Page 28 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

ASAR

T he work took hours. Gideon didn’t scream at first, but before long, he was grunting and hissing like a rabid animal.

It took a long time for him to lose consciousness.

But in the end, I had what I needed—the combination of the glyphs that would allow us into the mask’s tomb etched carefully into my own mind.

I tucked Gideon back into bed afterward, the bloody glyphs healed to the best of my ability and hidden beneath his clothing.

His maid might notice them tomorrow, but after decades in his presence, I doubted she would care to tell anyone.

Still, what had happened to him wouldn’t stay a secret for long.

I’d done my best to scramble the memories of our visit, though I couldn’t excise them completely—not from a magic wielder as advanced as Gideon.

The risk of this was not lost upon me. But so close to the Melume, consumed by her great mission from Nyaxia, Egrette would be too distracted to notice Gideon’s absence for at least a few more days.

Enough time for Mische and me to get what we needed and get out of the House of Shadow for good.

Before leaving Gideon’s chamber, I changed my bloody clothing and threw it into the fire. Still, I felt the wet cling of his blood on my fresh shirt. Worse, I felt the innards of his mind spattered all over mine—much harder to scrub away.

I had gotten soft. It had been too long since I’d done this.

Though I was expected, I couldn’t bring myself to return to my old bedchamber. I wasn’t ready to see Mische—or rather, I wasn’t ready to let Mische see me. I felt like my shame was smeared all over my face.

Instead, like a ghost, I walked the path of my previous life. This night could have been countless others. Another night returning exhausted after another task. Another cascade of screams in my ears. Another soul added to my collection at the expense of my own.

I found myself wandering past tireless shadow archivists engaged in their endless work, down familiar paths, until I arrived at the doorway to an atrium.

This part of the library was somewhat removed from the rest, separated by a narrow hall.

The windows here, rising several stories, revealed the churning sea and raging stormy sky.

Lightning reflected over a cracked mosaic floor.

Curved bookcases stretched up to the ceiling, punctuated by several tall bronze ladders. And?—

A crash came from the alcove.

“Shit!” a bright voice hissed.

I whirled around to see?—

“What are you doing here?” The words came out harsher than I’d intended.

Mische stopped mid-movement and peered over her shoulder.

She was on top of a piano, two books poorly contained in one arm and another pages-down on the floor, clearly having just evaded her grasp. One bare foot was on the keys. She was wearing something silky and black that didn’t exactly look like clothing.

Beside the piano, Luce’s tail thumped the ground as if to tell Mische, I told you so.

Mische gave me a nervous smile.

“Uh. Nothing. I just thought that instead of wasting time in the room, I’d?—”

“How did you find this place?”

I was practically snapping at her. Inwardly, I cringed at the sound of my own voice. But the sight of Mische in this place, seeing me with Gideon’s blood still on my hands, yanked something to the surface that I hadn’t been prepared to confront.

Her smile faltered. “I don’t know. It just?.?.?.?called to me. Asar, what’s wrong? What happened?”

Because of course she saw it.

Turn around, I told myself. You can’t be near her like this.

But against all good judgment, I stepped closer, closer. My fingertips caressed the dusty piano keys. Then, because I couldn’t help myself, I played a few notes. It was horrifically out of tune. Poor neglected thing.

“Was this yours?” Mische said softly.

Her foot, elegant and bare, still touched the keys.

I had hardly seen her skin since Morthryn, and now, it transfixed me.

In the moonlight, it was nearly impossible to see the silver sheen to her form, even if one was looking for it.

My gaze slid up the curve of her ankle. Her leg.

Her calf. The black silk around her body, draping between her cleavage, revealing her bare chest, collarbone, throat.

Then, at last, her face, and those eyes—cutting through me just as I had cut through Gideon.

“What in the Mother’s name are you wearing?” I said.

“My clothes were soaked. And they stunk. I had to make something else work.”

“You went wandering around Ryvenhaal in a sheet?”

Because, upon closer examination—goddess help me, it was a sheet. An actual bedsheet, that she’d tied to herself with a too-large leather belt around her waist and a few pins.

“I couldn’t find anything else,” she said defensively with a shrug. “I think I did a decent job.”

I stared at her shoulder, where the sheet had slipped to reveal a fresh expanse of smooth brown skin. My eyes followed the swooping folds of fabric— very thin fabric—with the fresh, torturous knowledge that it was just a single piece that was probably barely hanging on to her body.

