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

by Carissa Broadbent

For every mortal heart trying to find their way home

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.

Do you know what it means to conquer every unknown? It means a life free from fear. Think of that. Freedom.”

What does it feel like to die? When I died, it was with my god’s blood on my hands, my lover’s pleas in my ears, and the oblivion of eternal darkness—not eternal dawn—seared into my eyes. When I died, it did not feel like the peaceful end to a grand fight.

It felt like the beginning of one.

Death is the ultimate offering. Death is the ultimate peace. The grand end to our destined battle.

It is a myth that vampires can see in true darkness.

Gideon had taught me that every weakness could become a strength if you embraced it enough. That the most resourceful minds would find the tools to sharpen nothingness to a blade if offered nothing else.

Anger was a fool’s emotion. It made you slow and stupid.

“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.”

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.

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,” she continued.

“And at last,” Acaeja said, “his heart, which contained the basest essence of his soul.”

I placed my hand over my heart—right over the dull throb that felt like Mische. Sounded like her, whispering, Faith is all we have. Perhaps she’d been right about that all along. And then I jumped.

“Godlight. Even in death, you are still a fallen one. There is no resisting it.” The figure lifted their hand—as if examining it. “The power of the White Pantheon is all-consuming,” they said, with a thoughtfulness that seemed strangely mortal.

“You chose this battle. You chose it when you took your first steps into Morthryn, and you choose it again now. You set out to change the world. You set out to create a god. So do it. This is the time for conquering, Mische Iliae. Go.”

You love the underworld, heir of death, she said. But there is something else you love more, and I have already sacrificed my home to this tale once before.

Death swallowed me in a wave. I am lying in the dirt in the Sanctum of Soul⁠— Then let me burn⁠— Fire everywhere.