Page 77 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

ASAR

G ideon sat in the center of the room, surrounded by everyone who had helped us, holding a weapon powerful enough to make or unmake worlds.

My fear was so loud that even the voices were silent.

My mind ran through a cascade of calculations.

The distance between Gideon and Mische. The distance between myself and the mask or the eye, which were downstairs, in the ritual room.

The distance between my hands and the weapons on the other side of the room.

Beside me, Mische sucked in a breath when she, too, pierced the illusion.

“That is not your general,” I told the Nightborn, never taking my eyes from Gideon.

Oraya frowned. “Of course it is.”

“Of course I am,” Gideon said.

I am. I am. I am.

The air was thick with Gideon’s illusion. The Nightborn weren’t prepared for it, and Gideon was one of the greatest Shadowborn sorcerers in centuries. Perhaps he had even used the weapon he held to enhance his magic. I didn’t know. I didn’t care.

He smiled. It reminded me so vividly of the smile he had given me when he had first offered me the world in exchange for my soul.

“Perhaps I underestimated you, Asar. But you underestimated me, too. I told you that our dance would not be over.”

I had fought gods, monsters, wraiths. I’d traversed life and death. And yet, this one man left me utterly powerless.

My heart was in my throat. “If you want revenge, then we can handle that one-on-one.”

Gideon actually looked sad.

“I always found it so interesting that you were so capable and yet so naive. One night, you single-handedly destroy a kingdom. The next, you run off to go fall in love. Surely you know better now.”

Shadows now writhed around the vial of blood.

I couldn’t get to the sword fast enough. If I went for it, he would smash the vial. The gods would be upon us in seconds.

Mische stepped forward, but my hand snaked out to stop her.

Don’t move.

Oraya stared hard at the vial, and the shadows around it. Some part of her knew it wasn’t right.

“Everything is fine,” Gideon said smoothly. “Nothing to worry about.”

Fine. Fine. Fine.

Only Lilith shook her head slightly.

“This is between you and me,” I said. “The things I am planning are so much bigger than that little piece of glass in your hand. Do you want a part in it?”

Gideon’s pitying expression made dread curl in my stomach.

“My dear boy. I already do have a part in it. How many glyphs did you carve out of my head that night? You were so sloppy. More interested in your vengeance than your craft. You didn’t even feel the extra one I’d planted there for you to take.

Just a little anchor. And I knew that when you left, you would do incredible things.

That hunger has always been the key to your greatness. And, too, your greatest downfall.”

He was lying. He had to be.

Frantically, I searched my memories of the night. He was right—I hadn’t sensed it. Not until I was taking the mask on the Night of the Melume and?—

It hit me. That one extra glyph in the key. That one that hadn’t fit.

I’d felt the sting of it then, but I dismissed it as a side effect of the mask. It was subtle, elegant work. After that one jolt, I hadn’t felt a thing.

But he had been tracking me, nonetheless.

“I know you better than anyone,” Gideon said.

“You are still the same as you were as a child. A dead dog or a dead lover. The injustice of a brother or a father or a cruel mentor, or the injustice of gods. All it takes is the right deprivation, and you are capable of such greatness.” He gave me a knowing, cruel look.

“And look, now, at what you have become.”

The world went quiet, save for the monotonous rise of my rage.

He knew.

Just as once, Luce’s death had pushed me to necromancy. As Ophelia’s had driven me to understand the underworld. Gideon had always been a master of hungers.

But he couldn’t have crafted that trap for me in the moment. Everything I’d taken from him had been there for years. Seamlessly integrated with the rest of the keys he held in his mind.

Gideon’s fair eyes glinted with satisfaction. “Just as you said. It’s what I would have done.”

He knew that one day, I would come for the key.

And that when I did, it meant I would lead him to all the treasures he himself couldn’t claim.

He rolled the blood between his fingers.

“Tell me,” he said, “do you think the lord of Farnelle knew that he was only bait, when he watched his city burn?”

Farnelle.

A city decimated for nothing more than to provide a distraction.

And now, I understood.

We were the sacrifice. The House of Night was the bait. Bait for gods.

It was too late. He had already set his trap. The blood was the lure. He’d dragged it all over the House of Night just to make sure it was seen, felt, by exactly the beings we were trying so hard to hide from.

I whirled to the windows to see the sky swirling with wisps of rainbow light. A sign that the gods were watching. A sign that they were already here .

Gideon smiled, his lip curling into a sneer. “I, too, have taken more powerful things from more powerful people.”

I lunged for him.

He crushed the vial with a burst of magic, sending his final, devastating flare up to the hungry gods.

And that was all it took.

It all crashed down in an instant.