NOVPUBNothing Else Matters
Astra dipped a chip into the pool of sour cream sauce, popped it into her mouth, and hummed her approval. “Squint hard enough and you can pretend there are two whole stars up there,” she said, salt crystals stinging her tongue.
Eydis tore her gaze away from the scant sky and pinned Astra with a sly grin. “Three, optimist.”
Astra looked away, almost shy, though she already knew what Eydis meant.
“Which one did I miss?” she asked anyway. Maybe Eydis had a point. Astra had a soft spot for flattery, but only when delivered with that infuriatingly self-assured sparkle in those amber eyes.
Eydis shifted slightly, letting her soft brown waves cascade over one shoulder. “Are we talking about the emotionless suns overhead, or the bright, beautiful distraction beside me who keeps pretending she’s oblivious?” Her voice dipped, exactly the way Astra liked. “I wrote a poem about her once. Want to hear it?”
“Please don’t.” Astra glared on principle, but her smile wasn’t fooling anyone. “Besides, I’m still getting used to this new version of you.”
“This new version?”
“The shameless flirt.” Astra’s eyes narrowed playfully.
Eydis tucked a stray lock behind her ears. “I thought I was always shameless.”
“Not like you meant it.”
Eydis’s teasing smile melted into sincerity. “That’s because I finally do.”
Astra leaned in until their shoulders touched. “You’re completely unfair.” She let the warmth between them linger a second longer before looking back to the sky. “Tell me why those emotionless suns matter so much.”
Eydis rested her chin on her knees, suddenly pensive. “Where I grew up the sky was a dull slate. Almost day, almost night, never entirely either; starlight was more legend than light.”
“The Celestial Empire has all the luxuries, then?”
“Almost like they collect the light and leave the rest of us to live in shadows.” This time the smile didn’t reach her eyes.
And how would you feel about that?
The question held on Astra’s tongue. She knew asking it might open a Pandora’s box she wasn’t ready to unpack. Light and shadow, by certain clichéd standards, they stood on opposite ends. Or worse… at war.
So she pivoted. “And no one ever thought to challenge that?” The words left her mouth too fast, and she regretted them just as quickly. Eydis’s expression darkened.
“How?” Eydis asked. “We’re mortals wielding leased power from gods and monsters. They are the ones who designed our world.”
The bitterness surprised Astra. Eydis’s words rolled out unchecked, unguarded, and almost passionate.
“The designers wanted everything tidy, and that’s exactly what broke it. Everything was dichotomous. Light or shadow. Worthy or irrelevant. No room for those of us who live in the liminal. But they called it peace, so I suppose that made it just.”
“The absence of noise isn’t the presence of peace,” Astra said, half to herself.
Eydis’s eyes met hers and widened slightly, a little startled, then she leaned closer and, without breaking eye contact, stole the cold chip from Astra’s hand.
Her lips dragged along Astra’s fingers before she licked away the clinging salt with a languid swirl of her tongue. “Not bad,” she purred, the sound rich and close and damn unfair.
Oh, she had planned that. Down to the pause, to the voice. Queen of Shadows was getting dangerously close to testing Astra’s restraint.
Astra bit back a sound she didn’t want to label. Eydis’s smirk confirmed she heard every quiver. Astra wondered whether she wanted to kiss her or bite her.
Bite?
That thought startled Astra enough to make her laugh. “We just leapt from cosmic despair to… that.”
“Shameless flirting,” Eydis said helpfully. “To be fair, I was reflecting deeply before you dazzled me with unexpected wisdom.”
Astra’s blush was hopeless. She couldn’t help the quiet fascination that bloomed while listening. It had never been about domination. With her power and wealth, Eydis could have carved an empire of her own. Yet here she was, perched on an unassuming rooftop, pretending to enjoy the kebab she barely touched.
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She brushed a silken strand away from Eydis’s cheek, not the coarse tangles from before. Magic had a way of rewriting reality, and maybe fate. Even how, or why, they ended up being here.
But her thoughts couldn’t wander far when Eydis turned and kissed her softly. A hush fell over Astra’s lungs, her lips chasing that warmth, that tenderness Eydis held far too close to her heart.
When the kiss broke, Eydis whispered, “Pinpricks or not, the stars matter.”
“Then I’ll take you somewhere they blaze brighter,” Astra whispered against her lips. “Maybe we’ll even catch an aurora down south.”
“Is that an official second date?” Eydis’s smile dazzled without apology.
Astra nipped her lower lip, earning a gasp. “Behave and you might get more than two.”
“Or misbehave strategically.” Eydis added with a smug grin.
Astra’s glare wasn’t not a yes.
Eydis laughed and tilted her head back. “Then it’s unofficially official. You, me, stars, someday. Though this view isn’t so bad.”
“Could be worse.” Astra muttered. “Could be raining.”
Eydis chuckled again, carefree. “Even these two stars still find a way to shine. Maybe they’re closer than they look, literally and metaphorically.” She glanced sideways. “Hard to focus on them, though, when someone keeps stealing the spotlight.”
“You’re being charming,” Astra murmured. “But maybe you’re not wrong.”
Eydis gasped. “Did you hear that? Astra, admitting vanity.”
“I was talking about the stars. You made them sound… precious.”
