Nyx had always hated silence.
Not the quiet of forests or moonlit halls—that kind of silence was sacred. Alive. It hummed with meaning.
No, he hated this silence.
The kind that pressed into your skin, filled your lungs like ice water, and whispered that you'd been forgotten.
He hung suspended in a hollow sphere of starlight and silver thread. The air was thin here. Or maybe it just felt that way because he was so damn tired.
His wings ached. Every motion sparked against the restraints—bands of lunar iron etched with names he didn't recognize.
He tried to sleep once. That was a mistake.
The dreams here weren't dreams. They were… memories. Not his.
He'd seen children walking backward through time. He'd watched cities fall upward into the stars. He'd watched the Veil split open like parchment and a shadow with no face crawl out.
The Astral One.
Nyx had made many bad decisions in his immortal life—stealing from the Court of Bones, kissing the Thorn Prince during a festival of masks, breaking into the Spire of Echoes on a dare—but this… this betrayal hit different.
Because he hadn't seen it coming.
Not from him.
Not from the Lord of Masks.
"You should eat," said a voice.
Nyx opened one bleary eye.
There he was, seated on a floating throne made of silver masks. A different face covered every inch of it—some smiling, some weeping, some screaming.
His real face was obscured, of course. Always. A mask of polished obsidian with a single crack down the left cheek.
Nyx snarled. "Not hungry."
"You never are," the Lord replied, his voice like falling leaves. "But you keep surviving. That says something."
Nyx yanked on the restraints. They didn't budge.
"Why me?" he hissed. "Why not take a Court noble? Or Thalen?"
"You still think this is about politics?" The Lord tilted his head. "Nyx, Nyx, Nyx. You disappoint me."
"I do that a lot."
The Lord rose from his throne. Each step echoed in the void.
"You're not here for who you are," he said. "You're here for what you carry."
Nyx frowned. "The sarcasm?"
"The mark."
And then Nyx felt it. A burning along his spine.
He gasped.
The skin beneath his shirt shimmered faintly—sigils, etched in starlight, slowly igniting. They moved like water, like constellations shifting in his blood.
"I don't have a mark," he growled.
"You do now."
The Lord reached into the air and pulled free a thread of light. "You touched the Astral Fold. You passed through the Gate of Mirrors. You stood beneath the temple at the world's edge."
"Iris was there too—"
"Iris is the vessel," the Lord interrupted. "You're the key."
He flicked the thread. Nyx screamed.
The world shifted.
Suddenly he wasn't in the cage anymore.
He stood in a field of stars.
Floating.
Alone.
Except he wasn't.
A shape hovered ahead. Vaguely humanoid, but vast—shoulders wide as galaxies, hands like comet trails, no face—just a void rimmed with light.
The Astral One.
And then it spoke.
But not in words. In knowing. In pull.
Like gravity for the soul.
It showed him a thousand futures. Realms consumed. Iris turned to glass. Thalen hollowed out a crown of thorns.
And one future where Nyx… opened the way.
Where he bowed before the Astral One, he became more than fae. Became infinite.
He tore himself free with a scream.
He slammed back into his body in the cage, gasping, sweat frozen on his brow.
The Lord of Masks stood with arms crossed. "See? He speaks to you."
"I didn't want to listen," Nyx hissed.
"No one ever does. At first."
The Lord turned and paced. "The Thorn Queen refused to hear. The Seers blinded themselves with duty. Even my beloved nephew runs from destiny like a scared child."
He turned back to Nyx.
"But you. You bend."
Nyx spat blood at his feet. "I break. Quite theatrically."
"Good." The Lord smiled. Or maybe the mask did.
"Because you're going to break the seal."
That was when Nyx realized it.
The ritual wasn't about Iris.
Not directly.
It was about him.
He was the final lock. The last chain holding the prison in place. The black rose, the curse, the dreams—they were echoes, trying to warn them.
He had been marked not for death.
But for use.
And the ritual was nearly complete.
He didn't have time.
He had to warn Iris.
He closed his eyes, focused.
There was still a link between them. She'd saved his life once with a thorn-blood bond—just a drop of magic, nothing lasting.
But maybe…
He reached into that memory. Her laughter at the Vale of Silence. Her voice in the Crystal City. Her hand, warm, as they escaped the mirror beasts.
And then—light.
A pulse.
A tether.
He whispered, "Iris… run."
And prayed she heard him.
Far away, in the Garden of Night, Iris dropped the black seed the Queen had given her.
It burned a word into her palm:
"Key."
And she felt Nyx's voice echo through her bones.
"It's not the Heart he wants. It's me.
He's going to free it.
You have to stop him—
Or Faerun is the first to fall."