Page 67 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

MISCHE

R aihn and Oraya sat across from us in the sitting room of my chambers. Raihn’s arms were crossed over his chest, his face hard. Yet despite his expression, bordering on angry, his hurt radiated from him like the pain of an open wound.

I was so nervous that my entire body ached. If I needed any more confirmation that I was, indeed, still a wraith, the fact that I didn’t vomit all over the carpet was proof enough.

When they’d first arrived, I had nervously introduced them to Asar just because I didn’t know what else to do with myself, and Raihn had just snapped, “I know. We’ve met.”

It was already off to a great start.

The clock tick, tick, tick ed. Raihn and Oraya waited. I was silent. Asar sat beside me, one hand on my knee. Luce curled up at my feet, having been returned to my bedchamber when Oraya and Raihn arrived. Now, she nuzzled my legs as if to remind me, We’re with you.

The silence was getting awkward.

Oraya, at last, leaned forward. “Whatever you have to say, we’re ready to hear it.”

Just start at the beginning, Asar said into my mind.

But even that seemed insurmountable. What would that even sound like?

I was a bride of Atroxus.

I killed a god.

I shattered the sun.

I broke the underworld.

And by the way, I died.

That last one loomed the largest, heavy with dread. I could talk to Raihn and Oraya about ancient magic and grand divine wars. But I could not bear to see their faces when I told them of my death.

At my continued silence, Raihn stood with a huff of annoyance and began pacing.

For fuck’s sake, say something , Mische, I told myself in a burst of frustration.

I blurted out, “I didn’t write to you because I died.”

Raihn stopped mid-step.

I could feel Asar giving me a bewildered look that said, You’re choosing to lead with that ?

I regretted it immediately.

Raihn’s confusion soured. “Is that supposed to be some kind of fucking joke, Mish?”

Words poured out of me like a soggy mudslide. “No, but it’s not as bad as it sounds. I’m alright. I mean, I’m alright for now, at least. It’s not as bad as it was. I can even touch people now.”

Sun fucking take me. Stop talking, Mische. Stop talking.

I closed my mouth. Then I sighed and lowered my hood.

Raihn and Oraya stared at me.

And I saw it, felt it, the moment they realized. Raihn’s anger faded to terrible, wide-eyed shock. Oraya’s lips parted.

I looked more alive than I had since coming back.

So alive that maybe they didn’t notice it before, when they were distracted by our surprise arrival, when they could have attributed my odd appearance to my fresh injuries.

But now, they were looking for it. Now, they could see—sense—that something was not quite right about me.

Raihn sank slowly into his chair.

It was that look. The very look I’d been so desperate to avoid.

I wanted to curl up on the floor and die. Again. It would hurt more this time.

I gave them a weak smile and said what came most naturally: “I’m alright. I promise.”

But I wasn’t alright, and now they knew it.

Asar squeezed my knee.

“I think,” he said, “that we should start from the beginning.”

The beginning. The thought was staggering. The weight of all I’d left unsaid over nearly a century of friendship filled me with shame. I was about to cut myself open and show them a collection of failures.

But I opened my mouth anyway.

No one even asked questions. They all just listened. And the more I talked, the more the words just poured out of me. By the end, I was borderline manic, tripping over an onslaught that I didn’t know how to stop.

“And now, we’re here,” I said. “With you. And that’s—I think that’s most of it. I mean, for now. There will definitely be more. I know it sounds unbelievable. And I know that?—”

Gods above, I sounded ridiculous. I just couldn’t make myself stop talking, because if I did, I knew that I’d have to listen to whatever they had to say. They were both so agonizingly quiet.

It’s alright, Iliae, Asar said gently into my mind. You can stop.

I shut my mouth. Let out a shaky breath.

“So. Right. That’s it.”

No one moved. No one spoke.

“So this is you?” Oraya said at last, gesturing to the night sky. “ You did that?”

I nodded.

“We saw it. The sun rising in the middle of the night, and then?.?.?.” She splayed out her hands in a demonstration: CRASH.

To them, it must have looked like the end of the world.

Hell, maybe it had been. I supposed that was still to be seen.

Raihn’s jaw was so tight that a muscle twitched in his cheek. His arms were crossed stiffly across his chest, like he was physically holding something back. My eyes drifted back to him every few seconds. I desperately wanted him to say something.

“It explains some things,” Oraya said. She and Raihn exchanged a knowing, uneasy glance that made my stomach clench.

