Page 125 of The Stars are Dying

I wished he wouldn’t look at me like the helpless person I was right now.

It took the last out of me to return with a crooked pot of water. I set it over the fire thinking I wouldn’t make it to standing again. The heat of the fire enveloped me, further dragging on my consciousness. My eyes fluttered as I watched the blazing tango.

Nyte sat beside me, one knee bent with his arm resting over it, while the other he angled flat and propped himself up with one hand. So casual and beautiful. My gut sank.

“What will you do when you’re free?” I asked quietly, setting aside our animosity for a moment.

The flames danced across his thoughtful features as he stared through them. “I’ve had a long time to think of what I’ll do,” he said, not meeting my gaze. “It’s recently come with some reassessment, and I’m not entirely sure where to start.”

I shuddered. He spoke as if he held many promises to fulfill. Someone had wronged him truly, perhaps several people, and I would be the one to unleash their looming fate.

“I’m trying to figure you out,” I admitted.

He slipped his golden gaze to me, and it was alive with the flames marching in them. “How is that going for you?”

“I think you’re afraid.”

“I have little to fear.”

“Except yourself.”

A breath of silence. Then his mouth curved a fraction. “You fear what I might be capable of,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“You like people to fear you.”

“I need people to fear me,” he corrected. “It is an easy feat. Once I touch someone’s fear, I can destroy them with it. One thought from me, and they would bend to my mercy.”

“Can I tell you a secret?” I whispered. My lids grew so heavy I had to close them.

His answer came in the form of a growing energy. I felt him as though he’d snuck up behind me, and with my neck inclined in my sleepy, delirious state I believed the warm lick of the flames was his breath across my skin.

“I fear myself sometimes,” I said.

A phantom hand tipped my hair away for his words to purr close to my ear. “Tell me.”

I shouldn’t want his touch. Yet Icravedit.

“One time I wandered through a part of Hektor’s manor I shouldn’t have. Many places were off-limits, but I was curious, and he was out of town. It happened to be a private lounge for Hektor’s highest-ranked men. I was found by one of them, and though he knew who I was and how his life would be forfeited if I spoke, he was confident enough that I wouldn’t speak out for risk of Hektor’s wrath if he discovered I’d left my rooms while he was gone. The man was huge, and I was so scared I didn’t know how I would escape. He tried to force himself on me—” I had to pause, not at the recollection but the waves ofangerthat washedover me, so raw and shadowy that for a moment I regretted sharing the story for Nyte’s reaction.

“You can tell me anything,” he said. I had never heard his tone so restrained. “Add the petals.”

I nodded heavily. Sweat slicked my skin.

The black petals gave off a hiss when they touched the water, like a cat priming to strike, and my heart galloped. They shrank, dissolving into a mist that one by one turned the water dark.

“I had my dagger,” I continued. “And until then I never truly believed I had what it takes to wield it. Even now I hardly remember the slice across his throat, nor the several wounds in his chest he was said to be found with. All I remember is my blood-splattered reflection and the dark, sinister way I wasexhilaratedby what I’d done. Not only that, but I knew I had to clean myself up to get rid of any trace that could relate his death back to me. Yet for a long moment, I didn’t want to. I wanted Hektor to find me that way. Blood-soaked and near savage, I wanted him to see what I was capable of. Not his weak little pet. Not deserving of a cage, with or without bars. Because I could do the same tohim.”

At Nyte’s stillness my head turned. The light graze of his hand across my cheek pinched my brow.

“You are perfect.”

With three words he set me free. Maybe I shouldn’t have found comfort in beinghiskind of perfect—something of danger and unpredictability—but I didn’t want to be anything else. Our darknesses touched, understood each other, and the only thing that frightened me was how content I became.

My head slumped, and I cursed the tightening of my throat as the spell of sleep overcame me.

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