Page 51 of The Night Is Defying (Nytefall Trilogy #2)

51

N yte

I couldn’t fathom where the fuck Drystan had got a dragon from but that incredulity drowned under the unrelenting angst he expended on me through his sword.

Every clash of my blade against Drystan’s was a fresh wound on my soul. Neither of us managed to strike, but Drystan was ruthless in his assault, far more experienced in combat since last we sparred centuries ago.

“Been training for this, have you?” I bit out, clashing left, right, left. Then spinning to his vertical swipe.

“I wanted to contend with you in some way, at least,” he said through gritted teeth.

I could admit his skills were impressive, but he could never contend with me.

I didn’t waver his confidence, humoring this dance for him to get it out of his damned system but the harder he came for me the more of a struggle it was to hold back Nightsdeath from ending this in a blink.

“You’re angry with me for killing your mother, is that it?”

“I wasn’t angry; I was in fucking pain! ” That stunned me still. Drystan circled me, shoulders rising and falling with anguish. It touched a part of me I didn’t know existed. “Come on, Nyte, you knew my mother wasn’t all that close to me. Father certainly wasn’t. I wasn’t angry at you for killing her, I was devastated that you abandoned me. We were supposed to leave together, remember? Travel realms in search of your fucking cure. I waited for you and you never came. You chose her.”

I hadn’t expected his confession. All this time I’d thought his resentment toward me had been for killing his mother, but it was something worse… because this was something I’d chosen.

“She was in trouble,” I reasoned.

“She would have worked it out. Instead you two stood defiant and that led to a battle I lost you both in.”

Shit. I should have seen it sooner. Though he didn’t show it, or perhaps I didn’t care to see it, I knew he had to have mourned for Astraea too in their friendship.

In my grief I’d failed to consider his.

“I’m sorry,” I breathed. Two words that choked out of my throat like knives.

How could I have been so oblivious to his pain? He’d always been the better part of me—I once believed his spirit unshakable but it wasn’t. Not when I had been the one to shatter it.

“Me too, brother.” I didn’t like the way he said it. Like defeat. Goodbye.

His sight flicked sideways but I didn’t get a chance to see what had caught his attention before a sheet of light acting as a barrier between Drystan and me had me shielding my eyes.

I knew what that was.

Astraea. Trying to stop this to save us both.

It didn’t last long, but when the light fell, I saw I was wrong…

So hauntingly, devastatingly wrong.

There was a disconnected part of my mind that was drifting in an utter silent denial over what I saw.

The person I loved with every fiber of my being, taking the life of the first person to ever truly love me.

Astraea and Drystan stared into each other’s wide eyes. Both their hands wrapped around the hilt of her stormstone blade in his heart.

How much of a fool I was to think I couldn’t hurt like mortal men when right now I was ripped by agony so explosive it expelled from me.

I only realized magick had been rolling from me in powerful waves when the energy cut off as Drystan fell to his knees. I blinked through the void, catching him before his head could hit the ground.

Astraea stumbled back. I couldn’t stand to look up at her right now or I feared what I might do.

“Nyte?”

“Yes, brother?”

Drystan’s breaths labored. “What happened to us?”

I held him, trying to gather the strength to keep my composure.

“We were born into a cruel world and given to unforgiving hands,” I said. “I was supposed to protect you, and failed you.”

A pained huff escaped his lips upturning in a sorrowful smile.

“You-you didn’t fail me,” he stumbled. My heart was wrecked. “Thank you for everything. Despite what happened… I—I missed you. I wanted my best—my best friend back.”

“I’m right here.”

I hugged him. Fuck I should have done this more.

“It tore me apart,” he said, faltering with each word now. “The resentment all these years. I wish I could have let it go but the pain was all I had when everyone was gone.”

“I know,” I said, splitting inside with grief. “You deserved so much better. You’re going to have so much fucking better. So you’re not going to die, do you hear me?”

“It’s not her… it wasn’t her…”

He could hardly form a sentence anymore and I fucking lost it.

Death doesn’t get to win this one.

