The Songbird and the Heart of Stone (Crowns of Nyaxia #3)

Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

A beat of silence.

One second passed, then two.

My eyes opened. It took a moment to recognize that I was, in fact, still alive.

The pressure of Raoul’s command had released me. The guard behind me still gripped my hair, though, forcing my head to one angle. I watched Raoul as he stared past me, at the door. He had raised a single hand—the wordless command that had just spared my life.

For now.

His guests had gone silent, exchanging shocked glances. They stared, too, at whoever was at the door.

“A waste,” the king said slowly, drawing out the word, thick with venom.

Behind me, Egrette laughed. “Avenging our brother, a waste ?”

Our brother?

I searched my mind for what I knew of the House of Shadow’s royal family. Raoul had two legitimate children—or he did, at least, before I’d killed one of them. But I’d heard stories of a third one, too. Old stories, centuries past. A bastard son who had once led Raoul’s fleets of spies, before he…

What had happened to him? Hadn’t he died?

“A dead prisoner is useless,” the voice said. “Killing her now would be a stupid mistake.”

Stupid.

He’d just called the King of the House of Shadow stupid .

Everyone in the room stopped breathing. Raoul’s face went deadly still.

“It would be…?shortsighted, Father,” the voice said, softening his words, but the damage was already done. For a moment, it was clear to me that Raoul was holding himself back from commanding both of our deaths.

Why didn’t he? Obitraen kings had taken lives for far less disrespect.

But instead, Raoul just said coldly, “Why are you here?”

“Maybe I’ve come because a son should attend his father’s birthday celebration.”

Egrette scoffed. “Better move that carpet, Elias,” she said to her guard in a mock whisper. “It’s been a couple of centuries since he’s left his cage. I don’t believe he’s housebroken.”

At this, the crowd chuckled.

But the king raised a hand again, this time directed not at the guards but at his daughter and his guests. Then he rubbed his temple, like he’d suddenly gotten a vicious headache.

“Enough. Enough. ” He turned to glare at the newcomer. “Say your piece, Asar. I’m getting tired, and I’m getting thirsty, and neither is doing much for my patience.”

Asar.

My blood went cold.

The name was the missing piece, snapping my foggy memories of the legends into place.

Asar Voldari. The Wraith Warden.

The stories seemed more befitting a myth than a man, even by the gruesome standards of vampire lore. They all ran together in my memory, grim tales of torture and spycraft, bloody tasks accomplished by bloodier means. Every king has someone to do their dirty work.

I hadn’t heard him spoken of in a long, long time. Gods, I’d just assumed he was long dead by now, or else that he’d never really existed at all.

If this was my savior, maybe death was the real mercy.

I tried to lift my head, but the guard shoved it back down. My cheek pressed to the floor.

Footsteps broke the silence.

They were measured. Slow. Deliberate.

A pair of boots entered my field of vision—once fine, but now scuffed and worn, emerald green faded to near black. A cold, floral scent wafted over me, naggingly familiar but gone before I could place it.

Again, I tried to lift my head, only for the guard to push it to the floor, this time hard enough that my skull smacked against the marble. I saw stars.

“Shit,” I hissed.

“Enough of that,” the voice snapped. “Let her stand.”

My vision blurred with both the impact and the aftereffects of Raoul’s magic. I pushed myself up to my hands. The floor tilted sharply.

Gods. Could I stand?

You can, a voice whispered in my mind. I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined it.

I raised my head just enough to see a hand outstretched before me—tan skin and long fingers.

But I didn’t take it. I forced myself to my feet all on my own, barely swaying even as my stomach lurched with nausea, and—finally—lifted my eyes.

The gasp escaped me without permission.

He might have been handsome once—or perhaps beautiful would be a better word. His features had a powerful artistry to them. A finely angled jaw. Strong brows over intense near-black eyes. A chiseled nose with nostrils that flared slightly in interest as his gaze locked to mine. His hair, thick and dark, fell in waves over his forehead, a once-refined cut that had been long neglected. He was very tall, and broad-shouldered, the top button of his shirt undone to reveal muscles leading down to his chest. All of it free of wrinkles or marks of age, doused in that almost sickening vampire perfection.

