Page 25 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

“Shit!” I pressed my hand to my forehead. Gods, that actually hurt . It was almost refreshing to feel such a physical sensation.

Asar tried again to usher me through, only to earn me another throbbing bruise on my forehead.

“This room is spelled to keep out the dead,” he said. “You must qualify.”

“Why would you need to do that?”

“We were practicing necromancy, Dawndrinker. Why do you think?”

“You thought they might?.?.?.?break free?”

Asar gave me a pitying look, like my disbelief was very naive.

Fair enough.

I sighed. “Alright. Then you go get what we need, and I’ll stay here.”

“Right. Leave you alone to go explore and get yourself into trouble.”

“I would never, ” I said, aghast.

“You expect me to believe that you are going to sit quietly in this room of ancient tomes without wandering off?”

His tone told me exactly what he thought of my self-control, which was a little insulting.

I threw my arm over Luce’s back. “Luce will stay here and make sure I’m so, so obedient.”

Luce let out a yip.

Asar sighed. “Fine. Five minutes.”

And with another stern, “Be good,” he disappeared through the misty door.

It was physically painful to remain still when there was so much to explore.

But I was determined to prove Asar wrong, so I found a quiet spot near the door and sat against the bookcases, Luce beside me.

I stroked her back absentmindedly as I watched the shadows lug stacks of books from one shelf to another.

“What about you, Luce?” I asked. “Was this your home once, too?”

I thought back to the glimpses I’d seen of Asar’s past in our journey to the Descent—Luce in her previous life, dead and drained, a cruel punishment for the crime of Asar’s existence. Then, Luce in the new life Asar had given her. It occurred to me that we had some things in common.

Luce sniffed in agreement.

A flash of lightning drenched the shelves in cold silver light, and a boom of thunder sent the birds fluttering around in a panic. I watched them fly in circles in the center of the spiraling staircases.

I mused aloud, “How do you think they got?—”

CRACK.

THUMP.

A flash of gold hurtled to the ground a few feet shy of me.

I jumped up, startled.

A bird twitched and spasmed on the tile floor. Its head was twisted back, wings skewed at a gut-churning angle, yellow feathers bent and broken. I watched, horrified, as a slow pool of blood seeped through the tile grout lines as it fought through its final breaths.

“Poor creature.”

The voice unfurled with the low, silken cadence of smoke from a candle.

I tore my eyes from the dying bird to see a man standing before me.

I hadn’t heard him coming. Hadn’t even felt him, even with my heightened senses.

The darkness bent around him in a way that made it difficult to focus on the specifics of his features.

He had an angular face, handsome in that typical vampire way but otherwise unremarkable.

His hair was light ash brown, slicked back neatly from his face.

His frame, tall and slender, disappeared beneath finely tailored, simple black clothing.

He was, I knew instantly, very old. Vampires did not age as humans did, with wrinkles and gray hair. But I could sense his years in the way his skin stretched over his face, in the shade of his fair eyes as he raised them to mine.

“The endless night has them terribly disoriented,” he said, nodding to the bird, now still. “They keep flying into the windows. Bring her to me, please.”

Bring her to me. Bring her to me.

I didn’t remember moving. But blink, and suddenly, I was several strides away from the door, a bloody, broken bird in my hands. The man and I both crouched close to the floor. The man now held a small retractable knife that looked oddly familiar to me, and he was scratching a circle into the floor.

“A ritual circle.” My thoughts felt a bit gummy, sticking to each other like honey candy left out in the sun. “For necromancy.”

“You’ve been taught well,” the man remarked. “Place the bird where it belongs.”

Luce curled against me, staring the man down warily, growling low.

But blink, and the bloody bird sat at the center of the circle. Items had been placed around its edges—a feather, a handful of birdseed, a little piece of a withered leaf, a broken twig.

“Good,” the man said casually. “Now, help me bring her back.”

Help me. Help me. Help ? —

But something that I saw in his icy stare made me slam the door against the sweet stick of his compulsion.

I rose abruptly and stepped back.

“Who are you?” I said.

The man smiled and passed his hand over the ritual circle. This smile belonged to a kindly grandfather, but his eyes belonged to a predator.

The bird spasmed gracelessly back to life and attempted to fly away, but the man caught it swiftly in one hand and tucked it, still twitching, into his breast pocket.

He said, “I suspect that we have a mutual?—”

“Gideon.”

Asar’s voice was like a blade sliding from a sheath.

