Page 40 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

MISCHE

H ow?

The Sentinel cocked their head. My own dumbfounded face stared back at me, reflected in smooth gold, bisected by a single jagged scratch.

Not just any Sentinel. The one who had captured me at the veil.

How?

Sentinels were warriors of Shiket. Soldiers of the White Pantheon. They couldn’t enter Nyaxia’s territory. Never, in two thousand years, had they ever done so.

Another streak of gold careened to the ground beside them—a second Sentinel, this one standing silent behind their partner. Behind me, the final gasping gurgles of the Shadowborn guards rang out from the next hall.

“I told you that I would find you if you ran,” the scratched Sentinel said. “But how very typical that you would not believe me.”

We would lose, if we fought.

We would lose.

I shot Asar a glance and I saw the same certainty reflected in his eyes.

His hand moved to the mask?—

But before I could think better of it, I grabbed his pack and threw it to Luce, who snatched it from the air and bolted.

Asar looked at me like I was a fucking idiot.

What in the Mother’s name are you ? —

But the scarred Sentinel whirled around, distracted. What had been their orders? What did they want more—the mask, or us? It turned out, in the moment, even they weren’t sure.

I gave Asar a shove. “RUN!”

Luce knew what was going on immediately. Ever the best girl, she galloped through the ballroom like a phantom, weaving and bobbing through utter chaos, so fast even god-touched soldiers couldn’t catch her.

The party had devolved into gory pandemonium.

Tables and chairs had been overturned. The floor was slick with blood.

The sheets of chiffon that had looked so ethereally elegant at the beginning of the night were now singed and tattered, whipping with each vicious gust of wind.

Vampires hissed and battled, attempting to seize their glory against warriors of the White Pantheon.

But the Sentinels were methodical machines of death. Their swords, blessed with the divinity of the White Pantheon, burned vampire flesh at even the slightest touch. Ash scattered the floor, creating a gummy paste with the pools of blood.

I craned my neck up, to the open windows and the eternally dark sky above them. The heavens swirled with wisps of purple and teal, like fish circling a pond. A sign that the gods were watching.

Nyaxia would come, surely. The White Pantheon had entered her territory. That was a slight that would not go ignored.

At least her rage would keep the Sentinels from following us. But we certainly couldn’t be here when she arrived. I couldn’t imagine that she’d be happy to see us.

Asar eyed the sky, too, mapping the same calculations. Luce zig-zagged ahead through the ballroom, headed to the back door that led to the ocean. Two Sentinels flew after her.

Asar and I wove through the party, following her.

But we weren’t as nimble, and we attracted far more attention.

One of the Shadowborn guards—apparently ever committed to his mission—attempted to grab me, and without thinking, I grabbed his face between my palms. The rush of euphoria that came with his cry of pain, even from a touch that lasted mere seconds, was intoxicating.

It felt like the first swallow of blood after far too long.

I let the soldier fall and continued to run.

But then a crash ahead. A Sentinel stood atop an overturned table, cutting off Asar. Before I could move to help him, a grip seized the back of my dress—gods fucking damn it, I knew this dress was going to be my downfall—and dragged me away as I flailed.

An onslaught of sensations consumed me. The gold-streaked sky. The swaying leaves of trees. Feathers and blood. The scent of the ocean. Vostis. The Citadel.

I felt more alive than I ever had been, and deader than I had since the night I was Turned.

I crashed into a wall. My sword flew from my grasp. A metal vise clutched my throat. I kicked and kicked and managed to wrest myself free through sheer determination, falling in a heap on a pile of broken glass.

I lifted my head to see the Sentinel, with that same scarred face, bearing down on me.

I tried to stand and immediately fell back to my knees in a wave of overwhelming dizziness. Whatever meager scraps of life I’d drained from the soldier, the Sentinel’s touch had taken it all away and more.

Asar. Where was Asar?

Disoriented, I scanned the crowd. I couldn’t count how many Sentinels there were—a dozen?

More? My gaze locked on the opposite side of the ballroom, where Asar fought.

Gods, he was breathtaking. The shadows wrapped around him like wings.

He’d claimed a sword from some dead soldier somewhere, but no matter how skilled his movements, the piece of metal was nothing compared to the way he wielded the darkness. Like an artist.

