Page 7 of Stars Above the Never Sea (The Last Faeyte #1)

In the mirror, my eyes lower. The copper dagger he keeps in a holster at his side swings lightly, and my hands flex against the table. He pulls back, some form of self-preservation sinking in as he smiles broadly. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “Don’t be long. You know how Johan dislikes waiting.”

I do.

My eyes don’t move from that dagger. “I won’t be long.”

One way or another, I’m leaving this place.

I don’t much care how anymore.

Boralas doesn’t leave, though. He steps closer, invading my space and forcing me to press myself against the rough edges of the dressing table I share with Tieren. My fingers grip the wood, and splinters slide into my fingers as they tighten. “Please step back.”

“Perhaps I’ve given you a little too much freedom, Selene.” His breath, sweet from the pears he likes to snack on, is damp on my skin. Fingers skate up my bare side, slide around to my neck. “Look at me.”

Slowly, my eyes rise in the mirror. Boralas tilts his head. His fingers flex, closing around my throat until my breathing stutters and his hissed words drip into my ear. “Who do you belong to?”

“You.” The toneless word falls from my lips.

My blink is slow. Almost languid, as his lips press to my shoulder. “That’s right. And we make a strong partnership, Selene. You and I. Where would you be, if I hadn’t taken you in?”

Another blink. “In another room like this one, most likely.”

That, or dead. I’ve wondered before if perhaps I am already, and this room—this place—is just a version of Ellas that none of us ever considered. A cursed landscape to spend eternity.

I shove those thoughts down, feeling the sting of disloyalty to Hala in my chest at the sacrilegious thoughts.

Ellas is waiting. If I could only get Boralas to agree to my freedom; it might even be sooner rather than later.

My eyes flicker to the mirror’s reflection of the open window once more. My voice is a whisper, but I know he hears me. “The price was fair.”

His grip grows tighter, until my left hand raises to wrap around his touch in a silent plea. And Boralas—his voice is so cold. Colder than the water I just left. Colder than the copper around my ankle. “I don’t expect my possessions to argue back.”

My words drag from my throat, rasping and broken. “I’m not a possession.”

“You are whatever I make you.” His hand slides around, pushing down on the back of my neck, above the juncture where my wings begin.

I can feel him rummaging at his waist, tugging at the short weapon he keeps there.

A short, knotted dark leather rope, nine smaller strands flowing from the handle and tipped with copper beads.

“And if I have to remind you, then I will.”

My body grows hot with flashes of remembered pain.

It’s been a long time since he fell back on physical punishment.

I push back against his hold, my hands slipping free of their grip against the wood as he forces my face down.

Bottles of the heavy make-up Tieren uses for her show tip over, one tall glass bottle smashing and sending a heavy waft of oranges into the air around me, the oil burning my nose as he pushes my face into it.

My hands scramble, finding his leg and trying to push him back—but I can’t get a grip on him, the leather he wears molded too tightly to his legs. The words rasp from my throat. “Johan won’t be happy if I’m bleeding.”

“Johan will enjoy it all the more. If I ask him to, he’ll gladly add to your punishment.”

Truth.

My desperate fingers find something solid.

Intricate woven threads are rough beneath my touch—navy and gold silk.

I can’t see it, but it’s as clear in my mind’s eye as if it were right in front of me.

A sight I’ve seen so many times over the years that it’s embedded somewhere, deep in whatever soul I have left.

The hilt of his dagger. Boralas carries it everywhere, although I’ve never seen it used.

It’s heavy as I tug it free, my fingers protected from the copper by the silken handle.

Boralas pushes into me more, pressing me down against the table, and my eyes close as I grip the weapon in my hand as tightly as I can.

My stomach roils. “Boralas. Please .”

He pauses for a moment, as if to listen to my pleas. He enjoys them, I think. Further proof of his power under this roof.

I tried.

I take a breath, inhaling the bitter scent of oranges. “You should have taken the money.”

No more.

The navy-blue silk he wears offers no resistance as the knife slams into his side.

Not a single day more will I give him. Any of them.

I thought it would be harder, somehow. Although everything I’ve seen tells me that it’s not very hard at all for people to inflict pain. But his body is like butter beneath the blade.

In the end, it’s surprisingly easy.

I am nothing if not a product of my environment.

A grunt. His breathing turns heavy, choking. “What—”

Again.

