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

Chapter 36

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

T he storm raged on outside. The dead pounded at the door. They sounded far away, yet I still was certain I could hear Saescha’s voice wherever we went. There was only one way in or out. We had barricaded ourselves in our own cage, with no relic to show for it.

It had clearly once been here, Asar insisted.

The lid had been laid alongside the box as if placed there by someone who knew and respected this place. This was no sloppy grave robber. Five massive stone crocodiles wearing bone faces, like the guardians we encountered in Breath, lay arranged in a perfect circle around the dais. The marble was so immaculately detailed that it looked as if they had once been living beings who had simply laid down to rest one day and never gotten up again.

Perhaps Elias had chosen to push forward alone and had managed to claim it before us—Asar scoffed at this idea. Or perhaps someone else had claimed it long before. All that mattered now was that it was gone, and we were trapped.

There was nothing to do but wait. If we were lucky, the storm would pass and the crowd of dead beyond the door would thin. Then we could figure out how we were going to make it out of here in one piece. We were in no condition to fight our way out now. Luce needed time to heal.

“She has a higher tolerance for the dead than we do, but it still takes a toll,” Asar said as he ran his hands over her limp body, clusters of shadow trailing them. She whimpered as he patched one of her worst wounds, and he patted her on the head.

“She’s survived worse,” he murmured. “She’ll be all right.” But his voice was low with worry.

I put my hand over his. “She already came back from the dead for you. I don’t think she’d leave so easily even if you wanted to get rid of her.”

A humorless smile twitched over his lips. “Likely so.”

Later, while Asar watched over Luce, I paced the temple. Stairs spiraled along the edges of the room, leading to two upper levels. The first was mostly empty, save for a few more crocodile sculptures and some discarded, overturned chairs. The second housed what appeared to have once been a place of worship. A marble altar sat upon a dais. Behind it, a statue stood watch. The head was broken off above the chin, leaving only half a set of pensive lips and a partially clothed body with palms outstretched.

It had once been Alarus, if I had to guess—the only option that made sense. But still, the scene looked as if it could’ve been ripped from the Citadel or any of the other countless monasteries I had visited over the years. It was all the same. The statues, the carved altar, the tapestries so bleached by time I couldn’t even begin to make out what they’d once depicted. Even the smell, that smooth hint of incense.

I could so vividly imagine this balcony full of kneeling acolytes.

I could so vividly imagine myself among them.

The glass ceiling and the large window behind the statue let in the swirling shadows of the storm beyond, striking and unsettling, another reminder that we were not in the mortal world.

I crossed the room and knelt before the altar. My hands folded before me, palms up, position so instinctual it came like breathing. I stared up at the faceless statue. I had seen so many of these depictions of Atroxus. It was easy to fill in the missing pieces with his visage.

The first time I had knelt before an altar like this, I had been given a second chance. From that moment on, I was tethered to him. The arrow in my heart, forever leading me to the sunrise.

“See, Mische?” Saescha had told me, all those years ago. “Whenever we’re lost, all we have to do is pray, and we will hear the light call to us.”

I closed my eyes.

But there was no light down here. And the only call I heard was Saescha’s.

Asar’s footsteps were so light they barely whispered across the floor. But in the silence, I heard them anyway. How had I gotten this far without realizing that I’d memorized the way they moved? The thought unnerved me, because it made me wonder how much of me he had memorized, too.

I felt so terrifyingly exposed. I had no defenses right now. And even if I did, Asar, it seemed, could always slip right past them.

I didn’t turn around.

“Luce is resting,” he said. “She’s feeling better. A little time, and she’ll be fine.”

I let out a breath of relief. “That’s good.”

I wished I could cling to that piece of good news. Instead, it felt like one little drop of hope in a sea of despair.

Silence.

I could feel him staring at me. He approached slowly, every step of the distance closed between us agonizing. I was waiting for the searching questions. They didn’t come. Instead, he settled beside me.

I finally allowed myself to look at him. He knelt at the altar next to me.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Praying with you,” he said. As if it were obvious.

“I thought you didn’t believe in prayer.”

“I don’t,” he said. “But you do.”

Strange how it was this small gesture of kindness that shattered me.

I closed my eyes. I leaned forward until my forehead pressed against cold marble. My chest tightened, tightened, tightened. When I finally had to force myself to breathe, my inhale was a horrific sob.

“Mische,” he whispered. His fingers brushed my back. Too much of a reminder, now, of everything I shouldn’t want. I pulled away, jumping to my feet as I wiped my tears with the back of my hand.

“How do you do it? Help them pass?”

A wrinkle formed between Asar’s brows as he rose. “What?”

“The wraiths. How do you help them pass through to the underworld?”

