Page 3 of The Stars are Dying

In that respect he possessed both my lives.

I didn’t know why, of all the company surrounding him now, he took favor in me. I surely wasn’t the only one to bring comfort to his nights. I’d watched women of all beauty give him their convincing affection. Those from fair skin to dark skin, of natural hair color or hair enhanced with Starlight Matter—magick that spoke their wealth. Right now, a woman with glowing brown skin slipped a hand over his chest, in under the material he always wore with the first few buttons undone. Her long, dark hair appeared dipped in fluorescent rose paint. Another with a porcelain complexion and catlike yellow eyes hooked a slender leg over his lap.

I looked away. No matter how often I watched his nightly affairs, it never erased the question of why I wasn’t enough. Why he cared to keep me at all.

Or I’d find myself asking why I chose to stay.

But that answer came easily: I had nowhere else to go. And while he indulged himself in others, he came to me with an affection I consumed greedily and craved deeply.

Love was a drug laced with its own cure.

A new figure emerged into the room, wavy strands of dark blond hair falling loose from his half-tie to frame his face. While he ordered a drink and leaned casually at the bar, he cast his sight up by habit. I didn’t shrink away from being caught by Zathrian’s ocean-blue eyes. I thought I’d face punishment from Hektor the first time Zath noticed me up here so long ago, but he’d never spoken of my frequent eavesdropping.

I matched his subtle smirk as he lifted a glass to his lips. Hektor rarely trusted anyone, but Zath had quickly climbed his ranks to became one of his closest men over the past year. I’d watched many come and go, mostly leaving his service by death, and Zath was the only one to have ever paid me notice. I considered him a friend.

Zathrian’s head jerked, a subtle signal, as Hektor removed the woman’s leg and shuffled out of the booth. My breath hitched, and just as he was intercepted by some men in fine wares, I began to make my way back to my rooms in case they became his destination.

The manor boasted far more of them than necessary. Hektor’s establishment was a well-known venue for the elite. Men and woman with enough coin to kill their problems rather than face them. He didn’t host just one thing; Hektor Goldfell directed the most discreet but deadly network of spies and assassins in all of Alisus, the southern realm of Solanis. Some of them I envied more than the dancers. Seeing their leather wears and glinting weapons never failed to intrigue me.

The dagger I owned, another secret, Hektor would never suspect I knew how to wield to some life-saving capacity. If he were to find out who I met with when he was not in town, I knew the consequence would come in the form of an ornate iron key sealing me inside tighter walls until our trust could be mended again.

The rough cadence of his voice pricked the hairs on my nape as I glided through the main halls like a ghost.When did my room become so far away?These winding halls were mocking me.

Swiping up a sheer blue face covering, I tied it over my mouth and nose. The ladies wore them sometimes, a beautiful accessory to add mystery and intrigue to their performances. The masks didn’t conceal much, but it wasn’t for Hektor I added the extra measure; I did so for the small chance my stealth might falter and I’d run into any of the guests.

His voice kept advancing, and he would know me from any angle should he turn the next corner. My pulse raced with my steps. I wouldn’t make it to the end before then. I did something I’d never done before, but it would cause no harm.

The doors that lined each side of the halls were marked with a star. Purple for occupied, white for vacant. These rooms were for private entertainment, strictly for dancing, though for any further desires patrons could rent a different room to follow.

Spying the first white star, I had no other option. I slipped inside, swiftly closing the door and leaning my forehead against it. My chest rose and fell hard as I strained to listen for Hektor’s voice to pass, but everything beyond the door was canceled out and all that filled my hearing was gentle notes. A soft song in the large, low-lit room. But I couldn’t find the source when I turned.

My next breath caught, and I kept deathly still as though my presence could be denied.

I wasn’t alone.

Yet I’d been certain of the white star that couldn’t be mistaken while under enchantment.

I saw him then. Or at least part of him. A form near blended into the darkness he sat cloaked in. He didn’t look at me, and I could hardly see a face from the shadow casting over his eyes. His cup of wine bore all his attention, lazy fingers swirling around the rim as if he’d yet to notice my intrusion at all.

Or had been expecting it.

No—not me. Butsomeone.

I took careful steps into the space, and with one deep inhale I headed over to the side of the room, mind racing with what to do. Though I dare not glance his way, my skin ignited with scattered pinpricks of attention that made me believe he’d finally sought me out.

He had to be watching me.

My pulse beat hard in my chest as I felt a featherlight caress across my shoulders that drew forth a gasp. When I looked, no one was there. The man remained exactly where he was, and I was wrong to have thought he cared about my being here.

In my irritation I picked up the decanter. The slosh of water filling my cup was all that disturbed the music. Still, I couldn’t find the players of the song that feltlike an embrace, something about it familiar and soothing. Personal even.

I took a long drink, hoping the water would stay and not dry out my throat again as soon as I placed the cup back down.

Is he waiting for me to begin?

The steps I could take I played out subconsciously, tempting my body to enact them as I’d done to no audience but shadow. That was all this man was. I could pretend to be dancing along the precarious rafters as a silly imitation to those gifted in the skill. The worst to come of it would be no payment if I didn’t meet his expectation. I didn’t need that.

Nerves turned to thrill as a surge of electricity touched the tip of my spine when the song changed. As if it had been picked to ignite the pleasures of my body alone and guide a dance I would craft myself.

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