Page 68 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

MISCHE

T he gears ground into motion. We began our work of doing the impossible.

Oraya told us that they had been distilling the blood from the tiny particles remaining from Simon’s body and the materials left behind from Vincent’s work, with the help of Lilith, Vale’s wife, who had apparently built up some knowledge of such things in her previous life.

They carefully guarded what little they had, and in light of the recent earthquakes and wraith appearances in Sivrinaj, they had moved it farther from the city, to a location guarded to all but their closest inner circle.

They sent word to Vale, who was already traveling, to retrieve it.

In the meantime, we had plenty of work to do. Necromancy was crafting a passage between worlds—opening a door through the spira was like that, but a thousand times more complicated. Asar and I would need to build a ritual circle capable of doing it.

But as we fell into planning and theorizing, I noticed Raihn quietly slip from the room.

I went after him.

“Raihn. Wait.”

He stopped, peering at me over his shoulder.

“Just need some air.” The corner of his mouth twitched into an almost-smile, and gods, I was grateful for that expression. “You coming?”

What kind of question was that?

The two of us went out into the hot night. After the cold damp of the House of Shadow and the downright freezing desolation of the deadlands, the House of Night’s dry heat was almost stifling. Or maybe I just wasn’t used to feeling temperature so acutely anymore. A small price to pay, I supposed.

Raihn and I wandered through the palace grounds. It was quiet out here. White marble paths wound through neatly trimmed gardens. The skyline of Sivrinaj glittered silver beneath the moonlight, a sea of smooth curves and delicate spires against the distant dunes.

We passed by an area that had been isolated with a series of makeshift metal gates. I paused. A hole had been torn through the marble path and the sandy ground beneath it. Though the crack was empty and dark now, I shivered when I passed by, the stench of the underworld at my nostrils.

“Unsettling, isn’t it?” Raihn said.

“What came through this one?”

“I’m not sure if people is the right word.”

Wraiths, then. Twisted wraiths. At least it wasn’t souleaters, which would have been worse.

“We were able to put them down,” he said, starting again to walk. “But they get a little more difficult every time.”

“Asar and I can seal the cracks.”

“They’re quiet now.”

“Right, for now. But not forever. Watch the human districts. The wraiths like humans best. More alive, I think. Asar and I can show Jesmine how to stop them more easily, too. It’s not that hard once you know what to do?.?.?.”

My voice trailed off. I felt Raihn’s eyes boring into the side of my head.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You just sound?.?.?.?different.”

“Different?”

“Stronger.”

A lump rose in my throat. I didn’t feel stronger. And I didn’t feel like I deserved the note of admiration in his voice.

We reached the garden hedges, and Raihn turned to me expectantly. When I recognized where we were, I groaned.

“Really?”

“I figured I’d take you to the last place I managed to force answers out of you.”

This was the same place where I had told Raihn I would be leaving the House of Night. When he’d given me that stupid fucking puppy dog face and I’d felt like I was going to die on the spot.

This felt like a cruel and highly specific torture.

“Fine,” I said, splaying my hands out. “I’m ready. Do it.”

“Do what?”

“I don’t know. Yell at me. Stomp around. Tell me what an idiot I am. I deserve it. Go ahead.”

I was half joking. But the sadness on Raihn’s face was so sharp it cut my heart open.

“Is that what you think this is? You think I brought you here, what, to scold you? You—You just told me that you died, Mische. You died .”

Gods, I felt his pain when he said those words. His grief, even though he was looking right at me. It devastated me.

I gave him a weak smile. “It’s alright. I’m right here.”

“It is not alright, Mische. It is not alright. You fucking died. And yes, a part of you is here. But the rest is?.?.?.?where? Down there? Like them?” He gestured to the crack in the distance.

I didn’t like to think of myself that way. As a wraith. I rubbed my fingers together, as if to remind myself that they were now solid.

“In a way,” I said quietly.

“Was that why you wouldn’t let me look at you, in the House of Shadow? So I wouldn’t see what you were?”

There was no accusation in his voice. Just genuine sadness.

I couldn’t speak, so I nodded.

Somehow, his sadness actually intensified, and I felt it like a knife twisting. He sank onto a bench.

“Were you alone, when it happened?”

He was just torturing himself by asking this question.

I didn’t like to think about those last moments. But now, I blinked and I was there again, lying in the ashes of Atroxus, Shiket’s sword through my heart, listening to Asar’s screams as they dragged him away.

“It didn’t hurt,” I said quietly. A comfort for him— it’s alright, I didn’t suffer, you never have to worry about me.

Even though it was a lie. No, I had been so far gone that I didn’t feel Shiket’s blade through my chest. But I did feel the ache of Asar’s absence, the cold bite of my fingernails clawing for life.

Raihn sagged, his head in his hands. “Fuck, Mische.”

I sat next to him.

“I didn’t want you to know,” I said. “Not about any of it.”

“You never even told me about Atroxus. About what you were to him.”

“I never wanted to talk about it.”

“I’m sorry, Mische. I just—I am so sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

He didn’t believe me. And I understood that. You didn’t trust me, he’d said to me. But it had never been about that.

“It’s just?.?.?.” I struggled to word it. “It’s you and me, right?”

I found it so hard to explain my relationship with Raihn, sometimes. Even to myself. It always came back to those words: It’s you and me.

And yet, Raihn nodded, like this made perfect sense to him, too.

I pulled my knees up to my chin, wrapping my arms around them.

“You kept it all from me, too, for such a long time. And then when you finally trusted me enough to tell me the truth about who you were, I?—”

The shame now was unbearable. I thought of when Raihn had told me the truth about his Heir Mark and his past, on that terrible, tear-filled night.

