Page 245 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

But that would be the power of destruction.

I would not be able to save Raihn.

I opened my palm. The skin cracked and bled, charred by the power of the vial I clutched against it. Yet that ugliness only highlighted the incandescence of what sat within it, the blood a galaxy of colors against the darkest shadows of night.

It was so incredibly beautiful.

I blinked and a tear rolled down my cheek.

I wouldn’t lose one more thing. One more person. I couldn’t.

This blood could be used as a tool of destruction, yes. But how else could it be used?

Once I had cherished my dead father’s dirty wine glasses. I’d wrapped myself in his discarded clothing. If someone had offered me a piece of his hair, I’d have wept for it.

This blood was more than a weapon. It was a piece of someone who had once been loved. It was a bargaining chip, priceless to the one being who I knew would treasure it above all.

As Simon grunted and pushed himself to his hands and knees, I lifted my eyes to the sky. Beyond the winged bodies above, storm clouds swirled in unnatural wisps—like fish circling a pond, fragments of suspended lightning dancing between them.

I’d only seen the sky like that once before. When we had the attention of the gods.

I raised the vial above my head, as if offering it to the heavens.

“My Mother of the Ravenous Dark,” I screamed. “I call upon you, Goddess of Night, of Blood, of Shadow. I offer you the blood of your husband, Alarus. Hear me, my Goddess, Nyaxia.”

74

ORAYA

For a few long, terrible seconds, nothing happened.

The battle continued. Simon kept slowly pushing himself to his knees. Raihn kept dying.

More tears welled up in my eyes.

No. This had to work. It had to.

My arm shook as I held that vial to the sky, held it as high as I could, my eyes staring unblinking into the god-touched night above.

Please,I pleaded, silently.Please, Nyaxia. I know I’ve never been yours. Not really. But I’m begging you to hear me.

And then, as if she heard my silent prayer, there she was.

Time seemed to slow, the figures above moving in slow motion. The breeze through my hair grew cold, the strands suspended in midair. My skin pebbled, as if in the moments preceding a strike of lightning.

Just like last time, I felt her before I saw her. A staggering sensation of overwhelming adoration, and overwhelming smallness.

“What,” a low, melodic voice said, deadly as a drawn blade, “is happening here?”

There was only one thing, I realized in this moment, more terrifying than the presence of a god.

And that was the rage of one.

I slowly lowered my eyes.

Nyaxia floated before me.

She was just as beautiful, just as terrible, as I remembered her. Hers was the kind of beauty that made you want to prostrate yourself before her. Her hair floated in tendrils of ink-black night. Her bare feet hovered, delicately pointed, just above the ground. Her body, dipped in silver, gleamed and shone like moonlight in the darkness. Those eyes, revealing every shade of the night sky, were dark and stormy with utter fury.

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