Page 103 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

ASAR

E ven faced with the vengeance of the White Pantheon, nothing terrified me more than Mische collapsing beside me. I fell to my knees when she did, whispering her name as her lashes fluttered, fear clutching my chest. Luce curled around us, as if ready to protect us against even the gods themselves.

Shiket arrived first. Her helmet was down, leaving only the bottom half of her face visible.

The blades on her back—only five, one missing—glowed with divine fury.

The others followed not long after. Ijakai circled the sky in the form of a massive hawk, Srana clicked with her clockwork eyes, Ix unfolded in a puff of lavender smoke, Vitarus came in a cloud of life and decay.

Acaeja was among the last to arrive. Her six wings were spread, depicting six fates of bloody death.

“You know no limits,” Shiket roared at Nyaxia. “You have slaughtered my people. You have murdered my acolytes. And now you hand untold power to your fallen ones. You are a lesser goddess who should have stayed in the deadlands. Alarus would be ashamed of what you have done to his legacy.”

“You dare claim to know what my husband would have wanted? You, his murderers?” Nyaxia let out a laugh that sounded like flesh tearing. “I will destroy you. First let me punish my own traitorous children. And then I will come for yours.”

Nyaxia whirled to us, teeth bared in a snarl, and I cringed over Mische’s barely conscious form.

“You will not.”

Acaeja’s voice shook the heavens. Unlike Nyaxia and Shiket, she did not shout. There was no emotion in her words. Only truth.

When I raised my head, Acaeja stood before us. Her wings were spread, shielding us with fate itself.

Shiket drew back. Confusion, then anger, rippled over her face.

“You have no authority,” she said. “On the glory of the White Pantheon, I command that you?—”

“You do not rule the White Pantheon,” Acaeja said.

The other gods whispered to each other, exchanging uneasy glances.

Shiket’s golden eyes flared.

“I am the goddess of justice?—”

“You do not rule the White Pantheon,” Acaeja repeated. “I see the blood of this path. A catastrophic war between humans and vampires. I do not allow it. I do not stand behind you, Shiket.”

Nyaxia covered her mouth, chuckling softly. “My, cousins, what a treat to witness this.” Then, just as quickly, her amusement withered. “All the easier it will make it to fracture you. Step aside, Acaeja. The discipline of my children is my business. And they will pay for?—”

“ They will not .”

Now, Acaeja’s voice boomed. The earth shook. The sky shattered. I slid backward with a great gust of wind, Mische’s limp body clutched in my arms. The final dead scattered.

I looked up just in time to see the world, literally, split in two.

Acaeja hovered above the sea, her wings spread and hands outstretched.

The power of her act threatened to strip the flesh from my bones.

A massive crack, pulsing with divine light, shot from her fingertips toward both horizons.

I watched it wind through the House of Shadow, cutting through the mountains and fields, and disappear into the distance.

“Three times now, I have warned you, Nyaxia, of how this path ends,” she said.

“I have had enough. This is my territory now. The king and queen of the House of Night have pledged themselves to me. And so now have the king and queen of Vathysia, the House of Death. You will make no move against them, or else face the wrath of me.”

Nyaxia rasped a furious laugh. But her eyes shone as if with tears.

“Vathysia? Vathysia no longer exists.”

“That does not appear to be true. It appears that your husband has heirs once again.”

Acaeja’s wings flashed with shifting visions of the future—Morthryn restored to its former glory, the underworld repaired, cities formerly of the House of Shadow flying the black banners of the House of Death.

“Keep your House of Shadow,” Acaeja said. “Keep your House of Blood. But the Houses of Death and Night are under my protection.”

“And what of us?” Shiket said. “You expect us to simply allow this?”

Acaeja turned her icy gaze to her sister, steadfast and serious. “No, Shiket. I expect that we will be at war.”

“You fight for the fallen ones now. Amusing, sister. But unwise.”

“No,” Acaeja said, looking between Shiket and Nyaxia. “You fight for the eradication of each other. And I fight for the one path that will not end in the destruction of all.”

“How self-righteous of you,” Shiket sneered. “This will not be the end.” She turned her golden stare to Nyaxia, who seethed.

“No,” Nyaxia agreed. “It will not be. Let the games begin, my cousins. What fun ones they shall be.”

And with one final steel stare to us, a silent look that promised untold horrors, Nyaxia stepped into nothingness. The White Pantheon followed, one by one, slipping off into the spira until only Acaeja remained.

At last, she turned to us.

I knelt on the glass-scattered floor. I clutched my chest with one hand, Mische with the other. She was barely conscious. I couldn’t tear my eyes from her. The dead slipped once again from the darkness, surrounding us but never touching.

“You are weak,” she observed. “Such is the price of walking the path to divinity and back.”

