Page 53 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

ASAR

W e were close to the execution site now, stopping for one final rest. The horses were tired, especially Mische’s, which now lagged far behind the others.

Mische had slid off her mount like gelatin off a tipped plate.

She shivered constantly, and she was exhausted.

She no longer snored. Her body did not mimic breath, even when she slept.

It was growing harder to deny that I could feel her slipping away.

I wasn’t tired, even though I couldn’t recall the last time I had really slept.

While the others rested, I wandered the ruins.

We had crossed through remnants of cities and towns and farmland, and now were on the outskirts of the city that held the execution site.

All were empty save for the wraiths, so lost they didn’t even know to follow us. And all reeked of pain.

I hated this place. It felt deader than the underworld ever had. The underworld had been built to be a place of peace. This was a place of suffering.

{Such sacrifices are necessary to build greatness.}

The voice flitted through my mind, and I closed my eyes to push it away. But the darkness offered no reprieve. Every time I blinked, I found myself slipping into vivid daydreams of the things that had happened here.

Now, I saw Nyaxia chained against the wall in those godlight restraints, marks carved into her skin, blood on her naked body. I heard her guttural scream of grief?—

Gravel crunched. My eyes snapped open.

A little wraith girl peered at me from behind a pile of stone. She crouched slightly, as if debating running away.

I smiled softly. “Ah. You again.”

I had spotted her several times during our travels.

The child was in better condition than the other wraiths here, which were so far gone they barely even resembled people.

She was a wisp of a thing, with blunt, straight hair, perhaps ten years old when she died.

Her body was faint, dissolving into nothingness after the flow of her long skirt.

But her eyes were alert, a sign that her soul was still intact.

“No need to be afraid,” I murmured. “You’ve been following us for quite some distance, haven’t you?”

The girl smiled, glowing slightly with the acknowledgment.

Wraiths craved the attention of the living.

I shouldn’t have been encouraging her. She would continue following us if I did, and who could say what dangers that would lead her to.

But her loneliness was tender and familiar.

Eternity was such a terribly long time to be alone, and no soul—especially not a child’s—deserved such a thing.

Still, as she hesitantly moved from her hiding spot, I lowered myself to her eye level.

“What is your name?” I asked.

The girl spoke, but no sound came out. I scooted closer, straining to hear. But her voice was lost to death, and she was so far from the underworld. With her name, I might—might—have been able to guide her back. Without it, I could do little for her.

The girl’s eyes lifted over my shoulder, and she took half a step back.

Collecting strays again, Warden?

Funny, how I’d never experienced the sensation of the sun falling over my face. But every time, I was so certain that it must feel something like Mische’s presence.

Apparently I can’t help myself, I answered.

Mische shot me an affectionate glance that made my heart stutter as she knelt down beside me. Then she turned to the girl and gave her the brightest, warmest smile.

“Hello, beautiful,” she said softly. “What is your name?”

The girl spoke soundlessly again, and Mische cocked her head, listening.

A knot of pride and worry tightened in my chest as I watched her. Pride, because the dead so adored Mische—rightfully—and worry, because she was so much closer to them than I wished she was.

“Celie,” Mische repeated. “What a lovely name.”

Celie. The child’s name was the string that bound her to the identity she’d held in life.

With it, I saw fragments of her past, albeit vague, scrambled ones—glimpses of a childhood somewhere very cold, warm fires and empty stomachs, carefree games and grieving tears and the affection of a very fat orange cat. She’d had a too hard, too short life.

She had deserved a fairer death.

Can you help her pass? Mische asked the question I was already asking myself.

The logical answer was a cascade of objections.

We were far from the underworld. I had no idea how the broken paths back—the paths that shouldn’t even exist—would work.

I could fail and lead the girl somewhere else entirely.

Pushing her through could weaken a veil that was already disintegrating.

Or she might just continue to follow us instead, perhaps even creating a path for worse beasts in her wake.

And yet. That stubborn hope still shone through. That nagging desire to right this one unjust wrong.

I looked to the child. Then to the nearest ravine, pulsing with the underworld’s sickened light.

I stood and went to the crack, Mische and Celie close behind.

We knelt before it. I touched the stone and closed my eyes.

This time, instead of unwelcome visions of past pain, I sensed the underworld spread out before me—a tangled, broken web, barely holding itself together.

I drew Celie’s path back, though it was imperfect, full of hopeful guesses.