The man got to his feet and dusted himself off. He offered Asar a smooth smile.

“You came to visit,” he said. “And after such a long time. Not even a letter now and then.”

Asar’s hand flattened against my back. Even across the bounds of death itself, I nearly jolted at his fear, so sharp it verged on panic.

I told you to stay put, he said into my mind.

I did, I just ? —

“She was merely helping an old man, Asar,” Gideon said, with a warm chuckle. His gaze fell to the stack of books and scrolls in Asar’s arms. “You won’t find what you’re looking for in those. Come.”

He started down the hall. But Asar didn’t move. His hand remained on my back.

And I knew—I knew —that he was considering turning around and leaving. And just because I knew he wanted to, I did, too.

We don’t have to do this, I told him silently. We can find another ? —

“You came all this way,” Gideon said over his shoulder. “Surely you must know that I can help.”

Asar’s throat bobbed.

Reluctantly, he lowered his chin. And without another word, we followed.

Gideon led us down several winding hallways, all lined with bookcases and shelves and doors leading to yet more bookcases and shelves. I couldn’t imagine the information that was holed up in this place—gods, I could have spent a lifetime here drowning in it.

“Likely literally true,” Gideon said—and I stiffened at how easily he had slipped into my thoughts without my even feeling it. “Even I have not read everything. Asar made it through a significant chunk of it, though. My most devoted student. Has he told you much about his time here?”

Asar was stone-faced as we walked, his hand still protectively on my back. “No need to bore her.”

“Bore? You were brilliant.” Gideon’s gaze roved over me. “You must be too young to recall the Wraith Warden at his peak. But he was an unmatched talent. Did he ever tell you of his first mission for the crown? Barely more than fifteen years old, and he?—”

“Gideon.”

The name was a sharp rebuke. But Gideon laughed and plowed on through.

“Please, allow me to brag about my pupil, Asar. What was it called—ah, Farnelle. That was it. A little island near the channel to the House of Night, claimed and fought over by both kingdoms. Raoul tasked Asar with gathering intelligence, nothing too extreme for a teenage boy. But Asar, overachiever that he was, managed to topple the noble there himself. A city of thousands, taken down by a hundred spare soldiers. How might he have done such a thing?”

“Gideon,” Asar hissed.

But Gideon just smiled at me.

“A marriage should not be built on secrets,” he said. “Congratulations, by the way.”

A chill danced up my spine.

“The House of Night knew that Raoul wanted Farnelle, and as such, they fortified it heavily. Asar quickly learned that the key to taking Farnelle was not to look within its walls, but within our own. He uncovered unflattering comments from one of Raoul’s highest-ranking nobles, who just so happened to lord over Zeren, the territory closest to Farnelle.

And in offering Raoul this traitor, he also offered the perfect punishment.

Kidnap the child of Farnelle’s lord and plant her in Zeren.

And when the House of Night launched all their resources at Zeren, swoop in to snatch Farnelle from their jaws.

All while allowing them to rip the sacrificial lamb to shreds.

” Gideon shook his head. “It was brilliant. He spent months laying the groundwork. Turn two enemies against each other and walk straight through the front door.”

Asar avoided my gaze.

“A long time ago,” he muttered, masking a hint of shame.

“You’ve always been too humble. Here.”

Gideon opened a door and ushered us inside. The chambers seemed more a library than bedchamber, with four stories of bookshelves rising above us and great glass windows spanning floor to ceiling. Machine lifts ran from floor to floor, their golden gears gleaming under the firelight.

At those, I couldn’t help but gawk. It had been decades since I’d seen work like this.

Like most gods of the White Pantheon, Srana, the goddess of machinery, did not allow vampires to use her magic, forcing those in Obitraes to use manual or magical solutions to our practical problems. But rarely, very wealthy vampires could import human-made technology and use it until it inevitably stopped working, tainted by proximity to Nyaxia’s magic.

An expensive, endless cycle of repair and replacement.

Gideon noticed my staring and chuckled softly.

“One small benefit of my role in the Shadowborn court.” He ushered us onto one of the lifts and pressed a button.

Gears creaked to life, and I watched the machinery work in amazement as we began to rise.

“And, I will admit, they do last a little longer here,” he added, “since we are technically outside the House of Shadow’s borders. ”

“It’s a farce,” Asar said.

“A bad lie still fulfills its purpose so long as everyone agrees to believe it.”