Page 182 of The Stars are Dying

I had no answer for that.

“If I had told you who I was, corrected you when you assumed it was my brother, you would have forgotten the Libertatem completely. You would never have trusted me.”

The mention of Drystan once again slammed into me as if I’d forgotten. Another unfathomable truth, the discovery that they were brothers.

“How can I trust you now?”

“It won’t happen today—maybe not ever. But it is your choice once this is over.”

My forehead pressed to the cool metal.

“You need to rest now,” he said. “I’ll be right here with you.”

I shook my head. “I want to speak to Zathrian.”

“I think it’s best he stays away for now.”

My fists tightened. It was another deception I couldn’t comprehend, torn between wanting to rage and demandwhyor break down in utter heartbreak that I had no one.

Absolutely no one.

“Rosalind?” I asked with a beat of dread.

“She’ll be fine. Though if she keeps rampaging things, we may have to detain her until you’re well too.”

“You won’t touch her,” I snapped.

“I have no desire to. Zath is…handlingthat one.” The nickname he used further sliced through me.

“How long have you been using him?”

“I have never used him. I gave him a purpose he accepted willingly.”

“All this time.”

He didn’t answer.

“I want to be alone.”

“No, you don’t.”

My glare heated, rivaling the fire in his irises. I took a deep breath to calm myself, turning to pace away from him.

“I’m going to get out of this cage, Nyte. And when I do, the first thing you will feel is my dagger in your chest.”

He hadn’t taken it from me when he could have. I didn’t accept it as a kindness because it wouldn’t have mattered if he had; I would have found some other way to kill him.

“I’m looking forward to it.”

What an arrogant, deviantasshole.The shuffle of his boots walking away from the cell I hoped was the sound of him leaving me the fuck alone.

I couldn’t think straight with him near me.

I couldn’t begin to process a single thing as my small world expanded to be more than I could comprehend all at once, shattering my reality to fragments. Pieces I had longed for, but which were now buried, confusing me so much I couldn’t sort through them all. My hands tightened through my hair as I paced the cell back and forth. Within me, calming waves lapped over the sharp panic stabbing at my head as if I were bleeding internally. Then my chest. Fuck, it hurt so badly each breath became a spear attacking my heart.

I curled into myself on the cot. More tranquil notes aided the pounding of my head, and I was both so tired and reeling with maddening thoughts I couldn’t sleep.

“Make it stop,” I begged. It was all I had. I needed it all to stop chanting and humming. “It hurts.”

---