But he was wounded, and I was dead. We couldn’t get out of this through brute force.

Think, think, think ? —

I needed time.

The dead wailed in my ears, begging, We need time.

My gaze flicked to the Dusk Window, which still stood at the abandoned dais. Hands pressed to it, the dead pushing against a veil that was already tearing.

The Sentinel encroached, and I blurted out, without thinking, “I’m nobody.”

Think, Mische.

The Sentinel paused.

“I’m nobody,” I said again, breathlessly. “I’m—I’m already dead anyway. Trust me, you don’t want me.”

I was talking, but I didn’t know to what end. It was a directionless stalling tactic.

“Look,” I babbled. “I’m a priestess of Atroxus. I’m—I’m loyal to the White Pantheon.”

I grabbed my sleeve and yanked it up, prepared to show off decades’ worth of burn scars and an old phoenix tattoo that had marked my loyalty.

Instead, I revealed a smooth, unmarked, slightly translucent arm.

Shit.

The Sentinel stared, unmoving.

“You no longer wear the tattoo.” At first, their voice sounded oddly small. But then they said, with seething divine rage, “That is a small justice. You should not bear the mark of the one you murdered. Not even in death.”

Why were they talking to me instead of killing me?

I rose on wobbly legs. Stepped backward once, twice.

“I can help you,” I said. “I can?—”

“You, Mische Iliae, murdered the king of the White Pantheon,” the Sentinel roared.

I staggered backward as they stalked closer.

“You tore the sun from the sky. I have seen your past and your future. A million lives will end due to what you have done. And you have the nerve to stand here and bargain with me? As if I can be won over by petty bribery?” They threw their head back and laughed.

Another step back. The edge of the dais now dug into the backs of my thighs. I cast a quick glance back at the Window. The whispers of the dead had grown deafening, drowning out the sounds of the ballroom battles. The veil was so, so weak.

“I just thought—I thought—” I stammered.

“You do not think,” the Sentinel hissed. “You have never thought. I do not do this for the games of the gods, Mische Iliae. I do this for justice. I do this because those you have made suffer, and the countless you will make suffer, deserve your suffering in return.”

Where are you? Asar’s mind called into mine. More Sentinels and soldiers alike had descended upon him.

But I couldn’t answer. The Sentinel pushed me roughly to the dais, then crawled on top of me.

I gasped as another set of memories raked through me, my own past fed back to me. Prayers at the Citadel beside Saescha. The sweet scent of incense. My young self, going into the bedchamber with Atroxus, in service of the very god I would one day kill.

“You have always known,” the Sentinel breathed.

I splayed my hand flat against the floor. My fingertips brushed my sword.

Where are you? Asar barked. I can’t see you.

I’m alright, I managed to get back to him. Prepare yourself.

I felt his flash of confusion, but he didn’t have time to respond before I grabbed the sword and swung it with all my strength against the Sentinel’s face.

The Sentinel released my throat. The instinct was surprise more than pain—the blade bounced awkwardly off their armor, leaving a fresh nick in the gold.

But I didn’t need to kill them, or even hurt them.

I just needed a few seconds.

I leapt up and threw myself against the Window. The dead reached for me. You’re one of us, they begged. Let us out. We’re so hungry. We’re so thirsty.

Through the morass of empty, desperate eyes, I saw a familiar face—Vincent.

You’d better help me here, I told him, momentarily regretting that I was so rude in our last conversation.

When I pressed my hands over the glyphs around the edge of the mirror, still burning with the remnants of the spell that Egrette and Asar had cast, I felt the veil part for me like an open embrace.

It really was dumb fucking luck. To think that I could possibly conduct a spell that could be, supposedly, done only by the heirs of the House of Shadow.

Apparently I was just that good.

Or maybe I had just enough help from the other side.

Or maybe it was simply easier to destroy things than to repair them.

I swallowed a pang of sadness as I grabbed onto a gate to the underworld that was hanging on, barely, by its twisted hinges. I thought of Raihn, and prayed desperately that he was already long gone.

The Sentinel’s hands closed around my shoulders.

I ripped open the door to hell.