Page 97 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

MISCHE

T he roots that led into the Descent had been the first to crumble when the underworld began its collapse.

All that remained of it in the lower levels were patches of stone or broken furniture—a piece of moldy wallpaper against a tree, or a patch of three cracked tiles half buried in the dust. The riblike rafters jutted into the red sky like broken weapons on a decimated battlefield—all that remained of a losing army, who stood until the very end.

It was such a shell of what it had been.

I peered past a rippling flap of fabric into the dark, crumbling ruin within.

My heart ached at what I saw there. So familiar.

The bookshelves Asar and I had spent hours poring over every night.

The shattered remnants of the gates we had taken such care to repair.

Through several broken doorways, I glimpsed a copper bathtub, cracked and rusted, falling into the floor.

My eyes burned. I grieved it the way I would grieve an old friend, or an old life.

Just one life of many, the skull whispered. It could have another.

You still see what it would be again, the flower said.

Sometimes, it was easier to look away from the most painful parts of our past. But I pushed the flap aside and stepped inside.

Morthryn had never followed the rules of logic. I wound through each room, all familiar, until I reached one final door. This one stood, a sheet of rotted wood barely clinging to its hinges. It squealed in protest when I gently pushed it open.

It was a library. The shelves stretched up, up, higher than they ever had in Morthryn’s halls. A directionless breeze blew from nowhere and everywhere, sending orphaned parchment pages scattering across the tile floor.

I couldn’t quite place why this seemed so familiar, and yet so different.

Not one place, but two, the flower said.

And then I realized: it was Morthryn, yes. But it was also the libraries of Ryvenhaal, where Asar had been raised.

Even in his greatest sanctuary, he could not escape his greatest prison.

The boy sat in the corner, knees drawn up to his chest. A black dog wrapped around him, her sleek body pressed tight to his. When I approached, she growled a low warning.

“It’s alright,” I said softly. “I won’t hurt you.”

The boy regarded me warily beneath a mop of messy dark hair. One hand sat on the dog’s back. He was perhaps eight years old, but it was hard to tell. He was small, with eyes beyond his years.

I gave him a gentle smile.

“May I sit with you?” I asked.

He didn’t answer for a long moment.

Then, “Why?”

I gestured to the window and the landscape beyond. “It’s a beautiful view. Just want to stop and rest for a little bit. Is that alright?”

He hesitated. Then nodded.

I settled beside him. The boy’s gaze slid out to the horizon, but the dog eyed me on his behalf.

“You have a very good friend there,” I said.

“I know,” the boy said. “I’ll never let her go.”

“No, you won’t. She’ll never let you go, either.”

The boy stroked the dog’s fur affectionately. Still, his guard remained up.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Mische,” I said.

He flinched at this. His gaze flicked quickly away.

“I think I knew that,” he said. “My name is Asar.”

“I knew that, too,” I said.

I looked to the window. Outside, the sky churned. I could feel the looming rage of gods, rolling over the broken underworld like distant thunderstorms, ready to destroy us all. For the first time, I wondered how long I’d been down here. How did time pass now? I couldn’t make sense of it.

“It’s beautiful out there,” I said softly.

Asar nodded.

“How long have you been in here?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “A while.”

He shifted, and I noticed his hand slip into his dirty, torn jacket, as if squeezing whatever he hid within it for comfort.

“It’s nice here,” I said. “But have you thought about seeing what’s out there?”

Immediately, the boy shook his head.

“Why not?”

“Someone once told me that if I left, I would never be afraid again.”

I gave him a soft smile. “That was a lie.”

He nodded. “Yes. It was. So I decided that it’s better to stay here.”

I considered this. Another gust of wind, more violent this time, sent papers flying across the floor.

His eyes slipped to me, and for a moment, I glimpsed a version of him as I had known him—older, scars striking across his face. Just for a moment.

“You should stay here, too,” he said, with sudden certainty. “Stay here with me. It is better.”

A twinge of affection in my heart.

“Safer, maybe,” I said. “For a little while. But I don’t think that means it’s better.”

His fingers threaded through the dog’s—Luce’s—fur, as if to hold her there.

“If I leave,” the boy said carefully, “I will make many mistakes.”

“Probably,” I agreed. “But you can still do a lot of good. Don’t you think?”

“I thought so. A long time ago.”

I shifted a little closer. Luce’s lip twitched, like she thought about growling and decided not to.

And gods, my heart hurt so deeply for this child. I saw myself in him. An eight-year-old version of myself, sitting upon an altar in Vostis. An eight-year-old version of myself who had been told the same lie that he had been.

Give me your heart, and you will never hurt again. Give me your heart, and your soul will be pure.

“You will make mistakes,” I murmured. “And I will love you anyway.”