Understanding fell over his face.

“Who was she?” he asked. Because of course he saw. Of course he knew.

“There has to be a way to help her through. Like you helped Eomin.”

I sounded manic, and I knew it. I’d already started drifting toward the stairs, ready to escape complicated questions in favor of a painful solution.

“I’ve never been able to do it here. It gets harder the longer they’ve been here, and the deeper we go.” His throat bobbed. I knew how painful it was for him to admit this—defeat. “I’ve never succeeded.”

“But you have to keep trying,” I pressed. “You can’t just give up because it’s too hard.”

He flinched, like I had slapped him. Even as I said the words, I regretted them. I knew their cruelty to someone who had spent his entire life trying to fix something that couldn’t be fixed.

“I need to try,” I corrected myself. “I need to right my wrongs.”

I didn’t even realize the echo in my words until they were coming out of my mouth. What Asar had said to Esme— I need to right my wrongs.

Asar took another step closer, and I stepped back. I didn’t deserve the way he was looking at me.

“Whatever she said to you isn’t true,” he said softly. “Souls here have languished for a long time. Their hunger has festered. They’re angry at the world because their anger is all they have left.”

“She meant it. She?—”

“She can mean it and it can still be untrue.”

I wondered how many times he had told himself that about the things Ophelia said to him.

“She’s here because of me. This is my fault. I can’t leave her that way.”

“We won’t, Mische. We won’t.” It was a vow. “But hating yourself won’t help her. Sacrificing yourself won’t help her. You were so young. You can’t bear that weight forever.”

He didn’t understand. I was shaking, my fingers curled tight at my sides. “Yes, I can. I have to.”

Another step closer. A gentle touch to my chin as he tilted it up, forcing me to look into his eyes. They were so soft, so searching. How could I ever have thought that Asar was cold?

“Why?” he whispered.

Something cracked inside me, and the ugly truth poured free, scalding hot, burning me up.

“Because who will I hate instead? If it’s not my fault, whose is it? She’s not supposed to be here. She was the best priestess in the Citadel. The most pious, the most devoted. She was always the better one. She gave him everything. She gave him—” My voice cracked. “She gave him me .”

I was sixteen years old again, hugging my sister goodbye as she sent me off into that bedchamber.

I was eight years old again, bathing in the light of the god who was supposed to save us all.

I drew in a ragged, painful breath. “He was supposed to protect her. And I understand if he rejects me. Because I’m—I’m the monster. I’m the tainted one. I’m the one who destroyed myself. But Saescha . Saescha was perfect. And the only piece of her I have came from him. The only good thing I can offer the world.” I wasn’t crying anymore. The poison that had broken free in my veins was hotter than sadness, colder than grief. Strange licks of darkness curled at the edges of my vision, and dimly, I realized that it was my magic, peeling from me like there was just too much of it to be contained beneath my skin.

“So then what?” I choked out. “What will I have left, if I don’t have the light anymore? Nothing. I’ll have nothing.”

Asar had been listening in silence, his jaw tightening with every word, the shadows in his scarred eye roiling in slowly mounting fury.

“Is that what you think of yourself? That everything good about you came from a fucking church? Atroxus didn’t make you special by choosing you. He chose you because you already were, and even when you were eight Mother-damned years old, he knew that. You owe him nothing. Nothing .”

His fingers tightened, hand sliding to the back of my head, as if to keep me from retreating from his words.

“I’ll tell you what you’ll have if you lose the sun, Mische. You’ll have a soul gentler than any vampire’s I’ve ever known. You’ll have an incredible magic and the skill to wield it better than the bastard who gave it to you. You’ll have a soft heart and a sharp wit and the wisdom to know when to use one or the other. You’ll have countless inane questions and horrible taste in food and a penchant for making lost souls love you.”

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak. He leaned closer until his forehead touched mine.

“And if you’ll take it, Mische Iliae, you will have me, too.” This whisper was an exhale, like he didn’t mean to say it aloud—like the words surprised even himself.

Only a few inches separated our bodies. My magic, beyond my control, coiled around him in desperate caresses. I stared into his eyes, one the brown of the earth and one the silver of the stars, belonging to a soul who bridged two worlds just as I did.

The space between us was an executioner’s blade—thin as a hair’s breadth, and yet, the difference of an eternal soul.

The lush curve of Asar’s mouth twisted. The muscles of his throat flexed. He started to pull away.

But my hands fell to his shoulders. I traced the muscular lines of them, to his throat, his chin.

I was so sick of wanting.

This isn’t what love should feel like.

“Show me what it should feel like,” I whispered.

The blade fell. My sentence was written.

We crashed together into beautiful damnation.