Page 128 of The Stars are Dying

“I love you,” he said, voice soft, and the temptation to fall for it was too much.

Tears fell for the years I’d spent with him, the gifts he’d showered me with, and the illusion of safety he’d built around me. As the one who harbored the only memories I had.

I could change that now.

“This isn’t love,” I said. I held up my hand. The band cut into my skin and warm blood trickled, dripping off my elbow.

On his face, sorrow snapped to rage.

“We don’t need her.”

Both of us whirled at the woman who spoke. My knees almost buckled.

Rosalind sat like a goddess atop the throne.

I closed my eyes, shook my head, but when I looked at her again her smile only widened. She held out her hand for Hektor, and he went to her.

The people all looked to Rose with the same adoration they had showered me with. She would have it, while I…

My breath hitched as I examined myself. The stunning dress had vanished, and now I wore torn rags and had bare feet. My hands were dirty, my silver hair tangled. Rose laughed, but I couldn’t believe the haughty sound. She wasn’t warm and kind, but this cruel mockery I couldn’t have predicted from her.

I wanted to take it back. Switch places.

“No, you don’t.” Beside me, Nyte observed the scene. “Look at your hand.”

I did, and no longer did the diamond ring cut my flesh.

“You are free now. You don’t truly envy what she has at the price it would cost.”

We watched Rose as she drank from a golden chalice. People gushed at her; Hektor doted on her. And here I stood, with nothing, as a nobody.

Nyte was wrong.

I took a step forward, but a hand curled around my arm. I snapped him a hard look, but Nyte’s golden eyes held firm.

“Walk away.”

“Let me go!” I cried, trying to pull free, but he only drew me closer. Standing flush against his tall, firm body, I stilled, hypnotized by his irises.

“I’ll be damned if you lose a single year of this lifetime. Walk. Away. Now.”

Something moved me at the command. I couldn’t deny him.

The bond.

My body turned, and the laughter at my back grew, taunting me that it was the wrong choice. I could have everything Rose had. Ideservedit as much as her.

My eyes burned at the ridicule as it echoed after me because I’d chosen to remain as no one instead. The lights dimmed in the hall and the sounds plummeted as if I’d walked through glass.

In my despair I didn’t see the floor end, and I fell into a black void that swallowed my miserable existence whole.

38

Iawoke with a pounding headache. Slipping my eyes open, I found the fire before me sputtering its last embers, darkness falling around me. I lay against the unforgiving ground, my temple to the cold wood hardly a bother compared to the ache in my soul that kept me down.

“You’re getting too cold. You need to get up.” Nyte spoke gently.

I couldn’t move. Both from the drumming in my head and the helpless sorrow that had clouded over me in my pitiful state. Would I ever truly break free? I had tried to be brave and strong, but I was hiding from the frightened girl who still lived within me. The one who harbored regret for leaving, because while the rafters of Hektor’s manor were a lonely place, they were safe and warm, and a part of me still yearned to be there. I was a fool for ever thinking I could be something more. Something on my own. Hektor had been right.

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