Page 9 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

I calculated what it would take to get to it.

I could kill the demigods if necessary. Kayeh, the girl, would be the easiest. And judging by the way the younger man looked at her, attacking her would bait him into doing something stupid, and I could take care of him too.

The illusionist was no warrior. He could sing a damned song about it all.

But getting through Acaeja—that would be difficult.

Still, Mische had managed to kill Atroxus with nothing but an enchanted arrow. What could I do with the magic her sacrifice had given me?

Acaeja’s mouth twitched in cold amusement.

“Mine is not the head you long for.”

How arrogant of her. No, Acaeja did not kill Mische. But she had allowed it to happen, and to me, that was just as worthy of punishment.

“I’m leaving,” I said.

I started walking past her.

“Your kingdom has no king,” Acaeja said. “Your sister has taken control.”

“I don’t care.”

I cared so little that it made me want to laugh out loud, tell her, What, you think I give a fuck about the House of Shadow right now?

But then, she said, “Or perhaps you wish to retrieve Mische Iliae from the underworld.”

At this, I stopped short.

“I weave fates, Asar Voldari,” Acaeja said. “I see yours. And I see hers.”

It was such blatant manipulation. I’d conducted enough myself to recognize it immediately.

And yet. I did not move.

“Leave us,” Acaeja said to the demigods. “I wish to speak to him privately.”

“Weaver?.?.?.” Kayeh protested warily.

“I am in no danger. Go.”

I remained still, back turned, as I listened to them file from the room—perhaps through yet another mysterious appearing door—leaving Acaeja and me alone. Only then, into the yawning silence, did I answer her.

“There’s no wishing, ” I said. “I will retrieve her.”

“You would go back to death for another lover, even as the last one despised you for it?”

It was not the same. I knew this in my soul. I’d dragged Ophelia back from a death that already had taken her. Mische still had time. I was so sure of it, even if I couldn’t identify how or why.

At last, I turned around. Acaeja’s wings were spread.

Each one depicted Mische’s face—a close-up of her amber-gold eye, a blood-spattered curve of her cheek, a rouge-painted lip, a corpse-gray mouth.

Glimpses of six different fates. She could be a queen.

She could be a corpse. Perhaps in some futures, both.

“What is your offer?” I said.

Acaeja’s face was eternally still. Yet her voice lilted with amusement. “Offer?”

“Gods make deals. That’s what you’re doing, yes? So let’s make a deal.”

She cocked her head slightly. The images in her wings shifted, but still, they showed me only Mische—Mische upon the throne of the House of Shadow, Mische standing over a wreckage of shattered marble, Mische on her knees in the ocean, head in her hands.

“She intrigues me,” Acaeja said. “A soul of such simple beginnings. Mische Iliae is no chosen one. Her blood is plain as it comes. And yet, she sits at the apex of so many different fates.”

Utopias and apocalypses danced across Acaeja’s wings. A swell of pride tightened in my chest. With it, a pang of sadness.

I wanted to tell her, Of course she could make or unmake the world. Have you met her? Anyone who had wouldn’t be surprised.

Instead, I said again, “Your offer.”

A low chuckle. “So impatient you are to end the world.”

She lifted her hands, each bearing ten long, elegant fingers tattooed with the twenty symbols of fate. Translucent threads of light pulled between them.

“What Mische Iliae did,” Acaeja said, “stretched the bounds of possibility. I am not too arrogant to admit that even I did not think such a thing would come to pass. Luck was on your side that night.”

“Strange to hear the goddess of fate speaking of luck.”

“Fate and luck are twin sides to the same coin.” The threads rearranged with the dance of her fingertips.

“You and Mische Iliae conducted very advanced magic to create the resurrection spell. It was a small miracle that she was able to complete it without you, or that she was able to bring you back without killing you. Countless fates ended with your deaths that night, just as countless fates ended with the deaths of millions more.”

Her wings showed me those alternate realities—my own mangled body in Mische’s arms, a great shadowy figure rising from the water only to fall again moments later, an eternal sun rising over the vampire world. Just like that, millions gone. The fate that Mische averted that night.

“But in doing so,” Acaeja went on, “she did not fully complete her spell. A passage to the threads of fate was opened and never fully closed. She entangled herself with you to pull you free, but never severed that thread.”

As Acaeja’s hands moved, the threads rearranged. Two shone brighter than the others, intertwined in a knot.

“The two of you are now bound inextricably,” Acaeja said.

“Yet, the threads fray under the pressure of this tension. As she did not successfully complete the ceremony, she still holds a piece of Alarus’s power—power that belongs to you and could distill your role as god.

The underworld crumbles beneath the pressure of this tension. ”

I pieced together what she was saying. “But it gives Mische a path back to life.”

“It gives Mische a line of immortality to cling to. Yes. Thus, Asar Voldari, I offer you a choice. I can sever this connection. You will retain a bit of divine power—not as much as your potential holds, no, but some. Perhaps enough to make you a legendary king among your people. Enough to let you strike down your sister and challengers for your throne. Enough that perhaps you could even convince my siblings in the White Pantheon to let you live, should you pledge to use that power in a way that is advantageous to them. The stress placed upon the underworld will be released, and though it will continue to decay—perhaps faster than it once did—it will stand for another millennia or so, if we are fortunate. And Mische Iliae will fall away to the death she had once so longed for.”

