Page 177 of The Stars are Dying

Not human. Not vampire. Not fae. Not celestial.

I couldn’t be certainwhatNyte was.

He was still there, somewhere beneath it. And despite the frightening change to his appearance I still thought him to be the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Though I was unchanged…it was like he was slowly slipping in his recognition ofme.

A hand grazed mine, and without breaking Nyte’s tunneling stare, I was guided carefully away from him. Only when I’d taken a few steps did I look down. My hand rose at the gruesome sight of the beheaded guard who’d held the blade to my throat.

“He once told me something about him,” Zath said close to my ear. “That he has thisplacehis mind goes to. It only recognizes darkness. It wants to side with it, and anyone with light it wants to eradicate.”

I couldn’t understand what he was trying to tell me.

“It’s true,” Nyte said, his tone near taunting, but it was as if he still fought himself. “And your light isinsufferable.”

Nyte almost took a step toward me until the king’s merriment caught his undiluted rage.

That was the moment he let go.

I faintly heard Zath’s curse before he pushed me behind him, and a heartbeat later I was stumbling out the way of his blade clanging with a guard’s. My heart thundered, and I stepped after the flash of pink hair, but Rose was too fast and already fighting just as lethally by Zath’s side.

Then there was me. Weak, unskilled, and all I could do was watch on in horror as my two friends fought against so many who outmatched them. And Nyte…

Stars above.

He was mesmerizing in the way he moved. I should have been horrified by the ease with which he killed, blinking through darkness, snapping necks, shredding flesh. It was the most dark and twisted thing I’d ever admired.

My palm heated, growing almost too hot, as if something were gathering in the key, and it was either unleash it or let it consume me.

Forms rushed past me, and I cried out to warn Zath and Rose as I realized they were the Golden Guard—but the sound died in my throat when the guards started fightingwiththem.

What the fuck is happening?

A touch on my shoulder made me whirl with an attack I didn’t get to unleash as I found familiar dark eyes smiling at me. I didn’t think I could be more dumbfounded.

“Davina?” I examined her from head to toe. She wasn’t dressed in her usual cotton gown; her hair was styled in neat braids, a beautiful coronet. What she clutched I had never seen before: a fan crafted of metal. Even folded the points were lethal.

“I’m sure you have a lot of questions,” she said, too soft and out of place for the commotion erupting behind us.

“That’s putting it lightly.”

Davina winced, but her eye caught on something behind me that switched her delicate expression to one of steady focus. I could only stare in bewilderment as she shifted her stance, snapped the metal fan open, and cast out her hand.

At the noise of choking close behind me, I turned just in time to watch the vampire fall and see the hiltless dagger protruding from his neck. Davina’s fan was now one metal piece less, and I became fascinated by the weapon.

“We need to get you out of here,” she urged me.

“I’m not running.”

Not again. Not ever again.

The heat crawled up my arm, tuning to a hum over my skin, and as I glanced over at him I found a similar affliction to Nyte. From the cuff of my sleeve glowedsilver.

I’d spent so long wondering who I was, and I couldn’t cower from it now I was so close to getting my answer.

I surveyed the room of blood and flesh, enemies tearing at each other, and though they were outnumbered, those who fought on Nyte’s side were not outmatched.

It had erupted into a scene of savagery and destruction, and though I harbored no warmth for the king or any vampire, this couldn’t go on.

I answered the key.

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