Page 22 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

MISCHE

A sar and I did not speak, not even into each other’s minds, until we were in private again.

We were given a suite in one of the spires of the Shadowborn castle.

It took up its own floor, and was staffed with a small army of servants whom Asar immediately dismissed.

It was grandly beautiful, the walls covered in dark ivy and bright red rose petals, the floor polished marble, the windows framed with black metal in such intricate craftsmanship it must have taken months to create a single one.

The bedchamber held an enormous, velvet-covered bed, which Luce immediately leapt on and wriggled all over until she rested belly-up.

I couldn’t really admire any of it. I was too busy wondering why Asar was such a gods-damned idiot.

As soon as the last of the servants was gone, I started, “Why would you?—”

But Asar shot me a sharp look and pressed his finger to his lips.

I haven’t warded against listening spells yet, he said into my mind. Never assume you aren’t being watched in the Shadowborn castle.

He took a small, retractable knife from his belt, knelt by the doorframe, and began etching glyphs into the wood. He was very calm, like he hadn’t just sworn away his crown.

I watched his hands work. I was reminded of the way I’d seen him kneel before broken gates in the Descent, and how those hands, gentle and thorough, had so transfixed me. They transfixed me now, too. I watched those beautiful fingers, and the ink of his Heir Mark dance over them.

I said into his mind, Why would you do that?

Asar cast me a quick, impressed glance over his shoulder. You’ve grasped mind speaking quickly, Dawndrinker. I am impressed.

It was almost disappointing that I was too distracted to really appreciate that praise.

You offered her an oath.

His hands stopped mid-movement, like what I said confused him. Then he stood and moved to a window, continuing his work there.

Yes, he replied. And?

“What do you mean, and ?” I blurted out, but Asar shot me another sharp glance and pressed his finger over his lips.

Almost done.

It was hard to speak silently. And, I said, as pointedly as I could manage through the clumsy whisper of mind speak, you actually meant it.

Of course I did.

But you are the Heir to the House of Shadow.

Asar frowned.

“I don’t understand,” he said aloud—apparently now satisfied with his soundproofing. “Are you actually upset that I didn’t take the Shadowborn crown from Egrette? You were the one who told me to draw upon her hopes .”

It sounded unflatteringly manipulative when he worded it that way.

“I said you can’t take it now, ” I said. “Not never .”

“I have no interest in wearing the Shadowborn crown now or ever.”

He said it simply, like he genuinely didn’t understand why I objected.

“Look outside, Asar.” I thrust my hand to the window, which revealed the ships in the bay.

In the distance, Morthryn’s dark, crumbling silhouette stood, as if shrouded in grief.

“There’s an eternal night. There are thousands of soldiers in the bay.

Egrette said that Nyaxia has called upon her armies.

For what? To go conquer the human lands?

The House of Blood has already started doing that. You know how bloody that will get.”

“Not as bloody as the collapse of the underworld. Not as bloody as a war between gods.”

He was right, but I got the feeling he was deliberately misreading my point.

“I told you once that you’d be a good king. That you could make the world better. I still believe that.”

“The crown of the House of Shadow is not my priority.”

“Because the underworld is your priority.”

Asar finished his last glyph. He stood, then turned to me.

“You are too intelligent for us to be having this conversation right now. You know what my priority is. You know it because you just used it against me.”

His voice grew colder, like a blade barely drawn. Thwip, as he retracted the knife and slipped it back into his belt. It now seemed ridiculous that I hadn’t realized that he was angry. No—furious. Asar’s anger was the inevitable rise of ocean fog. Slow and quiet, but all-consuming.

He took several steps closer, his stare skewering me.

“You think I don’t see through you, Dawndrinker? We have traveled to hell together.”

Guilt twisted in my stomach.

“I needed you to show them everything you were capable of, and fast,” I said.

“And you thought the best way to do it would be to make sure that the first thing I saw when they pulled that blindfold off of me would be you at the tip of a blade.”

Another step. Another. I was suddenly very conscious of the wall behind me, which I leaned against.

“Unnecessary.” His left eye flared, smoke unfurling from it in a fresh plume.

“Because I already see that every time I close my eyes, and often when they’re open.

Every time I sleep. Every time I dream. I see you, and—” His words caught.

“And Shiket’s sword piercing your heart, and the moment of your death. Every time, Mische.”