Blindly, I twist my arm back and forth, hitting him wherever I can reach. His weight grows heavier, our harsh breathing mingling in the heated air, and when I push back again, I meet no resistance.

Boralas slumps, his knees hitting the floor with an audible thud as I push him back. His lips move as I twist around and stare at him, clutching the dagger in front of me. Thick, scarlet liquid sticks to the blade, drops scattering over the floor as my fingers tremble. “You were right.”

Glazed eyes meet mine as I suck in a shuddering breath. But I don’t look away. Instead, I lean forward, making sure he can see my face.

Making sure it’s the last thing he sees.

And my voice, when it comes, is ice and rage and death . “I am exactly what you made me.”

The knife falls from my hands, clattering against the wood floor as I stagger back. The wood of the dressing table beneath my hands feels different from a moment ago. Less harsh, at least in comparison to the carnage in front of me. The rasping coming from Boralas slows, his hands twitching.

And then there is nothing.

The glint in his eyes fades to a dull hue, a candle blown out at the end of a night.

The sound of his head hitting the floor pulls me out of my dazed reverie. My face jerks away from Boralas, to the open doorway and the sound of voices beyond. The chain at my ankle announces my movements as I dart across the room and push it closed with shaking fingers.

I press my back against it, trying to think.

Trying not to stare at the body on the floor in front of me.

He’s dead.

And if I am not already dead, I will be after tonight. The Masters of the Guilds, the twelve councils that form the ruling coalition of Terrosa’s city territories, do not look kindly on murder within their walls.

Johan, as leader of this territory on the coast of Terrosa, will not grant me any mercy. If anything, his punishment will be all the harsher. Masters are not above being removed from their position if their activities bring the Guilds into disrepute.

It will be a noose at noonday in the square opposite the market. A baying crowd, and a hot sun, and no sign of the stars at all. A rope around my neck, hot copper around my hands and feet, and a short drop to a long afterlife in Ellas.

It’s not the first time I’ve considered what it might be like. Once, I thought that would be better.

But I have a promise to keep.

My eyes dart down to Boralas – and then back, toward the window. Toward that dark ship in the harbor. From my position against the door, I can just see the end of it. Out of reach for me.

Unless—

I jerk into movement, feet eating up the space between us as I drop. My knees land in the scarlet pool that spreads from beneath his body, and I force the memories away as I rummage through, rifling through the endless layers of silk that Boralas wears as a long coat.

He keeps them with him, always.

But what if—

No—

I refuse to entertain that option. They’re here. They have to be here.

My heart leaps in my chest as something presses into my palm: the smooth, worn metal of a key.

When I yank it free, the rest follow—dozens of them, all kept on one metal ring that Boralas hoards like a draegon with his gold, a creature from one of the wild fantasy tales the Travelers tell as they pass through each territory, eking out a living and receiving wide eyes and tossed coins in return.

My lips press together as I flick through, searching for a match.

I have no desire to attempt an escape with a chain attached to me.

My looks alone are enough to draw attention, and my wings will be near impossible to hide.

I need the thin, matching key to my cuff, the one that will let me rip it from my skin and toss it aside.

I haven’t been free of the cuff for ten years. No matter what small freedoms I’ve managed to coax from Boralas, in turn for good behavior—and bad, when he wanted that from me—he has never, not once, removed it.

Perhaps it’s embedded in my skin. Part of me, now. Copper scars. Burns. Although I haven’t felt the pain of them in years, which gives some indication of what I’ll find if I can manage to get it off.

I need that key if I’m going to survive. My already slim odds will dip to zero if the full effect of my maegis stays trapped behind walls of copper, dampening, pressing down on me. Holding me back.

If I can even work out how to use it.

If I even have it at all, since I never Ascended to Hala’s temple. Never completed the sacred prayers at the Sanctum.

Perhaps I will not be gifted. I won’t have a Calling, a specialty. I won’t be a Healer like Calista, or a Weaver like Nyx.

But maybe… I am still a faeyte. And all faeytes have certain gifts.

My teeth draw blood from my lip where I bite down heavily as I flick through once, then twice. “Come on , you gods-damned bastard.”

But with every frenzied second, the small flicker of hope inside my chest begins to drain away, as if it were never there.

There is no copper key.

And as those seconds pass, my cuff feels as though it grows tighter, and the noose gets closer.