Page 55 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

ASAR

G et back! I told Mische as Srana encroached. Sylina and Atrius pressed themselves against the wall, and Mische, dragged by Luce, shrank back beneath the forge’s beams and gears. Srana did not seem to notice any of them. Her attention remained solely on me.

“What a delight to find you here.” Her voice was comprised of the echoing ticks and clicks of metal against metal, hot like the flames of their forging.

Limbs of steel and copper collapsed and reformed to her body as she lowered herself.

The entire forge shifted as if an extension of her body.

This was the palace she had built, a temple to the creation of weaponry and technology, and now, it all bowed to her.

Srana vaulted down like a spider flinging itself from thread to thread of gleaming steel. Heat blasted my face as the flames of her forge rose up to meet her, eager to please its mistress.

“My siblings are so shortsighted,” she purred. “I told them that you could be so useful. But they did not listen. How they underestimate me. Srana, sweating over forges and clockwork. As if I was not the one to create all that made them so very great.”

Tick tick tick tick tick tick—as her fingers unfolded, gear by gear.

“Such potential. I have created so much from so much less. If they allowed me to, what a beauty I could craft. Your flesh is the least interesting thing about you.”

Her fingers clicked and twitched, as if she was already mentally acting out all that she would do to me if she had been given the opportunity.

I thought of the demigod I had met in Acaeja’s care—the one with the copper arm and face.

Now I understood what she had been. A creation intended to strip her for her most useful parts and discard the rest. A failed one.

I looked at the polished structure around us with fresh eyes, and realized that the metal figures lining the walls were not statues.

They were weapons.

This had been the site where Srana had forged her greatest creation: a blade that could cut up a god. And now, she used the power of what had happened here to create more weapons, all designed to be perfect foils to the creatures born of what had once been Alarus’s power.

“You are building an army,” I said.

“Building an army, ” she scoffed. “You sound like Shiket. As if I am merely a creator of tools. No, godling. I am an artist, painting a new world. And what a gift we have been given, on a canvas so blank.” She gestured to the windows to the mortal world above.

All of them beneath an eternally black sky.

I found myself laughing, and my voice did not sound like my own.

Srana. Of course. She was not one of the most powerful goddesses, or the most worshipped, like Atroxus or Shiket or Acaeja, who promised power, glory, intelligence.

But she had created the tools that the gods relied most heavily upon.

And if someone was to take the crown of the White Pantheon from Shiket’s hands before it made it to her brow, she could be the one.

And now, I understood why I was still alive.

This was a secret. Srana had managed, somehow, to keep her machinations from the attention of her distracted siblings. She’d slain the Keeper to keep us, or anyone else, from finding her forge, but avoided closing the door to keep from attracting the attention of her cousins.

But my presence here—well, that was either a gift or a complication. She seemed as if she hadn’t decided which yet.

Either way, I was in trouble. I had nowhere to go, with her attention so completely focused on me.

“Tell me, god slayer,” she purred, “how useful of a soldier could you be?”

I needed a distraction. I needed?—

“If you want a god slayer?—”

My heart went cold. Mische, no ? —

“—then it’s me. I’m here.” Mische stepped out of the shadows. She smiled, even though I could sense her fear.

“Do you remember me?” she said. “I remember you. Even though I was almost gone by then.”

Tick, tick, tick, tick. Srana drew back, turning her attention to Mische.

I watched Atrius out of the corner of my eye, slinking through the shadows with Sylina.

He stood among a store of god-forged weapons.

I wouldn’t be able to kill Srana, but perhaps between the blessed weapons and my shred of divinity, I could hurt her enough that she’d rather flee than risk alerting the other gods, or at least keep her distracted enough that the others could find the eye. It could be our only chance.

Atrius! I shouted into his mind, hand outstretched.

We had one opening. One moment of Srana’s distraction.

Atrius met my gaze.

But then, he looked to Sylina, feeling her way along the stone, clearly still unable to see. Something that I couldn’t make out was clutched against her body.

He looked to the copper blade he now held in his other hand.

And then he looked to Sylina’s bag, which held the vial of snow that would grant us passage back to the mortal realm.

My heart fell as I saw him draw his final conclusion.

He just shook his head, presenting his thoughts to me as he and Sylina slipped back into the shadows:

I said I’d guide you, Shadowborn. I didn’t say I’d die for you.

Goddess fucking damn it. I knew they were going to betray us.

Gears ticked and ground as Srana took in Mische from all angles.

“So you are the one who killed Atroxus,” she mused. “And yet, so unremarkable! So common. Barely even a mortal warrior. How could?—”

A streak of light arced across the sky, reflecting in Srana’s metal face. She stopped and peered above.

Another god? It didn’t quite feel like it. Still, it distracted Srana.

In that opening, Luce—brilliant Luce—sprinted for the weapons stores and flung one across the sands to me. I dove for it, grabbing the glowing copper sword. My palm burned as it closed around the hilt—it was a creation of the White Pantheon, and hurt like it.

Get back, Mische, I hissed into her mind. Her eyes met mine across the forge.

But before we could move, golden light blinded us.

A stroke of white and gold smashed through the top of the building, careening straight into Srana.

Srana let out a cry and drew back with a collection of clinks and ticks.

A Sentinel, I realized, as she flung the figure away. Even though they should not have been able to follow us here.

But I didn’t have time to question it. For now, it was a blessing.

I lunged for Srana.

But I was too slow.

Too slow to reach Mische as the forge flames roared up again.

Too slow to readjust as the Sentinel skidded in the sand, turning on her like a lion locking onto its prey.

And too slow to stop them before the two of them collided with the force of a shooting star, sliding straight into the forge flames together.