vultaron trying to kill me should be proof enough I’m not allied with the Chiasma.”

“So, you expect me to believe you have nothing to do with your old servants suddenly stirring up trouble? That the forces of Chaos coming to life everywhere does not fill you with glee? No. I know you. Even if you haven’t orchestrated this somehow, you’re thinking about how to use it right this moment. ”

Curse her endless suspicion.

She is not wrong, something inside me whispered. You were tired of being powerless. So, so tired. You felt Chaos reawakening and part of you rejoiced at it. You were searching for the Crown.

“That’s hardly my fault!” I snapped at her, trying to suppress the faint stirring of guilt inside me.

“I always warned you and Aramaz that caging Chaos would only make things worse. It always finds its way.” A mirthless smile lifted my lips.

“Realizing now that me being the Adept of Chaos wasn’t so bad after all, aren’t you?

At least I knew how to keep its more destructive powers at bay. ”

“So, you admit you’re planning something? That you want to use the power of Chaos again?”

Had she even listened to a word I said?

“Well, someone has to.” I scoffed. “And I doubt my brother will come up with a plan to solve this mess.”

She stared at me with a look close to horror. “Maker! I was right. You haven’t changed at all. And I, fool that I am, saved your life.”

Her voice was so full of self-righteousness that it lashed through the space between us like a physical attack. It wasn’t what got to me, what pierced through the dark cloud of my own scorn. It was the hurt in her eyes. The disappointment. She had no right to it, not after what she had done.

“Could you cease the tiring pretense that you are the innocent one of the two of us?” I growled, moving closer in my anger. “We both know that’s not true. It was you who lied to me for ages. You who used my weakness for you to control me. You who betrayed me again and again.”

I saw how my words affected her, how she flinched at every single accusation. But I couldn’t stop. All the pain and disappointment that had been building for tendays—no, for endless years—spilled out in one relentless flood.

“You who let them condemn me to death. While you did nothing.”

One tear escaped her then, a glittering tribute to all the bitterness between us. It trailed down her cheek, clinging to her soft skin. Tempting me to gently wipe it off.

“What happened to no judgment between us?” she whispered.

I had witnessed enough despair, enough tears over the ages to fill entire oceans.

Mothers pleading for their children’s lives, children hoping to save their parents, lovers begging me to spare those closest to their hearts.

I had ignored them all without mercy, shutting out the wails of the damned in service of what I judged my own glorious purpose.

But her anguish moved me. It always had.

“ Saeraery …”

My use of the Aurean endearment made her flinch back from my outstretched hand, her eyes wild.

“No! Don’t you dare!” Rada whirled around and hastened toward her bedroom. “I am going to bed.”

Fleeing. And it frustrated me so much, I could not deny myself one last provocation .

I cleared my throat, stopping her as she reached for the door handle. “That’s my room at the moment.”

I had faced the terrible wrath of gods and monsters on the battlefield, had braced the punishing disappointment of the Allfather himself.

None of them had glared at me in such fury as Rada did at that moment, her eyes spewing fire even without her powers.

It was a miracle I wasn’t incinerated to ashes by the sheer force of her ire.

“Kritak!” She crossed the room in a few quick strides and stormed outside with a curse. The front door slammed shut behind her with a bang that rattled the windows.

I took a deep breath and glanced at Bane, who was still perched on the kitchen counter. “Not following your mistress?” The black tomcat tilted his head, eyeing the butter churner, his little pink tongue darting out. “Traitorous little beast.”

After putting the finished butter in a clay jar, I fetched a small bowl and filled it with some of the remaining cream. I had barely set it down before the cat was bent over it, purring as he devoured the bluish delicacy.

“Always looking out for your advantage,” I said with a chuckle.

This time, when I scratched his small black head, I did not get swiped at. If only it were as easy to bribe myself back into Rada’s good graces.

“I’ll tell you a secret, little menace.” I stared at the door she had vanished through. “Countless ages could pass, and I would never forget her.”

Rada wasn’t entirely wrong. Part of me had been analyzing and cataloging every single one of her reactions since I came here. A part of me that couldn’t help but devise a desperate plan, with one simple goal.

“Whatever it takes, I will prove to her that I have changed. That I will do better this time. That I can be better with her by my side. And then I will make her mine again.”

I hoped it was only my imagination, but there seemed to be something very close to pity in Bane’s amber eyes as he licked my hand, begging for more cream.