And then I opened the door for her.

“I can offer you, Celie, the peace you should have gotten five hundred years ago,” I said. “If you want to attempt the journey.”

But the child was frightened. She stared down into the mist, shying behind Mische, who gave her a gentle, encouraging smile.

“You’re going to be safe,” she promised.

It was a promise we couldn’t truly make. But she always made it so easy to believe her.

It was Mische, in the end, who ushered the child’s soul through the door.

Celie stepped into the ravine, her body disintegrating.

I felt the strain on the path I’d drawn out for her go slack.

Quickly, I swept the retractable knife from my pocket and etched glyphs around the crack, attempting—imperfectly—to seal it again.

Mische caught on quickly, working beside me.

When it was done, we sat back on our heels. Light still seeped through the crack, but it was dimmer now.

“Do you think it worked?” she said softly.

I didn’t answer. I hated verbalizing uncertainty and hated verbalizing hope even more.

Instead, I just murmured, “Thank you for helping.”

“It’s a little selfish. In my nature, apparently. Just like I know it’s in yours, as much as you grumble about it.” She playfully nudged my shoulder, her clothed arm to mine, though the touch still sent a jolt through me. “Feels good to fix something again, doesn’t it?”

Goddess, it did. Like a drug. I hadn’t realized quite how much I had missed it. I eyed Mische’s profile, shimmering, translucent. Her hood was down now, but lately, it was easy to tell that something wasn’t right even when it was raised.

“I can fix more than that,” I said. “Soon enough.”

Mische’s smile faded. She turned to look at me, worry etched between her brows.

“Atrius said that the gods don’t care about anything. Do you think that’s true?”

{Do not mistake ambition for callousness,} a voice whispered, before I shuttered it back.

I looked out over the majestic, terrible ruin. The long-gone world the gods abandoned. The fresher ruin of Nyaxia’s grief.

“Alarus cared about the underworld,” I said. “He cared about Vathysia.”

I was certain of that. I’d felt his care in my decades overseeing Morthryn and the Descent, doing all I could to match it with my own.

“But was that just pride in his work? Or was that love?” Mische drew her knees up to her chest. “Maybe he could only love it once he knew what it was like to have something to lose. He built the Descent on his story with Nyaxia. It was all a monument to her.”

I considered this. She could be right. Perhaps the underworld, the Descent, Vathysia—all of it was just a game to Alarus before Nyaxia came along.

Perhaps it only started to mean more to him once he realized he was building it for her.

A legacy to protect them once he’d turned away from everything else he had.

And he lost her in the end, anyway.

What an uncomfortable thought. I didn’t want to look too hard at it.

“This is all uncharacteristically bleak of you, Dawndrinker.”

Mische shivered. “It’s hard not to feel bleak here.”

“Gideon used to tell me that life was only worth the value of the blood you spill upon it. I imagine that much like powerful vampires, powerful gods probably feel the same way. Open to sacrifices.”

Her expression hardened. “Maybe greatness should come not from the sacrifices you make, but the ones you refuse to.”

Her eyes were dimmer than they had been in life, but I still sank into those threads of brown and amber-gold.

Yes. I agreed with her. There were some sacrifices I would never make.

She searched my face. Leaned closer. A breeze blew, but it barely rustled her hair, and though I drew in a breath, I couldn’t smell even a hint of spice.

“Are you afraid of what you’ll become, if you succeed?” she said.

{Only a coward fears greatness,} the voice hissed.

My answer was immediate, with Mische’s skin so close and so far. “I’m more afraid of what will happen if I don’t.”

She stared at me for a long moment, her eyes peeling me apart, the wrinkle deepening between her brows.

“No matter what’s ahead, never sacrifice the messy parts of your mortality, Asar. I like those the best.”

My gaze fell to her mouth. I so desperately wanted to taste her.

Slowly, I raised her hood. Then I laid my hands on either side of her face through the fabric. I pressed my lips to her cheek. Her jaw. Her throat.

“Then take them,” I murmured. “They’re for you.”

“Yes, please.” Her words were warm with a smile. “I’ll have it all.”

I lowered my head, kissing her shoulder, her collarbone, her chest.

I prayed to find breath. I prayed to find a heartbeat.

“Tell me you feel it,” I whispered.

Silence. Then, “I feel it.”

But we both knew it was a lie.

And I found only silence.