Page 31 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

Which meant that, while Asar was conducting the ceremony, I would need to go ahead and start unlocking the way to the mask.

By myself.

The tricky thing was, we weren’t completely sure which path would end up being the correct one.

The maps were very, very old, and the Melume’s illusion was not always consistent.

Which meant that I’d have to rely not only on my impeccable rote memorization skills—trained, of course, on a lifetime in the church—but on my magic.

Asar was, apparently, satisfied with my performance, because he said nothing once I finished, just continued pacing.

“You are connected to the dead,” he said. “Use that if you get lost.”

I watched the ghosts out of the corner of my eye. They had grown more visible, and more active. I could now almost make out their humanoid shapes. Still, they didn’t seem especially helpful.

“What if someone stops me?” I asked. “I still can’t quite get compulsion right.”

There was nothing “quite” about it. Every time I tried it on Asar, he had barely managed to hold back his laugh. I sounded ridiculous, and not at all convincing.

“You’re just thinking about it too hard,” he said. “You’ll get it eventually. Compulsion is easy when it’s right. But trying and failing is worse than talking your way out of a bad situation if you get into one. Use your charms instead.”

“Or my magical death touch?”

Asar gave me a flat stare. He did not like joking about my death touch. He did not like joking about my death at all.

He hadn’t been the same since we returned from Ryvenhaal. Like he was perpetually tensed to protect an infected wound.

“I’ll make it to you as soon as I can,” he said. “The ritual shouldn’t take long.”

And then we would go to the mask itself, step between the veils that separated time and space, and take it.

This was where the plan began to fall apart. We didn’t know what to expect when we reached the mask itself. And worse, we didn’t know what would happen once we attempted to leave.

“The mask is protected by complex layers of magic, and we’ll be disrupting them at their basest level,” Asar said. “No matter how careful we are, and how distracted Egrette is, she will feel it when we take it. We’ll need to leave immediately.”

And that was the final, crucial unanswered question: where the hell would we go?

“They can’t follow us to the deadlands,” I said quietly.

But even as the words left my lips, they sounded ridiculous.

Few mortals had ever managed to get into the deadlands, and fewer still had managed to survive long enough to make it out alive.

We had barely twenty-four hours before our grand escape.

Not enough time to uncover yet another grand divine mystery.

“We could go to the forest,” I suggested. “I managed to wander around in there for a few months.”

“Until Egrette captured you.”

I threw my hands up. “Well, I don’t know how she managed to do that.”

It still bothered me that I didn’t know who had told her of my location. Clearly, someone had.

“They’ll be determined to find us,” he said. “If we can’t go straight to the deadlands, we’ll need to find a safe place to map out our next move.”

I knew Asar detested having to say this. His impatience was palpable. He wanted to complete this mission as quickly as possible, divine dangers be damned, and he didn’t care what that entailed. It made me uneasy.

I glanced down at my hand. Was it more transparent than it had been?

That night in Ryvenhaal with Asar, my body had felt closer to life than it had since my death.

But that had only made its absence since we returned unbearable.

I felt cold and empty. The whispers of the dead were louder.

I could sense them lingering just beneath the surface, reaching for me—reaching for Asar.

Asar, too, was looking at my skin, likely calculating whether it was closer to death than it had been.

And then, he said something that I had been dreading:

“We may need to consider going to the House of Night.”

He spoke carefully, and his tone said he knew exactly how grave a suggestion this was for me. I had told him of Vincent’s theory, and I had also told him that we were absolutely not under any circumstances dragging the House of Night into this.

“I don’t say this lightly,” he said. “We will need an alternative option. But it is your decision. I respect it either way.”

I was quiet.

It was hard to think about Raihn and Oraya. I missed them so fiercely, but I loved them even more. I loved them enough to recognize that the best thing I could do for them was ensure that they never saw me again.

I shook my head. “I can’t bring them into this.”

And gods help me, I loved Asar so much for the way he did not hesitate when he said, “Fine. Not the House of Night. We’ll find another way.”

But neither of us knew what that could possibly be, and the walls were closing in.

Tick, tick, tick , the clock warned.

