Page 23 of The Night Is Defying (Nytefall Trilogy #2)

23

A straea

We traveled for two days without much conversation. At least, Rose, Zath, and Calix might have exchanged words but I was too lost with thoughts storming my mind to contribute.

I didn’t know how many hours had passed since we set off today after a short camp in a freezing, damp cave. Twigs snapped under my boots and I stumbled occasionally over rocks but my tunneling focus barely registered any of it. My pace had been a punishing walk since then, driven by terror that the hall of vampires I’d mocked would be chasing. Or worse, that Nyte had humored me, watching in sadistic entertainment as I thought I’d bested him when really the blood bond hadn’t worked. The thought of him chasing us exhausted me with spikes of fear and excitement.

“I’ve left you to march in your silence long enough. Please tell me we have a purposeful direction.” Rose’s tone was careful, and I wondered what I’d said since leaving or what my expression displayed that had brought on the unusually tentative approach from her.

“We’re heading toward Alisus,” Zath informed her.

From the chime following us, I spared a look back to Calix who trailed behind, eyes fixed on the ground with his wrists still bound in front. I didn’t want to feel the sympathy worming its way through my resentment toward him, but there it was. I tore my sight from him and tried to forget his presence for now.

“Astraea.” The firmness of my name accompanied by the shake of my shoulders snapped me back to the woodland surrounding us.

I met Rose’s concerned hazel eyes.

“Sorry,” I breathed, scrambling to pull myself together. “Nyte couldn’t be known to let me go willingly or the vampires wouldn’t trust him anymore.”

“You didn’t tell him of your plan?” Zath asked.

“No. I had to do this for me.”

“It was amazing what you did. I’ll admit I had my doubts for a while, but damn did you shock us all. Brilliant, really,” Rose said.

A nervous laugh escaped me. I couldn’t believe I’d done it and glee burst over me. Starting to come around to myself, I reached down to the sodden hem of my gown. I tore the material right up to my corset bust, creating a second tear up the other side before the front part came away completely. It exposed my leather pants, and I slipped my stormstone dagger into the sheath at my thigh.

Rose was already more dressed for the travel than I. She glanced over at me with approval.

“If we’re not opposed to a little theft, I’m certain I can get you better wears,” she said.

I shrugged. “I’m fine. I knew I would have the few weeks’ travel back to Alisus.”

My boots kept my feet warm from the snow and my cloak was thick enough, at least. Rose nodded, then we carried on our trek.

“We need to get out of the woods before nightfall,” Zath said.

By the time the sun vanished and the stars awoke, we’d found a quiet inn, making sure there was no sign of vampires before paying for lodgings. Rose watched me rummaging in my pockets.

To her concern, I said, “Of all the things Nyte would want revenge for, I doubt it will be a few stolen trinkets.”

I handed over a sparkling red necklace and the innkeeper beamed though I couldn’t be sure of its worth.

“Hell no,” Zath said, snatching back the necklace.

The innkeeper yelped, reaching after it.

I frowned at Zath, puzzled.

Rose gawked at his hand as she explained, “That is made with rubies which could buy a place twice the size of this establishment.” Then she began sifting through the other items I’d brought.

“How do you know that?” I asked; my cheeks warmed by how little I knew.

Rose flashed a wary look to Zath that I found odd. “It’s not that uncommon to know the value of certain well-known jewels.”

She fished out a small bracelet with white and purple crystals. Rose handed it over and I smothered my protest. I liked that one.

The innkeeper scowled at the exchange but was only met with Rose’s sharp stare.

They slapped two keys to the table and grumbled, “Only two rooms. One with two beds; one with a double.”

We exchanged looks to decide who would be sharing. My sight lingered on Calix and I thought about how leaving him with either of them would only beat him down more. Both of them hated him for what he’d done.

“I should share with Calix,” I said, hoping Rose and Zath wouldn’t mind sharing.

They passed a look, but it was quick and if I didn’t know any better I would have questioned their unease.

“We should eat,” Rose said, breaking the tension.

My stomach gave audible agreement as we headed into the main room.

“Can I, uh, have these off?” Calix asked; lifting his arms and slipping his sleeves past his shackles. I winced at the red abrasions.

“Shit,” Zath muttered. “Did anyone get the key?”

I blanched at the oversight. Calix’s eyes closed for a long second of hopeless irritation.

