Starset Let It Die Novels & Stories

Not broken. Burned out. Kael staggered to his feet, reaching for me. “No. No, please.” I wanted to run to him. Wanted to scream. But the Luna Star pulsed in my hand, cold and final. Necros’s face darkened. “You gave up your mate… for this?” “No,” I whispered. “I gave up everything—to end you.” And with a cry that tore open the sky, I hurled the Luna Star at him.

Harvey still did not manage to see me in the end. Grandma said, "I've made a promise to Maddie. She told me she never wanted to see you again." Harvey did not lose it when he was stripped of his glory, but he snapped at that moment. He looked at the garden pavilion, where my body lay, and tried to barge over. This time, everyone but Joshua rushed over and pinned him down. Harvey yelled, "You aren't actually dead, are you, Maddison? You must've still been alive! I didn't ask you to die! How could you… How dare you die!"

Let's end this. ***

Lena stared at the words. Her heart pounded wildly. “…Aftergame?” someone whispered. “What kind of sick joke is this?” another voice snapped. The screen flickered. More words appeared. STATUS: DECEASED A gasp spread across the crowd. Lena’s chest tightened painfully. “No…” she whispered. “No… that’s not—” ALL PARTICIPANTS HAVE DIED Her legs weakened slightly. Her breathing grew shallow. “I… died…” she whispered. Her voice barely sounded like hers. NEW OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE

… The skies finally calmed down on the sixth day, but ominous clouds continued to hover overhead. The roads were covered in warped steel bars. Cars, streetlights, and barricades were stuck together thanks to the magnets, forming massive mountains of metal. The entire city was in ruins. Just then, my phone vibrated. The system had sent a notification. "There are only ten minutes left before the conclusion of the second stage. Activating the in-game livestream function." No one spoke in the group chat. There were only three players left—me, Frank, and Riley. I had 1,500 points while Frank and Riley each had 1,400 points.

His eyes moved between me, Lucian, and the Elder several times, then he lowered the stake. "Nora, you'll regret this," he said. Then he turned and left with the three hunters. The alley fell quiet. Lucian's hand came down off my shoulder, his palm soaked with cold sweat. "Are you all right?" he asked. "I'm fine." Then I turned to the Elder. "Thank you." The Elder looked at me, his gaze lingering on my face a moment before it moved to Lucian. "Lucian von Karstein," the Elder said. "You traded your bloodline source for her life. The Council accepted the deal. But there's one thing you don't know. Your bloodline source still exists."

The whole room has narrowed down to that sentence. Strategic population reduction. There are phrases built specifically so nobody has to picture bodies. Her voice comes out very quiet. "Cull." Terminology disputed internally. "Not by me." LUS does not answer. Maya's pen moves hard enough to tear the paper. ARBITER = modelled collapse + population reduction. DECAY = engineered pathogen. Containment not objective. She stops. Looks at the words. The shape of it is worse than she expected, and that irritates her. She should be difficult to surprise by now. Dying should come with immunity to fresh horror.

I did not take it personally. "Stellan Montclair is not dead." That was enough to drain the color from Garrett's face. In my previous life, I was the one who suffered the most from Stellan's scheme. However, the retaliation Garrett endured was no less devastating. When Stellan returned from his feigned death, the very first person he went after was Garrett, who had tried to seize command in his absence. Stellan dispatched him deep into enemy territory with no supplies and no reinforcements, and left him there to be ground down and killed.

I pull the obsidian mask over my face. It fits perfectly (because of course it does). The Thunder Crown splits into two pieces (one on my brow, one hovering where Remy should be). Celeste (voice like the end of the world): “No one dies from love. But a lot of death lords are about to die for it.” We step through the cenote gate together. The water is black. The air smells like marigolds and betrayal. And somewhere in the dark, my husband is waiting. Xibalba just kidnapped the wrong coyote.

A suffusion of rage stormed through every last one of my senses, "Lucas died for what he did." I gave her a promise, a one I shouldn't break. A one I felt so sure that I can do. Her words have lit up hell in me and the demon is finally out starving for destruction. The moment the sun rises, I am going to keep this promise, "And so will Nikolas. I promise." Her eyes widened at my words or at how confident I'd sounded. This time I'm putting an absolute end to this. She won't rest when he's still out there breathing. I won't either.