Page 13 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

I looked up to see a tangle of white robes and gold armor and smoke and a bronze skull in the shape of a?—

My heart leapt.

“Luce!”

Locked in her battle with the Sentinel, she let out a sound between a yelp and a snarl. The Sentinel moved as only a divine entity could—too smooth, too fast, not obeying the laws of physics. Quickly, they rolled on top of Luce and pinned her, divine sword rising?—

This time, I didn’t think. I just acted.

I inhaled, flooding myself with the darkness of the underworld. The song was so innate. It reminded me of a piano’s rhapsodic notes beneath perfect, scarred fingers.

And then I expelled it.

Darkness whipped from the corners of the room, surging in serpentine tendrils. They slithered around the Sentinel’s body, ripping them away from Luce, who seized upon this momentary opportunity to wriggle free.

While the Sentinel fought to get their bearings, Luce dove for me. She pushed something metal across the floor toward me.

A sword. Asar’s sword—the one he had given me to defend myself in the Descent. An intricate bronze hilt of vines and thorns, with a blade that was broken at the tip, smooth elegance giving way to jagged brutality.

I had lost it somewhere in the Sanctum of Soul. How had she found this? How had she found me ? I didn’t have time to care. I just knew she was the best girl ever for doing it.

I grabbed the blade and swung it wildly at my remaining restraint as Luce once again threw herself at the Sentinel.

One strike had the golden chain cracking.

A blast of light. Luce let out a yelp of pain.

I hit the chain again?—

—and fell to the stone ground as it gave way.

Immediately, I scrambled back to my feet. The shadows listened to me easily now. I spoke to them like it was my mother tongue. They clung to my blade as I struck, just as the Sentinel was about to bring their sword down upon Luce.

But the Sentinel was quick. Their counter hit me across the face before I could even see it coming.

I tumbled back against a pile of stone, nearly falling over the edge. A few loose bricks toppled into the mists as the Sentinel cornered me.

“They were right,” they hissed. “You cannot be saved?—”

The souleater barreled through them in a smear of teeth and shadow.

The Sentinel staggered backward, clutching one arm, as the wailing beast took off into the bleeding sky. Apparently even the divine were susceptible to the teeth of creatures of the dead, just as the dead were susceptible to the touch of the divine.

“Move!” a familiar voice bellowed. And I stepped out of the way just in time for a figure to lunge at the unsuspecting Sentinel, sending them plunging into the mists.

The sudden silence was deafening.

Vincent watched the Sentinel fall, long blond hair whipping out behind him. I slowly straightened. Gods, fear made you feel a whole lot more alive. I could’ve sworn a heartbeat pounded against my ribs.

Luce bounded to me, and—no, I wasn’t imagining it, because this thing aching in my chest was definitely a heart.

I dropped to my knees and wrapped her in a fierce hug. A million questions warred for dominance— how did you get here, where did you go, how did you know where to find me?

But the only words that managed to make it to the surface were, “Luce, you are the best best best girl.”

It hit me that the last time I had hugged her, it had been with Asar beside me. The three of us against the world. And here, with Luce in my arms, the reality of all that had happened sank in.

I had died.

No, I had been killed .

Atroxus, my god, my husband, the being I had once trusted more than anything on this plane or the next, had sent me to my death.

I had not grieved myself. Not until now, when it struck me just how much death would have taken from me. Luce. Asar. All other embraces like this one.

“I missed you so much,” I whispered. I pulled away and looked into her skull-socket eyes. “Where did you come from? Are you looking for him?”

Somehow, amongst all this sadness, the thought of Asar being without Luce and Luce without Asar seemed saddest of all.

But Luce just nuzzled my cheek. As if to say: You. I came for you.

The tears threatened to start all over again.

“Enough theatrics.” Vincent pulled me to my feet, earning a protective growl from Luce. He cast her a brief, confused glance, before deciding it wasn’t worth wasting his time on questions and instead jabbing a finger to the sky.

“You don’t have much time,” he said. “You could have done this the easy way, but apparently you and your lover are insistent upon stumbling into the most difficult possible course. Somehow I’m not surprised.”

To think I had been considering thanking him.

I followed his gesture. If I’d had blood, it definitely would have drained from my face at the sight.

The veil was in a truly pitiful state—the tears opening wider across it, red and black dripping through like rancid honey.

The glut of souls had already thickened, and the guardians struggled to contain them.

The serpent hissed steam as it wove frantically between the wraiths, while the lioness lifted great, razored paws.

Souleaters flocked to the broken veil, drawn by the frenzy of waiting, fresh souls. Some slipped through the open holes.

Of course—because it could never be easy—the single winding staircase before us rose right through it all.

Droplets of red pitter-pattered across the stone before us, like rain picking up before a monsoon.

“You’re not telling me I have to go through that, are you?” I said.

“You certainly are going through it. And you’re doing it quickly, before your lover destroys what’s left of the veil trying to get to you.”

Again, that bittersweet pang in my chest.

I didn’t deserve it. Deserve him.

“What about when I get there?” I said.

“If you make it to the veil, hopefully this determined beau of yours will pull you through to the mortal world, if he’s half as competent as I pray he is.”

“But after that. What do I do after that? What do I do if I make it back to the land of the living?”

“If? Girl, there is no if . You will make it back to the land of the living. You will finish what you began. You will help your lover ascend, and you will fix the underworld before it collapses and takes my kingdom with it. There is no if. ”

The enormity of these tasks, listed off like they were nothing, left me swaying beneath the weight of insurmountable fear.

“But I don’t know how,” I managed.

It was not lost upon me just how pathetic this sounded.

“There is no map for the path we must walk in times like this,” Vincent said. “But we must seize the chances that are given to us. I’ll follow you to help, where I can, though there is only so much I can see up there.”

“How?”

“You are one of us. Your connection to the dead remains, even if you walk in the mortal lands.”

A low thunder shook the earth. Luce barked up at the sky. A fresh stab of pain struck my chest. He was right. The time to go was right now.

But gods help me, I was so afraid.

Afraid to take on another mission that I could so easily fail. Afraid to go to a world where I could see the consequences of what I had done. Afraid to look Asar in the eyes and see his pain.

Did I truly deserve life, or whatever shade of it I was about to reclaim, when so many more innocent souls now languished forever in this broken underworld?

Vincent grabbed my chin and wrenched my face toward him.

“You chose this battle. You chose it when you took your first steps into Morthryn, and you choose it again now. You set out to change the world. You set out to create a god. So do it. This is the time for conquering, Mische Iliae. Go. ”

There was no way out but through.

I pressed my hand to my chest, to the burning thread of connection.

And then, with Luce at my heels, I began to climb.