Through my pain and anguish I called to him. As the servant and the messenger he made of me. He owed me and I was going to collect, or I was going to raze the realm and rain down the stars.

The God of Dusk and Goddess of Dawn had answered my call for their daughter last I faced this, but Drystan and I were sons of Death.

Astraea kneeled, incredibly seeming to offer to take Drystan from my arms, but my cold eyes only targeted her with anger and heartache; I risked falling apart completely with her near.

“Let me,” Nadia said, and though she wasn’t much better, at least she’d never followed through on her threats about him.

Astraea… I couldn’t comprehend this as reality yet the image of her with her blade in his chest scorched into my mind.

Nadia took my brother, cradling his head while the air began to stir until it was a violent hurricane we defied within its center. What stormed around us was made of wailing lost souls and endless black oblivion. No stars, only the dark at the end of everything.

Ravens, hundreds of ravens, beat furiously in the circle of claiming—they were his calling card.

Then out from the depths came a wraith of the night. Death itself.

He had no face, only a haunting void through the hood of his cloaked body that floated as if it was made of shadows—that was his gift.

Over his shoulders he had tall, obsidian feathered wings—that was his mark.

Though his form was huge, it was not as frightening as when I’d faced this primordial as a mere child.

In his hand was a glinting scythe with a missing chip on the underside of the lethal curving black blade.

“My son,” Death spoke, a creepy admiration in his tone.

“Spare him,” I demanded. “I have given you everything. Now spare him.”

The primordial’s hood tilted to my brother as if giving the request some deliberation.

“I will not.”

“You can have me,” I bargained.

“No!” Astraea cried. My fists tightened at her pain but I was fucking torn to shreds over her mere presence.

“I already have you, Rainyte Azrail Ashfyre.”

Each one of those names shackled a claim on me. From birth, from His creation, and from a faraway lineage.

I despised them all.

“I will end this world and everyone in it. Only to travel to the next and end it too. There will be no realm for any god to feud for the souls they created upon it.”

“Perhaps I crafted you too well, Nightsdeath. I will not release your brother for your soul which already serves me. But I will spare him… for hers.”

He had no eyes to track but I knew his sight targeted Astraea and the rage of a thousand storms trembled through me.

“Not in any hell. Or any time,” I growled.

I didn’t think my world could shatter more than when Astraea answered for herself. “I’ll do it.”

My head snapped to her. No matter what, I couldn’t stop loving her even when she wrecked my heart that she owned. She was my one true blessing, and my ultimate curse.

It all happened so fast I couldn’t stop it.

So final I couldn’t reverse it.

“Then it is done.”

“No!” I yelled.

I tried to run for her but an arm of darkness slammed into me from the hurricane we were engulfed in. My soul cried.

On my knees, I was held from reaching her helplessly by death’s shadows. Power I could not contend with. The fear in Astraea’s eyes would haunt me in every hell I met.

Then her head threw back with a gasp as Death approached her.

“Stop!” I pleaded. “I’ll give anything. Just not her.”

Yet Astraea—my pure, stunning, and marvelous star—was the only thing of me he didn’t have.

Until now.

Immobilized, I felt everything changing in her. The Dark God’s claim.

The God of Death won in unleashing his own perfect weapon—me—to punish his rival gods of Dusk and Dawn. That wasn’t enough, now he’d come to take their divine creation.

Astraea’s body lifted as tendrils of starry smoke circled her body. I watched in horror as her silver wings were slowly engulfed by darkness—each pure feather changed to black.

Oh Starlight, what have you done?

Unlike me, her fingers bathed in silver, her silver markings shone, animated over her skin while harnessing this godly power. The iridescent strands of her hair glowed too. She was pure, magnificent starlight.

“This is what I have been waiting for.” Death marveled at the making of her.

I was just the example. The test. Astraea had always been his greatest prize waiting for the perfect moment and I’d summoned him here. The impact of that killed me.

“You’ve made a fine servant, Nightsdeath. But her…”

Her tattoos glittered like she was made of a million stars. Her irises glowed white with so much magick I would have bowed to her in submission was I not already on my knees.

“Lightsdeath will drown this world in starlight.”