Page 31 of The Stars are Dying

“If you loved me, you wouldn’t do this.”

Hektor turned me to him, his hand grazing my cheek. “It is because I love you that I do this, Astraea. Trust I take no pleasure in it.”

I could have fallen to my knees. There was no changing his mind. If I fought, I would lose. If I tried to run, I would be caught. In this helpless existence I was trapped.

He coaxed me inside, and my drifting steps passed the bars. I tunneled far to keep from breaking in a frantic plea that would only feed his superiority; fuel the control he had over me. I stayed silent when the cell door echoed a groan and shut. A stiff tremor shook me to my core with the resonating click of the lock. I made it to the feeble cot, but I couldn’t feel my body as I sat, curling my knees up to my chest.

This place welcomed me with the cruel embrace of satisfaction at seeing me again after so long when I’d promised it never would. I’d managed to stay away from Hektor’s worst punishment for a year. I would have taken anything physical over this, but I knew his mind was made up, and to disobey would only follow one with the other.

So I didn’t look to him again when I knew he lingered there. I wondered if there was a shred of regret in his heart that made him doubt his choice, but ultimately one thing would never change about Hektor Goldfell. Come right or wrong, he never took back a decision.

Only when true darkness fell and lonely taunts replaced him did my cheeks turn wet and my chest hollow. Only when I had no one did I truly break.

9

Itried to count the minutes. Then, when seconds skipped and slowed, the hours. My fingernails split trying to tally them on the wall I was curled against. Twelve, though I would never know if I was right.

In this feeble state as the frightened pet in a cage, I couldn’t convince myself I harbored a shred of bravery. I had walked in here. There remained only a small inkling of spirit as I recalled the one time I’d stood up for myself. When Hektor first caught me wandering his establishment among the guests three years ago, I fought him for weeks, resisting his touch, fighting the hands he laid upon me. I apologized to the part of me I’d locked away that Hektor had succeeded in silencing me only when I had nowhere else to go.

Now I didn’t care. Even running into a soulless would at least be my choice, but this…thiscell, was not.

What I desired the most was not food, though my stomach ached. Not a blanket, though my body tensed against the cold…

I wanted my dagger so desperately it wouldn’t leave my thoughts. The feel of it had become tangible, and my wrist practiced various maneuvers in the air that Cassia and Calix had taught me. My eyes could have been closed, so thick was the darkness while my head rested against the icy stone.

My hand reached out, tracing the wings of my dagger, until a flicker of light stopped me. Small twinkles of stars formed in front of me, and in my delirium to be hallucinating in the dark I reached for it. Touching them, I drew a shallow gasp at the low vibration, the enticing pull to reach further into the small expanse that widened. The thump against my ribs was all I could hear, and my hand met something solid, my fingers curled around it, and I couldn’t believe it to be what my mind concluded.

I pulled it toward me, and the small galaxy reflected off the metal that appeared black before the light winked out completely.

I didn’t immediately move. My fist clutched tighter, expecting reality to wipe my imagination clean with laughter when my chipped nails bit my palm.

They didn’t.

My fist remained clamped around the hilt, and I was no longer certain I was awake. I couldn’t see it, but my fingers reached over the cross guard, feeling every ridge of the carving of feathers I knew without question. Then they felt along the unmistakable wave of the blade.

My breathing came short with adrenaline, needing to confirm it further, and so I grabbed the sharp end in my palm. I cried out immediately as it sliced through skin, but the pain was numbed in my euphoria.

It wasreal.

I stood from the bed. The stormstone dagger trembled in my extended grip, but I released a sob of elation at the impossibility and fear that this was a trick and it could be stolen from me at any moment.

“I would kill him, but that vengeance has the chance to be yours.”

I spun at the silvery voice, unable to make out a thing in the pitch-dark, but his presence rippled close. I angled my blade in the direction I thought him to be.

“Very good,” he said, sending gravel over my skin at the proximity, and when I turned again, I would have struck true were it not for the hand that caught my wrist. “When you go to use your beautiful darkness, make sure you aim for his heart.”

“You’re not really here.”

Yet he guided my hand higher, until the tip of the blade rested against something I could drive it through.

“You’re not real.”

“Try it,” he tempted.

“You want me to stab you?”

“If it helps ease your mind, yes.”

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