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August 10 - September 20, 2025
“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.
Of course she could make or unmake the world. Have you met her? Anyone who had wouldn’t be surprised.
“Take me to her,” I said. Acaeja smiled as she straightened. Her wings went dark as fate shifted. “Billions of threads,” she murmured, “and not a single one where you say no.”
I was so grateful for those tears, paint strokes of mortality all over the constellation of her freckles.
It was hard to question what kept you alive, even if it did terrible things with the life it gave you.
“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.”
“You are an event, Mische Iliae,” he murmured. “God slayer. Dawndrinker. Shadowborn queen. And I would die to taste your skin.”
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.”
“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. And yet, in the same measure, kissing her made me feel so weak, so fallible, so deeply mortal.
She tasted like redemption.
“You had our help from the minute you got here,” he said. “It was never a question, Mische. Not for a Mother-damned second.”
“Grief has a way of sanding down all the complicated parts of a person in the eyes of the living. It freezes them to a single moment.”
“The underworld is not the territory of the gods,” he said. “It is the kingdom of the dead. And the dead have chosen you.”
Mische leaned her forehead against his. Her gold eyes shone with the light of the underworld. Their song played on, mournful, painting the ghost of a life they could not have. “I love you,” she whispered. “I love you, Asar Voldari, Warden of Morthryn, king of the underworld, heir of Alarus. I love you, and in this life or the next, worlds mortal or divine, I will never let you go.”
My queen. My light. My darkness. My future. The answer to every question. The ending to every sentence.
“I told you that strength is measured by the sacrifices we refused to make,” she said softly. “You were mine.”
In the darkness, I found solace. In the underworld, I found hope. And here, in this twin soul, in this love we built together, I finally found it: Home.
