Page 95 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

THE GOD OF DEATH

W e have a world to conquer,” Nyaxia huffed. “And yet you still hide away.”

The gods of the White Pantheon gathered their human armies. Nyaxia rallied the vampires. The world hurtled toward inevitable collision.

Yet the god still found himself drawn, more and more, to the ruins of the underworld. He was looking for something, even if he couldn’t explain what; he was answering a call, even if he could not hear what it was saying.

Again, and again, he returned.

One time, he went to one of the roots of Morthryn, now little more than a pile of crumbling brick.

Once it had been the greatest of his palaces.

Once it had been a bridge from life to death.

Now it was only collapsing stone, a few rotted pieces of furniture, a tile floor melted into the mud of the underworld.

Broken arches lined the few walls that still stood.

Wraiths circled them, as if they’d forgotten what they were looking for.

They were so far gone, they no longer had faces at all.

He came to one cracked door that, for some reason, made him halt.

He peered through into the darkness within.

He saw a crooked claw-foot bathtub, long-dry gray liquid crusted down its side.

An old bed, the mattress disintegrating into what remained of the floor.

Rotted books scattered across the ruin. A dusty piano, and bookshelves that stretched up into the mist.

The god stepped back, uneasy.

His curiosity had carried him across the underworld. And yet, there was something about this place, this room, that called to him and repelled him in equal measure.

The wound in his chest ached.

{Look away,} the eye said. {This is not who you are anymore.}

{We will build a new kingdom instead,} the mask added. {Greater than this one ever was.}

The god hesitated. But then he obeyed. In the end, Nyaxia was right. There was a world that needed conquering.

No point in returning to the corpse of one he had already lost.