Page 184 of The Stars are Dying

Nyte let a few seconds of heavy silence pass. “I used to.”

“What happened?”

“You died.”

My palm remained flattened close to the bars, and then sparks caught on them as Nyte reached back to brush my fingers with his as though he needed to be reminded that I was there. I didn’t move, but a fist clenched in my chest at the first contact he’d made since locking me in here.

“The story you told me,” I whispered. My harsh exterior was breaking. “In my rooms as we lay… It was us.”

One beat of silence. The kind shattered souls were made of.

“I have waited more than three hundred years for you to come back,” he said, equally as hushed. “I came to terms with believing it wouldn’t matter when I couldn’t find a way to break the curse of our clashing existence. Then, when I became trapped…I can’t deny there was a selfish part of me that didn’t give a fuck about the world, or that my father and brother had betrayed me, because I would get to see you again.”

I thought back to the moment we’d met, finding myself reflecting on everything in my mind and from when he’d become physical to me. He was my night. The embrace of darkness that whispered through the stars.

“When did you realize?” he asked carefully. “That you were the star-maiden?”

It was a question I had posed to myself.

“I think a part of me has always known,” I whispered. My nose stung. “I didn’t want to be different; I just wanted to be seen. My markings…Hektor made me believe they were nothing, yet he wouldn’t allow them to be seen, and I thought that was the reason. Sometimes I’d see similar metallic tattoos on others, but there was somethingdifferentabout theirs, and I wondered if they found beauty in them to have had them cast by Starlight Matter. Then there were things I discovered about myself that I didn’t think I should be capable of. I could throw daggers with great precision—even archery I found easy, as if these skills were already learned. And then…I’ve always braced for the dawn and yearned for the night. I found I didn’t need as much sleep as others.”

“It’s a lot to believe at once.”

“I don’t remember much. I don’t remember you.”

“Do you want to?”

Another tear fell. “I don’t know.”

We stayed like that for a pretend moment of peace. Until I broke it with my most terrifying doubt.

“Did you kill me?”

“No. But I condemned you.”

My fingers flinched against his. I debated pulling away if I was holding the hand of my killer. There must be something twisted and wrong with me because I didn’t.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I failed you even if it wasn’t my hand to wield the weapon. You were always at risk because of me.”

More questions surfaced with every answer, but I was too tired to learn it all right now. Too gods-damned exhausted and focused on only one thing that could take it away.

I was a pitiful fool and beginning to see exactly how I’d lost the war with my weak heart. There was no reason for me to be back.

I stole my hand away from his. “The world will be better without me. You can have the key when you get it back. Give it to whoever can use it to save people. There is no point in giving me power.”

“This is just your withdrawal speaking.”

My teeth ground together, rage boiling my already sweat-slicked skin, yet I was fucking freezing at the same time.

He said carefully, “You should be keeping warm to break the fever.”

My heavy eyes rolled to the bed. The cot was feeble, but he’d brought me more soft blankets and pillows than necessary. Such luxury appeared ridiculous against the gloom of my cage.

“And you need to eat,” he added.

There was a broth now cold on a tray near me. I hadn’t touched it, only drinking the water when I couldn’t take the scratch of my throat any longer. There was only one thing I craved to consume, and he denied it.

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