Page 100 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

THE GOD OF DEATH

T he heart screamed as the blade cut it in two. The mask wailed. The eye wept.

The god swayed. His knees gave out. The souls of the dead surrounded them in searing light and cold darkness. Their hands reached into him, or perhaps hers did, or perhaps both.

He sank to the ground. The pain was unbearable. Blood poured to the tile floor, pooling in the cracks he’d gouged in it and falling all the way to the underworld.

He lifted his head. She stood over him, holding the heart—no, not all of it.

Half still remained within him, giving him the power of divinity.

But the power she took from him still was enough to set her ablaze.

The dead caressed her like children embracing their mother, guiding the heart into her own chest.

Light poured from her eyes, her freckles, the tips of her fingers. The skull—her crown—glowed bright. The flower in her hair burned. She was a goddess. Every bit a goddess.

Pain spasmed across her face, and the sight of it hurt. But she forced her eyes open. She kept her hold on his face.

“Come back to me,” she whispered again.

And then she cupped her hands between them. Within it was a fragile, beating muscle, more mortal than god. Weak and bruised and battered, and yet, all his.

The god let his mask clatter to the floor.

And he took her face in his hands and kissed her, as she thrust his mortal heart back into his chest, and the underworld consumed them.