Page 150 of The Stars are Dying

“I’ll be okay,” I said at Zath’s pained objection. Taking the final key piece from Calix, I braced. Held my breath. As the world engulfed me in light.

45

The moment the key piece slipped into my palm I was taken from the maze entirely. Maybe I’d traveled far away from the realm I knew, pulled through a dark void of starlight and wonder. I thought I’d been here before as my body moved with no time or direction. Only for a few beautiful, fleeting seconds before everything stilled.

The shadows dispersed, and the first thing to greet me was a wickedly smirking prince leaning sideways against magnificent twin doors that eclipsed him.

“Took you long enough,” Drystan said, straightening.

The black stone was carved with ancient intricate swirls and decoration behind him, so tall I would never glimpse the beauty of the top. A long, iridescent dark flight of stairs led up to them, and I took them slowly, savoring my surroundings in a place that radiated unearthly, exquisite power. But it was only an echo of what lay beyond those doors. Not the darkness of evil or ominous beings; this was the kind of power and cosmic beauty.

The pieces of my key floated from my palm, and I watched in a trance as they fixed themselves together. My skin tingled as I reached for it. Until I had possession of all five keys.

It was about to be over.

“Bravo. I almost thought you would kill him in there, you know.”

I cut him with a look of hate. “What do you want from this?”

“Believe it or not, I have no interest in getting beyond those doors. I only need to ensure my father never does.”

“Then you should have wanted me to fail.”

“Oh, no, for the key is a very powerful tool I would very much like to have possession of.” He stalked to me with slow attention. “It can make gods bow.”

I shook my head. “Power. That’s all this is in aid of. It will corrupt you.”

“I am flattered you consider me not to be already.”

I shouldn’t have been so naïve, yet I couldn’t let go of the confliction in his words. It lived like a kernel of belief inside me so I couldn’t believe the warnings against him—not fully.

“And if it’s just like every other time…? What if none of these are it?”

Drystan paused, searching my face, and I tried to read the emotion in his, but he put up his guard quickly. “Then I have no further use for you.”

I wasn’tthatfoolish to think his threat was empty. “Let’s get this over with then,” I said, dipping into my leathers for the other keys.

I tried them one by one, my heart thundering, my palms slicking, my grip trembling. Four of them didn’t work, and I held my breath as I slotted the last one into place…

Nothing.

Dread sank me. I tried them all again, cursing and chanting and praying.

Nothing moved.

My anchor lowered me to my knees.

Drystan growled in annoyance. “Think, Astraea. There must be some other way to try them.”

I shook my head. I was just another failure. “I never told you my name,” I whispered. My racing pulse had nothing to do with the lost hope of the keys anymore. I feared lifting my head as I remained vulnerable to him.

Drystan crouched, but still my fear stopped me from looking at him. “What a tragedy you have become,” he said as if it were a sad, slipped observation.

Whatever he thought I could do differently with the keys, he was wrong.

I breathed out in disbelief. I’d thought for a moment it would work.

The keys slipped from my grasp in defeat, chiming to the floor as dull, scattered pieces of metal. The Libertatem was nothing more than a cat-and-mouse game, a complete ridicule of collecting meaningless trinkets while the king fooled the land to be at his mercy.

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