Page 107 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

MISCHE

I x’s tits, what is that smell?”

It was the first thing out of Raihn’s mouth when he walked into the office, and gods help me, I had never heard anything so beautiful.

I was a queen, and this was a very important meeting with very important people over very important, very serious issues.

But I still dove across the room and threw myself against him before I could stop myself. It was like hurling myself into a brick wall, but he still let out an oof as I collided with him.

“I take it you’re happy to see us,” he said.

Gods, I was so, so, so happy to see them.

“A little,” I said, before abandoning him and hugging Oraya, who actually did stagger under the force of it.

I was so wrapped up in my overwhelming joy that I even threw my arms around Vale before I could stop myself, though he stiffened and promptly extracted me with all the military precision his title demanded.

“That is not necessary,” he grumbled, adjusting the bandages around his arms as he pulled away.

“It can’t be helped,” Asar said drily behind me. “She’s a force of nature.”

But when I glowered back at him, his eyes sparkled with a smile, like he had never seen anything so lovely.

I had written to Raihn and Oraya, but hadn’t seen them since the attack that had nearly destroyed the House of Night—the attack that Asar’s sacrifice had, however narrowly, saved them from.

It had turned out that Vale had been captured not far from the southern borders of the House of Night, closest to the House of Shadow, after he had retrieved the god blood.

He had been held captive by the Shadowborn, but had managed to free himself before they got him deep into Shadowborn territory, and then had to make the long trek back to the House of Night.

Vale is practically ready to stake himself for the shame of allowing it to happen at all, Oraya had written. But we are just grateful that he is alive.

“He’s lucky to be,” Asar had muttered, reading over my shoulder. “Shadowborn spies are merciless. If they kept him alive to extract information from him, then I’m sure he paid a heavy price for his survival.”

And indeed, even in that brief embrace, I could feel the shock of Vale’s mental scars, still raw, wrench through me. They would take a long, long time to heal—longer than his physical ones.

Asar, I knew—even though he didn’t express it—felt responsibility for what had happened to him, and what had happened to the House of Night as a result.

Asar had sent a letter to him personally saying as much, albeit in Asar’s stilted, reserved way.

The response he received from Vale was only two lines:

I knew what I signed up for when I took this position.

We have a war to fight.

Asar had chuckled softly and put the letter aside. But later, I’d taken it from the drawer and read it again, lingering on those last words:

We have a war to fight.

I was beyond happy to see Raihn and Oraya again.

But the true purpose of their visit still hung over us all, heavy and foreboding.

They had been immersed in repair efforts the last few weeks.

The House of Night had sustained heavy casualties during Shiket’s attack.

But in some ways, Oraya told me, it made them stronger.

Those who had been uncertain about Oraya and Raihn’s unconventional leadership, clinging to their old grudges between Hiaj and Rishan clans, now had turned their sights to the bigger enemy.

And were those bigger enemies big .

The Nightborn had come to strategize. We had adversaries looming over us from every direction—the Shadowborn and Bloodborn under Nyaxia’s control, and the humans under the White Pantheon’s.

We had put ourselves at the mercy of Acaeja’s command, and though she hadn’t made any demands of us yet, we knew they would be coming at any moment.

In the meantime, we needed to pool our strength to keep our kingdoms intact.

We all gathered in the library around a long mahogany table.

A map of the world was spread out before us, rendered in quivering lines of shadow.

Red arrows marked our most likely adversaries, and our weakest points.

More still marked the areas where our intelligence told us that Nyaxia and Shiket had already gone after each other, striking across the sea beneath the cover of eternal night.

It was overwhelming to see it all laid out this way. Millions of lives and the fate of the world, reduced to messy strokes on a map.

I thought we were all likely thinking the same thing, because we were silent, taking it in.

Then Asar leaned across the table and sighed.

“So,” he said. “Where shall we begin?”

