Page 136 of The Stars are Dying

“You don’t recognize me. I don’t blame you, for you fled before we had the chance to properly meet, leaving your kin to fight for you.”

I shook my head. “You must have me confused with someone else.”

“It had me wondering why he wanted to protect you so urgently and why you didn’t stand to fight—until I discovered how powerless you are. Though I’m yet to figure out why.”

“Stop,” I breathed, having nowhere to flee as my back pressed to the wall.

Arwan didn’t come closer. Instead he studied me from head to toe, and I was glad to feel myself back in my full leathers now the trial had set my mind free.

He dipped into his pocket, and I inhaled with surprise at what he held up.

His full key.

The pieces looked similar to mine, even though held fully together I could still see the breaks, as if the key remained too defiant to become whole again. It wasn’t a key like any I’d seen before. It was beautifully carved and too straight, without teeth at the bottom to unlock something.

“Have you tried it?” I asked, but I dreaded why he would show me. Why he was here at all when he should be waiting for the other Selected at the temple to try theirs, even if it meant taking them by force like Draven.

“No,” he said, but his smile crawled over me. “Because you’re going to.”

He advanced, and all I could do was tense, subtly reaching for my dagger, but Arwan didn’t attack. Instead I felt a weight enter my pocket. I stiffened when his finger slipped through my hair, observing the black tresses as they slipped from him.

“Like you, I know how to remain hidden. And how to kill a Selected to be here.”

“I didn’t kill her.” The confession slipped out of me too fast.

Arwan smiled with triumph. “It doesn’t matter how you came to be here, only that you are. The king is looking for a particular key, and I plan to get it before he does.” His eyes drifted to my neck, and I pressed further into the wall with the flash of recognition at the look.

Hunger.

My gaze flicked behind him, and I turned to ice as I glanced in the distant mirror only to find my own horrified reflection. “You’re a vampire,” I said.Soulless.

His brown eyes met mine as he reached up, tucking the red lengths that framed his face behind a delicately pointed ear. I swallowed hard, wondering how he’d eluded the king so easily.

“Why do you think I can get it?”

Arwan chuckled then laughed. Each note of it grated against my skin, and my eyes pricked at the ridicule. He reached the chair he’d sat on and retrieved something. I gasped as he tossed it to me, catching it clumsily.

“Find your final piece, then I’ll take care of the other Selected so you have their keys too. From there, you’d better hope you can figure out how to use them.” He strode for the door, casting a look over his shoulder. “I’ll be waiting to collect. If not the true key, then your capture as a consolation prize.”

When the door clicked shut, I was left with nothing but a hammering chest from the explosion of so many unanswered questions. The world swayed. I needed a moment to brace myself against the wall.

My mind reeled over everything he’d said. Doors opened and images flashed, nothing of sense, but I was missing something crucial, and my thoughts were bursting to find it. Arwan knew things, and he goaded me like I should too.

In my barrel of anger and frustration, my palm slapped the wall with a cry. I had felt like I was making strides in this game, completing the trials on my own, and perhaps I wasn’t a hopeless contestant. Now I couldn’t be certain of anything. I had another Selected’s key— No, he wasn’t a Selected, and I spared a second to mourn the life I didn’t know that had been taken for this vampire to have claimed his place.

“The king isn’t powerful at all,” I thought aloud. “How did Arwan get past Nightsdeath? Why does it seem like Drystan doesn’t care?”

All these questions battered me, and I rubbed my temples. If Drystan was now refusing to be his Nightsdeath, the one they feared, then maybe that was why the king’s control over the soulless was slipping, and maybe he wasn’t even aware of the uprising against him.

I laughed. A delirious, drained sound as I slumped to the floor. This was the biggest puzzle of my existence, and I was constantly holding the wrong clues. I breathed in and out, making it my only focus. Nothing would be solved with the current lattice of my mind.

Eventually, I peeled myself up and stood outside.

It wasn’t only the shock run-in with Arwan that had kept me down. I remembered what I’d done before. How I’d imagined Nyte and what I’d wanted from him. It buried me. I had to know what he thought, but embarrassment kept him locked out of my mind, and he didn’t seem eager to try to push through.

Stars above.I had all but shamelessly confessed my attraction to him. My desire for him I’d spent so long trying to deny. It was infuriating, and I wished I could let go of what had taken root within me, but in truth it had only grown with every appearance he’d made, and now I feared what it would feel like when he inevitably needed to be ripped free.

A carriage awaited, and only then did I remember Drystan saying he would send for one. I couldn’t complain about the special treatment when I was in no mood to trek back on foot anyway. I needed a full night of rest before I set out for the final key piece.

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