More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
This is the tale of how a fallen one ascends. Long ago, I told you a tale of a chosen girl who fell to the darkness. Now I will tell you the tale of a boy who was born within it.
He realized it many years later, when he felt the power of the gods course through his veins, and finally, finally, he received the very thing that his mentor had promised him that night—illumination into every dark corner of the world, power beyond anything he ever could have imagined. And he cared about none of it, because he was losing the love of his life.
This is the tale of how a fallen one ascends. He does it in countless cascading decisions, over years, over centuries. He does it with the desperation of a starving soul willing to sacrifice anything, everything, for a single chance at redemption. But in the end, he loses her every time.
When I died, it did not feel like the peaceful end to a grand fight. It felt like the beginning of one.
“You killed Atroxus,” Vincent confirmed, though his tone seemed almost insulted he had to admit I’d done such a thing. “The sun fell as he did. Ushering in an endless night.”
“From what I hear, he’s better than alive. He holds the power of a god.” Again, that hint of envy. “And only with that can he repair the underworld before it disintegrates altogether.”
“You conducted the spell that gave him his power. I’m told he will need your help to gain enough of it to do what must be done.”
Going on a mission to save the world with my friend’s dead father was not at all what I expected to be doing in death.
Lol
Ysria.
“I am not pleading my innocence,” I hissed. “I’m giving credit to its rightful owner. I did not kill Atroxus. Mische Iliae did, and she deserves to have her name painted in the stars for it.”
“Kill you,” I repeated, scoffing. “Ignorant, to think death is the worst I can offer you.”
Mische Iliae would be remembered by the bones of time itself, and I knew it because I would write her story there with my blood if I had to.
She was not done with this world. Only the ignorant believed that death was an end. It certainly would not be for her.
As if the gods had seen some beauty in mortality but failed to realize that the imperfection of it was what made it remarkable.
That little broken shard of the sun, burning like a grudge.
Vampires would at least carefully cultivate heirs to ensure their line lived on, but gods were true immortals. Offspring were nothing but liabilities. This, of course, did not stop them from fucking their way across the mortal worlds—countless nubile, devoted acolytes were far too tempting to pass up. But they swiftly dealt with the consequences of those trysts. Some more mercifully than others.
demigods
“Seed of Kajmar, demigod. Seed of Ijakai, demigod. Seed of Vitarus, demigod. Seed of Alarus, vampire and ???” I looked to Acaeja. “Am I to be added to your museum, now?”
Because demigods weren’t just rare curiosities. They were the deadliest weapons that existed against the White Pantheon. A piece of the power of a major god, without the restrictions that prevented them from killing each other.
“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.”
“It gives Mische a line of immortality to cling to. Yes. Thus, Asar Voldari, I offer you a choice.
“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.”
“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.”
You and Mische Iliae would need to obtain and wield the three cores of Alarus’s power.”
“His mask, which acted as the crown to his kingdom of Vathysia.”
“His eye, which granted him the power to see beyond the borders of mortality,”
“And at last,” Acaeja said, “his heart, which contained the basest essence of his soul.”
Especially not if I was being told to ascend to true divinity—an act that most gods would do anything to prevent.
“Billions of threads,” she murmured, “and not a single one where you say no.”
“Goddess help me understand why anyone would go through such lengths of breaking divine laws just to be subjected to this for the rest of their goddess-damned lives.”
Lol Vincent 😂
mortal, either. I can grant you the protection to traverse the spira now. The door will remain open only temporarily, but long enough for you to reenter once you retrieve your lover. If fate is on your side, you will survive it.”
A beat of a butterfly’s wings and the movement of the greatest armies in the world. All of it, experienced in equal measure, all at once.
Little bow to WOLH ❤️🦋
The bay was full of warships. Black ships bearing the deep green flags of the House of Shadow. And then, less familiar, white sails upon long, elegant boats, each bearing the red visage of a weeping lady. The armada of the House of Blood.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Elias said.
A fair-haired man wearing a white suit, a black cigarillo between his fingers, giving me a curious smirk. Septimus, prince of the House of Blood.
How could the House of Shadow end up with two simultaneous Heirs?
And a voice, quiet and booming at once, said, “Get your hands off my wife.”
“Because I’ve learned that you can’t live on grief,” I said. “It’s poison. It festers into bitterness and hatred. If you have nothing else to offer a heart, grief will just hollow it out until that’s all that you are. A dangerous thing for a god, no?” A thought flitted through my mind—a thought of Nyaxia.
It was hard to question what kept you alive, even if it did terrible things with the life it gave you.
“You know already, I’m sure, about the Mask of Vathysia, baked into the bones of the Shadowborn castle.
“That is, some believe, the eye,” Gideon said. “Torn from Alarus as the final step to creating the weapon that could dismember him.”
“So we’re looking for a crown that is a mask and an eye that is an axe,” Asar muttered. “Gods are straightforward as ever.”
Wyvern blood. Rancid stuff. Wyverns were extinct, and he had been parsing out his supply, glass by glass, for centuries.
Wyverns?
“They stay for a while,” he murmured, “and then they are gone. All you can do is appreciate what you have while it lasts.”
“Hold on to the bars. They will keep your hands where they need to be.”
“Suit yourself, dove. I have never been afraid to bear the mantle of the villain.”
“I know someone who has been there, actually,” he said. “My cousin spent years doing the bidding of our Dark Mother. It so happens that he’s in Obitraes now. If you were looking for passage to the deadlands, and if you did need to find it quickly, he may be willing to guide you.”
I know this cousin!!
“Dance with me,” she said again, her voice comically low, and I stifled a chuckle. “Was that supposed to be compulsion, Iliae?” “What, it didn’t work?” Maybe it had. I wondered whether Mische had figured out yet that I would never—could never—say no to her. It was the kind of powerlessness I’d been taught to fear my entire life. And yet I was so eager to run headfirst toward it. Even now. Especially now.
“Raihn.”
Just feel it, Mische. What a fucking joke. How many times had I given Oraya that advice? Now, it seemed ridiculous.
Lol
