Page 12 of The Night Is Defying (Nytefall Trilogy #2)

12

A straea

The years I’d spent keeping hidden at my old manor served me now to be able to elude the vampires crawling the castle ground and cross the courtyard to the library. I couldn’t enter through the main doors without Drystan—or I supposed Nyte would be able to open the ward, but he wasn’t in the castle.

After returning from Althenia, Nyte was still away and to occupy myself I thought to retrieve more books. I had no other choice but to make my way down the familiar hatch. My skin prickled through the damp, dark passages that gave off a chilling reflection of memory.

In the cave, I had to pause with the slam of the vision I’d last seen in this place. The dark blood of the vampires I’d killed restraining Nyte still coated the ground, but their bodies were gone. My swallow dragged painfully down my throat.

I planned to head straight up to the library, my first thought to begin finding out more about the celestials and the war. I was bursting with excitement to learn anything I could before I went back to Althenia.

It all dulled as I stared at the open shackles attached to the thick iron chains. I was overcome with the gravitational pull to them. At the point where the veil had separated us, my hand reached out as if it could have returned. My fingers passed through the air but not without a phantom break of energy that pulsed through my body.

I wasn’t sure why I felt compelled to reach down for one of the bindings. My brow pulled together at the heavy weight of just one of them. There was a space that led to somewhere dark and depthless. I shouldn’t venture further, but something in me wanted to know exactly what Nyte had lived through for a century. Each step tightened my chest. This kind of darkness felt lonely and burdensome.

My heart rate picked up with each echo of the steel chiming through the passage. I’d brought the shackle with me, only to know how far Nyte could reach when he was bound in them. I would only be in here a moment, but Nyte’s time would have felt like an eternity with no sure indication he would ever taste freedom again.

I couldn’t explain the tether within pulling me farther into the cave, like I knew I would discover something I needed. The tightening, ominous passage tingled my skin with a warning I should abandon this venture, but breath came easier when light broke ahead, and what opened before me…

My eyes couldn’t take it in fast enough.

The pool of turquoise water reflected throughout the cave like I stood in a kaleidoscope. Crystals littered the space, growing from the walls, the ground… it was unlike any place I could have imagined existing in this world I’d known mostly in monochrome. From humble homes in towns to the pristine of the black castle, the marvelous beauty of this hidden space was a treasure.

Crouching by the edge, as soon as my fingers dipped against the ethereal waters, I gasped at the pulse of energy shooting up over my arm. Before I could find a reason why undressing to dip in fully was a bad idea I was already out of my cloak and boots. The exhilaration at bathing fully was unexplainable.

The water had a current, slowly enveloping my body like tiny threads of magick wound around me. Glancing down at my arms, I marveled at the gentle glow of my silver markings. I was learning to bond with my magick. Listen to it, not cower from it.

As I fully submerged, a new determination balled at my core. I wanted to let it out. This thing that felt like a bottled scream that had been suppressed for so long was a part of me that feared what it could unleash.

Still holding the shackle, I thought there was a gap in the stone beneath the turquoise water. Could it be a way out? I clutched the stone edge, wanting so badly to let go and dive down toward it, but I didn’t know how to swim. I hadn’t before—unless by some chance I’d known how to in the past and it could unlock from my mind if I tried. I wasn’t so foolish as to attempt it alone when I could drown easily.

I thought of asking Nyte to bring me back, but I couldn’t make him revisit a prison he’d just escaped from.

A hauntingly beautiful echo of a song filled the small cave. I looked around but couldn’t find the owner of such a melodic voice. It conflicted me with a desire to feel peace and an urgency to get out of the water.

Until a sleek head of black hair emerged above the surface. She looked human, but from the dark movement under the water I knew she didn’t have legs. Though beautiful, there was something deadly enticing about her depthless black eyes.

“You must be his star,” she said, confirming that the voice that had sung belonged to her.

I felt a strangely entranced by her, content to let her float closer.

“They talk so much about you. The maiden. The savior. They talk of how delicious your blood must be even deep in our seas.”

That struck an alarm in me, but I didn’t want to move. I kind of wanted to sleep.

“Who are you?” I asked, my words heavy on my tongue.

“My name is Fedora,” she said, canting her head at me curiously. “Your Night owes me something.”

“My—my, uh,” I couldn’t get the words out as the song began to weave around us again, slowly lapping me with sleepy comfort.

I shook my head and the moment I had a clear thought I reached for my magick to combat the spell that was pulling me under. It snapped me awake with a gasp, clutching the shackle I held tighter.

