Page 29 of The Night Is Defying (Nytefall Trilogy #2)

29

A straea

I spent the next hour looking for Rose and Zath but found no sight of them, nor did my inquiries to passing guards produce answers. Beginning to grow anxious, I turned the next corner and found Calix heading toward me.

My relief at finding a friendly face turned to tension when I looked over his uniform.

“You’re staying?” I asked.

“I had a change of heart,” he said, but it was distant. Emotionless. “The reigning lord sent me for you.”

“You said you wouldn’t be able to live in this place with the constant reminder of her,” I accused him.

Something didn’t feel right.

“This is her home. It’s the best place to keep her memory alive.”

I couldn’t figure out what might have changed his mind so suddenly. When we’d arrived he looked ready to leave. He could hardly stand to look around the keep.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Nothing. Let’s go.”

“Why would Reihan send you for me?”

“He’s requested you join him for dinner.”

That should be harmless enough. I would be able to ask him what he knew about the celestials and it might lead to an explanation about the wings in his office. Yet as I walked with Calix, I couldn’t banish the unsettling feeling in my gut.

“Have you seen Rose or Zath?” I asked him.

“No.”

I slipped a look up to him at that short answer. He wouldn’t look at me and my walk slowed a little.

Your intuition has never led you astray.

“I’m not actually hungry,” I said. “Can you tell him I retired for the night?”

Calix hooked my elbow when I tried to turn back. My pulse slammed.

I ripped my arm free as I spun to him, hovering my hand over the key at my hip as I took backward paces.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

As I stepped under the open archways, the snow fell around me in the small open courtyard. Memories of Cassia’s last training session flooded me from this space.

Calix didn’t answer, merely waited with a steely expression before glancing around me. I chilled at the sight of the guards surrounding the archways.

“Astraea—” Calix said my name like a hint of a plea but he was interrupted by a voice I wished wasn’t responsible for whatever the fuck was happening.

“You have no idea how long you spent here as a blood supply,” Reihan said as he crept out from a shadow cover.

I didn’t recognize him. The demeanor. The cruel smile foreign to his kind face.

“Why are you doing this?”

I didn’t know what his intentions were, but from the armed guards blocking every escape around me, I knew he meant to capture me, at least.

“You’ll find out soon enough, maiden. Now, do you want to come easily or is this going to be difficult?”

My answer pulsed warmly in my hand when the key expanded to a glowing staff and I firmed my stance.

“You don’t want to do this,” I warned him. Even though betrayal was stabbing in my back, I didn’t want to hurt him. “He’ll come for me. And he is not merciful.”

I shuddered to think what Nyte would do.

More than just killing Calix and Reihan—what if he destroyed the entire keep in his wrath?

Noises of a struggle rattled my composure. I knew before I saw them that my odds had been damned.

Rose and Zath were dragged out and pushed to their knees. Not Nadia. Though I wasn’t surprised, as she was gifted at appearing and disappearing.

“You’re not going to let that happen,” Reihan said. “Or I start cutting them into pieces.”

“Why are you doing this?” I said, my voice reduced to a heartbroken, pathetic whimper.

This wasn’t the man I knew. Cassia’s father was warm and safe and welcomed me just like any of his daughters.

“You’re going to help me end Nyte once and for all.”

I blinked at that. It didn’t make any sense—why would Reihan want Nyte dead so badly as to risk all of this? It wouldn’t stop the vampires or save his land.

My heartbreak sharpened to anger that aimed my daggers of hatred toward Calix.

“How could you?” I seethed.

When Calix said nothing, gave no reaction, I broke.

The key pulsed a flare of light that shot at him. It slammed his chest and maybe I was a weak coward for not adding enough force to it to kill him.

The other guards drew their blades and I didn’t know if I could take them all but I felt myself beginning to reel into a focus that would damn well try.

“Fly, Astraea!” Rose shouted.

Reihan’s hand connected with her cheek and she cried out from the brutal force. I’d never seen Zath so angry, and he lunged, almost reaching the lord before he had to turn his focus on the three guards who were attacking him.

I couldn’t leave them here.

Through my magick I felt the ice of the ground. My hand moved—a vertical swipe then my palm upturned—with magick that awakened in me; the snow formed into dozens of ice shards floating the perimeter. I might have admired the spectacle of it were I not trembling with the effort it took to hold it.

But dark thoughts started to trickle into my mind with the display of power I wielded.

I could kill them all.

Send every spear of ice shooting around the square at once. I wondered if I should be horrified by my contemplation—that the only thing that spared the blood of these soldiers on my hands was the fact that I wasn’t confident enough yet in my precision to spare my friends in the attack.

My heartbeats of deliberation became my downfall.

Fire exploded in my shoulder from the piercing of an arrow. My knees crashed to the ground and my consciousness started slipping rapidly.

I’d experienced an arrow shot before but this type of seizing pain was something far more incapacitating. It set my blood boiling beneath my skin but my agony was silent to the world. I couldn’t open my mouth to release the screams tearing me apart inside.

“The arrow is laced with Nebulora. It’s a poison to your kind,” Reihan said. He crouched by me and I could do nothing but kneel in my broken misery. “Rainyte won’t be able to feel you for a while.”

How did he know his full name? I tried to shake my head but it was as heavy as stone. So I gave up, unable to tell him that that was what I was afraid of. That Nyte didn’t need to know exactly what was wrong. It was only a matter of days that he would be content not to hear from me before, perhaps thinking I was blocking him on purpose, he defied my bond to come for me.

Reihan took me in his arms and I couldn’t fight it. I was losing my senses one by one. Unable to hear like I was drowning. Not feeling anything except the spreading pain through me. I could only see the blurry white sky until I was carried under the archways.

“Oh maiden, how elusive and smart you are. I severely underestimated you and never thought our paths would cross like this.”

“I don’t… I don’t understand.”

“Shhh,” he said gently. “You will. Sleep for now.”