Weak was a word for it. I felt like my heart was dying. I pulled Mische closer, and she let out a wordless groan.

“Please, what’s wrong with her?” I asked.

Acaeja lowered herself before us. The images in her wings shifted, revealing Mische’s face and my own.

“The weight of such power is heavy. Your lover has traveled from life to death to divinity and back again. She holds half the heart of Alarus, but she was born merely mortal. It is not an easy path for a body or soul to bear. Just as the weight of your own fragility suffocates you now.”

So foolish, for someone so all-seeing. It wasn’t my fragility that suffocated me. It was hers.

The terror that after everything, I would lose her again—so narrowly—choked me.

“But she already carried a piece of Alarus’s essence,” I said. “The piece that she took from me, in that ritual circle. And now she carries a piece of his heart, too.”

“But what does that make her? A human? A vampire? A wraith? A god? There are only so many spaces a single soul can occupy before it destroys them.”

No. I refused to accept it. “She is the queen of the House of Death. You acknowledged it yourself. The dead have chosen her. You need the underworld, and the underworld needs her. You are the goddess of fate. Surely you see how important she is.”

Acaeja gave me a long, indecipherable stare.

“I have lived for an eternity,” she said, “and all of it, I spent watching fate. Watching the threads combine and separate. Watching the different ways that they weave tapestries of the future. Mische Iliae is a soul of no consequence. There are millions of threads in which she dies as an infant or child, a mundane tragedy of an unforgiving world. A million more in which she lives and dies in obscurity. Perhaps her sister seeks sanctuary at a different temple; perhaps Atroxus is distracted and never notices her; perhaps the night she is Turned, Raihn Ashraj never finds her, and she dies alone. And in some threads, Asar Voldari, she dies here tonight, returning to the arms of the dead who have come to love her so.”

Acaeja’s wings depicted these countless possibilities—a baby Mische taken by fever, a child Mische starving in the slums, an elderly Mische dying in her sleep in the Citadel, surrounded by her fellow acolytes. And then, Mische exactly as she looked right now, eyes closed forever.

“And yet,” Acaeja said slowly, “of all these millions of threads, some always remain the same. If Mische Iliae grows up in the Citadel, she always befriends the vampire that would begin her downfall. If she meets Raihn Ashraj, she always remains with him for decades. And if she meets you?.?.?.”

Her voice trailed off. In her silence, I heard Gideon’s voice: You’ll ruin her.

And my heart clenched with dread for her impending words—because I was certain she was about to confirm the worst of my fears. That I would always be Mische’s greatest tragedy.

At last, Acaeja said, “Very rarely, there are souls that, no matter the thread, become the continuation of each other’s tales.

Perhaps Mische Iliae meets you in the Shadowborn castle.

Perhaps she meets you in the underworld.

Perhaps she meets you upon the battlefield of a divine war.

Perhaps she meets you by chance in a library, or a garden, or a city street.

” In her wings, countless different lives blossomed—countless different versions of myself, and different versions of Mische, our threads intertwining.

“In some, your endings are pleasant. In others, painful. But how curious, that in every one, you change the world together.”

I let out an ugly, ragged exhale. The intensity of my relief was matched only by my grief.

I looked down at Mische—Mische, whose face held the greatest parts of divinity and mortality. Mische, who was the most extraordinary soul I had ever met.

“Of course she does,” I murmured. “She is an event.”

“She was no one,” Acaeja said dismissively. “But perhaps that is what makes her remarkable. Such is the glory of fate. It is forged, not born.”

She reached out and pressed her fingertips to Mische’s forehead.

“She has earned her gift of life. And like you, she may keep her small piece of divinity. She will need it, for what is to come.”

Mische’s body jerked. She drew in a deep, ragged breath, as if sucking in the gift Acaeja had given her. Not the gift of a god’s power, but the gift of imperfect mortality.

Acaeja straightened to her full, formidable height and looked to the horizon.

“Recover,” she said. “Rebuild your kingdom. Prepare yourselves. The war no longer looms in the distance. It is upon us. Already, Nyaxia gathers her children to move upon the human nations. And already, my siblings rally against her.”

Her voice was straightforward, unemotional. Even with Mische in my arms, safe and alive, it was sobering. The full implications of what I had done by pledging Acaeja my loyalty— our loyalty—settled over me.

We were surrounded by enemies. War was inevitable—a war that could destroy this world as it had once destroyed the deadlands. And it occurred to me only now just how well the cards had fallen in Acaeja’s favor. She had engineered the creation of two more demigods to add to her collection.

I held Mische close. “Thank you, goddess,” I said, bowing my head.

Acaeja stared blankly at me. “It is no kindness. Our interests align. One must be pragmatic in such times. Fate is forged, after all.”

And with that, she was gone.