I yanked my eyes away, back to the piano keys.

A beat of silence. Then she asked, “Did you get what we need?”

I thought of the sensation of Gideon’s mind snapping.

“Yes.” The less said, the better.

Luce let out a low whine and gave me a sad look. Then she slunk off into the library shelves, as if to offer my complicated emotions their privacy. She had seen the worst of what I had been, and even then, she had known when I needed her and when I wanted to be alone.

My fingers, as if of their own accord, played a few slow notes. All my favorite ones, assembled into a song I’d played once, in Esme’s living room.

A reminder of a place that seemed, in every way, the opposite of this one.

I felt Mische’s delight bubble up, even without looking at her. “I remember that song.”

But the melody was awkward and off-tune. For some reason, it hurt my heart here. I let the melody fade off into silence.

“I told you,” I muttered, “to stay in the room . This place is dangerous.”

Mische looked up to the windows.

“I think it’s quite beautiful here. But?.?.?.?sad. Even the ghosts here are sad. It was probably a difficult place for a child to grow up.”

My jaw was so tight that my ears rang with the tension.

“I think that maybe,” she said softly, “that child might have had to find peace in little places like this one. Maybe that was how he learned to see things that no one else paid attention?—”

I jerked several steps backward.

Hurt flickered across Mische’s face, which gutted me. “I’m sorry, I?—”

“Don’t apologize,” I snapped. “ Never apologize. I’m just—I shouldn’t be here.”

“Be here?”

“Be near you.”

The words slipped free before I could stop them, and I winced at how harsh they sounded. No sooner were they out of my mouth than I was drifting closer to her again, like ivy reaching for light.

Her eyes searched my face.

“Yes, you should,” she murmured. “Stay.”

I swore I could feel the ache of compulsion in that command— stay, stay, stay .

“You don’t want me to do that, Mische.”

“Why?”

I barked a laugh—because it seemed ridiculous to me, actually ridiculous, that she didn’t understand.

“Because I can’t be near you and not—” The sheet slipped farther down her shoulder, revealing more forbidden skin.

My trousers strained painfully.

I drank in the glint in her honey-brown eyes. The way her nipples, beaded beneath the tantalizingly thin fabric, rose a little faster. When had that started? Her body, mimicking breath?

Gideon had told me my hunger would be my downfall. Perhaps he was right, because now, it was so devastatingly powerful that I could think of nothing else. And I had thought nothing could be more powerful, until now, when I felt her soul reaching toward mine, and I realized:

She was just as hungry.

She whispered, “Stay.”

One word, and my self-control shattered.

The keys squealed a dissonant chord as I leaned over her, pushing her back to the piano.

The sheet around her body twisted, revealing a glorious expanse of lines and curves like no artist had ever managed to assemble, framed by silk like gift-wrap.

Full breasts, that freckle rising and falling.

Her stomach, a hint of dark hair where her thighs met, and the soft flesh of her legs.

I thought to myself, surely it would be worth it. Surely it would be worth it to die by that skin, and let those thighs cradle me down to the underworld.

Instead, I yanked the belt from her waist. My blood ran hot when the rest of the sheet, barely clinging to her, fell open in its absence.

And it took all my self-control to pull that sheet back over her before I lowered my mouth to her skin.

My tongue found that freckle right away. My memory was good, even without a visual guide. I hadn’t been sure how much Mische could feel of physical sensation now. But she drew in a delicious, sharp breath when my teeth closed around it. A sharper one still when I moved down to her nipple.

That was what I needed tonight. Not my own satisfaction, but hers. I needed to paint over Gideon’s pain with Mische’s pleasure.

“That,” I groaned. “That is what I need, Mische.”

My hands found her hips, fingers digging into her skin. Her form was solid, but not quite right to the touch, a little more nebulous than it should have been. If I had let myself pause, it might have been a reminder of how much work I had left to do.

But I was not going to let myself think.

I was going to touch her, in whatever way I could. Even if it wasn’t enough.

“I thought you didn’t—that maybe you?—”

Her words were weak and choppy. I lifted my head. Through my haze of lust, I had to blink incredulously at her.

“What?” I said. “You thought that I didn’t want this?”

She smiled weakly. “When I’m like this.”

Incomprehensible.