The meeting lasted for hours, and by the time we were done, I wasn’t altogether sure that we were in any better of a position than where we started.

Life was easier back when I believed that the love of a god could protect us.

Now the gods’ favor was fickle and complicated—perhaps even more dangerous than it was helpful.

Still, I was glad that if we were going to face down such an uncertain time, at least I would do it with my allies, my friends, beside me.

When we at last disbanded, Asar and Esme took Oraya and Vale to our collection of artifacts and weapons, to see if there was anything they could make use of. But Raihn had nudged my shoulder. “I’ve seen enough swords and books to last for two lifetimes,” he said. “Take me on a tour instead.”

So, I showed him Morthryn. It was still covered in the marks of its decay.

Some walls had still not been repaired. A few windows were patched over.

The eastern spire had not yet been rebuilt.

But Morthryn was eager to be whole again, and Asar and I would often wake up to newly formed walls or rafters that had slowly, night by night, straightened back to their original position, like a body healing.

Yes, it still bore the scars. But there was beauty in those, too, in a way.

I showed Raihn everything that I loved about it—the libraries, the hallways, the fireplaces and windows and ivy-covered walls. All of them were a little different every time I walked them.

I didn’t realize just how much I was talking until, after some time, Raihn just stopped and stared at me, and I realized I’d been talking for nearly an hour straight.

I shut my mouth. “Sorry.”

“Never be sorry for that.”

We now stood in the ballroom beneath the watch of Alarus’s eye—the great stained glass window that cast rippling red light over the tile floor. This was the room where I had clashed with Asar. This was the room where I had brought him back.

Raihn spun around slowly.

“So,” he said drily, “this is the place you chose to call home over my castle. A death prison.”

“It’s not a prison. I already told you that. It’s?—”

“A temple. I know. You told me. A few times.” He crossed his arms and took it all in. “Seems like a lot of things. A castle, a fortress, a temple, a bridge.”

I smiled and affectionately ran my hand over a healing crack in the wall. “Yes. I suppose it is.”

“I have to say, Mish, when you left the House of Night, this was not where I expected you to land.”

“Where did you expect me to land?”

He paused, like he had to reflect on this. “I thought you would be wandering forever.”

I’m not made for standing still. That’s what I had told him, when I left. And I’d thought it was true then. That it was just in my nature to always be searching, always be leaving.

“Me too,” I said.

“I’m glad you’re not.”

“Me too.”

“You seem happy here.”

My gaze drifted out the windows. Morthryn had repaired the stained glass window itself—the first thing to come back—but some of the glass doors overlooking the sea were still boarded over with temporary planks of wood.

Mere weeks ago, gods had stood there. And even now, I could feel them, moving their pieces across the board, preparing for a game that would take thousands or millions of lives.

“Sometimes I wonder if it’s wrong to be happy,” I said. “When so much is still so wrong. And so much of it is?—”

My gaze found that eternally dark sky. The sky I had made that way.

Raihn, of course, knew what I meant.

“You saved a million vampire lives. And now, many more souls have the peace they deserve in death because of you. That isn’t nothing.”

No. It wasn’t nothing. But it wasn’t everything, either.

“There’s just?.?.?.?so much left to do,” I said.

Raihn lifted one shoulder in a shrug, as if it were simple as breathing. “There is. But everything else, we fight for. Piece by piece.”

Slow, hard, unglamorous, terrifying work.

But I had never been afraid of the impossible.

Raihn ruffled my hair and I jerked away, scowling.

“At least whatever we face next,” he said, “we face it together.”

And what a gift it was.

Later, after Raihn and I returned, the others went to the dining room for dinner. But I held Oraya back, ushering her into a quiet corner of the library.

“I have something for you,” I said, and slipped a worn, folded piece of parchment into her hand.

Vincent had been right—that the rules of passing something so physical from one realm to the other were far from straightforward.

When I’d awoken that first night, the envelope wasn’t with me.

