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

Chapter 46

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

A troxus’s eyes widened. He staggered backward, hand flying to his neck. Gold blood gushed from the wound, spattering my face.

He looked at me exactly as Malach had when I’d driven my sword through his chest. Like I had truly shocked him by existing beyond the bounds of what he thought I was. Sometimes they only see you for the first time when you force them to.

I rose to my feet as Atroxus, reeling with shock, drew himself up. Flames tore across the horizon as his fury rose. Whip cracks of lightning split across the sky.

He seized me by the shoulders, pulling me close. The fire consumed me, flooding my blood, my lungs, my eyes. I couldn’t see anything but light. I couldn’t feel anything but pain.

I was going to die, and it would be by the hand of the god I had sworn my soul to.

“I made you,” he snarled. “You end with me.”

“Then let me burn,” I said.

And I yanked that arrow from his throat, and this time, I plunged it straight into his chest.

The two of us went up in flames together, god and traitor. It shakes the world when a god dies. It rearranges histories in mortal and immortal realms alike.

In his final moments, I watched the sun crack, shards spearing to earth like shooting stars.

Through it all, I clung to that thread of magic that connected me to what remained of Asar. The final steps of the resurrection spell came to me like a song someone had played for me once. All the notes sounded like him.

I reached for Asar’s soul, the final sacrifice I could not make, as Atroxus roared his death cry.

As the sun shattered in the sky, falling into infinite pieces.

As my body, broken and charred, crumbled to the ground.

And the world plunged into eternal darkness.