Page 86 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

MISCHE

H e promised me.

These three words echoed, over and over, the plea of a petulant child.

He promised me. He promised me. He promised me.

It had all gone so wrong. So terribly wrong. I knew Asar now better than I knew myself. And yet the stare that had burned into my soul when he looked at me, eyes glowing black beneath the mask of Alarus—it was not Asar at all.

No.

He had made the sacrifice he had sworn he wouldn’t.

I watched in horror, helpless, as he turned away. As he took Nyaxia’s outstretched hand and followed her into the ethereal mists of divinity.

No.

Luce’s frantic cries split the air, so loud they cut through the sound of the retreating armies and the wails of survivors. She barked and barked and barked up at the sky where Asar had disappeared, as if ready to leap into the clouds to go seize him herself.

“Luce!” I screamed.

But she didn’t so much as hesitate. She bolted after him, straight into the sea—straight into the churning crack that had opened within it, her shadowy body falling beneath the white foamy waterfalls leading to the underworld.

A sob bubbled out of me.

I squeezed my eyes shut. Tears slithered down my cheeks.

It was over.

As a missionary, I had believed that there was always hope, even in the darkest places. But my actions had torn the sun from the sky and the heart from my lover’s chest. I could no longer remember what hope felt like at all.

I staggered to my feet, but I’d barely made it there when a force struck me from behind.

I knew instantly that it was Saescha. Her fury was so intimately familiar.

“You do not get to escape justice,” she snarled in my ear, as she thrust me back to the sea.

And this time, I didn’t even fight back. I couldn’t if I had wanted to.

I wrapped my arms around her. I’d hugged Saescha countless times in my human life, but she had never felt like this. This was not the sister I’d known. She was empty, nothing but metal and robes, a shell filled with only single-minded fury.

Still, I clung to her.

As we fell, time slowed. I opened my eyes.

The night sky spread out above me, still sparkling with the remnants of divinity.

Asar and Nyaxia were gone. Perhaps Shiket would arrive soon, or any other of the gods, to survey the damage of Nyaxia’s attack.

They would take their revenge. It would all go on and on and on.

Over Saescha’s shoulder, I watched a firefinch hurl itself into the sky from the burning forest. Nightfire clung to its golden wings. Its wail of agony ripped through the night like a blade through a heart.

And then I fell.