Fedora giggled, swimming across the pool, and I watched her black tail chase after her in fascination. I had an uneasy feeling about this creature.

“You know him?” I asked.

“I visited him a few times over the decades. What a sad, lonely fate he fell to.”

I traced my fingers over his shackle with a tightening in my chest.

“I didn’t know he had company,” I said.

“He wasn’t very good at it,” she pouted, still drifting back and forth across the water. “Being company.”

“Yet you kept coming back.”

“I found his stories… fascinating,” she said, shooting over to me suddenly. “The night and his star. The star and her night. They sing songs about you. Such tragic poetry.”

“Are they all… tragic?”

That tilted her eyes to me, like she knew she had a toy to play with against me and she was a creature of games and tricks.

“It depends on your perception. Would it really be so bad to have night fall eternal?”

“Yes. It would throw the whole world out of balance.”

“It seems rather obvious what you have to do,” she sang, floating so close that our bare chests almost touched. “What is the one thing Nightsdeath can’t stand?”

“The light.”

Her smile revealed sharp, serrated teeth.

“You have to become so bright that not even Nightsdeath can defy it. That is the only way to kill him.”

“I can’t,” I breathed.

Fedora cupped my cheek and my heart raced in anticipation. I didn’t know what she was capable of or could do to me. She spoke in alluring songs and taunting riddles. She spoke of my blood and those teeth could tear my flesh to shreds.

“Meet Death not with your life but another’s this time,” she whispered, inching her lips closer to mine. “Only one villain can win, Lightsdeath.”

She kissed me, and I was so stunned by it I could do nothing but allow it. Fedora pulled back with a sweet smile, running a hand down my hair.

“Lightsdeath?”

The name trembled through me with something so dark and foreboding.

She nodded, lost in thought. “Silver only suits your hair, don’t you think?”

My head was beginning to throb, trying to solve something I had no whole pieces for. Her words only served to torment me about my dire fate with Nyte.

I couldn’t kill him. Even if I found a way. Everything in me was tearing apart at the thought and if that’s what it took, then I was no savior. Perhaps that was Fedora’s warning.

Only one villain can win.

“He knows I’m not a very patient person,” she said, but I could hardly process anything else. “I’m hoping this will remind him I’m still waiting.”

“What are you—?”

My scream turned to a gurgle when she dove under the water in a mere blink, gripping my leg and yanking me down with her too fast for me to react. I flailed against the strong resistance, trying to blink through the blur and sting of my eyes. Water filled my mouth, and I lost precious air with a silent yelp, scrambling to keep my tight clutch on the shackle that was all that kept Fedora from pulling me under any further.

Pain lanced up my leg with the sensation of sharp talons tearing through my flesh. My screams bubbled in the water and my struggle was futile.

I was going to die here.

No—that couldn’t happen. Not when I hadn’t had the chance to live yet.

Determination to have that life awakened something inside me, and perhaps whatever magickal essence that touched this pool aided me in my fight. The warmth around my body became hot. I blinked the sting away and started to focus my sight under water too. It was like I was looking through lenses of bright light that flared at the edges. My tattoos glowed, and as I looked down I suddenly wished I couldn’t see at all when I found the beautifully vicious creature staring back at me. All pointed, snapping teeth and claws, her face shedding any mask of kindness.

The hold on me began to slacken; maybe she would let me go before I drowned, but I attacked, shooting a bright gale toward her from my palm. When I was free I didn’t wait to find out if it had killed her. Fire was spreading rapidly in my chest and up my throat.

No more air.

No more time.

The surface seemed too far away. Too impossibly far and I wouldn’t break it in time.

I stopped swimming up and gave into an instinct that told me to slip my eyes closed. Trust. Don’t panic. Unleash. My arms were moving as I focused my mind to feel the magic that could save me. A current formed around me, and before I could comprehend anything, air rushed down my throat but I breathed steadily. The power that consumed me soothed the threatening hysteria. All was so beautiful and light and I was floating in it.

Then falling.

And falling.

But the impact was gentle to my knees and my hands caught my balance against the stone when gravity weighed on me again.

I came around slowly, trying to grapple the thread of reality. Pain returned to my senses; a hot line of fire shot up my leg and I found three deep gashes the length of my calf. I winced as I stood, limping to my clothing. The euphoria of the magick dulled, returning my senses with a punishing force. I needed help.

