Page 5 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

ASAR

T he land of the gods was sprawling. It was said even divine beings could not see it all in an endless lifetime.

But when mortals thought of the land of the gods, they thought of Ysria, the home of the White Pantheon.

History was written by victors, and when the gods established their rule and built their grand paradise, they slathered its depiction over their followers’ tapestries and paintings and holy books.

In the mortal world, it varied depending on the context.

In drought-plagued deserts, Ysria was a lush oasis.

In hostile tundra, it was a sun-drenched meadow.

In the barren mountains, it was rolling golden fields ripe with deer to be slain and fruit to be plucked.

Heat-scorched islanders dreamed of it as a fleet of ships bearing every terrain—ponds, forests, plains.

In Obitraes—where the gods of the White Pantheon were not saviors, but oppressors—it was often depicted as a beautiful prison.

So far, this seemed the most accurate interpretation.

It was a land of gold, with rolling fields of glimmering grass, diamond-bright flowers, grand temples of jeweled glass rising from light-drenched fields.

The sky was blinding, empty white. Shadows across the landscape revealed hints of the mortal world.

I watched a glimpse of a bustling human city in the darkness cast by a cliff as the Sentinels dragged me down a set of marble steps.

It was pristine, flawless beauty. And yet, it was all so artificial.

There were no bugs in the soil, no mice in the stone, no clouds in the blinding sky.

Every flower we passed was perfectly straight, facing up, with the same number of petals arranged in the same orientation in the same shade of blue, to eerie effect.

As if the gods had seen some beauty in mortality but failed to realize that the imperfection of it was what made it remarkable.

I was brought to a large, circular outdoor patio in the shadow of the palace of the White Pantheon. It still bore the sigil of the sun at its peak, though even that was marred by jagged cracks reaching across it like desperate, broken fingers.

I tilted my head up, lifting my chin to the bright sky. It was rare I saw anything with this much light. But this was not sunlight. I knew it because it felt nothing like what Mische had described.

It feels warm and comforting. A fresh dawn makes you believe that the future can be better than the present.

With the memory of Mische’s voice came the image of her smile, bright as a second chance.

No. This felt like false pleasures and a knife poised between your shoulder blades. Beautiful denial.

At the center of the stage was a pit of pure blackness, discordant against the too-bright beauty of everything around it.

The shadows within sputtered and leaped like liquid boiling over.

Stray droplets sizzled against the marble, leaving scorch marks.

Its sheer wrong -ness radiated from it like poison fumes.

Standing around the pit were the gods of the White Pantheon.

When Nyaxia had first appeared to me, the sight of her had snatched the breath from my lungs.

My entire body had reached for her, like she was calling to my blood itself.

She was astounding and terrifying and though I resisted it, every animal instinct still longed to cut myself open to offer her my guts.

That was the presence of merely a single god.

Now, I stood before eleven.

Closest to me was Vitarus, god of the harvest, with his golden hair that seemed a little dimmer than the last time I’d seen him.

Ix, goddess of sex and fertility, who still wept silent tears over Atroxus’s death.

Srana, the clockwork goddess of machinery, copper flesh gleaming.

Ijakai, goddess of animals, with her long foxlike ears and her menagerie of creatures at her heels.

All of them turned to stare at me as I was led down spiraling steps. The conversation withered. I felt their wary curiosity pick me apart like carrion birds to a corpse.

None of them were at peace. The air and wind and soil roiled with their anxiety and anticipation. The sky shuddered with gleaming multicolored lightning cracks. The plains below undulated with choppy gusts of winds in dissonant directions. Waves of heat and cold pulsed through the air.

Once, before my exile, I had been commanded to destroy one of the island states off the coast of the House of Shadow—retribution for a slight against my father.

I burned the ships and then spelled a series of delayed fires around the circumference of the island.

While the army was distracted by the very prominent attack on their port, I poisoned the animals that would provide the last blood sources to the island.

Most of the vampires succumbed to their hunger before the last of the flames, which took weeks to fully destroy the city.

I felt no guilt about what I did to those men—if the roles were reversed, they wouldn’t have hesitated to do worse to me, and they’d have enjoyed it more.