But that was where the perfection ended.

In a lifetime of traveling, I’d never seen scars like these.

They crawled over the left side of his face like thorny vines. They dug deep into his flesh, black and luminescent blue, as if whatever had made them had clawed past muscle and bone all the way down to his soul. They ran from beneath his collar, twining up the muscles of his throat, over his jaw, his cheekbone, his ear. And his left eye?—

No pupil. No iris. A sea of silvery clouds that rolled in constant movement, emanating tendrils of smoky light.

What had done that to him? It made the curious priestess in me, the girl who’d once devoted her life to studying the magical possibilities of the world, perk up. I couldn’t take my eyes off it.

Asar held my stare for a long moment. I didn’t realize quite how long until he broke it, clearing his throat. His gaze dropped down, to my wrists bound before me.

Those long fingers folded around my hand. The touch summoned goosebumps. A dizzying sensation stirred deep in my chest, rubbing against the bars of its cage.

Asar blinked, meeting my gaze for a split second before tearing it away. I felt the briefest ripple of his surprise pass between us, far better hidden than mine.

With one sharp movement, he pushed my left sleeve up.

I tried to yank it back, but he held my wrist firm. The rush of cool air against my arm was humiliating. I didn’t want to look. But my eyes fell to my skin anyway.

I felt like such a hypocrite, being shocked by Asar’s scars when my own had grown so horrifying. I avoided looking at them any more than I absolutely had to. Out here in the light, it appalled me all over again just how grotesque they’d become.

In the beginning, they’d been small, collecting at the crook of my elbow. After I’d been Turned, every time I used the magic of Atroxus—wielded flame or the power of the sun—I was rewarded with another burn. I had been so grateful that my god still allowed me my magic after my Turning that I didn’t even care. Most humans who worshipped gods of the White Pantheon weren’t nearly so lucky. Besides, didn’t I deserve that punishment for being what I was? Vampires, after all, were a natural enemy to the light.

But over the years, the burns got worse. And this last year, now that Atroxus denied me my magic altogether, had been worst of all. The scars now ran all the way from my wrist to above my elbow. Some still wept pus and black blood, fresh from my attempts at calling the flame in my cell.

No skin was untouched.

Gingerly, avoiding the freshest wounds—a confusing mercy—Asar tucked my sleeve up past my elbow.

“There,” he said.

Egrette and her guard had moved beside the king. Now all three of them followed his gaze down—at my tattoo, barely visible now beneath the scar tissue.

Gods, it had gotten so ugly.

Once, the ink had been bright as the dawn it symbolized, glowing with Atroxus’s blessing. The golden bird perched at my forearm, feathers wrapping around my elbow, silhouetted against flames—a phoenix, the symbol of the Order of the Destined Dawn. Or at least, that was what it was supposed to be. Saescha had teased me after it was done because I’d brought the artist a design that looked more like a firefinch, an invasive, common songbird, than a phoenix. “Just like you,” she’d said, shaking her head. “You make impulsive changes and then you end up with a pest on your arm.”

“She’s not a pest,” I had replied, affectionately stroking my still-sore tattoo. “She’s just approachable, Saescha.”

Well, she didn’t look approachable anymore. The tattoo was near-unrecognizable. The ink was dull and blurry, the glow long faded, shades of pink and gold and red smeared to brown soup.

Raoul, Egrette, and Elias looked unimpressed.

“And?” Egrette said, visibly annoyed that her grand gift had been so disrupted.

“This is a symbol of the Order of the Destined Dawn,” Asar said. “There are far more useful things we can do with a Dawndrinker than butcher her up.”

