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August 19 - September 10, 2025
“That doesn’t mean that you should just go sneaking up on people in their bedchambers,” I grumbled. “I am the greatest Nightborn king in Obitraen history. I go where I please.”
“My words are useless to her. My actions may not be.” “Words are never useless. And neither is compassion. This isn’t just about us.”
“You are connected to the dead,” he said. “Use that if you get lost.”
Use your charms instead.” “Or my magical death touch?”
“And to think I wasn’t sure if you would remember me at all.”
Septimus half shrugged. “Suit yourself, dove. I have never been afraid to bear the mantle of the villain.”
HEHE im ready for his book
“A surprise to us, too,” Septimus said. “But we are such loyal subjects. Happy to go crawling back after centuries of getting kicked in the face. Like a good little dog.”
An acquired quality, I knew. He’d been broken until his edges were jagged.
“I heard that you used to be a missionary. We have some things in common, then. I, too, greatly enjoy being the solution to a problem.”
“I’ve traveled to a lot of places and met a lot of people. After all that, you learn that everyone is the hero of their own tale.”
We fear nothing. We have the night that
It was striking. Powerful. I had to admit it, even though I was here to tear it all to pieces.
I wondered whether Mische had figured out yet that I would never—could never—say no to her.
“How do Shadowborn women even breathe in this?” “You don’t need to breathe, technically.” “Yes, but I like to.”
And then the east. Yes, I know, Warden. Just like I knew the last three dozen times you quizzed me on it.
Raihn wore no crown, no royal garb, nothing to mark him as king. What the hell had his plan been? To march out into the middle of the Melume ceremony, reveal his identity, and demand my release? Sun fucking take me.
RAIHN BABY
“We haven’t heard from you for nearly a year, Mish. A fucking year. We knew you had been captured by the Shadowborn. Did you really think that we wouldn’t come for you?”
“I’m so relieved to see you,” he said. “You have no idea how worried we were.”
MY BABIES
I stretched my fingers at my side, opening my palms to the past—to the dead. The darkness swelled beneath the swaying sheets of black. Maybe a small part of me was grateful to have the opportunity for payback.
I knew how to kill. I once had wielded death like an artist wielded a paintbrush.
He threw himself at me with his final burst of strength. But he was just a mortal, in the end.
My sword, which Luce had retrieved for me, slapped clumsily at my side. Somehow, on a night of ghosts and lost gods, it didn’t feel very useful.
Like a melody someone had played for me once, drawing to mind a soft fleeting smirk, a deep brown eye, the scent of frost-dusted ivy. The keys were different, but I knew the song.
“And the guardian?” “It shouldn’t bother us.” “You just hesitated before you said that.” “No, I didn’t.” Yes, he fucking did, but fine.
This was the crown of the god of death. The king of the underworld. The urge to kneel before it, bury myself in its power, was overwhelming.
{At long last,} a voice whispered, with piqued interest, {a new heir.}
Its giving Reshaye
I gasped, and my lungs filled not with air—not with life—but with death.
Before I could move to help him, a grip seized the back of my dress—gods fucking damn it, I knew this dress was going to be my downfall—and dragged me away as I flailed.
But he was wounded, and I was dead.
When I looked to her, I knew I would remember that image for the rest of my life.
I thought, Damn masks and eyes and hearts and divine missions. This is what a true goddess looks like.
Goddess help me, I was proud of her. My chest hurt with it.
Egrette lunged for me. Just as a souleater burst through the Dusk Window.
Mische seized the opportunity and barreled toward me, gown streaking out behind her, and for a moment I thought maybe she actually was flying, because she looked every bit the phoenix.
“They need to hear, ‘Even if it is your fault, I will love you anyway.’
“For whatever of your mistakes, Mische Iliae,” he said, quietly, firmly, “for whatever of your faults, for whatever unintended pains you may bring this world, I will love you anyway.”
“Now stop arguing with me and drink, so I can keep watching you bring the world to its knees.” Sun take me. This man.
“You are an event, Mische Iliae,” he murmured. “God slayer. Dawndrinker. Shadowborn queen. And I would die to taste your skin.”
His stare was hard and piercing, his hair long and silver, messily half bound up. A heavy sword was strapped across his back. Most interesting of all, he had horns.
Giggling and kicking my feet literally HI MISSED YOU
“Atrius,” the man said stiffly. “Your guide.”
Her scent instantly told me she was human. She had long dark hair that was braided over one shoulder. She wore plain traveling clothes that matched Atrius’s—and, most interestingly, a deep red cloth tied over her eyes.
IM SCREAMINGG
“It sounds like a joke, doesn’t it? Two vampires, a seer, and a ghost walk into a pub . . .”
“Go,” the Keeper gurgled out. “The snow will offer you passage home. If you make it that far. Even the monsters have fled.”
“Do not ever bring me back,” he said.
We were in the middle of a city so incredible it defied mortal comprehension. Or what once had been one, long, long ago. Now, it was in ruin.
Perhaps we were all wondering whether it was wise to go toward whatever had chased far worse beasts than us away. But none of us said it.
But Sylina was now with Atrius, and the country she ruled had been claimed in Nyaxia’s name. Perhaps Sylina’s relationship to the White Pantheon was almost as complicated as mine.
The vampires spoke of their creation as a triumph. Here, it seemed more like a desperate attempt to fill the hole her loss had left.
Funny, how I’d never experienced the sensation of the sun falling over my face. But every time, I was so certain that it must feel something like Mische’s presence.
“No matter what’s ahead, never sacrifice the messy parts of your mortality, Asar. I like those the best.”
