Page 56 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

MISCHE

A s a small child, I had once seen an entire house go up in flames.

Saescha had I had been sheltering in a barn in a drought-stricken village.

We didn’t see what had started the fire in the farmer’s cottage, only that it had spread so quickly that by the time we smelled the smoke, the little house had been consumed.

As we fled into the night, Saescha had to choose whether to cover my eyes or my ears.

She chose eyes, but it had been the wrong choice.

I’d had nightmares about the sounds for a long time.

Later, as a priestess, I learned how to find refuge in the flames. I knew that fire could bring pain, but it could also provide comfort. It brought light and warmth to those who needed it. I had no need to fear what I could control.

Still, even into adulthood, I dreamed of those flames.

Now, I realized: maybe I had been dreaming of my own future death at Atroxus’s hands all along.

Those nightmares felt just like this.

The Sentinel dragged me down, down, down. The heat was unbearable. Flames surrounded me. They hurt me, but couldn’t kill me—couldn’t kill what was already dead. The Sentinel’s fingers dug into my shoulders, the two of us thrashing together like rabid dogs as we tumbled into damnation.

“Your arrogance knows no bounds,” the Sentinel snarled. “Did you think that I would not find you? Did you think that you could escape justice?”

I stared into the Sentinel’s smooth mask. In my reflection, I saw my face burning, melting, as Atroxus killed me. My face, young and innocent, under the light of Atroxus’s divinity the day he had chosen me. My face, mouth open and teeth bloody, as I had descended upon Saescha.

We crashed down together onto jagged stone. The impact snatched the ghost of breath from my lungs. The flames, bright orange and searing white, obeyed the laws of the divine world, not the mortal one. I couldn’t see anything through them. Everywhere I looked, I saw only licks of metallic gold.

“Get up,” the Sentinel snarled as they hoisted my limp body upright, pushing me against the wall. “Meet your justice standing.”

I couldn’t sense Asar down here, or Luce.

I couldn’t feel much of anything at all.

The pain of a two-thousand-year-old betrayal was so thick in the air that it stifled all my other senses.

I managed to look up, and through the flames I realized that I wasn’t just seeing the fire reflected on the walls—the stone was streaked with brilliant metallic, too. Like spilled paint.

No, not paint. Blood. Alarus’s blood, still staining this spot all these years later.

The Sentinel’s fingers dug into my skin. The agony was unbearable. My scream tore up my throat without my permission.

I realized, through my screams, the Sentinel was commanding, “Repent. Repent . Tell me if you can be saved. Is there anything left in you to salvage?”

I flailed against their hold. I could barely make out the shape of the terrain through the flames—could barely think through the pain. My sword was gone, slipped from my grip as we fell, leaving me lashing out with bare hands and feet.

“You damned a million souls,” the Sentinel breathed. “Confront it.”

When they leaned close, I lunged and sank my teeth into their neck.

Pain. An onslaught of images—every sin, every betrayal. My teeth hit only metal, not flesh. Still, it seemed to affect the Sentinel in some way, because they lurched backward in surprise and dropped me.

I rolled against stone and clumsily recovered. I managed a glance up. I could see, through the fire, a sliver of the world above. Gods, it looked so far away. The earth vibrated with the force of whatever was happening up there. I could see Srana’s gearwork shifting, and flashes of movement.

Asar couldn’t save me.

I got to my feet, but the Sentinel struck me again, sending me flying against the rocks.

I rolled over, coughed, sputtered. I looked down at my hands to see that they were nearly invisible against the ground.

I was fading away. Desperately, I grabbed at the rocks, trying to pull myself up. My hand touched a smear of gold.

Sensations crashed over me.

Atroxus’s voice in my ear: You made the wrong decision, brother.

The pain of a blade cutting through muscle, bone.

I gasped and squeezed my eyes shut. In the darkness, I saw a familiar face. Vincent.

Do not yield, he snapped. You are so close to what you need.