I was surprised—maybe even impressed—that he knew enough about the human nations to recognize a sect of Atroxus by that tattoo alone. But stronger than that was the primal reaction I had to what he called me. Dawndrinker. I hadn’t heard anyone refer to me that way in a long, long time.

Egrette scoffed. “You’d waste this opportunity over an old tattoo?”

Asar gave her a disdainful stare. “Atroxus’s magic is a rare resource in Obitraes. One that I need for my task.” He said this like he were speaking to a child. Egrette looked as if it physically pained her not to roll her eyes.

His task?

“Countless Turned once worshipped members of the White Pantheon in their human lives,” Egrette snapped. “All of them were abandoned by their gods once they became vampires. I’m sure she is no different. She has none of Atroxus’s magic left in her.”

Her words lodged between my ribs, shame bleeding from the wound.

She was right, of course.

But there was a little note of desperation in her voice, buried beneath that haughty superiority. She cast her father an uncertain, almost pleading, glance.

“You cannot delay retribution, Father—” she started.

“I have a task from the Dark Mother.” Asar’s voice was cold and hard. It cleaved through the air like a drawn blade. “You’d deny her for your petty taunts?”

I stopped breathing.

The Dark Mother?

Nyaxia?

Nyaxia was the goddess of vampires.

What mission could Nyaxia possibly have given him? What mission could she possibly have given him that required the magic of Atroxus ? It couldn’t be anything good.

“She’s useless to you,” Egrette said.

Asar’s eyes shot to mine in a direct challenge. “Are you?”

I blinked, taken aback. Everyone had been talking about me like I wasn’t here for so long that it was jarring to be addressed directly. “Am I?—”

“Are you able to wield the magic of Atroxus?”

He spoke deliberately, each word pointed. I got the impression he knew—or thought he knew—the answer. I got the impression that he was not the type of man who asked questions he didn’t already know the answer to.

My reply lingered at the tip of my tongue.

The truth would end in my death. I wasn’t afraid of that anymore. But I thought of Raihn and Oraya, and my head in a box, and a war they couldn’t survive.

The choice was easy.

“I have it.” I forced a smile—brighter than I felt. “The tattoo’s seen better days, I know. But I still have the magic.”

Asar looked smug. Egrette looked annoyed. Raoul looked unconvinced.

Before any of them could speak—before I could second-guess myself—I thrust my hand out. “I’ll show you.”

Asar stepped back, giving me room. A barely there smirk twitched at the corner of his mouth.

If only he knew how premature that smile was. I didn’t think this through.

I slowly unfurled my fingers. My heartbeat spiked. I knew they all could sense it, though I kept my mental walls firm around my dishonesty.

No one spoke. Hundreds of eyes fell to me, watching with hungry interest.

I felt like I was eight years old again, standing on the steps of the Citadel, my fate hinging upon one desperate call to a deity.

But I’d been so young then, so pure, so untouched. A perfect offering to a perfect god. Nothing but potential.

I was none of those things now. I was dirty and wretched and irreparably stained by my mistakes. I had nothing left to offer the god who had once offered me everything.

But however foolish some might call it, I still had my hope.

My light, I prayed. I know I have failed you. I know I do not deserve you. But I call upon you now, one last time. Please.

Silence.

Of course, silence. Silence like I’d heard every endless night for the last year.

My eyes burned. My palm was empty.

But then, the voice. It sounded exactly as it had that day on the Citadel steps.

I see you, a’mara. Open your hand.

I thought, at first, that maybe I’d imagined it. But then the warmth flooded me, unmistakable. It lit up my soul like the dawn had once warmed my face, euphoric, unmistakable.

Flame blossomed in my palm, stunning as a second chance.

I was that little girl all over again, saved by her god.

I choked out an almost laugh, cheeks stinging with my grin. It took every ounce of my self-control not to collapse into tears. I barely even felt the fresh burn open on my arm, another scar added to my collection. And hell, did it matter? What was a single scar compared to this?

My gaze lifted to Asar, who was looking at me with a tight smirk of approval. He turned to his sister as if to say, I told you so.