Hours passed, and we had no better answers. My frustration grew, and so did Asar’s impatience. It increasingly seemed like we were about to be backed into a corner we couldn’t get out of.

Soon enough, Asar was summoned, yet again, back to Egrette, who seemed to enjoy having him at her beck and call.

Though I knew Asar would disapprove, I couldn’t bring myself to sit in this room and continue bashing my head against the wall.

So with Luce at my side, I slipped out into the halls.

Maybe a walk would trigger some inspiration.

The castle was abuzz with activity. Travelers from all over the House of Shadow—from all over Obitraes, it seemed—had come for the Melume.

I kept my hood up and was careful to guard my thoughts.

Some of these people were among the most powerful Shadowborn nobles in the kingdom.

And though with all the commotion, I largely slipped by unnoticed, some intrigued gazes followed me.

There she is, their thoughts would whisper. The Wraith Warden’s bride.

Asar had been right. Claiming me as his wife offered a level of protection far greater than any weapon. No strategically minded noble would risk touching me, not when Asar still bore Heir Marks on his arms and had the Shadowborn crown within his reach.

“Too many people,” I whispered to Luce. “Let’s find somewhere quieter.”

We climbed the grand staircase until the crowd thinned.

Eventually I reached what appeared to be a large dining room.

It was empty, the polished black table set with untouched crystal glasses and porcelain plates.

Iron-framed windows offered expansive views of the city on one side and the bay on the other.

Even Morthryn was visible, far in the distance, its crooked spires reaching to the blood-tinted moon and great glass eye peering from another world.

From up here, it was clear that there was not a single place that war had not touched.

The bay was full of ships—so many more than I’d seen when we first arrived.

The city below was overrun with soldiers bearing the white uniforms of the House of Blood or deep green of the House of Shadow.

Tents had been erected outside the city to house the influx of new soldiers.

And the entire skyline was alight with the hearths of booked-up boarding houses and the billows of roaring armorers’ fires.

Once, before we embarked into the Descent, Atroxus had shown me a vision of a world devastated by a war between vampires and humans. Now, those images crashed over me, too vivid. It all seemed so close to reality.

“I have to admit, I never expected that I’d see you here, of all places.”

A voice I hoped I’d never hear again came from behind me. The scent of smoke drifted across the ballroom.

I turned.

Luce growled low in her throat, and Septimus chuckled.

“How loyal. You know, the Shadowborn nobles say that the Wraith Warden’s pet is notoriously finicky. Apparently you’ve?—”

My hand was moving before I could stop myself.

When Septimus stepped closer, I struck him straight across the face.

The slap rang out with a satisfying CRACK .

He lurched backward, fingers flying to his cheek.

I gasped and pressed my hands over my mouth.

Sun fucking take me, why did I just do that?

I didn’t even know that I could slap someone, though I was grateful my hand didn’t pass right through him, which would have triggered all kinds of uncomfortable questions.

It was a stupid thing to do. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to regret it.

Septimus stared at me, startled. I stared back, equally startled. Between us, his lit cigarillo rolled slowly across the floor, giving off a lazy plume of smoke.

And then, he laughed. It was a slick, elegant sound, like blood over marble.

“And to think I wasn’t sure if you would remember me at all.”

He leaned down to pick up his cigarillo. Apparently too precious to waste. Yuck.

“I hoped I’d never have to,” I snarled. “We thought that if we were lucky, you were dead.”

“That’s not very holy of you, priestess.”

Stop talking, Mische. The scolding in the back of my head sounded too much like Saescha’s. But the words, as they so often did, just poured out of me.

“What the hell did you expect? You tried to overthrow the House of Night. You tried to kill my best friend. And you?—”

The sight of Septimus made those memories crash back over me. Lilith and Vale’s wedding. Me wearing a beautiful gold dress that I’d once felt so lovely in, meeting the eyes of the man who had Turned me.

And then everything falling apart. The Bloodborn soldiers and Rishan soldiers turning on Raihn. Cairis’s betrayal. Simon’s men dragging me up to that bedchamber and locking me up, a gift to buy a prince’s favor.

“And you were going to give me to him, ” I ground out.

Those words weren’t terrible enough to describe it.