What?

Everything blurred. The Sentinel dragged me back as I thrashed. When I slid down the stone, again, my hand pressed to a smear of Alarus’s blood.

My smile was weak and ugly across my face.

No, it is you who has made a terrible mistake, I whispered to Atroxus in my final breath.

You have ended me. But you don’t know what you have just created.

What you have just created.

My lashes fluttered. A blunt impact struck my ribs—a kick from a metal boot. I was lying in the dirt, doused in fire. I rolled over to my side.

Get up, Mische, I told myself, Get up.

I forced my eyes open. Perhaps they had adjusted to the light of the flames, because now, I could make out the shape of the ravine. It seemed that the cracks in the earth ran beneath the surface, too, not just above it. I could see little alcoves in the rock, blazing white.

My brow furrowed.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” the Sentinel demanded as they loomed over me.

But I was not listening to the Sentinel.

I was looking at a figure of silver, hiding in a stone crevice behind the flames. A wraith, albeit one that had no features. How could they be here? Perhaps the forge held another fissure to the underworld.

The wraith placed a finger over their lips. Shh.

And then they pointed down, to an object at their feet. A long, silver handle, and a delicate curved blade. An axe. Glowing upon its blade were two concentric circles of luminescent red, nestled between carved eyelids.

Alarus’s eye, ripped from him and forged into the very weapon that was used to dismember him.

It was as Gideon had theorized. The gods couldn’t take or wield the axe again. But they could still harness its power here, to create more weapons to be used in their holy war.

I sucked in a breath, suddenly reinvigorated. I looked up, up to the shifting, glinting gears of Srana’s creation above.

I needed to get Asar down here—get him to the eye.

But a grip locked around my ankles, dragging me back, and the Sentinel hoisted me up, hand to my throat. My own face, neither alive nor dead, stared back at me.

Why were they playing with me this much?

“What do you want with me?” I ground out. “Kill me already, if that’s what you want.”

They paused, like they didn’t expect this from me. “You think all I want is petty violence? No. You must be brought to justice. You murdered a god. You murdered the sun .”

“I saved millions,” I spat. “ Millions. Atroxus was going to raise a dawn over the vampires that would burn them all to ash.”

“Them,” the Sentinel hissed. “As if you are not among them . So you traded one sacrifice for another. That is not the mark of a savior. How did you decide which soul deserved to be lost? How? ”

There was something in the Sentinel’s voice that seemed?.?.?.?oddly vulnerable then. Oddly human. I stared into my own reflection.

But the Sentinel flung me away with a snarl. “I will not allow your justifications. They are a disgrace to all who had once trusted you.”

My consciousness flickered. Perhaps they’re right, a cruel voice whispered. Perhaps you are.

I gritted my teeth as I caught myself on my hands and knees.

Even in death, my body, or whatever of one I had, couldn’t hold out much longer here.

Desperately, I lifted my head to peer again into the shadows.

The wraith was still there. Others, perhaps drawn by the influx of divine power in this spot, clustered behind them now.

All barely shades of who they once were. Souls who deserved peace, too.

A familiar face emerged, clearer than the others. Vincent. He pushed through them and knelt before the axe.

His lips moved, and I could only barely make out the words:

Take it.

Was he out of his mind? I couldn’t touch it, let alone wield it. Not without Asar.

I shook my head.

Vincent insisted, Take it.

Another earth-shattering blow had my vision going white. I barely clung to the rocks. With every touch, the Sentinel sapped away more of me.

Above, I glimpsed Srana and Asar locked in a battle that he would, inevitably, lose.

Take it.

The Sentinel loomed over me, raising their sword.

You hold a piece of Alarus, too! Vincent bellowed. Take. The. Eye.

I had no choice.

My hand closed around the silver handle.

Breath swept through me. Blood roared. An ancient stare snapped to mine.

{Who are you?} an intrigued voice whispered.

I lifted the axe and swung.