Dressing quickly, I whimpered at the material of my dress rubbing the wound that was bleeding too much. Was Nyte too far away to feel me? I had to make it out myself.

My vision swayed me through the passage and climbing the ladder seemed like an impossible feat with the drowsiness pulling me under.

Keep going.

It wasn’t my own voice that came to me. Like before, I whimpered that it was Cassia’s that became my strength in dire moments.

“I don’t know if I can,” I panted, but I reached for the ladder.

Don’t give up now, you’re just getting started.

I gritted my teeth, getting to the top, pushing the hatch, and tumbling out of it.

On my hands and knees, I didn’t want to get up. I couldn’t. Darkness was claiming me. Not the kind I craved but the kind I feared more than anything when it would leave me unaware and vulnerable.

“We can’t,” a voice hissed.

Terror shot through me.

“Just a little, no one has to know,” another argued back.

Oh stars. I was about to become a vampire’s meal and that had me pitifully crawling a few paces across the stones as if it would achieve anything.

You need to survive.

A glow broke past my cuffs, and I breathed in the slow waves of calm, not sure how I was doing it. But it dulled the pain enough to allow me to straighten and cleared my dizziness enough to stand.

I turned but barely caught full sight of the vampire before hands caught me by my upper arms.

“You don’t want to do this,” I rasped, rallying bravery to push back the fear overtaking me, locking on feral red eyes within the vampire’s hold. His taloned, membranous wings towered high.

It was like he couldn’t hear me, and there would be no reasoning with him when he could scent my blood. Another shadow closed in from his right, then his left. The one who held me bared his teeth, preparing to lunge for my throat—

Smoke wrapped his neck—no… it sliced through it. My hand covered my mouth at the gruesome sight of his body falling as his head rolled away from his shoulders.

I didn’t get the chance to react when choking and high pitched cries struck the night. I could hardly keep track of the form that blinked through starry shadow. Snapping the neck of another. Then tearing the wings from the final nightcrawler only to draw out his agony before his body slumped to the ground without his heart.

When the air fell silent, my pulse drummed in my ears.

Nyte stood with his back to me, shoulders rising and falling steadily like he was collecting himself. A golden glow broke the cuffs of his jacket, but my attention caught on his blackened fingertips dripping with blood that began to turn to smoke as he flexed them several times.

“Nyte,” I said, testing his name with caution.

I took a step to him—

“Stop,” he ordered. His voice was a low baritone I’d heard before.

He battled with Nightsdeath.

“I’m not afraid of you.”

I stepped again but a gasp caught in my throat when it caused Nyte to move so fast I couldn’t react. Pressed to the wall, I watched the sun diffuse from his irises. His hand wrapped around my neck but not with any pressure as his arm shook with restraint.

“You’re too bright right now,” he said with a controlled calm. “And I’m still too volatile to being able to control this.”

It had only been a few short weeks since he’d been free, but he was trying. Black veins crawled his neck and the tips of his ears matched his fingers. Shadows circled around him like snakes priming for their moment of command.

I nodded and Nyte let me go. Slipping out from the cage of his body, he remained facing the wall, hands braced against it, trying to reel himself back.

“Go back to the castle.”

I stood still against his order. I couldn’t leave him like this.

“ Leave! ”

Wincing at the demand, I stayed defiant.

“I can’t.”

His bowed head shook. “Please.”

I couldn’t resist the pull toward him no matter how lethal he was.

“I can’t.” I placed my head tentatively against his back, which turned taut against my touch. “The brightest star needs the darkest night, remember?”

Heart speeding in my chest, I slipped my arms around him until my front pressed to his back. I gave a violent shiver, so instantly greedy for his warmth that I clutched him dangerously tighter, now treasuring his heartbeat under my palm as my cheek lay on his spine.

His pulse was just as desperate as mine, speeding to the ache and fear.

My drowsiness returned but I tried to hold on. My eyes slipped shut, so content against him that I thought I might fall asleep right here.

Nyte’s hand slipped over mine on his chest. It caused him to straighten immediately, turning, and my protest faltered when his arm around my waist became the only thing that stopped my buckled knees from collapsing me.

“Shit, you’re freezing. And why is your hair wet?”

“I—uh—was—” What did he ask?

I was falling without the consciousness to catch myself. I didn’t need to when his glorious heat enveloped me again and I nestled into it as best I could in Nyte’s arms.

“Oh, Starlight,” Nyte sighed. “I might not be able to truly die but you’re certainly making sure I never forget what it feels like.”