His voice broke, ever so slightly, around my name, reshaping it to a plea. The faintest crack in his smooth composure, and yet, it revealed so much.

My empty chest ached. With the memory of that sword, yes. But also with Asar’s grief.

And with that ache came the stark truth that never got any easier to bear:

I was dead.

I had already sacrificed my life for this. And no matter what Asar believed, I knew it was not easy to escape death.

“I can’t be the only reason you’re doing this, Asar. You’re—you’re trying to become a god .” It still sounded so ridiculous to say it aloud. “That needs to be about more than just me. That needs to be about something bigger.”

My back was pressed to the wall, his body aligned to mine, a breath short of touching. His head ducked, and my chin lifted. I swept my gaze over his face—the light pulsing in his scars, the ethereal silver of his scarred eye, the deep brown of the other.

The corner of his mouth tightened in a wry smile.

“Why?” he said.

I watched his lips curl around the word, a breath and a thousand miles away, and a fierce twist pushed against the inside of my chest—a sensation so painfully close to a heartbeat that I could almost taste life on my tongue.

I was certain that I’d taste it on his.

Why. Because I was right here and yet so far away. Because all I wanted to do was capture his next breath in mine, and I couldn’t. Because I didn’t know if death would ever let me go, no matter what Asar achieved.

“Because I’ve learned that you can’t live on grief,” I said. “It’s poison. It festers into bitterness and hatred. If you have nothing else to offer a heart, grief will just hollow it out until that’s all that you are. A dangerous thing for a god, no?”

A thought flitted through my mind—a thought of Nyaxia.

Asar’s hand pressed to the wall behind me, enveloping me in his presence.

“I’m not grieving anything,” he murmured.

Liar, I thought. My eyes, heavy lidded, fell to his mouth.

Because I was grieving, too.

I was grieving fiercely.

In a weak attempt to break the tension, I gave him a lopsided smile.

“So. Wife, huh? I like that you can always keep things interesting.”

His expression flickered. “It’s the best way to keep you safe. My protection will extend to you. And it will ensure no one gets too close.”

“Was the wedding nice?”

A twitch at the corner of his mouth. “It was elegant and tasteful.”

My nose wrinkled. “Sounds like a nice way of saying boring .”

“Fine. It was gaudy chaos.”

“Much better. Did I get to wear a nice dress, at least?”

The smile he’d been holding back now bloomed over his lips like a flower in melting frost. “Oh, you were breathtaking.”

I smiled, too, but my chest hurt. The quickening beat that had hammered against it sputtered out. Now, in the fantasy of a future that I would likely never get to have, I felt very dead.

Asar’s nose nearly brushed mine. My eyes lifted to his. His lips parted.

But then an abrupt BANG had us both snapping upright. Luce leapt off the bed, snarling at the window.

We looked outside to see glitter fading in the night sky as a smattering of distant cheers rose from below.

“Fireworks.” Asar let out an exhale. “I wasn’t sure if I was correct when I noticed the moon in Morthryn. We’re a few decades off schedule. But the obnoxious fireworks, the parties, and?.?.?.” He nodded up at the moon, gleaming behind the falling sparkles.

I frowned once I realized what he was gesturing to. It was, very faintly, orange. A red ring of light shone from behind it, subtle but unmistakable.

“Why does it look like that?”

“That is what the moon looks like within a few days of the Night of the Melume.”

I couldn’t help a gasp. “Really? I’ve always wanted to see it.”

The Melume was a legendary event in the House of Shadow, much like the Kejari was in the House of Night—though far less bloody.

The House of Shadow was the oldest of the vampire kingdoms, having been constructed from the remnants of Alarus’s territory.

This, many believed, gave the House of Shadow a unique link to the past. On the Night of the Melume, the boundary between the past and the present thinned.

It created a natural phenomenon that even great poets struggled to describe, in which the ghosts of the past walked among the living.

“It’s beautiful,” Asar said. “But more importantly, if I’m correct, it will be our chance to get the mask.”

The mask is in the House of Shadow . He had started to say as much when we were in Morthryn, before we had gotten distracted by our ambush.

“We need the Melume for that?” I asked.

“Are you familiar with Vathysia?”

I’d read the name in some ancient religious texts. Vathysia was said to be the heart of Alarus’s kingdom, before his murder, before Nyaxia, and before the existence of Obitraes.

“The House of Death,” I said. “I thought that was a myth.”