It was only days later, when Asar and I were combing through the wreckage near the stairway to the veil, that I found it caught in the decorative stem of a sconce lining the way.

As if Morthryn itself had caught it before it blew back into the underworld, waiting to pass it off to me.

I’d held on to it since then. It hadn’t felt right to send it alongside all our other letters. It was too precious, too personal, not to give to her in person.

Instantly, Oraya knew what it was. I sensed her demeanor go tight and cold, like she had to clamp down on the wave of emotions that rose up beneath the surface.

Her thumb traced the swirl of what must have been a very familiar script. For a long moment, she was silent. Then she said quietly, “After he died, this was my greatest dream. I kept searching his offices, like I’d find some secret final message that would explain everything.”

I remembered. I knew how desperate she had been for closure.

“I don’t know if this will explain everything, exactly,” I said. “But it’s something.”

“An imperfect something.”

I smiled. “An imperfect something.”

She swallowed thickly. Then her eyes, bright silver, lifted to mine. She did look so much like Vincent. Right now, the similarity was striking.

“He really helped you all the way to the end?” she said.

I could hear the more painful question beneath this one— Why could he do that for you, but not for me? How could he help you seize your power but spend a whole lifetime trying to smother mine?

I squeezed her hand.

“Only because it would save you, I think,” I said softly. “But even still, one grand gesture and one letter doesn’t invalidate years of betrayal.”

The corner of her mouth tightened in a wry smile. “If only it was so simple.”

I thought of Saescha. Saescha, whose soul I had released under such terrible circumstances. I’d searched for her in the underworld since, but never could find her. I still wasn’t sure if her soul had successfully passed.

Indeed. If only one grand gesture could go so far.

Oraya turned the envelope over in her hands.

“I’d like to be alone to read this, if that’s alright.”

“Of course,” I said.

I stepped out into the hall, leaving her. I peered back one last time as she opened the letter. Slowly, she sank down onto a chair, head in her hands.

And I couldn’t help it—I watched for a few seconds longer, tensed, as a tear slid down her cheek. Watched until I saw her mouth twist into a small, sad smile.

Only then did I turn away, shutting the door behind me.

No. A letter couldn’t offer closure. Couldn’t invalidate every wrong or soothe every hurt.

But it was an imperfect something.

It had been a long night. After dinner, we all had talked and laughed for hours, until exhaustion slowly drove our guests, one by one, to their chambers. But even though I was tired, I lay in bed beside Asar, staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep.

Eventually, I slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Asar or Luce, who had sprawled out at the foot of the bed. I walked Morthryn’s silent halls. I wound down stairwells and through doors, going wherever it called me. The arrangement was different every time, and yet, I never felt lost.

I was in the lower levels, close to the veil, when I heard the voice behind me.

I was kneeling at one of the arched doorways that led to the Descent.

The roots had begun to repair themselves, and now, some of the arches provided functional, and much more convenient, paths deeper into the underworld.

“This feels familiar, Dawndrinker.”

I smiled. Asar’s presence warmed my heart like a candle flickering to life.

I turned to see him approaching with a half smile tightening one corner of his mouth.

“How many times will we find each other wandering these halls?” he said. His hand pressed to the doorframe affectionately, and my heart squeezed, too. Morthryn would always bring us back together.

“Couldn’t sleep,” I said. “Just thought I’d go strengthen the wards.”

Asar joined me at the arch, running his hands over the glyphs etched into the metal. “Looks like they don’t need it.”

No, they didn’t. There was so much of Morthryn—so much of the underworld—that still needed to be repaired. Asar and I held pieces of divinity, but we were not gods. The work we did was slow and manual. It would be many years before we restored it all to what it was meant to be.

Still, these small victories—a veil restored, a guardian healed, a set of glyphs that no longer cracked beneath the weight of its task—fed my soul.

Asar gazed out into the mist beyond the door. Then extended his hand to me. “A walk?”

I took it.