The Stars are Dying : (Nytefall: Book 1)

He’d learned that dying, no matter how slow and painful the seconds before a final breath, was nothing compared to taking infinite more without the one he loved.

No—love was too mundane a word for the split in his soul she cleaved in her wake.

For two hundred years he’d watched the same constellation as though it were the only one in existence. Now it had begun to fade. A fraction every week that no other would notice. To him it became a countdown.

He faintly adjusted the magnification of the telescope so as not to miss a flicker, his sight mapping the twelve points. Always the same order. He didn’t even know he’d adopted the pattern.

Even in the fading light she was magnificent.

Yet he didn’t plan to be here when the earth quaked for her return. Years, perhaps decades, still from now. He didn’t plan to remain the reason those cracks continued when she came back.

Knowing this was the last time, he lingered a little longer. Then he sighed, stored the final sight, and pulled away.

Sitting on the low ledge of the open archway window, he lifted the glass of liquor he held, clinking it against the metal telescope. “I tried to find a way. It’s been as hopeless as it was back then,” he said. Over the years he’d become so detached that no emotion plagued him now. “But I’m also glad you won’t get to see all that I’ve become. Your disappointment might just be the thing to break me.”

The alcohol burned down his throat as he tipped back the contents of the glass. His tight grip shattered it, but he didn’t feel the slices through his palm. There was nothing that could hurt him anymore.

“I never got the chance to ask you what you saw.” A fist tightened in his chest, but the agony was all he had to remember how real she was since time tried to blur the images. “How you saw past it all and for a fleeting moment made me believe there was something good in me. I’m sorry you were wrong.”

Standing, he slung on his black cloak, steps crunching through glass shards as if they were all that was left of his old existence.

“At least I won’t be able to hurt you anymore.”

They all cowered at the hooded shadow that passed them. Shrinking back, bowing their heads, avoiding his stare as he swept through the castle halls.

The black glittering marble of the floors, broken only by white pillars and the occasional sculpture, appeared sinister with the figure who occupied the space now. Before, there was beauty in these halls. But what was once the darkness of dreams and a clear night sky was now the kind of death.

The people he swept by whispered a name—one that had attached itself to him not by choice, but by the sin he represented. The god he was all but a mortal form of.

In the throne room, the ruler had been expecting him.

He saw the leathery, taloned wings of the guard the king was in conversation with before he was dismissed. A nightcrawler. Perhaps the worst of the three vampire curses, nightcrawlers couldn’t touch the daylight.

The hooded male spoke his intent. “We agreed one century. I have given two. Now I have come for what you owe me.” His voice was as cold as ice and as dark as night.

The king wore a crown, but it was as good as a child’s costume. An image with hollow authority. At least without him. But he’d given far more time in service than they’d bargained for.

“If what they prophesize is true, we must find her first. The celestials are already being sighted on this side of the veil, testing our defenses. Magick will weaken again, and we can stop the return of this war before it has a chance—”

“No,” he growled. It rattled through him. Rage so sharp and lethal it shifted midnight to black and leaked cold shadows through the room.

The king observed them cautiously.

“If you want to keep that throne against them, and keep the vampires believing in your reign, you’ll have to do it yourself.”

He didn’t enjoy the idea of leaving now. In fact, that was too light for the feeling that tore him to his very core at the image of her facing it all without him. Until he remembered he was the cause of everything that had shattered his world—hers—many centuries ago. To be without him was the only way she stood a chance.

“What will you do…if you manage to make it back at all? It is a world you do not know. One that may cast you out permanently before you can discover a thing.”

He didn’t care. None of that frightened him. He didn’t care if instead he became trapped in a void of nothing. It was better than being the reason they would not win the war about to rise again.

“You have become legendary. You would give it all up?”

“Tell me where to go,” he said through gritted teeth. His mind was made up. It had been two centuries ago. He would turn on the whole damn world before he gave another.

Choking filled the room as he slipped into the minds of every guard, cutting off their ability to breathe.

“If you keep me here, I swear I will kill you. I never wanted that crown, but I will take it.”

“Very well,” the king said, eyes of disappointment and resentment locking with his.

He had long since hardened to the beads of rejection.

“If this is to be farewell, I would like to show you the way.” The king turned, and the hooded male let go of the guards, who gasped for their stolen air. “Follow me.”