I beamed. “See? I still have it.”

My voice was strangled, but they didn’t seem to notice. Raoul clasped his hands behind his back, turning away.

“Very well,” he said. “Take her. The underworld will be punishment enough.”

My smile dimmed.

The underworld?

The underworld?

Asar bowed his head, accepting his victory, and took up my chains.

Egrette’s berry-stained lips curled into a cruel smirk. Her voice slithered into my mind.

So foolish, she crooned. You could have had a clean death.

Instead, you’ve volunteered yourself for something far worse.

Cool, damp air surrounded me as we stepped from the party into the night. It was a small relief. I felt as if the flame I’d summoned was still burning in my stomach, my face hot, my steps shaky. Asar walked in front of me, holding the chain that bound my wrists. He didn’t look back, but I didn’t think I imagined the way his steps slowed as we left the castle, like he’d been stopping himself from rushing to escape it. At the threshold, he paused for half a step, shoulders lowering with a silent exhale, before we continued walking.

I kept summoning sparks to my fingertips. Off, on. Off, on. They hurt every time, but I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted to skip. I wanted to jump up and down. I wanted to fall to my knees and weep. I wanted to pray to Atroxus so I could hear his voice again, prove to myself I hadn’t hallucinated it.

Instead, I was so focused on putting one step in front of the other that when Asar slowed at the threshold of the door, I stumbled against him, my face planting right between his shoulder blades.

He jerked away, shooting a glare at me over his shoulder. It felt particularly foreboding with that eye, which glowed starker now against the night.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

He ignored me and kept walking, giving my restraints an unceremonious yank.

Rude.

I stumbled to keep up with him, clumsily regaining my footing on narrow, uneven stone pathways. A chilly gust blew my hair from my face. It doused me in a brief, powerful scent—cold florals.

We rounded a corner, and a breathtaking panorama opened up before us. I stopped walking. “Gods, look at that,” I whispered.

I’d spent the last few years in the House of Night, a nation of deserts and mountains. It had been a good long while since I’d gotten the chance to admire the ocean. The capital sat at the southeastern shores of the House of Shadow, and the Shadowborn castle perched upon its tallest cliffs. We were far above the sea, which stretched out in endless silver to the velvet-black horizon. Grand ridges of stone burst from the ocean in stubborn rebellion against the waves, obsidian-black covered in emerald-green moss. The lush blankets of the House of Shadow’s famous foliage flourished to our left, consuming the stones, the buildings, the hills—grass and ivy and rosebushes.

It felt wrong to find it so stunning. After what this place had done to me.

As if to chase away that brief admiration, I summoned the sparks to my fingertips again, relishing the fleeting pain as Asar gave my chains another impatient tug.

“Where are we going?” I asked. Then, before I even realized I was still talking, “You have a mission from Nyaxia? To go to the underworld? To do what? Why do you need me? And?—”

I bit down on my last question because I knew if I didn’t, I’d never stop talking. I was too chatty at the best of times, but right now, I felt jittery, all my impulses too close to the surface.

Asar, again, ignored me. I watched his shoulders, stiff and square. Even from the back, his scars were visible in the sliver of bare skin between his collar and the thick waves of his hair. They seemed slightly purple out here in the moonlight, almost luminescent.

The Wraith Warden.

I’d met my fair share of legends. I was a chosen one of the sun god himself, after all. I knew better than to be intimidated by myth. They were just distortions of the truth, and we were all more similar than we’d like to admit beneath.

Still. It was impossible not to wonder if he really was everything they said he was.

But monster or not, he’d saved my life. So I said, “Thank you. By the way.”

He peered at me over his shoulder again, that scarred eye moon-bright.

“I didn’t do you a favor.”

His voice was low, and a little rough, like he wasn’t accustomed to using it. It sounded different than it had in the ballroom, as if the version of him I’d seen there had been a performance he’d since discarded.