“Tough luck,” Zath said, clapping a hand to Calix’s shoulder with a smug smile. Calix met the amusement on Zath’s face with daggers.

“Allow me,” a new voice crept up, one I found naggingly familiar before we all turned.

Nadia’s flaming red hair was a surprise to see. Then my pulse skipped a beat thinking my bargain hadn’t worked when I’d ordered Nyte not to let any of his vampires follow me.

“How did you follow us?” I asked with trepidation. There couldn’t be another reason for her being here other than by Nyte’s order. She had become part of his… truthfully, I didn’t know what Nyte regarded his close circle as when he would reject the term friend.

Nadia shrugged. “It was easy; you’re not the most skilled at covering your tracks.”

She approached Calix, and he retreated an inch as she reached for his hands, snapping the chain between the manacles easily. We watched in surprise as she broke the lock on one wrist, then the other, the metal clanging to the wooden floor.

Calix rubbed his wrists gingerly. “Thanks,” he muttered.

“Did Nyte send you?” I asked.

“He won’t even notice I’m gone. Or he’ll be glad I am.”

“Why were you with him at all?” Rose asked.

“I’m starved, aren’t you? What were you saying about food?” She shimmied past us and into the main room.

The rest of us traded uncertain looks, not sure what to do about the transitioned vampire that had followed us.

“We can’t trust her,” Zath said. Rose agreed with him.

“We don’t know what she wants yet,” I said. “Let’s just eat.”

We sat at a wooden bench soaked with ale and wine. My nose crinkled at the sour scent of alcohol and bodies that warmed the air. I was eager to retire for the night.

Our stew arrived and we ate. Rose, Zath, and Calix must have been thinking the same as me as we apprehensively watched Nadia eating just like us, lost in her bread and stew.

“I thought you drink blood?” Zath was the one to voice what all of us were wondering.

“I do,” Nadia said with a frown. “Are you offering dessert?”

Zath stiffened against a shudder to that.

“But you can survive on human food still?” Rose inquired.

“It’s like a bland meal now, I guess,” she said, chewing on a bite of bread. “It fills a hole, but I couldn’t survive without blood.”

“Human blood,” Zath said.

“Actually, the transitioned can survive on any blood.”

“Even another vampire?” he asked.

Nadia nodded. “Except another transitioned. Their blood is just foul.”

“How long has it been since you…” Calix trailed off, shifting nervously in his seat.

Nadia propped her chin in clasped hands, giving him a sweet smile.

“Drank?” she supplied. “I would never pass up an offering. You might enjoy it, you know? It can be pleasurable. Though I will admit there’s something sweetly addictive about fear.”

Now it was my turn to shudder. Nadia was a dangerous creature when she had an effortless beauty and allurement to her.

“You want to kill Drystan,” I said. Her attention drew to me. “What does following me have to do with that goal?”

“I might have chosen the wrong alliance at first. I thought being one of them, telling them what I know, would get the golden guard to help me convince Nightsdeath to put down his brother. But they are foolishly loyal to him, and the notorious villain of the land is nothing but a weak and selfish coward.”

That flared a defense in me, tightening my grip around my spoon. Nadia seemed to notice my reaction with bored disappointment.

“I really hope you have a mind of your own to see what needs to be done,” she said.

“And what’s that?” Rose asked.

“We can’t allow Drystan to have an entire vampire army at his disposal,” she snapped. “You have no idea what we’re capable of.”

Nadia stood, grabbing the next man in her path. She pushed him down onto the bench and straddled his lap. We all tensed at the sudden boldness as she grabbed his face. He was young and handsome, staring at her with stunned adoration as she smiled.

I grew uncomfortable witnessing the affection around our meal as she leaned in close to whisper in his ear. Then before I could take another blink, her sharp fangs sank into his neck.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Zath hissed, pushing up from across the table.

I was shocked still, not knowing if I should stop her. Would she kill him?

The man tensed at the first sting of her bite and my neck tingled, my body flushed, recalling how it felt to be drank from. By Nyte, it was sinfully pleasurable.

He relaxed and I imagined the pleasure taking over. He gripped her hips, needy for her.

It only lasted a minute before Nadia released his neck and her tongue lapped over the wound. She kept his face in her hands as she spoke.

“You don’t remember that bite,” she said seductively.

“I don’t remember,” he repeated, completely under her spell, and I blanched witnessing the compulsion.

The flush of his neck faded quickly along with the two neat puncture wounds. The speed of healing for a human was impossible.

