Page 16 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

ASAR

W elcome home, Warden.

The words were hollow in the quiet. A breeze rustled my hair, and the way it caressed the stone reminded me of notes I’d etched into my fingertips. I drew in a breath, and with it the comforting, crisp shock of cold.

Then warmth—burnt spice and fresh flowers.

I forced my eyes open.

And there she was.

I was lying on a tile floor. Frosted moss crawled across it, settling into the cracks in the stone. Morthryn—my soul recognized it, even without looking. Because I couldn’t look at anything but her.

Mische.

We lay facing each other, not touching, but nearly nose to nose.

Her face was so close to mine that I could see every detail of its perfect shape.

Her eyes were closed, dark lashes half-moons against her freckle-dusted cheeks.

Her mouth, full and lush, was slightly parted.

Her caramel curls quivered in the breeze, one wayward strand clinging to the tip of her nose.

She never knew how often I had watched her sleep during our travels in the Descent.

How I had committed her features to memory.

The slightly asymmetrical shape of her upper lip, thanks to a nearly invisible pockmark to the right of her bow.

The pitch of her eyebrows, dark and expressive even in rest. The precise arrangement of her freckles, rich brown across her nose and cheeks.

I now remembered, far too clearly, the first time I’d gotten the insatiable urge to lick them from her skin—wondering if they’d taste like cinnamon-tinted blood.

I didn’t move. My chest ached, perhaps because I was holding my breath, lest it disrupt this precious gift.

When I was a child and I’d first come to Ryvenhaal, I would leave my glasses of blood untouched for days at a time.

I was used to starvation. I’d never experienced such abundance, and I was convinced that it had to be some kind of illusion.

If I never accepted it to be real, it would hurt less when it was taken away.

I felt like that child all over again now. The woman before me was every bit as integral to survival.

Her eyes opened.

Sun take me, those eyes. Rich and deep, complex, brown threaded with gold.

Welcome home, the breeze whispered again, and I was certain that it wasn’t talking about Morthryn, it was talking about her.

Her gaze took me in, traveling over my face, seeing more than I ever had intended to show her.

“Hello, Warden,” she whispered.

“Hello, Dawndrinker.”

Still, neither of us moved.

“You came for me,” she murmured.

“I told you that I would.”

She blinked slowly. Her eyes gleamed now.

“I’m so sorry, Asar. About Atroxus, and?—”

It seemed outrageous—laughable, even—that she was thinking about any of that right now.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“But you don’t understand, I?—”

“I do understand. It does not matter.”

She’d told me that once, in our travels through the Descent. That my past didn’t matter. She’d said it so simply. I didn’t think she understood that it had changed my entire world to hear that.

Right now, it was truer than ever. Gods and missions and eternal nights. All of it, meaningless bullshit.

“All that matters,” I said softly, “is this.”

She blinked, and a tear struck a path of gleaming silver across the curve of her cheek.

“I couldn’t let you go,” she whispered.

And it was this, after everything, that tear that begged to be wiped away, that snapped the final straining threads of my self-control.

“Mische Iliae, Dawndrinker or Shadowborn, living or dead, I will never let you go.”

Before I could stop myself, I pushed myself up and swept her into an embrace. My mouth found hers immediately, like a compass seeking north. She threw herself against me, and my arms fell around her, and for a blissful moment, I was complete in a way I had been seeking for my entire life.

For just a moment.

Because we quickly realized that something was very wrong.

I’d memorized the way Mische’s body had felt against mine, and it had not been like this. She didn’t feel quite as solid as she should, as if beneath her skin was only air instead of muscle and bone. And when my arms folded around her, they just kept going.

Right after this realization came the wave of pain— burning, like I was sticking my bare flesh into the harsh rays of the sun, and with it came an intense wave of exhaustion. Mische let out a small, wordless groan and sagged against me.

Despite the pain, I couldn’t bring myself to let her go.

Not until a sharp bark rang out from behind me, and a barrage of familiar footfalls.

Luce.

The intensity of my gratefulness to see her was smothered beneath my dizzy fog. Luce grabbed my arm and jerked me back, sharply but in a way that also seemed oddly apologetic.

