Page 69 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

ASAR

W hen Mische and Raihn left, Oraya watched me like a cat watches a bird flitting in the rafters. Her silver eyes were sharp as the blades she carried—even here, in the bowels of her own castle. One of them sat on the table between us, the carvings along its length glowing red.

Eventually, she spoke. “Raihn won’t say it, but it needs to be said, so I will.

” She dug the tip of her blade into the table and leaned across it.

“You’re welcome here as long as Mische says you should be.

But let’s be clear. If you ever hurt her, in any sense, I will peel your skin off and make you eat it. ”

She said it like she was discussing the weather. It was probably the only time I’d had to suppress a smile at such a blatant threat.

And yet, I heard the echo of Gideon’s voice: You will ruin her.

{No matter,} the mask whispered. {There will always be others.}

I barely disguised my flinch. The mask and the axe were in our chambers, locked away on the other side of the palace. And yet, their voices hadn’t diminished.

“If I ever hurt her,” I said, “I’d hand you the blade myself.”

{How presumptuous of you,} the eye remarked, and I violently pushed it away.

Oraya seemed tentatively satisfied with this response. She sheathed her blade and leaned back in her chair.

“I’m glad we’re aligned,” she said. “Now we can get to work.”

Oraya and Raihn brought us to the rooms that Vincent had described in the basement, in what had once been the king’s private, secret wing.

The room we chose had at one time been a study of some kind, but we haphazardly pushed all the furniture out of it, piling it unceremoniously in the hall.

Emptied, the room was so sadly unassuming—a scuffed tile floor, four brocade-papered walls that peeled slightly at the corners, a dangling spider or two.

{But imagine what it will be,} the eye murmured. {A path to completion.}

Mische introduced me to a woman named Lilith—the wife of their general who was retrieving the blood, and, apparently, the one responsible for most of their work distilling it.

When she had pushed her wire glasses up her nose and stretched out her hand to grasp mine, she’d paused and cocked her head.

“Have we met?” she asked.

We hadn’t, though she did seem oddly familiar. She was blunt, straightforward, and trusted the intelligence of her listener to keep up. All qualities I appreciated. I liked her immediately.

With the help of the Nightborn, Mische and I collected an assortment of notes and books and supplies—chalk and razors and paint.

It would be a daunting spell, one that would require us to nest ritual circles atop ritual circles.

By the time we were done, this entire room would be covered in spell work.

The thought, in some ways, excited me. In others, it unnerved me.

It was hard not to remember that the last time I had done this, etched glyphs into every corner and crack of the mortal world in a desperate attempt to make the impossible possible, it had been in my townhouse in the city, over Ophelia’s mutilated body.

Perhaps Mische knew what I was thinking, because she had touched my shoulder. “You aren’t alone this time,” she murmured.

{No,} the eye agreed.

{You are much more,} the mask said.

The hours—or was it days?—passed in a blur. We read and drew and read and drew. Once, I had found no greater delight than throwing myself headfirst into the magical unknown. Mische loved it as much as I did.

Yet, it also seemed to excite the mask and the eye.

They were wrapped up and locked away, and I never touched or even looked at them.

But it didn’t seem to matter how physically close they were.

Their voices trailed me like the presence of hungry wraiths.

And in the face of this task, they were hungrier than ever.

We were now conducting the magic of gods, not mortals.

All to find their lost kin. They made no secret of just how pleased they were with this idea.

Before long, their voices and my own became inextricable. Sometimes I would blink to find that minutes had slipped away.

Now, with the room half covered, I etched a fresh row of glyphs into the wood baseboard.

{You are moving too slowly,} the mask complained. {If you were on your own, it would be faster.}

{Your time to seize the heart is short,} the eye agreed. {You have none to waste.}

I might move faster if they were less distracting.

{We are no distraction,} the eye said. {We are your greatest asset. It is foolish of you to deny that.}

{You should simply claim the blood yourself,} the mask said. {You are capable of it. Take it and use it and this will all be over faster. Why the need for so much secrecy? Let the gods come. It will only mean you reach ascension faster.}

My mind wandered to this terrible scenario—in which Nyaxia or Shiket came to the House of Night, unleashing their wrath upon it.

The eye peered into this possibility with indifference. {Kingdoms have always fallen. Kingdoms have always risen. Gods understand this.}

Stop talking, I commanded them.

{You do not truly want that. You need us. You would not be able to conduct this ritual without us.}

The chalk cracked in my grip. I stared at the wall, covered in glyphs. They blurred and danced in front of my eyes. I found myself questioning how I’d even drawn some of them—had I ever seen them before?

{You cannot become a god with merely the fallible knowledge of a mortal,} the eye said. {You must see beyond that.}

I glanced across the room at Mische. She reminded me of a cat, contorting herself into the most bizarre positions as she worked—drawing glyphs upside down, reading while dangling over the edge of the table, fingers drumming and toes tapping and eyes shining.

She hummed and muttered and gasped with satisfied delight, even when there was no one there to listen to her.

Now, she lay on her stomach, ankles linked, books spread around her.

Perhaps the only person I’d ever met who reveled in finding another magical problem to solve as much as I did. I wanted to watch her forever.

{It is an embarrassment to be doing this work in the basement of a mortal king,} the mask grumbled.

I eyed her throat, then the spot of skin barely visible under the silky neckline of her blouse, where I could still see the marks of my teeth.

Then I turned back to the glyphs and tried to focus.

{You could take this place for yourself, if you wished,} the eye said. {There are weaknesses everywhere. It would simply be a matter of ? —}

Enough!

The chalk snapped in my hand and rolled across the floor.

Mische looked up.

“Everything alright?” she said.

Her neckline slipped lower as she sat up, dipping between her breasts. The silk was so light that it revealed the pert shape of her nipples.

In the back of my head, the eye continued theorizing about how one might best conquer the Nightborn palace.

I stood up abruptly and went to the open closet. “Come here,” I snapped.

Mische stood and followed, concerned. “What?”

She stepped into the closet. It was small, lined with several shelves of boxes and discarded books that no one seemed to have touched in years.

“What are you—” she started.

I whirled around and captured her mouth in a kiss.

She let out a delightful squeak of surprise, then, ever the good sport, folded against me.

I pushed her against the shelves, earning a creak of wood and cascade of dust. My hands were already sliding under her shirt, relishing soft skin, taut muscle, finding the full swell of her breasts.

She perched against a shelf and her legs folded around me, grinding against my length.

I treasured the merciful wave of distinctly mortal pleasure.

“Warden,” she gasped in mock outrage. “They’ll be back any minute.”

I kicked the door closed with my heel.

“I don’t care,” I murmured. Her teeth skimmed my throat, pain soothed with a brush of her tongue. Her fingernails clawed at my back. My hand slipped down her trousers and her body clenched when I found her core.

“I guess I’ll just have to be so quiet,” she whispered against my shoulder.

I pulled away from her. Spun her around. Yanked down her trousers, revealing that full, perfect backside, and bent her over the shelves.

I leaned over her, kissing her cheek, nibbling her earlobe.

“Don’t,” I said.

And when she spread her legs for me, when I pushed into her, she obeyed.

At last, I did not hear the voices at all.