Page 25 of The Night Is Defying (Nytefall Trilogy #2)

25

A straea

I never thought I would see the gates of Alisus Keep again. My feet planted, unable to go any farther with my heart speeding so fast I thought it might collapse me. A warm hand slid into mine, giving a squeeze. Zath’s gentle smile was a calming sight, while Rose on his other side was taking in every aspect of the Keep.

“It’s a lot… brighter compared to Pyxtia Keep,” she assessed to herself.

“Not as vibrant as Fesaris Keep,” Nadia said, observing with folded arms. “So many plants and flowers in Fesaris the colors were sickly, I’m kind of glad to be away.”

I’d never been and knew little of what could make each kingdom look and feel different. It was fascinating to hear about.

When we got to the gates, the guards chatted to Calix while my heart thundered. Reihan emerged from the keep and my knees weakened. He headed for us immediately and the guards let us pass.

“Astraea.” The heartbreak in Reihan’s voice cracked when it had always sounded so mighty. Unshakable. Death broke even the strongest wills.

What pulled us into an embrace was not the warmth of a reunion, but the chill of grief. I hadn’t appreciated how much she looked like him until now. His eyes were a lighter shade of blue but the shape of them was Cassia’s. Then he broke a smile and it slammed in my chest to remind me of Cassia too.

He wore a top hat on his jet-black hair; I’d never seen him wear such a thing but perhaps it was for the cold or a token of his mourning.

“I’m so sorry.” The words barely came out of me. Choked and muffled against his chest.

“Oh, child,” he said, resting a large hand on the back of my head.

I melted at the fatherly comfort of him, blessed in such a dire moment that I was so glad I’d braved to come when there were fleeting moments that tried to tell me I wasn’t welcome here anymore without Cassia.

“Come, let’s get you out of the cold.”

Inside the Keep, the familiar walls were both a burden and a gift. I tried pushing away the sorrow to find happiness, hearing Cassia’s scolding in my mind that would tell me to stop wasting my energy on things that could not be changed.

“This is Rosalind,” I said when I knew the halls were clear. “And Zathrian.”

Reihan didn’t seem that surprised. He didn’t stop walking nor did he give her a glance. “My congratulations on your win,” he said.

“Cassia was a good friend of mine. I’m so sorry for your loss,” Rose said.

His posture remained stiff as he walked, hands clasped, and I let Rose walk with him to exchange condolences and tell him of their correspondence all these years.

“You should have let him kill me,” Calix said, barely a whisper.

He stopped walking with me and I searched his eyes, becoming colder than the winter wind breezing through the archway hall the longer I couldn’t find anything in the brown depths that countered his words. Not a single flicker that was glad to be here.

“Cassia knew her life was ending; she never would have wanted yours to as well.”

“I thought I could handle being back here but I don’t think I can.”

“I held her soul,” I admitted. “The whole time I was in the central, until the very end, she helped guide me through and I never realized. Now she’s joined the stars. She’s seeing the world like she always wanted and she sees you, Calix.”

“Then she’d be telling you to kill me too.”

Something in me snapped. Before I could process the heat of my actions the vibrations of slamming Calix to the wall shot up my arm and my magick awakened.

It reached into him from my connection to his chest, finding something warm and bright and dragging it out. Calix gasped then stunned still. We both did, as a flare of white and gray light hovered in the space between his chest and my palm.

“A few more inches and you’d be dead,” I warned. “Say right now that’s what you want and I’ll send your soul to join her. But let me tell you it won’t be as poetic as it sounds. The stars are dying, and you might be one of those unfortunate souls that never gets to find life again. Cassia would have given anything for the many years you still have in this damned realm to make a difference. You let her down by regarding your life without care.”

We stared off for a few moments. He said nothing, but he was thinking deeply.

“That’s a fascinating and frightening trick,” Nadia said in awe, bringing her head much closer to examine the glow of Calix’s soul. “What happens if I touch it?”

My hand thrust against Calix’s chest before she could be brazen enough to find out. I wasn’t sure if it could harm him.

I pushed off him, winking out the brightness of his soul outside his body, and found Reihan studying me apprehensively. I’d come here expecting to explain what I was to him, though I supposed the demonstration would make that a little easier now.

I brushed myself off as the tingling sensation of the magick within me subsided fully.

“I’m quite hungry,” I said, heading toward them. “And we can’t stay long.”

Reihan nodded but his mind was still on the spectacle he’d witnessed, quiet and trying to process as he led the way to the dining hall.

“When I heard the star-maiden was real… and that she had returned—” Reihan stared off, seeming to continue his conclusions in his head.

“I didn’t know who I was,” I admitted with shame crawling my spine.

It began to retract when Reihan’s furrowed brow smoothed out and he cast me a warm smile. His hand guided the small of my back and the tension within me broke its stiff walls, feeling that touch as his acceptance. It was a liberation I didn’t realize I’d been on edge for.

In the banquet hall, I sat next to Reihan on his left, and when my eyes cast opposite for a second I met deep blue irises. Cassia was laughing about something her father teased her about, the sound of it like her ghost skipping through the room. The vision of her broke when the chair groaned across the stone.

“I can’t sit there,” Rose protested to the servant who’d offered it.

“Please,” Reihan offered kindly but the curve of his mouth was forced and broken.

Rose wanted to object again but caved to the weight of his expectant stare. Then she met my eyes, and I wished I could do something for the sorrow that was tangling around us all.

The food became a distraction, especially since my stomach had been hollow for hours, and I piled helpings of chicken and vegetables onto my plate.

“Does the… uh, soul stealing thing starve you or something?” Calix asked gingerly, eyeing my stacked plate from beside me.

My eyebrow hooked at him. “Soul stealing?”

“Well what would you call it?”

I hadn’t given it much thought. That my ability could have a name.

My mouth quirked in amusement. “We haven’t eaten in hours, but I think using magick could be having an added effect, at least while I’m gaining it back.”

“All this time,” Reihan muttered.

I cast a sheepish look. “I wouldn’t have kept the secret had I known.”

Reihan dropped his eyes from me and my gut sank with them.

“Don’t apologize,” he said, but something changed in him. “How long will you stay? I’ll have guest rooms set up for you.”

“A few days, if that would be okay?” I said.

I’d only come to visit the Guardian Temple—the place I’d fallen to—but I wanted a little more time before I said goodbye to Alisus again.

“Of course. Then where do you travel?”

I hadn’t told any of them where I planned to go next. If I didn’t get any answers from the guardians, I thought I would go back to Althenia for a while this time.

“To Althenia. I think the celestials will come out of hiding soon.”

“How soon?”

I didn’t expect his tone, like he feared it. The celestials would be their salvation yet his response indicated the opposite.

“They’re ready if war breaks.”

“They could come for you.”

I stopped eating, trying to figure out the source of the urgency in his prompts.

“You don’t have to be afraid of them,” I said.

Reihan nodded, but the disturbance didn’t leave the creases of his aging, tanned skin. I couldn’t blame him for being uneasy. The humans had never seen the celestials since they locked themselves away behind the veil centuries ago to save their species and regain their strength.

Knowing I was the cause of their suffering and would be again the more I came into my magick… it was another matter of urgency that drove my need for answers against my clashing existence with Nyte.

I finished my food, weighing in my mind where I wanted to go after and wondering if I had the strength. But my chest warmed three times like it did when Cassia guidied me through the Libertatem, and I took that as a sign of her spirit still with me in some way.

So I asked, “May I visit Cassia’s room?”