Page 198 of The Stars are Dying

It only took a second for my pulse to still. “Me?”

His firming lips were my answer, and I stepped away, suddenly aware I could be used as a bargaining chip for whatever the celestial wanted. Just like Hektor had tried to sell me.

“You have nothing binding you anymore, Astraea. You are safe and free. You can walk out of this room right now and I will not stop you. Walk out of the kingdom and I may follow, but every path we take is yours to pave.”

The first part wasn’t true. He wouldn’t know it, but I was beginning to learn how to form a mental barrier against my surface thoughts so that he wouldn’t hear…

It had started off small, a thin string that had wound from him to me the moment he stopped my dance. With time it had been winding tighter, with every touch it had been forming thicker, and if I didn’t break it now…

I feared I could become forever bound tohim.

56

Isought the stars to calm me.

Finding the secluded space outside the castle had been too easy. Too eerily easy. My own mind was mocking me, leaking only faint guidance to quell the surprise of meeting new faces and finding new destinations. It was only foreign to one life; the other rejoiced deep inside to be back.

I gazed through the stars, losing myself for an incomprehensible amount of time as I soared among them in spirit. Two lives fought in one body, and I didn’t know who I wanted to be. If the past could influence the will of my future…maybe I didn’twantto remember.

Between my palms, the egg I held was heavy, but not in weight. I didn’t know why I’d brought it out here with me after finding Rose had left it in my rooms.

“It’s a celestial dragon egg.” Nyte’s voice was no more disturbing than a gentle stroke of the wind.

My eyes fixed themselves on the black-and-silver scales with more fascination. “Is it alive?”

“I wouldn’t be hopeful after all this time. Truthfully, I don’t know much about them.”

I hugged it against the cold as I said, “What if I come with you? When you leave for yourhome.”

It didn’t frighten me. I had nothing in this realm to call mine. In fact, I felt rejected by it, born in the shadow of something so great I didn’t even know if I wanted to be it—the star-maiden.

Nyte’s whole demeanor changed to a kind of blank stun, as if he’d been struck with a blade, his heart aching to meet the eyes of betrayal wielding it. He seemed to lose his response with the shock.

I shook my head. “It was a stupid thought.”

I wasn’t unfamiliar with the feeling of not belonging.

“Astraea.” He advanced closer before sitting down beside me. “You have to know I would want that more than anything if it were possible.”

“How is it not?”

“It’s too much of a risk. I have no guarantee you would make it through with me, and even if you did, we would only be taking the problem from one realm to another.”

“You don’t know that. It could be different—better able to withstand thepoweryou think is too much for this one.”

His expression remained solemn, and my gut twisted with it. When his palm cupped my jaw, my brow pinched, and I leaned into it.

“This one isyours.”

The moon flooded his features, highlighting the midnight navy of his hair, and his irises turned to a pale gold. With him right here it was hard to imagine never finding them. After all this time, they would never search for me again.

I looked over the tranquil city, glowing as if starlight rained down upon it. Casting my sight across, I homed in far enough on the distance to make out a long streak of silver.

“I need to get past the veil to get to where I need to be,” Nyte mumbled at my observation.

“You have never been past it before?”

“I watched a vampire turn to smoke and dust with a cry of agony that haunts me still as he stepped through. It’s a masterful allurement of beauty, and you are wrong to think monstrous things are only attracted to the darkness.”

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