“We’ve been having some unusual incidents over the last few months.

Earthquakes. And these?.?.?.?I don’t know what to call them.

Creatures. We thought they were some kind of demon that we’d never seen before. There was another one today.”

“Two,” Raihn corrected.

Oraya winced. “Two. They’re coming faster.”

Wraiths. And if the Nightborn had thought they were demons, I could only imagine how terribly disfigured they must have been. I glanced at Asar, but he was staring at the night sky through the window with a blank, empty expression.

My brow furrowed. I nudged him.

He blinked and looked at me, and for a strange split second, there was no recognition in his eyes. But he recovered so quickly I questioned whether I’d seen it at all.

“The collapse of the underworld means that the dead are seeping through the other realms,” he said. “You’re seeing the effects.”

“Vincent told me that the House of Night sits on a weak point of the veil,” I said. It was reassuring that he’d been right about this. Made me trust him a little more.

At the mention of his name, Oraya’s face went still, just as it had every other time. She hadn’t reacted when I told her that he had helped me. I knew that it was because she couldn’t let herself unlock that door.

Finally, Raihn spoke.

“So I take it, since you’re finally deciding to tell us all this, that you’ve decided you’d like our help avoiding the end of the fucking world.”

He was angry. He was so angry.

“Yes,” Asar said. “If you’re willing to offer it.”

“What would you need?” Oraya asked.

I swallowed thickly.

Another difficult question. Another question to which I dreaded the answer.

“Is it true that you’ve been refining the blood of Alarus?” I asked.

Even now, I hoped they’d deny it. I had seen the way this power had been used to terrible ends during the Nightborn civil war. I’d seen what it had created of Simon, Raihn’s rival.

But their silence was answer enough.

“You are.” I couldn’t keep the disappointment from my voice, even though I recognized the hypocrisy of it. Because here I was, next to Asar—trying to claim a power a thousand times more dangerous.

“We have too many enemies not to, Mische,” Oraya said. “I won’t be ashamed of leveraging what few advantages we have.” Her gaze turned to the window, and the endless black skies beyond. “Especially if the gods are preparing for war now, too.”

“Nyaxia never came to you?” I asked.

Again, an uneasy pause.

Then she said, “No. She didn’t.”

So it was as I’d feared in the House of Shadow.

Even when preparing for her great war against the White Pantheon, Nyaxia had come to the Houses of Shadow and Blood to fight for her, but not the House of Night.

If Nyaxia could not be bothered to ask the Nightborn for their help with a mission so sweeping, she probably wouldn’t offer them her protection, either.

Or worse, she’d give them her spite, instead.

“How can the blood help you?” Oraya asked.

“The theory is that we could use it to find the heart of Alarus,” Asar said. “I could open a door into the spira and use the blood to direct it to the heart. We could do it here.”

“Spira?”

“It’s how gods travel,” I said.

They did not seem to find this answer comforting.

“But you don’t know where this thing is,” Oraya said. “Or who could have it in their possession. It could open to anywhere.”

“I’m not denying that it has risks,” Asar said.

At last—at last—Raihn spoke. He leaned forward.

“So let me make sure I understand. You want us to create a magical god door to who-fucking-knows-where in our palace, wide open to who-fucking-knows-what, so that you can go through, grab the heart of the god of fucking death, and ascend to divinity.” He gave Asar a pointed look. “You. The Wraith Warden.”

Asar, always wonderful at reading a room, just said, “More or less.”

“If you don’t have the protection of a god, might as well make your own, right?” I said, in a too-cheerful attempt to break the tension.

It did not work.

“And what if you fail?” Raihn asked.

I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t even bring myself to give voice to the worst possibilities. I was grateful when Asar answered instead.

“The underworld collapses,” he said. “The souls of the dead no longer have anywhere to go, or are destroyed completely. The House of Night falls. So does much of the mortal realm.”

Raihn’s gaze fell to mine. “And you? What happens to you?”

I swallowed thickly. “I’ll be gone.” My voice was smaller than I’d intended. “Like the rest of the dead.”

Asar’s fingers squeezed mine, as if in steadfast reassurance: It won’t happen.

Raihn glanced between us. Then to Oraya. Then back to us.

“It’s all fucking madness,” he said. “You must know that.”

Asar let out a dry laugh. “Yes. I do.”

But Raihn’s eyes locked on mine.

“You had our help from the minute you got here,” he said. “It was never a question, Mische. Not for a Mother-damned second.”