And what did I do, after being entrusted with something so precious?

My eyes burned. “I forced you to do something you didn’t want to do.

I ran off and joined the Kejari and I—I manipulated you, not despite but because I knew how much you cared about me, and I knew you would do anything to protect me.

And I thought by the time it killed me, it wouldn’t even matter.

Because you’d have what you really needed. ”

I knew how much that question had haunted him— why, Mische? Why would you do it? I knew that he would follow me into the Kejari to protect me, but I knew just as well that he always wondered what my end game had been. I’d always laughed it off. I knew it would all work out, I’d say. That’s faith!

The truth was, no, I hadn’t known it would all work out.

I had been ready to die to help Raihn become what I knew he could be. To force him to become what I knew he could be.

Now, this seemed so unforgivably cruel.

He shook his head. “You thought you were helping me.”

“I did. But it doesn’t matter, Raihn. It was wrong.

And I’m sorry.” Tears slithered down my cheeks.

“I knew how badly you needed to know you could save someone. But the truth was, I needed to save someone, too. And I manipulated you because I was trying to fill that hole that—that Malach ripped out of me when he Turned me.”

But when I blinked, it wasn’t Malach I saw in the darkness. It was my own face, bearing down on Saescha, covered in her blood.

Even now, coward that I was, I couldn’t share that with Raihn, either.

The tears just kept coming. I was sobbing now.

“And gods, what a tragedy that would’ve been.

Because you’re—you’re so good, Raihn. You’re so kind and nice and a really, really amazing cook and—and now you have Oraya and she’s so perfect and you love her so much and you’re such a good king and one day you’re going to have such cute little winged babies and?—”

“Ix’s tits, breathe, Mish?—”

“—and I never ever ever want to jeopardize any of that for you. Not ever .” I drew in a deep, shaky breath and let it out. “That’s why I didn’t tell you any of it. Not because I didn’t feel safe to. Not because I don’t trust you. But because you have earned such a good life. And I’m?—”

“You are a part of that life. Not just a stepping stone to get to it.”

He let out a long, rough sigh and pushed his hair back from his face.

“You and me, right?” he murmured. “Two fucked-up people getting through the worst of our Mother-damned lives together. We were just trying to survive. And I wouldn’t have done it without you. That’s just the truth of it.”

I nodded and wiped my tears with the back of my hand.

Because he was right. We were just surviving for so long together. I’d lost everything. But when I met Raihn, there it was. Purpose. A reason to think, every day, Well, I have to wake up again now, because what would he do without me?

And I knew he had done the same for me.

“I think that we learned how to live a certain way to survive,” I said. “And now we have to unlearn it.”

Raihn laughed softly. “Maybe. Maybe so.” He looked up at the sky. “I think the key to survival will be a little more complicated now than just you and me learning how to enable each other’s madness.”

I shuddered, even though the breeze was warm.

Raihn’s gaze slipped back to me, his red eyes shining in the moonlight.

“Never think for a second, Mische, that you were the one who brought this upon us,” he said quietly.

“We’re all just trying to do what we can to save who we can, all while the gods play games with us.

But as long as we have to go up against them, I’ll be damned lucky to do it with someone as fierce as you by my side. ”

I choked a laugh. “Fierce?”

But he was stone serious. “Yes, fierce. For nearly a century now I’ve seen you protect the people you love. That’s ferocity.”

I wasn’t so sure that he was right. But gods, did it hurt to hear it—because I knew he believed it. I’d know it even without my Shadow-born magic, just by the way he looked at me.

I was so, so fucking lucky.

Before I could stop myself, I threw myself against him, wrapping him up in a hug. Gods, I had forgotten what it was like to hug Raihn. Like throwing yourself against a wall. But he wrapped his arms around me, enveloping me in a cocoon of warmth.

It made me think of the countless times he had hugged me after my nightmares, all those years ago. And in the same breath, it made me think of how different I was now.

We parted, and I stared up at the night sky.

Raihn’s eyes slipped to me. “So. This Asar character.”

I stiffened. “Mm-hmm?” I said, too casually.

“Just how hard have you fallen?”

“I don’t know what you’re?—”

“For fuck’s sake, Mish. That entire apartment reeked of sex.”

My face heated. “Gods, Raihn, ” I squeaked.

“And the man follows you around staring at you like you’re a goddess. And when he came to us, when we all thought we were losing you?.?.?.” His face darkened. “I know that look. Like his entire world was ending. No wonder the man is about to go rip apart the fabric of the universe for you.”

“The apartment did not reek of sex,” I repeated, because for some stupid reason, it was still the only thing I could think to say.

“Yes, it did. And good for you.” He jabbed my arm with his elbow. “I don’t want to think about it or hear about it, but I hope you had a great time.”

“Oh gods, stop —” I gasped, burying my head in my hands.

“I know what it looks like when a man is gone. And he is so far gone for you.”

I peeked through my fingers at Raihn, then lowered my hands. I couldn’t stop the smile from pulling at my cheeks.

“He’s just—I really?—”

I kept reaching for words and coming up short.

Raihn’s brows rose. “Are you actually speechless ? Ix’s tits. You must like him.”

I thought of Asar, kneeling next to the broken gates of Morthryn, committed to his eternal watch. Asar, lying in bed beside Luce, lazily scratching her head. Asar, head bowed over the piano. Asar, head bowed over me.

Yes, I was speechless. Because what words existed to describe that?

I said, at last, “He makes me want a happy ending.”

When I finally forced myself to look at Raihn, he was giving me a quiet, serious stare.

“Is that silly?” I said.

He shook his head. “No. It’s not silly at all.”