Page 176 of The Stars are Dying

Then there was Nyte. Standing before it so still and calm, but careful…controlled.

Splintered arrowheads littered the floor, and I gawked at the display of magick, wondering if I would ever truly know the many layers to the power he harbored.

“Don’t provoke me again.” Nyte’s tone was chilling as the wall came down like a cascade of black smoke.

“Are you afraid of what she will think when she sees the true version of what you are?” the king taunted.

“What youmademe,” Nyte snarled.

The king’s mouth curled. He stared at his son as if he’d created the perfect monster. “Yes. And you have always been an ungrateful coward.”

Never before had I truly been afraid of Nyte. Not until now, as I witnessed his unparalleled magick and listened to the king goad him formore.

“Zath,” I whispered. His touch was the only comfort in the room.

“You’re going to be safe,” he said.

“Get her out of here.” Nyte’s low command came from strained tethers of control. He didn’t even turn to us.

Zath tried to pull me, but I stood firm.

“I’m not afraid of you.”

His back was to us, his shoulders rising and falling so steadily. A calculating, lethal calm. A glow broke from the cuffs of his jacket like gold spilled over his tightly clamped fists. Nyte’s hand dipped into his pocket, and I thought I’d seen the round brass item in his possession before. He flipped it and let the king’s eyes dwell on it. Whatever he found etched on the item widened the king’s eyes.

“Where did you get that?”

As the king stepped forward for a closer observation, Nyte’s fist clamped, and it disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

“I’m going to find out the truth,” Nyte said calmly. “And there is no reason for you to be alive anymore. You have been a parasite of realms for too long.”

“You think your mother is any better?” The kingchuckled.

“Stop provoking me,” Nyte warned with trembling restraint.

“Why? Because you’re afraid to face the truth? The danger you will always be to her.”

Nyte didn’t respond.

The king laughed again, and every hair on my body stood, anticipating something sinister was about to erupt.

“Your own mother didn’t want you. And neither will she once you show her what you are,Nightsdeath.”

“Do you really think I’m vulnerable to your words after all this time, Father?”

The king’s head tilted, then his eyes shifting to me locked my spine. “No, but you might be to save her.”

A cool breath of metal met my throat, pinching before breaking skin…

The ground rumbled like a quake beneath us.

It happened so impossibly fast, and my stomach reacted first, twisting with a sickening crack. A few splatters of warmth fell over my collar from behind.

“You really want to die by the hands of the villain you made me?” Nyte said in a cruel voice I didn’t recognize, so close behind me now I stood deathly still. “Fine.”

My compulsion to turn won against the urgency that screamed at me to run.

The tattoos on Nyte’s neck glowed, and his eyes…I’d seen them alive before, but this…it was as if the sun were leaking out from them, unable to be contained any longer. It diffused like gold mist from his irises. Black vines crawled up his neck, over his jaw, and to the delicate tips of his ears.

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