But I had been haunted by the final wails of the wolves.

They knew much sooner than the vampires did that they were doomed.

I still smelled their rancid panic long after I’d washed away the stink of smoke.

I tasted it now, as I was led down to the pit. That same trapped, desperate panic.

The Sentinels pushed me roughly down to my knees at the lip of the pool.

I gazed down into the depths. It wasn’t just darkness, I realized—up close, I could make out the shape of buildings and mountains and shorelines, all drifting by in endless blackness.

Shards of gold floated atop the cloud-dipped surface.

This was a window to the mortal world.

It was already nearly unrecognizable, bathed in its eternal darkness and dotted with the broken pieces of what had once been the sun.

I saw withered crops and darkened skies.

Frost falling over fields, ice coating rivers.

In a million meadows in a million lands, dead foliage skittered lifelessly across the dry ground.

A bitter pang of pride twisted in my heart.

You changed the world, Iliae, I thought. You’ve terrified even the gods.

Vitarus shot me a disdainful stare. Up close, I noticed that his left hand, the one that represented life, was withered and browning. The dry leaves adorning his arm crinkled to dust as he gestured to me.

“We do not need the help of vermin. I can raise the sun on my own. If you allow me to try again, to wear the crown?—”

“If anyone can do it, it will be me,” a deep voice boomed. A tall man with dripping long hair and fog clustering around his hands rose—Zarux, god of sea and sky. “The heavens are my domain.”

Vitarus scoffed. “Perhaps if we wish for the sky to be covered in sea fog.”

Flecks of lightning pulsed in Zarux’s mists. “Your ability to grow flowers has proved useless.”

“I am the one keeping your precious acolytes alive,” Vitarus snapped. “Do not underestimate the strength it takes for me to grow crops beneath a sunless sky. Shall I let them perish? By all means, try yet again, and we shall all watch as your fifteenth attempt is miraculously successful.”

“Yes, just as yours will be once we hand you a crown,” Zarux replied, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Hush,” Ix whispered. Her stare, blue and doe-like, fell to me.

She had the appearance of a beautiful mortal woman—lush curves swathed in ethereal white chiffon floating in a directionless wind, a round face with rosy cheeks dusted with the sheen of mortality, wide eyes that held the holy glow of new life.

But her lips and hands were rusted red—centuries of dried blood from centuries of childbirth pains. “You forget yourselves, brothers.”

“Indeed.”

Shiket’s voice fell over me like a wave of vengeful cold.

I turned to see her stepping through the mists at the opposite end of the basin.

Her golden armor gleamed through the gray.

It was strikingly beautiful—crafted by Srana, long ago.

Tableaus of victory ran along the shape of her muscles encased in metal.

The embossed figures moved in constant battle, depicting victories of the past, present, and future.

A smooth, eyeless half helmet—a bisected version of the full mask her Sentinels wore—covered her forehead and eyes, ending just high enough to reveal a strong jaw, a stern mouth, the tip of an aquiline nose.

Yet all of these things, grand as they were, paled against Shiket’s greatest pride.

That honor was reserved for the six swords that extended from her back like wings of death.

They were all magnificent. Each represented a different form of justice.

Legends said that occasionally, Shiket had been known to gift one of these blades to a mortal follower, with the considerable caveat that the weapon would be destined to one day end them.

My gaze fell immediately to the top left one, just above her shoulder. A massive white broadsword, glowing with ethereal light.

The Blade of Retribution. The sword that represented a rightful death granted in a rightful punishment.

And, in a repulsive irony, the sword she had used to kill Mische.

“Our infighting accomplishes nothing, my siblings,” Shiket said. “We must focus on what lies ahead.”

Despite her heavy armor, her footfalls were silent as she crossed the platform and stood over me.

“Rise,” she commanded.

I did. My gaze did not break from hers. I felt the shadows of my left eye flare without my permission, though I carefully controlled my expression.

Still, she saw that surge of smoke.

She laughed softly. “You need not hide your feelings, prisoner. It is no surprise to me that a child of Nyaxia, a fallen one, would so resent the justice of the light.”