“You kissed a pretty girl, and that’s all.”

“Yes,” he said cupping her cheek. He’d become enamored with her in minutes.

“Good boy,” she purred, slipping off his lap. Nadia picked up a knife from the table, pressing it into his palm. “Now go stab this through the hand of the man with the white scarf over there.”

“Stop,” I said as her victim stood without a second thought.

She didn’t listen and we watched in horror as he walked over to the person she’d indicated, knife clutched tightly with purpose.

“You’ve proved your point,” Zath hissed.

“I don’t think I have,” Nadia sang.

I couldn’t watch this; pushing up from the bench, I wouldn’t make it in time to stop him, but Zath could. He lunged, grabbing the young man who struggled against him and commotion ensued.

“He won’t give up until he achieves the task,” Nadia said, reaching for her wine.

I knocked it from her hand in a flash of anger. “Then fix it.”

She met my defiance, and I thought for a second she would fight me. But she huffed in irritation before swaggering over to the fight that had erupted with Zath pinning the young man down and the near victim shouting curses of accusation.

Nadia crouched, gripping the young man’s jaw. Once she attracted his stare she spoke. He stopped fighting.

My next breath released all the tension in me. Witnessing the power of compulsion Nadia had was chilling.

“Now can you imagine the power he holds?” Nadia said as she returned, her tone switching so dark and cold I shivered at the whiplash. “If Drystan were here, he could command me to do whatever he wanted and I have the ability to compel the mind of anyone to keep them silent.”

“There has to be another way to break the bond to him,” I said. My mind was reeling. We couldn’t kill Drystan; I needed him on our side and hadn’t given up hope of that. “Has he forced you against your will before?”

“No,” she said, folding back into the bench as if nothing happened. “But I can’t live with that possibility. I won’t be anyone’s puppet after I had my whole life ripped away from me.”

I sympathized with her on that, sitting back down with her as Zath returned, disgruntled and pinning Nadia with a hateful stare.

“How do you know it is his blood that has been used for the transitions?” I asked.

“Because I saw it.”

“Did he harm you?”

“No, he was actually… kind. Not in the sense that he checked in all the time and made sure we were comfortable, but he made sure our treatment wasn’t as cruel as we expected, given the way we were torn from our homes by soulless.”

“Do you have family?” Rose asked.

“Not anymore.”

None of us pressed her to expand upon that somber statement.

“He doesn’t deserve to die for being the blood that changed you when it could have been someone far worse,” I said.

“If you won’t help me then I’ll tell more transitioned vampires. Someone will get the job done.”

“Then why haven’t you?” Rose challenged.

“Like I said, he wasn’t as cruel as he could have been and I didn’t want him to die by some rogue. I came to Nyte thinking he was planning for it anyway, but he’s lying to himself.”

“So you’re not completely twisted and heartless,” Zath grumbled.

“Not completely,” she repeated with a deceptive smile.

I was rattled by the lingering ultimatum that if Nyte didn’t kill his brother, she would. “Don’t do anything yet. Just let me figure something out,” I said.

Stars, if she killed Drystan… Nyte might try to guard himself against exposing how he still cared for his brother, but I could see that he did. I didn’t want to imagine what it would do to him if Drystan was killed.

After dinner, we headed up to our rooms but Nadia said she would find elsewhere to rest.

Down the narrow halls of the inn, I was taken aback by my surroundings. Tight brown walls, the clamor of the night downstairs, and the lingering scent of alcohol. I didn’t realize my vision had turned blurry boring into the sad chipped wall until Rose called my name.

“What’s wrong?” Zath asked.

Seeing my expression, both of them scanned me head to toe as if I could have sustained an injury in the few seconds they’d glanced away from me.

“The last time I was—” my throat tightened. “We were with Cassia when she died. The place was similar.”

Would all such well worn and bustling establishments slam me with the flashback of that night, or was it possible some were different in their atmosphere?

“Shit. Sorry, if you’d told me the value you were carrying we could have chosen somewhere better,” Rose said.

Calix gave a hollow laugh. “She would have hated that.”

My chest constricted. He was right. Cassia didn’t like fancy things and places. Not when she spent her days suffocated by them, as she’d told me many times. I smiled at the memory; this is exactly the place she would have chosen for a night of cheap alcohol and common people games. It was just the type of run-down establishment we would so often sneak into back in Alisus town.

I shook my head. “This is perfect.”

