Page 170 of The Stars are Dying

“Because you haven’t given me anything else.”

What made him flinch I could only decipher ashurt.I wanted to believe it, if only to keep the hope there was some human feeling in him. Morality.

“I thought you were different,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “Yet just like that, you have forgotten everything that came before now.” Nyte extended his palm to me. I stared at it as if his flesh could be poison. His touch I knew would set me alight, but maybe that was the trick.

“How do I know it was real?” My chest began to constrict so tightly I thought I might stop breathing. “You’ve been in my mind. You’ve altered how I see things.”

“You’ve felt me there every time.”

“How can I trust there were times I didn’t—?”

“I can’t answer that for you. I have told you my truth, Astraea. There is nothing more I can say. The doubt you cling to can only be let go of by you.”

Nyte didn’t drop his hand, and the moment I slipped my palm into his I wanted to sob. From the warmth, the sparks that shot over my arm, and because I wanted to be back down in that cave, still in denial of the monster whose hand I held now.

I hadn’t decided to trust in him, but I had to figure him out. To end him.

Cassia had come here to end him.

With our joined hands, since his expression had turned to steel seconds before arriving in the throne room, Nyte finally resembled the male I thought I knew. It was unfair how much I wanted him to pull me closer.

Instead he guided me back up the dais, much as my body wanted to lock against it. If the king saw me here, there would be no hesitation on his order for my death. Yet Nyte moved over the imperial space as if he owned it, until we were standing before the throne, and only when he coaxed me forward alone did I finally root myself to the spot.

I shot him an incredulous look. “You can’t expect me to sit there,” I said, blanching at the thought.

Nyte gave way to a teasing dark smile. “A queen doesn’t sit on a throne; she owns it. How exquisite you would look doing so.”

I was caught between spluttering with embarrassment at his mockery and laughing in astonishment if he was being serious. “You’re out of your mind,” I said, coming to the conclusion it was the latter from the way he stood firm with the offer.

“Don’t you recognize it?” he said, casting a glance back over the tall, ornate seat clad in purple velvet.

A thread was being pulled in my mind.

“Your trial of greed and envy.”

My hand slipped from his in shock, but I couldn’t peel my stare away from the throne, recognizing it in every perfect detail, the memory unlocking in my mind.

“That’s not possible,” I said vacantly. I had never been in this room before now.

“We’re only just getting started on the impossible, my Starlight.” His fingers grazed my chin, just enough for the sensation to drift my horrified look to him. Nyte remained so calm and in control.

My hand pulled back before I knew what I was doing, and my palm stung with the force with which it connected with his cheek before I could stop myself. “I’m not your anything,” I hissed.

Nyte’s ethereal eyes darkened a shade. He remained silent, as though he knew it would trigger the impulsive rise of my hand again, and this time he caught it. When he twisted us, the backs of my knees hit something solid, and I had no choice but to fall.

The moment I sat on the throne…

Time sucked me through into a new dimension. A new version of this room.

It was bright with the moonlight flooding freely through the dome roof, and as my eyes chased to find it my breath caught. Constellations floated across the ceiling by what had to be some influence of magick. They moved—so slightly most would miss the ever-changing shift of the stars. One would give its final flicker before beginning to fall like stardust. Then another few would be welcomed anew.

A vibration along my cheek yanked me back, and I blinked away the beautiful image to set my gaze upon the twin blazing suns looking down on me instead.

“I’m sure you would like to try that again. This is the one time I’ll warn against it,” Nyte said, uncurling his hand from my wrist and dropping the other from my face.

I wanted to launch up and strike him. Fight him. Break down and demand why he’d brought me here to witness his retribution, the first victim of which was being dragged through the doors. A single flailing guard, dangling a bow in his grasp, was pulled in by two of his own companions who didn’t appear any less afraid.

Nyte descended the few steps, and I couldn’t move—could only watch with a chilling sense of foreboding, his lethal calm making his every move entirely unpredictable.

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