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

Chapter 44

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

I sank to the ground, Asar beside me. I was trembling. No wonder Asar looked so drained after he’d helped Eomin. I was ready to keel over, and I’d had help.

Asar pulled me into a fierce embrace. I melted against it as Luce nuzzled my shoulder.

“I thought—” he said against my hair.

“Me too.” I let out a shaky breath. “Me too.”

It only hit me now exactly how close I’d just come to death, and exactly how much I wasn’t ready for it. I clung to him and held his scent deep in my lungs.

This might be the last time. Enjoy it.

But he pulled away too soon, holding me by the shoulders and looking hard into my face.

“You are so foolish,” he said, “and so extraordinary.”

I smiled weakly. “I’ve been told that before. Mostly the first part.”

It was easier to joke than to acknowledge the emotion in his voice. Or how much I enjoyed hearing him call me extraordinary—enough that it almost made me believe it.

But we didn’t have time to bask. The dead had scattered when Ophelia had let go, perhaps put off by her embrace of death. But they still hovered around us, watching at a distance. Even if they hung back like cautious carrion birds for now, soon they would descend again.

My gaze skimmed the horizon. I couldn’t count the wraiths. And yet, even among so many, I could’ve sworn I found Saescha in the crowd, watching me with hungry eyes, her hand to her torn-out throat.

Asar’s eyes searched my face. He squeezed my shoulder, leaving the question unspoken: Ready?

No.

But I never would be.

Asar got to his feet and helped me to mine. We turned to the tower. It was taller than it had looked from a distance—an illusion, or had it grown? Now the waterfalls stretched so far into the sky that they seemed to puncture the boundary to the upside-down mortal world above. I stared at the sky, and with a bittersweet clench in my chest, I recognized the shores of Vostis drifting by—an endless ocean, a white sand shore, a lush forest, a great stone citadel. A part of me wanted to seize Asar’s hand and point at it, tell him, That’s my home.

But that word didn’t feel right. My heart did not belong to Vostis anymore.

Hand in hand, Asar and I approached the tower. I let out a little gasp as my feet stepped through the glass, my underworld self shivering with the disruption. Asar didn’t flinch. The silhouette of his reflection didn’t, either. The raw emotion of our reunion was gone now. I watched his face, still and focused, as we continued into the water. Luce walked beside us, steps light on the surface, rippling but not sinking in. It was warm, and unnaturally still. I glanced behind us and still couldn’t tell where the water ended and the shore began.

Asar stopped when we were waist-deep. His fingertips traced a circle on the surface, silver light trailing behind his touch. A thread of darkness followed his hand, grasping for me. My magic joined it before I had to ask it to.

I thought of all the times I had told Oraya that magic came from the heart. An impulse beyond thought or logic.

My magic reached for him. My heart reached for him.

He dug into his pack and withdrew the first relic. Body—the obsidian branch bearing Alarus’s blood. Asar held it for a moment, then placed it in the spell.

I felt the power immediately. A gust of wind pulled strands of curly hair around my face. The wraiths let out a wordless moan, pushing forward. Something at the center of the world seemed to crack.

Asar, unfazed by it all, swept his hand over the circle. The branch quivered in its center as he murmured a hymn in a tongue I didn’t understand—none of the countless ancient languages I’d studied at the Citadel. It was striking, and a little sad, like an artifact of a time long-ago past. Asar’s voice rendered the syllables like music.

The magic started to pull at me, deep within. The surface of the water trembled, darkness swirling in the reflections. The weight of the spell shocked me at first, and my hold on it wavered. Asar’s free hand brushed mine in a way that said, You can do this.

He was right. I could. The magic was heavy, but with his help, I could navigate it. A part of me even enjoyed it—it had been a long time since I’d challenged myself with a spell that actually felt right. And though so much of what we were doing went against everything I’d been taught, it felt like a key sliding into place.

We moved to the next phase, connecting Body to Breath. Asar drew another circle, and here he placed the next relic—the poppy petals. With them came the rush of breath of a first kiss.

A distant hum rose from the depths beneath us. The water had begun to churn. The tower loomed over us, black and red streaking the waterfalls running up its sides.

A shadow encroached beneath the surface of the water.

I looked down to see my own reflection curled up like a frightened child, eyes wide. And Asar’s—I couldn’t tell what was happening to his. His silhouette had gotten darker, the eye brighter, smoke now billowing off him and spiraling into the dark pit at the center of our ritual.

