Page 80 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

ASAR

T he Nightborn were unprepared for this.

Everyone was. There was no escaping it. The soldiers were everywhere.

Sentinels, yes. But also countless humans, all blessed with Shiket’s weapon and protections.

Vampires were stronger than humans, biologically, but these were no typical soldiers—they were blessed acolytes given a divine mission.

These soldiers did not plan to leave here alive, and that made them deadly. What had they been told? Had Shiket promised them that taking down the House of Night would mean protecting their families from the vampire threat? Perhaps even she had believed it.

{Arrogant as always,} the mask hissed.

None of it mattered.

The only thing that mattered was Mische, disappearing into the night sky, reaching for me as the Sentinel dragged her away.

“Go!” Raihn roared, as he hacked through body after body. “Go get her!”

I almost laughed as I ran by him, shadows collecting at my heels. Because did he think I needed or wanted his permission? Did he think that he, or any king, or any god, could have stopped me?

I ran down the halls, slipping past blades and star-kissed magic and figures of golden armor. I didn’t stop or flinch when wounds opened on my skin or when Luce yanked warriors away from me. Darkness clung to the corners of my vision. I felt it rising in my heart.

The mask and the eye waited for me at the door. I grabbed the axe and slid the mask over my face. It settled onto my skull like a second skin, digging deep, as if melding to bone.

The world grew suddenly quiet, like I had been plunged underwater.

The glyphs that Mische and I had meticulously drawn now pulsed with divine power. I crossed the room, then opened my palm on the edge of the axe, blood spurting free—blood touched by divinity.

I no longer cared to find Alarus’s heart.

I cared only to find my own.

It was dangerous, I knew. Another passage that would connect the Nightborn to Shiket’s forces. But I didn’t care. I didn’t care. I didn’t care.

I pressed my bloody hand to the ritual circle as Luce circled my legs.

{It will all bow before you,} the mask whispered.

{See how close you are to the end,} the eye hummed.

The magic writhed beneath my touch. The spira opened before me, an entire world condensed into a single passageway, its possibilities limitless.

But only one mattered.

I threw open the door to her.