Page 119 of The Stars are Dying

“You’ve been wanting me to touch it.”

“Have I?” he taunted.

I didn’t respond.

“It may hurt to pass through. Or kill you. I can’t be certain.”

I gaped at him for how close he’d beckoned me toward it several times knowing the danger. Nyte didn’t pay attention to my incredulity, continuing on.

“As much as your true voice here is highly desirable, you have to get back. So here.” Nyte crouched again, leaving the book open on the ground. “You’ll need something to cut yourself with. Then recite this phrase.”

A blood oath suddenly felt like the most damning commitment.

“Starlight—”

I stood abruptly. “How can I trust you?”

He didn’t straighten. Instead he held my gaze with a coaxing sort of patience that confused me. He was concerned, but he wasn’t pushing me into this.

“Come here.” He spoke the soft words I already felt in his gaze.

I obeyed, lowering myself back to my knees. Taking a few seconds to breathe, I couldn’t decide if it was the real proximity between us or the pulse ofpowerI felt drawn to that set my pulse racing and my veins catching low fire.

“You’re not going to like this part,” he said.

“There’s a part I should like?”

While his mouth curled, the smile that stole my breath was what sparked in his eyes instead. “If this ward didn’t exist, I would make sure of it.”

I took one breath, collecting my sanity. “You can just say you’re lonely.”

“That would imply I seek others’ company.”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

Nyte tipped his chin to the side, and I found a sharp rock. My skin pricked with what he wanted. A bind there would be no coming back from.

“This past century has had its perks in solitude. I haven’t slept so well for so long without a single demand or duty.”

I didn’t hear anything past the small kernel of information he let slip so casually despite it falling with the weight of stones in my gut. I swiped the rock. “You’ve been here a century?”

At the flex around his eyes, I realized it was something he hadn’t intended to tell me.

“What part of ‘the prince is looking for you and will be most suspicious the longer he doesn’t find you’ didn’t you understand?”

I didn’t react to his tone, thinking it only sharpened as a deflection. I fixed my attention on the task. “You still haven’t told me why I can trust you.”

“Because it matters not what I say, but what you feel.”

That inspired me. Frightened me. I suddenly wondered how long I’d been fooling myself.

“What happens if I don’t free you?”

“Only I get to decide your consequence, and you will have until the end of the Libertatem.”

“I don’t understand. Why me?”

“You don’t need to understand.”

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