We moved to the next phase. Every step hurt now—the weight of the spell grew nearly unbearable. Asar drew another circle. Psyche. Here, he placed the ring. The memories of Nyaxia and Alarus on their wedding day, two ghostlike, silvery silhouettes rose, embraced, dissipated.

Death was so close. The sea churned. Luce paced beside us, her shadowy form shivering with the waves of magic. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that wave of darkness approaching—the wraiths drawing closer to the shore, hands outstretched and heads bowed, like they couldn’t tell whether they were eager or terrified. I couldn’t tell, either. The dark power of what we were doing coursed through me in intoxicating waves. But the danger of it drew closer, too, undeniable.

I felt the veils to the underworld part. Felt our call extend to the world beyond, reaching out for just the right soul.

And I felt it reach back for us.

My heart was pounding. Sweat dripped into my eyes. Asar worked diligently. His scars glowed over straining muscles. His eye gleamed. His Heir Mark was stark in the darkness, even though we were closer to death than we’d ever been.

We moved to the next position. Drew the next circle.

He placed the arrow there. It hummed and shimmered, glistening with honeyed gold.

Something snapped into place. Pain careened through me.

Darkness roiled beneath the surface of the water. Something pressed to its underside, barely taking on the shape of a body.

The door to death creaked open slowly. Of the countless spirits within, one stepped closer.

I raised my gaze to Asar. He was staring at me now, not at the spell. Wind whipped his hair over his forehead.

No, this was wrong. I felt it in my bones.

I couldn’t do this.

The truth of it struck me, immovable. I had made such a horrible mistake. What had I done?

“Asar—”

I wasn’t sure what I intended to say—to tell him to stop, to tell him I was sorry, to tell him the truth of what I had done.

But he took my hands in his, clasping them around the symbol of Alarus’s betrayal and mine.

“You’ll need to do the rest, Iliae,” he said.

My brows knitted. Dread flooded me.

This wasn’t right.

Something wasn’t right.

“That’s ridiculous,” I said.

But Asar had already started drawing the next line. Forming the next circle.

The surface of the water cracked like broken glass. The mouth of oblivion at the center of our spell opened.

I clutched Asar’s hand, stopping him mid-movement.

“What are you doing?”

I could barely hear myself over the rising song of the underworld.

He cradled my hand in his, holding tenuous control of the spell between us.

“You can do it,” he said. “Just focus. Keep the passageways clear, like I taught you.”

I was slowly panicking, and he was here lecturing me about my technique.

“You’re finishing this,” I said, voice rising. “This is yours.”

Asar finally—finally—looked at me. The sadness in his eyes split me apart.

“It’s in my blood, Dawndrinker,” he murmured. “In my bloodline. I can’t finish it because I am a part of it. The offering of Soul.”

The horrible realizations snapped into place.

I looked down at Asar’s reflection again—that reflection that looked so familiar but I hadn’t been able to place.

It looked familiar because I had seen it countless times, inked into scriptures and carved into church walls and woven into tapestries.

It was Alarus.

As if he had not had his fair share of mortal lovers, Atroxus had scoffed.

Soul. The most intrinsic piece of a spirit, and the hardest offering to satisfy. I felt so stupid for buying Asar’s ridiculous excuse.

Soul demanded a sacrifice.

A descendant of a god, perhaps, might suffice.

“No,” I bit out, but Asar just kept talking.

“Complete the ritual for Nyaxia. I made sure you’ll be taken care of. It’s not the sun, but she’ll give you anything you ask of her. She’ll give you your freedom.”

I almost laughed as understanding dawned on me. He had, indeed, had a visitor in Secrets. He’d learned of the sacrifice he could not avoid. And he had made a deal to save me as I had made one to save him. A cruel joke.

“Asar, I won’t?—”

“It’s already done.” He gripped my hand tight, knuckles white, gaze seizing mine in a way that made my words die. The only one I still had was no, no, no .

His throat bobbed. His brown eye gleamed.

“I never wanted anything so much as I wanted to show you that happy ending you so believe in, Mische,” he murmured.

No.

His hand slipped from mine. Luce, forever loyal, came to his side.

No.

I reached for him?—

But he stepped into the circle, the final offering to complete the ritual.

The spell opened for him, a gaping maw or a welcome embrace, swallowing him whole.

I screamed his name.

But death devoured the sound of my voice as the underworld split open like overripe fruit. The sky released a soundless scream.

The ritual completed.

And he was gone.