Page 188 of The Stars are Dying

“I didn’t think I could. When I watched you run onto that ice something dormant awoke in me. A desperation I’d only felt helplessly once before. Until that moment, even during the times you yearned for me so hard the world felt convincingly tangible, my physical body was still always behind that veil. The ice broke and you fell, and I don’t remember anything except my complete determination that I couldn’t lose you. Not again. And maybe there was an answering from the gods who otherwise despise me that bent the law of magick for a suspended moment. Just enough for me to push through the Starlight Veil, and then there I was.”

“The Starlight Veil,” I muttered. “Is that how you move? How you retrieved my dagger.”

“Yes.”

“Do you control it?”

“That dimension cannot be controlled. Some things are far too powerful, grown into their own living thing, that even the gods have no influence on them. It can be used, however—mastered. The celestials can use it to hide their wings. It can be used to transport, but that is not something to try lightheartedly. It can be dangerous if you don’t know how to use it.”

I didn’t mention that I had before. That had to have been how I’d reached for my dagger in Hektor’s cell. I stored the other possibilities.

Nyte continued. “I pulled you out of the water, and believe me, I felt it just as punishingly as you did, except my adrenaline pushed me through it because you were faltering and I wasn’t sure if I was too late. I felt you—the first touch I’d truly had in a century. The first I’dwantedin far longer than that. I couldn’t believe it. I thought maybe we’d broken the spell and I was free, that you would never have to come here, because I would have taken you far, somewhere safe. But as I carried you through the woods, I started to feel the resistance. I fought it.Gods,I fought the magick with everything I am, desperate not to leave you there when you wouldn’t make it on your own with your body shutting down. I managed to transport you a small distance to where I knew there was a manor with a fae who would help you.”

Despite the ache in my bones I pushed myself up against his chest, needing to see his face. Nyte had never looked so soft and in agony. I couldn’t believe his story. I’d thought this tale would be something of arrogance and nonsense, that he hadn’t been there, and he’d convince me I somehow saved myself or conjured an epic savior in my loneliness and delirium.

But this was the truth. Nyte had been there.

My fingers flexed, curling into the material of his shirt, recalling the warmth I’d craved from him in my frozen state. At some point my vision blurred. A tear must have fallen because Nyte’s hand rose to brush it away.

“Don’t do that,” he pleaded.

“Do what?”

“I’ve already crossed too many lines with you.” He shook his head, pain written in his eyes, making my panic surge as if he would disappear. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Before he’d come, I’d spent my day in misery cursing him, not wanting to be anywhere near him. I couldn’t explain what it was that had dissolved all of it the moment he walked in, but I didn’t ever want him to walk away.

I leaned in to kiss him. Nyte didn’t push me away, but I could sense something was wrong.

“I can’t do this to you again,” he said against my lips.

Then suddenly I wanted to take back every time I’d wished him gone.

“You already have,” I bit out. “You came into my life long before you ever showed your face. You have a history of me that I don’t have of you, and Ineedto know what it was.”

He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his brow furrowed as he looked me over then traced a thumb down my tattooed forearm. My skin tingled under his touch.

“I am the reason your stars are dying. Then and now. I am the reason you will always be in danger, because there can only be one.”

“One what?”

Nyte took my wrist, and I shivered when he tenderly rolled up my sleeve before doing the same to his. He held our forearms side by side, and I marveled at the different but similar tattoos we shared. The constellations still crossed over our opposite moon phases despite the bond being gone.

“God of Stars,” he muttered as if it condemned our fate. “So much energy that it’s failing altogether. Magick is weakening—it is why the celestials hide. I can’t bear to live an existence against you.”

“Did we…? Were we at war?”

“Yes.”

“You won against me.”

“Won,” he huffed—a pained sound of resentment. “I lost everything. Everything that ever mattered to me.” His heartbeat kicked up under my palm.

“I don’t understand how…”

“A god can only be killed by something it is made of. I’m not of this realm; there is no weapon that can kill me here. But you—”

I had never seen such a ghostly expression pass over his features. So stilling I trembled with it.

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