“Mmhmm.” Eydis’s breath fogged in the chill. “Ordinary things become precious when you grow up without them.”
Astra nudged Eydis's shoulder with her own. “Like the beige dorm walls you keep cherishing?”
“Human walls bend to human wills. Nature is a rarer gift,” Eydis laughed.
“You’ll get along great with the Climate Action group,” Astra said, watching Eydis's reaction from the corner of her eye.
“The ones who preach about carbon footprints but fly private to summits?” Eydis grinned. “Now that’s offensive. Change isn’t only about awareness, Astra. Awareness without dirt under the nails is just noise.”
Astra rolled her eyes. “Real change does happen. It takes time.”
Eydis smiled knowingly. “Listen to you. A secret idealist.”
Astra scowled, but then a thought intruded, sharply.
Change…
Indigo.
Eydis had been distrustful of him, logically, it made sense. He was a man of mystery even to Astra. She thumbed the earbud case in her pocket. “Eydis.”
Something in her voice must have startled Eydis, because she turned fully to Astra. “Yes?”
“What would you make of trust?”
The question wiped the humour from Eydis’s face. She looked away, and Astra thought she would close off again, that she would deflect with a clever quip or change the subject entirely. But Eydis just sighed, bit into the skewer, grimaced, and laid it aside.
Like surrender.
“Sometimes, Astra, what you see, what you think you know, what you hear with your own ears….” Eydis said tentatively, like she was feeling her way through each word. “None of it gives you the whole picture.”
“What are you trying to say?” Astra probed gently.
“That even what comes out of my own mouth might not be the whole truth.”
Astra chuckled lightly. “Philosophy or paradox?”
Eydis trailed a kiss against the curve of Astra’s ear. “I’m saying… you see two stars overhead. But does that mean there are only two?”
Astra sighed into the touch. “So the whole truth is unknowable.”
“Hard to map, at least.” Eydis’s breath warmed Astra’s skin, intimate, and entirely distracting. “Sometimes you have to trust feeling.”
Astra’s breath hitched. “Like trusting me enough to reveal who you are?”
“Like trusting me enough to heal me,” Eydis murmured, “even knowing what I’m capable of.”
“Is that… good or bad?”
“Good for me, at least.” Eydis’s playful tease didn’t last long when she continued, “I had a mentor once, someone I trusted, perhaps even more that my Royal Parents. I believed he’d stand beside me through anything. But he betrayed me. And himself.”
Astra caught the sharpness of had. “And were you disappointed?”
“Yes. But now… I wonder. I wonder if I missed something. Or if something was taken from me…” Her eyes found Astra’s. “And I just haven’t remembered what it was.”
Astra didn’t reply, she wasn’t sure if Eydis meant something deeper.
Eydis looked back out at the dark skyline. “I’ve started to question this obsession with categories. Heroes. Villains. Right. Wrong. Can a single moment define someone? Should it? Does a single falling star mean its constellation never burned bright?”
Astra drew in a sharp breath as the words hit too close, and the earbud case slipped from her grip. She never would have expected that…
That Eydis’s words could be this comforting. And somehow, they released a tension she hadn’t realized was gripping her.
“And what changes that perspective?” she asked tentatively.
“Are you fishing for compliments again, Astra?”
“You’re saying I had something to do with it?”
“Hmm.” Eydis’s smile was too sincere. “I’m saying someone may or may not have illuminated a few long-forgotten corridors in my mind.”
Then she lowered her voice. “Trust breaks easily. The real question is whether you try to catch the pieces as they fall, or if you simply watch them hit the ground, convincing yourself it was always fated to be glass, too delicate to ever hold.”
Astra’s heart beat wildly. She reached for the skewer, chewing without tasting, trying to slow her racing thoughts. Then, to her own surprise, a laugh slipped out.
“Are you sure you’re the Queen of darkness?” 𝓃𝓸𝓋𝓅𝓊𝒷.𝓬𝓸𝓂
Eydis’s lashes lowered to Astra’s lips, and stayed. “Shadows.”
“You know what I mean.” Astra smiled, but it was touched with wonder, maybe even awe. “What looks like shadow…” She traced Eydis’s wrist. “…sometimes reveals light.”
Eydis’s eyes turned unreadable, but Astra felt the truth in the quick pulse beneath her thumb. The words had sunk in.
“I did warn you… Even when I’m honest, it may not be whole. Not because I want to lie, just because this is all I know right now.”
“Or maybe,” Astra whispered, “it’s the truth you’ve been protecting.”
Eydis began to object, but Astra’s mouth silenced the words. Her hand tangled in soft waves, pulling her close.
Closer.
This moment felt like a turning point where someone you thought you knew became something more.
Even with a siren splitting the night, Lust still unbound, Indigo’s secretive battle against someone wielding crescent light unresolved, and the world doing its best to keep her out of the loop…
None of it mattered.
Because for once, she trusted Eydis. Instinctively. Because Eydis smiled at her like everything might actually be okay.
And when Eydis kissed back, like the world might fall away if she didn’t hold tight, Astra realised:
The stars could wait.
The trust would hold.
The Sins could burn.
This mattered.
Them.
Here.
Now.
Beneath a nocturne sky, where even two glass-shaped stars still cast enough light to find each other.