We said goodnight to Zath and Rose before parting to find our room.

Twin beds were made with a few feet of space between them. The roof slanted and as the midnight sky grew darker, the snowfall came heavier against the single window that could be seen from the bed. A desk occupied one side of the room next to a small dresser.

Calix started a fire while I took off my boots and cloak, laying them in front of it to dry off. Then I sat by the flames, finding peace watching the tango of flame. He joined me, but neither of us spoke for a peaceful while, lost in our own thoughts.

Mine drifted to Nyte—wondering what he would be doing and if he was angry with me. Then my mind sped with what to do about Drystan and the target he had on him from the rogue vampire. The whole army he’d created that could want him dead too if they knew the power he held over them.

“We’re going back to the keep, aren’t we?” Calix asked distantly.

“I should see Reihan, pay my respects,” I said. The mood between us was suffused with sorrow and heartache.

We’d been here before. After the influence of wrath left me in the maze and we’d stood staring at each other with so much pain we didn’t know how to release or comfort each other.

“He wanted me to come after you too,” Calix admitted quietly. “When I returned with Cassia, we kept it quiet when it was already announced she’d made it to the central. I knew it was you, and I couldn’t believe you’d gone there in her place. At first I resented you for impersonating her, but then I realized… you had to be one of the bravest people I knew to even try it. When you weren’t trained for it, you stepped in to give our kingdom a fighting chance and I understood. I felt the pride I knew Cassia would have.”

My lip quivered but I swallowed my grief.

Calix said, “Reihan was distraught. I’d never seen him like that before. But he told me we had to get you back; he was still very passionate that you had to succeed and return to him.”

The ache behind my ribs grew and my breaths were shallow with the pain. I couldn’t fathom a father’s loss of a child. Nor Calix’s of his love. I’d lost my best friend, and ever since my world still often felt empty.

As I leaned my chin on my knees tucked tight to my chest, I began reflecting on a past that felt like a lifetime ago. Who I was before I entered that game was a woman I mourned for now, someone I didn’t ever want to be again but who I was grateful to, thankful for her resilience in enduring what she did for me and finding the strength I have now.

“Goldfell said he had a standing agreement with Reihan, do you remember?” I asked. I didn’t know why my mind found that piece of information among the chaos of that day.

Calix’s brow pulled together as he tried to recall.

“He was a high member of society and very rich. Probably did some kind of trading with the reigning lord,” Calix concluded.

It seemed very plausible, only I was curious to know what it was Goldfell could have supplied to Reihan.

“You don’t have to come,” I offered. “You wanted to start a new life in another kingdom. I can ask Nyte to get you through the borders elsewhere.”

“I want to come,” he said. “One last time.”

I didn’t respond. Fatigue started to weigh on me and I slipped into bed, watching the snow gather on the slanted window.

Calix sat on the edge of his bed with his back to me.

“How can you be sure…” he paused as though warring with asking me. “How true was it that Cassia loved me? How can you be sure that it wasn’t just an infatuation? Being the only man close to her, with her believing she didn’t have long left, I could have just been the only option.”

All this time Calix had been harboring the insecurity that Cassia’s love wasn’t as true as his and it took me by surprise how much that disturbed me. I rolled onto my side to watch his slouched back as I thought.

“You weren’t her only option. She was the reigning lord’s daughter with no shortage of attention. She was beautiful and charismatic and her company was infectious. She could have chosen anyone in this kingdom, slept with as many as she wanted since she knew her days were numbered, but she waited for you.”

I watched the words hit him hard. The small comfort that he wasn’t alone in his devotion wasn’t the balm he hoped it would be; it was another wound. Something I couldn’t heal and didn’t think anything ever could.

I laid back again to watch the snow and my thoughts drifted to Nyte. After all I’d done, with the lingering prospect of Auster even though he didn’t know of our meets, it struck me all at once to imagine his turmoil. His uncertainly about my feelings. Yet at the same time, I couldn’t find the words to describe what I felt for him anyway.

I counted snowflakes like they measured something greater. I wasn’t conflicted in my feelings, only terrified about how to guard them and keep them locked tightly away. Against Auster’s warning, I had to go to the Guardian’s Temple. I had to know if they could help when they could be far closer to parents than the gods. They were people who walked this land too, and had raised me like I was merely a child of the world like all others. My heart yearned for someone to talk to that wasn’t part of my battle here—the war in my heart or around me.