The boy flinched. Looked away. Again, that flicker of the man I’d known.

“I never told you how much it meant to me,” he said.

I smiled. “Yes, you did. Not with words. But with something even more valuable.”

He shook his head. “It wasn’t enough to save you.”

“Then we’ll try again. Together.” I held out my hand. “I will never promise you, Asar, that it won’t hurt, because it will. I will never promise you that we won’t fail, because we could. And that terrifies me, too. But it’s in that fear that we hold our greatest strength. We need yours, now.”

His eyes slid back to me. They were dark brown, nearly black, holding pain and wisdom long beyond his years.

Luce’s snout rubbed against my knee, and my hand fell to her head. I felt not warm fur, but smooth bone.

Asar said, “I have something that I’m supposed to give you.”

He withdrew his hand from his jacket and held it out.

There, throbbing faintly in his palm, was a heart.

The mortality of it was unmistakable. It was smaller than I might have expected, twitching in slow, rhythmic beats. Red-black vampire blood pooled around it in his palm. A faint glow pulsed from the muscle with each contraction. It was nothing but flesh. No golden divinity. No blessed gift.

And yet, the beauty of it nearly brought me to tears.

This was Asar’s mortality. The thing he had discarded to descend, in the care of the truest version of himself. More precious, I decided, than any divinity.

I held out my hands, and he slipped the heart into it. It was warm, and it felt like him.

“It’s perfect,” I whispered. “I will treasure it forever.”

He gave me a sad smile.

“It always belonged to you,” he said.

Luce rubbed against my legs. She looked, once again, like herself as I’d known her—bronze skull, shadowy form. She rested her head against my legs as if to say, I’ve missed you.

When I looked up again, Asar was gone.

I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. I cradled his mortal heart close to my own. Its beat moved in perfect time with mine.

I rose, and Luce did, too. Outside, divine cataclysm inched eternally closer.

I let out a shaky exhale and slid the skull back over my face. The voices of the underworld rose up again. The path spread out before me, closer than ever to mortality.

I stroked Luce’s head.

“Let’s go,” I said to her. “I think we’re almost there.”

Morthryn welcomed me down its winding halls.

I continued my funereal march to the end.

With every shattered staircase I ascended, every door that opened before me, my heartbeat grew stronger.

I cradled the warmth of Asar’s mortality close, and despite its fragility, it was also my greatest source of strength.

Luce remained at my side, silent and loyal.

The mortal world grew closer, and with every step toward it, the foreboding grew deeper. Even close to the veil, Morthryn’s halls were in terrible shape. Bricks tumbled from the ceiling. The roses on the wall were withered, a slow cascade of wilted petals falling over us like snow.

Still, I felt it leading me on with every step, offering me what little strength it still had.

You are almost there, it urged.

The end is close , the underworld said.

Before long, I reached a final set of grand double doors and a winding staircase. Once, this staircase had led through the veil, past the guardians. Now, the stairwell was dark. The cracked stone steps rose into inky black. It was a path offered only to me.

I stood at the bottom and stared up.

I couldn’t see anything in the darkness. But I could feel the looming presence of the gods beyond, ready to exert their will over the mortal world. I could feel cold, terrible possibilities of the eternal night, and the blood that would spill in it.

And I could feel him. That presence, equal parts familiar and stranger.

Once you cross into the mortal world, Morthryn warned, he will come for you.

Asar, or the god of death? I pressed my hand to my chest, where a thread of connection had once bound us. Right now, I felt nothing. Nothing but a throb in the delicate piece of flesh that I now carried.

I couldn’t make myself take the first step. Fear paralyzed me. I lowered myself to the ground and leaned against Morthryn’s wall, as if reaching for a friend’s hand for comfort. For the first time in this journey, true uncertainty settled over me. The weight of it was staggering.

I drew my sword and examined the blade—that gorgeous Shadowborn craftsmanship, given to me by Asar and blessed by the underworld. It gleamed with divine power.

What if Vincent was right? What if there was nothing left of Asar but the piece of him I carried now?

Luce nuzzled me. Her sadness at this thought was just as deep as mine.

We will not let him go so easily, she said.

I wanted to believe her.

Morthryn’s shadows wrapped me in an embrace. They writhed around the blade, the hilt, and then my hand that held it—painted with the tangled red ink of the Heir Mark. A responsibility that I had not inherited, but had been given by those who needed me most.

Do not fear yourself, Morthryn whispered. You are a queen. Your kingdom stands behind you.

I closed my eyes.

A million invisible souls, Asar had said once, of the underworld. They needed someone.

I felt those souls with me now, pushing up against the border between the worlds of death and mortality. Leading me to only one.

I stood. I lowered my mask over my face. I stroked Luce’s head beside me.

I wasn’t ready.

But I stepped into the darkness, anyway.