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Her focus drifted back to the motionless paladins spattered over the clearing. “My devout are not without use, but they prove lacking in the skills in which you and your kind excel.” Nestra looked upon his swords, and then him. “The Island of Strye will rise anew under my reign. Zephyrs will once again claim the respect they deserve amongst the Folk. I will require loyal fighters in this new era. A new guard.”
“I will not serve you,” Sirus declared.
She tutted her displeasure but did not seem surprised. “So quick to seal your fate?”
He’d rather die a thousand deaths than serve her.
Her sweet smile darkened, the edges of her eyes filling with tendrils of shadow to match the black he knew she could see in his own. She held up her hand, and a dark flame fell over it. It was stark against the white of her cloak and her skin. Something deep within Sirus’s bones responded to that power, knew it. It was the same power that lurked within himself.
“I never understood the use in fearing the Dökk,” the High Priestess told him. “It always seemed such a waste to let all they’d learned be forgotten.” The flames licked over her fingers and formed into a ball in the center of her pale palm. “The Shadows are just a natural reaction to the Light, after all. Though I suppose not all creatures are strong enough to wield such power without letting it consume them.”
Sirus felt disgusted as he watched Nestra fawn over herself and her brilliance. Rath had been right—the darkness was a gift to those who learned to master it. Sirus looked into her face. Nestra had deluded herself into thinking she could control the powers of the Dökk, but he had seen what became of others who had been just as arrogant. It never ended well.
She stepped closer. “Your makers were weak, but you needn’t follow them to the grave. The fate of your kind can be rewritten. I can rewrite it. Join me, and together we can create a new age of vampires as well. A new era of Light and Shadow. You could lead a clan of hundreds.”
Sirus gripped his swords tighter. He knew his odds were low. At most, he would get one chance. If he were to defeat her, he would have to be sharp. “You think you can tame a Star?” he questioned her. It was one thing to think she could wield the ancient magicks of the dark fae, but it was an entirely transcendent level of hubris to think she could also hold the power of a Celestial Star.
Darkness shifted over Nestra’s skin, exposing the cracks in her hold. The decay that lurked beneath. Then it all fell away, and she appeared as soft and porcelain as before. “It is my destiny,” she told him with conviction. “The Fates have foreseen it.”
Similar words had spilled from Merlin’s own lips before he’d found himself eternally imprisoned. Sirus had known then what he knew now as he looked upon Nestra. Fate and destiny had nothing to do with it. The High Priestess simply craved power, and she veiled her aspirations with the lie of prophecy.
He kept silent, and after a moment Nestra narrowed her eyes on him. Her dark powers clawed at his tattoos once more. His body tensed under the pressure as her magicks squeezed around him like a snake.
“You’ve tasted her, haven’t you?” she guessed with a tinge of raw jealousy. She stepped closer. Her eyes flared with darkness once more, and his skin prickled with pain. “Is that why you protect her still? Because you’ve tasted the Star’s power?” Nestra’s anger evaporated, and she smirked knowingly, edging nearer. She reached her hand out to stroke his face. “I can give you more than a mere taste, vampire.”
He saw his opportunity as she came closer. Sirus snatched his last dagger and plunged it into her heart. But the blade did not strike flesh, only shadow and air as Nestra fell away to nothing.
“The Hound of Hell,” she laughed coldly, reappearing several yards away. “The great leader of Wolves. You’re no more than a dog.”
Sirus’s body seared with crippling pain. “You will never have her,” he snarled through gritted teeth.
Nestra’s eyes turned solid black as the dark magick crept through her veins and along her pale skin. “A shame,” she lamented with sweet venom. “I do hope the Master of Serpents is wiser than that of Wolves.” She threw a ball of dark fire in his direction.
Pushing away the pain, Sirus managed to launch himself toward her, hoping, praying it would finish this. He dodged the fire only to slam into a magical barrier she threw up at the last moment. He struck it with force, bouncing off, but Sirus managed to stay on his feet, sliding backward through the snow.
Nestra hissed in fury as she looked down at her arm. Dark blood seeped over the slit in her perfectly white cloak where his blade had struck. Her black eyes snapped to him. “You are fast, vampire,” she conceded. “But I wield the magick of your makers now. You know you cannot win.” She began to mutter a foul spell that made Sirus’s skin prickle. Dark flames consumed her as she conjured the twisted magick, engulfing her white cloak until it burned and fell away. A slinky dress of shadow and flame replaced it to cover her naked flesh. She moved her fingers over the wound at her arm, healing it with magick.
The Dökk had been destroyed because they’d thought themselves capable of harnessing unknown forces beyond this world. Because they’d craved power and dominance above all else. Sirus had been reborn long after the Dökk had fallen, but as he looked upon Nestra, he felt as though he were gazing upon a specter of one of his shadow fae makers.
He knew in his bones that she held power over him. That what she said was true. He would not win. But still he held his swords at the ready. If he was to die, he would do it with honor, defending his home. His clan. Gwendolyn.
His heart pricked with regret knowing he would never see her again. Never touch her soft skin or hear her laugh. Sirus knew he’d been a fool and the others had been right. He’d loved Gwendolyn for some time, and he would until the end. He was not sorry she was far away from here and safe, but he was sorry he would never get the chance to tell her.
“You have already lost,” he told Nestra. “The Star is gone. You will never have her.”
Nestra’s black eyes narrowed. She held out a hand, dark fire forming around it. His blood burned within his body; the pain was beyond anything he’d known since his rebirth. Sirus fought against it. Nestra only pushed harder. His vision blurred, and he fell to one knee, digging a sword into the ground to keep himself upright.
The High Priestess slid closer. “The Star will be mine,” she declared. “And you will die, dog.”
Beyond the grip of agonizing pain, he grew numb and detached. He thought of Gwendolyn. A vision of her in the forest, smiling back at him, her soft scent of lilies mixed with the forest and the home that he loved.
The pain ceased all at once. His vision cleared again, and Sirus found himself kneeling, swords still in hand. His breaths were shallow, his body coated in sweat. Waves of shock flooded his nervous system in the afterglow of the pain.
Nestra stood before him, her head turned to the east, her attention drawn as if she sensed something.
A spray of Levian’s magick sent violet light cascading over the sky. Sirus gripped his swords, ready to strike. Not caring what had caused Nestra to drop her attack. The moment he felt his limbs return to his control, he struck. Sirus lunged forward with two precise swings. A wall of shadow engulfed Nestra, blocking him. A ball of black flame shot out, hitting him square in the chest. Sirus flew back, landing hard on the ground.
Every bone and muscle in his body pulsed with pain, and he struggled to compose himself. He knew he was bleeding, and that several of his ribs were broken. His bleary gaze found Nestra as he tried to stand again.