Acaeja’s wings showed me myself upon the throne of the House of Shadow. The begrudging loyalty of my sister, my stepmother, the countless nobles who had once dismissed me. An army of thousands at my direction. Everything a vampire prince should want. Everything I had once wanted.

But those wings also showed me Mische. Charred and crumpled, in the ashes of the god she had slain.

I did not hesitate. “And the other option?”

“I can draw the knot tighter. It will offer you a path back to her. But it will place undeniable stress upon the underworld, and upon her soul. You must finish what you began and fully seize your power as the god of death. You cannot do so without her, as she holds part of the key to your power, and similarly, she cannot regain life without that power, either. But you will have a matter of weeks to claim the rest of your power before the underworld collapses, taking millions of souls with it in worlds above and below.”

“And Mische.” I could not bring myself to be ashamed that Acaeja was speaking of the damnation of millions of souls and yet I thought only of one.

“Yes.”

It took me another moment to fully process what she was saying.

“You are telling me,” I said, “that I will need to ascend to divinity.”

A faint smile twitched at her mouth. “Yes, Asar Voldari. You will need to become a god.”

At the sound of those words, I nearly sank to my knees.

She was offering me a choice. A choice between some power and a comfortable path to wielding it, to putting off the inevitable destruction of the underworld for just long enough that I could pretend it wasn’t happening at all, to letting Mische’s bones lie where they fell.

Or limitless power, accelerating the stakes to the point where none of it could be ignored. Power that would allow me to save Mische.

“And what would I have to do,” I said, “to seize the rest of Alarus’s power? Another resurrection spell?”

“Nothing so mundane, I am afraid. You and Mische Iliae would need to obtain and wield the three cores of Alarus’s power.” She opened her palm, and images unfurled in smoky silver from it. “His mask, which acted as the crown to his kingdom of Vathysia.”

Vathysia—the heart of Alarus’s territory, before it became Obitraes when Nyaxia created vampires.

Most of it lay within the borders of what now was the House of Shadow.

The image of the mask unfurled in her palm.

It was bronze, reminiscent of a simplified skull, canine teeth pointed.

It was a familiar image to me. A version of it adorned the Shadowborn crest.

“His eye, which granted him the power to see beyond the borders of mortality,” she continued.

An eye joined the mask, gazing out into the perpetual distance. It was red, and all-seeing. This, too, was a familiar image. It was central to many depictions of Alarus, usually on his hands or forehead. It stared down from the grand window of Morthryn’s facade.

“And at last,” Acaeja said, “his heart, which contained the basest essence of his soul.”

A third image joined the others—a black, beating heart, rivulets of gold throbbing through it.

“I will not disguise their dangers,” she said.

“Simply touching them would kill a mortal. Even I cannot say what wielding them will do to you, so I warn you, do not use them until you have all three. I am forbidden from helping you retrieve them. Shiket will try to stop you, once she learns of your task. Perhaps Nyaxia will, too, though I cannot predict her actions.”

“I’m accustomed to finding five relics,” I said drily. “Three should be easy.”

“There is nothing easy about this decision, exiled prince. This choice demands great sacrifices from you. If you follow this path, you will never be king of the House of Shadow. Your lover will never be redeemed for her crimes against the White Pantheon. You will spend the next decades enmeshed in war the likes of which you never could have imagined. And the relics themselves will take things from you that you will never get back. If you believe this path leads you to a happy end, you must shed your naivete.”

“But these are the only threads that lead to Mische’s survival.”

Again, that amused almost-smirk. “Very few of them. Yes. But I cannot say if they will lead to yours.”

“And what do you want in return?”

Acaeja cocked her head. The empty white of her enormous eyes devoured me.

“What makes you believe that I ask for anything at all? My fellow gods prepare for a war that could destroy all. Perhaps now I only serve what is Right.”

Right —she spoke not of moral goodness, but what was Right by fate itself.

“Then fate, I’m sure, will be getting plenty from these events,” I said, sweet with sarcasm.

If I accepted Acaeja’s help, I would be giving her my fealty in return, even if it remained unspoken.

No god was selfless. Especially not if I was being told to ascend to true divinity—an act that most gods would do anything to prevent.

Acaeja must have much to gain if she was taking such a risk.

She leaned closer, blinking slowly. She smelled of the smoke of fallen empires and the flames that stoked new ones, birthing beds and deathbeds, sunrises and sunsets.

“We have little time, Asar Voldari,” she said. “Soon, my kin will realize their mistake. I can offer you a path to the danger of the underworld or to the safety of your home, if you only tell me where you wish to go.”

Between her fingers, the threads hovered—mine the black of vampire blood, Mische’s the gold of sunset, tangled in mid-air.

Her six wings spread, the three on the left showing me myself upon the throne of the House of Shadow, ruling over the Shadowborn army, building an empire from eternal night.

The three on the right, showing me death, destruction, and Mische.

It wasn’t even a choice.

“Take me to her,” I said.

Acaeja smiled as she straightened. Her wings went dark as fate shifted.

“Billions of threads,” she murmured, “and not a single one where you say no.”

And then she drew the threads tight, and the world rearranged.