“Not a myth. Just old, old history. Vathysia existed. It encompassed parts of the House of Shadow, as well as the underworld itself. It was the territory of Alarus’s most devoted followers. The mask is here. But it belongs to Vathysia. Not the House of Shadow.”

I stared blankly at Asar.

“It means that it belongs to the past,” he clarified unhelpfully.

“So is it here? Or is it not here?”

“It is here, and not here. The Night of Melume is a rare inflection point when those in the House of Shadow can draw upon Alarus’s ancient magic, which predates Obitraes.”

I pressed my hands together. “Ooh! Death magic!”

He gave me an odd look. “I never would have guessed when I first met you that you would one day be so giddy at the prospect of death magic, Dawndrinker.”

“I like magic, Asar. All magic. Also, I’d probably be great at wielding death magic, now. Considering. You know.”

He didn’t seem to find this as amusing as I did. He turned back to the window.

“Some say that all Shadowborn magic is a bastardization of Alarus’s magic,” he said.

“The Melume gives us an opening to a deeper well of power. The castle will use it to fortify itself, high-ranking sorcerers will use it to conduct powerful spells more easily, and certain ancient relics will make themselves more visible.” He gestured to the House of Shadow crest hanging above the door, and the face that stared back at us from it. “Like the mask. The Mask of Vathysia.”

I slowly processed this. “So we have to steal it.”

“Yes.”

“During a fancy ghost-rite party.”

“Yes.”

“That’s the best place to steal things.”

Again, a flat look from Asar. I threw my hands up. “What? It is .”

Luce yipped in agreement.

“Death magic and heists,” he deadpanned. “What an acolyte you are.”

I looked to the ships outside, a lump in my throat. My eyelids were growing heavy. I was tired—no, exhausted, the sensation seeping into my soul rather than my bones. It was a strange feeling.

“So tell us, Warden, how exactly do we steal the most valuable artifact in the House of Shadow?” I said.

Asar was silent.

“Oh,” I said. “You don’t know.”

“I’ve never seen the mask myself,” Asar admitted. “It’s carefully protected. There’s only one person in the House of Shadow who likely knows how we could?.?.?.”

His voice trailed off, like he’d ventured so deep into his own thoughts that words couldn’t follow.

“How long do we have to figure it out?” I asked.

“A few days, maybe. I’m sure it won’t be long before Egrette gives me all kinds of marching orders for it.”

He sounded as thrilled about this as one would expect.

I wandered to the bed and sank down, eyeing an ostentatious painting of a very ill-tempered-looking nobleman. “At least this place is?.?.?.?nice?”

“You said ‘nice’ the way one might say, ‘riddled with the carcasses of rats.’?”

“I just didn’t want to insult your childhood home.”

He scoffed bitterly. “I was a prostitute’s bastard. You think I was invited to come live in Raoul’s steel palace? At any rate, we won’t need to stay long.”

The edges of my vision were growing blurry. I stared hard at the wall and noticed more of those writhing shadows I’d seen in the ballroom wriggling just outside my field of vision. They almost looked like?.?.?.

“Asar,” I said. “I think I’m seeing ghosts.”

Apparently I didn’t know Asar well enough if I thought this was going to be some kind of surprise to him.

“Probably shades of the dead,” he said. “You’re among them, so it makes sense you might be able to see the traces they left behind on this world.”

When he put it like that, it almost made sense.

With another wave of exhaustion, I let myself fall backward onto a pile of velvet pillows.

Immediately, Asar was at the bedside, radiating concern.

“I’m fine,” I said quickly. “Just?.?.?.?tired. Can wraiths get tired?”

I slipped one of my gloves off and stared at my hand. I wondered if I was imagining that it was more shimmery than it had been a few hours ago. How far would Asar’s blood get me?

Asar perched at the edge of the bed and pulled back the blanket for me like a worried nursemaid.

“Your soul is working hard to stay here among the living,” he said. “So yes, I imagine you’ll be tired.”

I didn’t remember crawling beneath the blankets, but the next thing I knew, I was swathed in velvet. Luce wriggled into the bed beside me. I wrapped my arms around her and relished physical touch. Gods, I missed it.

Asar surveyed me carefully. His mouth thinned into a grim line, as if seeing me in this state had clicked a decision into place.

“Rest,” he murmured. “I know where we can find what we need.”