Page 174 of The Stars are Dying

Still Calix did not move. He showed no flicker of emotion or reaction. All he did was await the verdict.

“I believe she asked you a question,” Nyte said.

With gritted teeth, Calix’s head was yanked up by an invisible hand. My lip wobbled as I met his cold eyes. They didn’t hold hatred or resentment or bear anything but a hollow existence that stole my anger.

“I had to try,” he confessed. “They said all I had to do was make sure you were alone, and they would take care of it. They said they would save her.”

“Who did?” Nyte coaxed.

“I don’t know.”

Calix choked, and I couldn’t stop my hand from reaching for Nyte, pressing his chest. Somehow it worked to stop his attack. Instead Nyte became distant, his eyes fixed on Calix. Searching, calculating.

I realized then he was looking for the truth himself.

“All I see is the man and the vampire you killed,” he said. Frustration flexed in his jaw. Nyte blinked and the present returned to him. He glanced down at my hand, and with a flush I dropped it. “It’s not the first attempt on your life. One night, you gave your handmaiden your cloak. She was mistaken for you by scent. Then your competitor took your carriage—another opportunity where you would have been completely alone—and he was murdered within it instead.”

The blame for their deaths was a blow to my gut. “Who would want to kill me?”

“A lot of people,” Nyte said. “But most imminently, and the one who is trying so hard, I can’t be sure. It has been my greatest torment, but I will find them.”

“I hate to break up a moment,” Zathrian said, “but the king is almost here.”

I was torn between staying with the inexplicable safety Nyte radiated despite everything…and running so far from him.

“Take him to the tower,” Nyte instructed. “For now.”

Calix was pulled to his feet. He didn’t meet my heartbroken stare or see the step I took toward him before Nyte stopped me with a hand around my waist. I wanted to speak with him alone, unable to see evil when he’d acted out of desperation for the one he loved. For Cassia I had totryto find forgiveness.

“You’ve spared him for a while. It’s more than he deserves.”

I tore myself away from Nyte, spinning to him with a heated glare. “You will not kill him,” I said, letting the threat linger in my tone.

I waited for him to mock me for it, but his face only drew a line as if he wanted to go to war with me, not against me. Trickles of last night threatened to become entangled with the other ways I knew his passion could be unleashed.

Torching my thoughts, I kept my composure to level with him. “At least let Zath go.”

Nyte relaxed as though the request tired him.

“He’s not holding me, Astraea.”

I looked at Zath. This man I had grown close to over a year. Someone I trusted as much as I did Cassia… I saw no struggle. Nothing that gave away his words and actions weren’t his own. His face fell with apology.

My throat was too dry. Tightening. I couldn’t breathe.

“Have you come to your senses, my son?”

The chill of the king’s voice locked me still. Who he referred to… My emotions switched so fast I couldn’t stop them. A cool wrath turned me to him, and I wasn’t much, hardly a threat, but it didn’t stop the step I took to side with Nyte this time.

The king eyed us both, lingering a look on my hand as it tightened around the key.

“Hand it over and we can forget our past grievances.”

Guards flooded into the room behind the king. So many, and these ones didn’t seem to yield to Nyte as easily.

“My brother always did take after you with his bold stupidity,” Nyte said. He looked over all the opposition and some shifted, exposing their wariness. “I see you’ve created your own personal ensemble against me with Starlight Matter. It’s of no consequence.”

The odds were far too great. I couldn’t fathom where his confidence had come from.

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