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

Chapter 45

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

T he spell ripped me apart. Consciousness slipped away, and when it returned, I was at the edge of the ritual circle. It burned silver, countless threads of light and darkness reaching into the hole at its center. A silhouette took blurry shape there, not yet defined, a ghost of what could be.

The sky shivered with the presence of the gods.

The earth quaked with the hunger of the dead.

I felt a spirit out in the ether, too powerful to be mortal, their head turning toward all these assembled pieces of their past.

But I still clung to Asar’s soul. I couldn’t see him anymore, but I could still feel him. The anchor at my chest, that stupid piece of magic he hadn’t thought twice about, burned with his fading presence.

The ritual was trying to consume him.

I wouldn’t let him go.

I couldn’t let him go. That one thread of connection held my entire being.

I almost didn’t even notice when the god of the sun appeared. Not until I felt the burning brilliance of his light scalding my back.

I still couldn’t turn away from the thing at the center of the circle, grasping for life. That burning ember that remained of Asar.

“To think that he was once so great.” Atroxus’s voice was inevitable and cruel. “Look at how he fights for life. Nothing but a common mortal.”

He was wrong. The blur at the center of the ritual wasn’t Alarus. Not yet. I still held on to a piece of Asar, and I refused to let it go.

I turned. The sight of Atroxus nearly brought me to my knees. Golden light drenched him like honey, rays of sun pouring from behind his head, stark against the desolation of the Descent. This was not his territory, but we were closer to the world of the gods than we’d ever been before. His power leached through the veil—a force worthy of his crown.

He was more awe-inspiring than I had ever seen him.

And yet, in this moment, I hated him.

“You said you would spare him.”

Atroxus laughed softly. Amusement sparkled in his eyes. He did always relish in the drama of his human followers.

“I kept my word. This is not my doing. Blame my brother for this. No one cares about a god’s mortal love affairs. But it was sloppy of him to leave a drop of his bloodline in the mortal world. The rest of us take the appropriate measures against the unwanted byproducts of our human dealings.” His smirk soured. “Apparently, Alarus could not even do that much. But why should I be surprised by that? For two thousand years, the world has been suffering the consequences of his mess. No longer. It ends today.”

He lowered his gaze to me. It softened. The light of Atroxus’s affection was so warm. It had been a long time since I’d felt it like this—like I had that morning when I first stood upon the steps of the Citadel.

“You have done so well,” he murmured. “You have left your mark upon history today. Now make the final stroke of this tale.”

Something searing hot was in my hand. I looked down to see the arrow there, glowing, the gold feathers quivering at its tail. Its power pulsed through me, the opposite of my Shadowborn magic in every way—dawn against dusk, fire against ice.

“Quickly,” Atroxus said. “Nyaxia will come soon enough. But we will have raised a new dawn by then.”

He spread his hands. Light spilled across the icy mirror of the boundary between the Descent and death, setting it aflame. The dead scattered away from it like rats fleeing a barn fire.

All but one. One priestess wraith, blood pouring from her throat, who looked at the sun like it was home.

I watched Saescha’s eyes fall to me, the sadness in them infinite. She reached out.

My hand clenched around the arrow.

I still felt Asar’s soul, clinging to life by my hold alone. The form at the center of the ritual let out a wordless scream, climbing to all fours. It wasn’t anyone yet—neither Alarus nor Asar. With one more pull, I could bring Alarus back. But doing so would mean letting go of Asar forever.

And as I watched Atroxus, his arms lifted, chin tilted to the sun, a terrible realization fell over me.

This was not just about killing Alarus.

Atroxus was here because this was an inflection of power. A moment for him to seize more than had been given to him at the start of time. A surge that came with the true death of a god.

The power of the gods is communal. When one dies, another grows stronger.

No.

No, no, no.

I didn’t say it aloud. But as if he heard it, Atroxus’s rage exploded. White flames flared in his eyes.

“Do you understand what I am offering you?” he roared. Every word scorched my skin. “You swore yourself to me once. To the cause of bringing the light. I am offering you a sunrise.”

The light kept growing, brighter and brighter. The wraiths now flattened against the ground, shielding themselves with arms or curling up into balls. Saescha had come closer still, staring at Atroxus with unfettered adoration.

I looked to the mortal world above, upside down in the sky, and with a start, I recognized it as Obitraes—the spires of the House of Shadow, and then, across the sea, the unmistakable rolling dunes of the House of Night.

“You understand better than most what Nyaxia created two thousand years ago.” Atroxus’s voice was inescapable. “An illness that would never stop spreading. Monsters that know nothing but hunger. They suffer, a’mara, as you have suffered. And it is not in their nature to stop. They will consume until there is nothing left. Unless we end it today.”

I watched the sun, a great and terrible damnation, rise over the sky. I watched Atroxus’s never-ending dawn flood across Obitraes.

Atroxus lowered himself to me and cradled my face.

“Think of what you are,” he breathed. “Think of the gift you can give this world. There is no saving you, Mische Iliae. But after this, there will be no more monsters coming to devour children in the night.” He showed me a little girl cowering in the human districts, screaming as a vampire sank his teeth into her throat. “There will be no more creatures coming to spread their plague to the human nations.” He showed me a bloody shore, littered with bodies as an army of vampires fell upon the sands. “There will be no more endless hungers for lives that should not exist.” He showed me vampires starving in desert ruins, turning on each other in fruitless desperation.

He leaned closer. “And,” he murmured, “there will be no more sisters dying at the hands of the one they loved most, nor any sisters who must carry the burden of that shame.”

He showed me myself, falling upon Saescha as she screamed.

A sob escaped my lips. A tear slid down my cheek, rising to scalding steam under his caress. For a moment, he looked at me again the way he had on our wedding night. Back when I thought that this was love. “Do you not miss the sun, a’mara?”

I did miss the sun. I lifted my chin to that rising orb of light as it drenched me. The destined dawn. A horrible truth settled over me—that this was always intended to be the end. Salvation paid for with the blood of the unsalvageable souls. A dawn drenched in sin.

I remembered the sunlight feeling like hope. But this just felt like damnation.

My gaze settled on Saescha, her eyes wide with devotion, hands outstretched, and the love I felt for her dwarfed the warmth of Atroxus’s sunrise.

“I’m so sorry,” I choked out.

And I drove the arrow into Atroxus’s throat.