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September 9 - October 6, 2025
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 are a Shadowborn, Iliae. You are surrounded by your greatest weapon.
“Luce!”
❤🐶
This is the time for conquering, Mische Iliae. Go.”
“Hello, Warden,” she whispered. “Hello, Dawndrinker.” Still, neither of us moved. “You came for me,” she murmured. “I told you that I would.”
😭💝
“Mische Iliae, Dawndrinker or Shadowborn, living or dead, I will never let you go.”
“There’s no nice way to call me useless, Dawndrinker.” “Only temporarily useless, Warden.”
They are so cute 💞
“Your soul is working hard to stay here among the living,” he said. “So yes, I imagine you’ll be tired.”
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.
“Oh yes, Warden. Please, please, please do. You’ll make me the happiest girl in all the underworld.”
“Raihn.”
Yay, more Raihn!
An uneasy realization clicked into place: Asar and I had spent months closing gates to the underworld.
The souleater grabbed me, just as Asar’s spell collapsed, and the door between the living and the dead crashed closed again. The last thing I heard was Asar screaming my name.
😱😩
“No,” I said firmly. “You don’t use it. I’ve got—” I wiggled my fingers. Asar stared flatly at me. “What?” “Death touch! Magical death touch!” He looked unimpressed. “Forgive me if I’m not exactly eager to throw you out there to go tickle the Shadowborn military to death.”
😂
I felt Mische’s magic before I saw it. Even the Sentinel I was fighting felt it, because they paused halfway through their strike to turn to the dais. When I looked to her, I knew I would remember that image for the rest of my life. Mische, standing in front of the Dusk Window, her torn dress billowing out behind her, black silk hood pinned around her face, hands outstretched like a mother’s waiting arms as the shadowy forms of the dead poured out around her. I thought, Damn masks and eyes and hearts and divine missions. This is what a true goddess looks like. A sight so stunning that it made
...more
“You are an event, Mische Iliae,” he murmured. “God slayer. Dawndrinker. Shadowborn queen. And I would die to taste your skin.”
Two vampires, a seer, and a ghost walk into a pub . . .”
It was actually a little invigorating to have a challenge. I neatly folded up my left sleeve to the elbow. Then the right. “Well,” I said. “It’s a good thing that we’re necromancers.”
The dead will happily follow you anywhere. The corner of his mouth twitched in a smirk that made my not-heart flip in my chest. As they should. They have exquisite taste.
Angry goddesses and vengeful warriors. A broken underworld. Wraiths. Divine war.
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.
How easily our bodies aligned around each other. Like the sun and moon meeting in an eclipse.
I opened my eyes to see that the shadows had slithered from the corners of the room down to meet us, putting me exactly where she wanted me. I smiled. “You’re a stronger Shadowborn every day, Dawndrinker.” My newly freed hands kneaded her thighs. “Quite a talent.” She extracted her teeth, lips curling into a smile. “I’m committed to my craft.”
Ahhh move over shadow daddies!!!! We have a shadow queen 👑
66 ASAR THE GOD OF DEATH
😱😰
“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.”
In her wings, countless different lives blossomed—countless different versions of myself, and different versions of Mische, our threads intertwining. “In some, your endings are pleasant. In others, painful. But how curious, that in every one, you change the world together.”
The reason we conduct necromancy this way is because it encapsulates the five core aspects of a living being. And the Vathysians believed that linking one soul to another in marriage deserved the same commitment. The entirety of oneself.”
“Never thought a necromancy wedding could feel so romantic.”
