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August 22 - September 20, 2025
“A bad lie still fulfills its purpose so long as everyone agrees to believe it.”
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There is great power in transitions. The transition point between life and death. Between mortality and godhood. The moment a soul is created, and the moment it is destroyed.”
With her, this place seemed more pathetic than dangerous, as if the sheer force of her light illuminated all its drab dark corners.
“So protective. That heart of yours, Asar, will be your downfall. You crave love like an animal craves meat. It destroyed you last time, just like I told you it would.
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“Your anger is far more valuable than your happiness,” Gideon said. “I told you the night we first met that this would be a life in which your worth is measured by the blood you spill upon it. It is not a life for pretty little birds.”
“You are making a mistake,” he rasped out. “You don’t understand what it would mean to make an enemy of me.” I laughed, the sound jarring. “No, you didn’t understand what it would mean to make an enemy of me.”
I thought to myself, surely it would be worth it. Surely it would be worth it to die by that skin, and let those thighs cradle me down to the underworld.
I needed to paint over Gideon’s pain with Mische’s pleasure.
That the House of Night was holding some powerful divine weapon. I hadn’t wanted to believe it then, and I didn’t want to believe it now. Not after I’d seen firsthand in the Nightborn war what terrible things weapons created from Alarus’s remains were capable of.
“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 cannot be afraid to use the power you have at your disposal. Not with this much at stake.” “We should all be afraid of power. Anyone who isn’t doesn’t deserve to wield it. This could destroy them, Vincent.”
“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.”
Sus…
Most vampires fought for glory. Septimus fought for survival. That made him twice as dangerous.
There were some things I missed about exile. Yes, I had lost everything. But the thing about losing everything is that it’s surprisingly easy to adjust to having nothing.
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It was striking. Powerful. I had to admit it, even though I was here to tear it all to pieces.
This same palace, but far in the past, before Obitraes existed at all—Vathysia, a dead House, and the dead souls that had once walked its halls.
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.
“What the fuck do you mean, what am I doing here?” Raihn said. “I’m here for you.”
Did you really think that we wouldn’t come for you?”
we will burn this kingdom to the fucking ground. I don’t care what wars we—”
Raihn!!!
They had reminded me that I had someone to live for in the long years when I felt like I’d lost everything.
I knew how to kill. I once had wielded death like an artist wielded a paintbrush.
Was it cruel of me, I wondered, that I’d saved him for last?
“You will leave right now,” I said. “You will go back to the House of Night. You will not come back here looking for me. You will hug Oraya and tell her that you love her and you’ll—you’ll stay safe, alright? You will go stay safe.”
that version of myself mourns what I have done. Even if I don’t regret it.”
Relatable
“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.”
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“And I will never stop telling you that you were incredible, because you were, and you are, and don’t you dare ever be ashamed of it,” he went on. “Now stop arguing with me and drink, so I can keep watching you bring the world to its knees.”
“Atrius,” the man said stiffly. “Your guide.”
Holy shit hes Septemus' cousin?! From the vampire conqueror?!!!!!
The House of Blood’s relationship with Nyaxia had always been fraught. That was the tricky thing about worshipping the one who had damned you.
“It sounds like a joke, doesn’t it? Two vampires, a seer, and a ghost walk into a pub . . .”
Lol
You are already merely ants on a carcass. As are we all.”
“The gods’ pleasure garden, before they turned their attention to our world. Now it’s just another place they hide what they have discarded.”
But even in the biggest lies, there is something real.
Eternity was such a terribly long time to be alone, and no soul—especially not a child’s—deserved such a thing.
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.
“Maybe greatness should come not from the sacrifices you make, but the ones you refuse to.”
“No matter what’s ahead, never sacrifice the messy parts of your mortality, Asar. I like those the best.”
The greatest gift we can offer is a life that serves those who come after us, and the greatest gift we can be given in return is a death with dignity.
He is so foolish. He believes he is destroying a threat. But he is too arrogant to see that he is creating a greater one.
This had been the site where Srana had forged her greatest creation: a blade that could cut up a god. And now, she used the power of what had happened here to create more weapons, all designed to be perfect foils to the creatures born of what had once been Alarus’s power.
It was nice, I thought, to feel warm again.
Mische rose from the forge. She was doused in the white of the flames and the darkness of the shadows. At her heels, the dead climbed from the crack. Her hair flew out behind her. Her eyes were bright white, her skin glowing a bronze that rivaled the sun itself. The flames of the forge and the shadows of the dead whorled around her like a ball gown of divinity. She didn’t walk, she simply ascended.
I need art of this lol
But when my knees hit the ground now, it wasn’t for the eye. It was for her.
I wanted to bury myself before her. I wanted to cut myself open for her, let her take whatever she wanted, and treasure the scars for the rest of my pathetic life.
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So much meaning that it became meaningless.
Bed who you want, he had said, but always keep the knife beneath your pillow.
“Do not be too arrogant. You are no demigod. Merely the product of some mortal tryst, centuries before my birth, that survived through generations. Useful for nothing but a sacrifice.”
was the first time in my short life that I had experienced true affection from any other living being. And I had known from that moment, when that frightened dog decided to trust me, that I would never, ever betray that trust. Luce had a friend in me for life. And, it turned out, for death, too.
“I don’t regret it,” I said. “I would do it a thousand times over. A thousand times, if it means that I get to hear you berate me for it here rather than imagine those words over your corpse. You are the sacrifice I will not make, Mische. You. Don’t ask me to apologize for that.”
I had once believed that there was no feeling more intense than being in the presence of gods. But kissing Mische, touching her skin again after all this time, dwarfed it.
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