I shrugged, my chains jangling. I gave him a smile—my greatest weapon. “I know, but still. Just seems like I should say it.”

Asar turned away, unmoved.

I summoned another spark to my fingertips, an impulse I couldn’t shake.

“Why do you keep doing that?” he said, without looking at me.

I folded my fingers together, self-conscious. I didn’t have a good answer. “Where are we going?” I asked instead.

“Where do you think we’re going?”

We rounded another corner. A gust of ocean wind doused us in cold, salty air.

I felt an uncomfortable pressure on my temple, like invisible fingers reaching for my thoughts. It was different from Egrette’s or Raoul’s rummaging. This was gentler, more delicate—and familiar in a way I couldn’t place.

It made my skin crawl. It felt invasive. Intimate.

I shook my head, hard. “Don’t do that,” I snapped.

“Don’t waste either of our time with questions you already know the answers to. Where do you think we’re going, Dawndrinker?”

“I think we’re going to Morthryn.”

The name sat heavy on my tongue.

Morthryn.

A prison created by the gods themselves, long before Obitraes was Obitraes, long before vampires existed at all. Each of the three vampire Houses guarded a site of great divine power. The House of Night held the Moon Palace and the Kejari tournament hosted within it, held every one hundred years in Nyaxia’s honor. The House of Blood had the barren fields where the god of death, Alarus, had been murdered and dismembered.

And the House of Shadow had Morthryn. A place said to be cursed, even by vampire standards.

“You know much about the House of Shadow for a Turned Dawndrinker,” Asar said. “You must be very cultured.”

The tinge of sarcasm gave me the distinct impression he was, in fact, insulting me.

“I read a lot,” I said. “So that’s why no one has heard from you in years? Because you’ve been in Morthryn?”

Locked up in it? Or caretaking it?

It’s been a few centuries since he’s been let out of his cage, Egrette had said. Maybe there wasn’t much of a difference either way. Raoul’s silence about his illegitimate son for a few hundred years certainly implied that regardless of the nature of his exile, it was a source of shame. Maybe a mocking joke, based on his nickname.

“Is that why Nyaxia came to you?” I guessed. “Because of your connection to?—”

Asar spun around.

“What do you think is happening here?” he said. “Do you think I’ve given you some kind of mercy?”

He spoke quietly, but every word was sharp and deliberate, just like his movements. Darkness clung to the edges of his form as if finding comfort near an old friend. It gave him the appearance of being perpetually silhouetted, and it made him seem ominously large.

I could imagine someone being very intimidated by him. Not me, I told myself. But other people. Other reasonable people.

My fingertips throbbed with the remnants of my flames.

Why had Atroxus come back to me now, of all times? Was it to give me the tool I needed to free myself? The sun was a powerful weapon in the world of vampires—their natural enemy. If Atroxus wanted me to free myself, I had to do it now. If I let Asar take me within Morthryn’s walls, I had the feeling I’d never get out.

I was a passable fighter. Good enough to get by. But I was a chosen one of Atroxus. That was greater than any blessed sword.

I took a half step backward, a door parting to my trap. “I’m just asking questions.”

Asar let out an exasperated sigh and reached for me.

I seized my chance.

I reached down within myself, all that way to that tiny shred of my heart that was still human, and called to the sun.

The strain to bring it forth was unexpected, like attempting to drag a cart uphill in the mud. For one terrifying split second, I thought I’d been abandoned all over again.

But then the fire burst to life in my hands.

Asar’s face shifted to shock, then anger, as mine split with a delighted grin.

I started to strike, but then?—

Not yet, a’mara. This is not the time. Wait for me.

Atroxus’s voice was distant, yet unmistakable. It distracted me, throwing my blow off-balance.

Asar diverted it easily, sending me toppling into a rosebush. When I opened my eyes to see him leaning over me, he looked merely annoyed.

“That was a foolish waste of time,” he muttered under his breath.

“Wait—” I started.

But he just lowered his hand over my eyes, and with it came a wave of cool, black nothingness.