Page 71 of The Stars are Dying

Exhilaration took over until my eyes were spotting, my mind calculating, and my limbs stretching. Until I was high enough to find a perch overlooking the courtyard just as they approached the main doors.

My mouth dropped open as the escort raised a hand and a ripple of iridescent light answered—so faint I could have missed it in a blink, but I always did have a focus for small details. They slipped inside, and though I hugged my arms tightly around myself against the bitter chill, I wasn’t leaving until I saw them come back out or devised a plan to follow them inside.

22

My shivering body made the minutes drag to feel like hours. I shifted, antsy on my perch and debating my climb down, taking the time to study the guards. I mapped a path I could take, hopeful I could slip past their blind spots.

What would they do to a lost and wandering Selected if I were caught anyway? It was more desirable than freezing my shit off in that moment.

Just as I braced, the slither of light from the open doors exposed a dark silhouette. I crouched again. My chest drummed that there was only one person, about to sink with dread at what the escort could have done with the female fae, when…

It was her.

Walking far more confidently down the courtyard path, her honey hair caught in the moonlight. I scanned for the escort, but they hadn’t come back out.

Where is she going alone?

The guards did nothing, staying so stone-still it was only the occasional blink that confirmed they weren’t garden decorations.

The fae passed close by my hiding spot, and I scurried down, heading straight after her when she slipped back inside.

“Wait!” I choked out, rattled with unease. Something felt wrong. Ominously wrong.

The female stopped, turning to me with a fright that was warranted at having been followed. I scanned her from head to toe, looking for…

I didn’t know what I was looking for. Injury? An expression of terror? Not this. Not…fine.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“A-are you all right?” I stumbled like an idiot.

She smiled warily, looking behind me as though confused by my question. “Should I not be?”

I blinked. She was the same fae I’d seen being dragged away from her mother—I was certain. Yet her contentment right now, considering where she was, shrouded me in a blanket of doubt.

“I’m sorry about what happened to you,” I said.

Her brow knitted, the curve of her mouth only for politeness as she looked at me as if I would reveal the joke. “Nothing has happened to me,” she replied. Not as someone covering up the truth. Not with the fear she couldn’t speak freely. No—her confusion was so genuine it made my skin prickle.

I wanted to be wrong, yet I couldn’t accept her reply. “You’re fae. You were taken from a town called Illanoi near the edge of Alisus. There was someone who loved you dearly… They lost their life trying to save you.”

Her smile finally fell.

My heart slammed as her delicate brows drew tighter together and her blue eyes sank to the ground. I hoped she was searching within for the memory. I wasn’t wrong. Yet she couldn’t remember—not fully.

“What did they do to you?” I whispered.

She shook her head, which dispelled her will to discover what I was talking about. Instead she turned to me with accusation. “I am proud to serve our king in this war.”

“There is no war,” I said, my voice rising in desperation. I took a step toward her, but she backed up as if I were a monster. “He’s building an army, maybe to start one. You have to leave—”

“Cassia.” A smoky voice pricked the hairs on my nape. I turned rigid at the arm that wrapped around me from behind and the gloved hand that clutched my upper arm, dreading what I’d find as I looked up at the crown prince.

He didn’t pin me with any hint of accusation or anger. In fact, it was jarring to be met with his easy smile and warm caramel eyes. “Is there a problem?” he asked smoothly.

Drystan was the epitome of unperturbed. His presence was unnervingly calming.

“No,” I said quickly.

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