Mische slumped to the floor, lashes heavy.

The dream shattered, and reality poured in like cold water.

All the things I had not noticed in my haze of drunken gratefulness to be in Mische’s presence hit me at once.

Our surroundings. The spira had brought us back to Morthryn, yes—halls I’d know anywhere, blind or deaf.

But the state of them now shocked me. The floor was shattered, mirrored glass broken into jagged lightning cracks.

The walls were coated in dusty gray, as if doused in ash.

The bronze rafters were broken and reaching to the sky with twisted, desperate fingers.

The ceiling sagged and swelled around bulging gouges.

Once, I would have been appalled by this. Morthryn had been my child.

Now, I dismissed it all in favor of Mische, who had slumped back down to the floor, limbs splayed.

I had brought Mische back into the mortal realm. But as Acaeja had warned me, I had not yet brought her back from death. Not truly.

She was a wraith.

Her form was transparent, bleeding out into the air around her as if the brilliant, beautiful colors of her soul were leaching into water.

Her eyes were closed. She was not moving.

I knew the dead well enough to recognize a withering soul when I saw one, but now, a process that normally took many years was happening right before my eyes, second by second.

“Asar?.?.?.” Mische mumbled weakly.

Luce paced around us in tightening, anxious circles as I reached for Mische. When I touched her, I let out another involuntary hiss of pain. The smell of burning flesh permeated the air. I yanked my hands away to see smears of rotten purple on my skin.

The living could not touch a wraith.

This conclusion floated by, inconsequential, because Mische was fading.

Luce let out a high whine. Help her, help her!

“I’m trying,” I snapped.

I had dragged Mische back to the mortal realm not through painstaking research and ritual and sorcery, but by sheer force. That had been an easy decision. I was willing to sacrifice what remained of the veil if it meant giving Mische a chance at life.

Only now did doubt fall over me. Maybe I had been too rough. Maybe the shock of what I’d done was too much for her already weakening soul, and it would perish in the harshness of the mortal world.

For a moment, it was Ophelia lying on the floor before me, body ripped apart, caught between death and life.

I pushed away this fear violently.

Mische was not Ophelia. Mische was not fully dead. I could still feel my connection to her burning between us, spider-silk thin, but strong.

Luce’s bony snout gave me a firm nudge between my shoulder blades, so rough it pushed me to the floor. My skin brushed Mische’s as I caught myself. Even that brief touch came with a wave of blinding pain.

But Mische stirred slightly.

I froze. My eyes darted from Mische’s rapidly disintegrating form to my own exposed forearm. My scars were brighter now. They’d always held hints of luminescent blue and purple, barely visible. Now, they glowed like my blood had been set aflame.

The blood of an almost-god.

Blood that was a bridge between the living and the dead.

I grabbed Mische’s sword and opened a messy gash in my forearm. Blood gushed free. Mische’s nostrils flared, eyelids fighting to open.

Wraiths were creatures that were neither living nor fully dead. They starved for life.

And I could give her that. No matter the expense.

I offered her my bleeding wrist. “Drink.”

Even nearly unconscious, Mische—infuriating, stubborn Mische—shook her head.

“Hush,” I hissed. “Let me help you.”

I pushed my wound against her mouth.

Agony. My vision went white. I’d been touched by wraiths before—sometimes enough that it nearly killed me. This was far worse. Mische was no ordinary wraith. I’d yanked her up from the belly of the underworld itself.

But I forced myself to keep my arm there, and I let out a breath of relief as her teeth—still solid enough to bite—dug deep.

Luce tensed, as if already preparing to drag us apart.

I watched the muscles of Mische’s throat flex as she swallowed mouthful after mouthful.

She had such a beautiful throat. I had noticed it for the first time the night we had ended up in the bath together, and she’d held her hair back to wring it out.

I could smell the blood right under the surface of her skin, and all I had wanted to do was press my mouth to it and taste.

“Drink,” I murmured again, though the word was now slurred.

I watched my blood trickle down those elegant arcs of her throat, watched it drag her just a little closer to life, until I no longer saw anything at all.