The 4th book in the Crowns of Nyaxia book: The Fallen & the Kiss of Dusk comes out on August 5, 2025, so I figured I would write a complete summary if you read The Songbird and the Heart of Stone a while back and need a little refresher. The first book of the Crowns of Nyaxia book: The Serpent and the Wings of Night by Carissa Broadbent was one of my favorite books I read in 2024, so I was so excited to read this 3rd book in the series, especially since it is a bit of change in perspective.
The Songbird and the Heart of Stone (Book 3) is part of the Crowns of Nyaxia series, but is really more of a couplet with the forthcoming 4th book. Conversely, The Serpent and the Wings of Night (Book 1) is a duet with The Ashes & the Star-Cursed King (Book 2). The first two books follow Oraya and Raihn while books 3 and 4 follow Mische.
P.S. Books 1-3 are all available on Kindle Unlimited! You can get 30 days for free to binge the series if needed!
SPOILERS AHEAD!
FYI: I didn’t want to leave too much out of this Songbird and the Heart of Stone summary since I don’t know completely what is going to be important to know for book 4, but I also didn’t want to make it SO long, although I’m not really sure I succeeded at the latter. I also tried to add a bit of context from books 1 and 2 of Crowns of Nyaxia in case its been a while!
TL;DR Synopsis
Asar recruits Mische to go with him into the underworld to resurrect Nyaxia’s dead husband, Alarus (god of death). The god that Mische serves, Atroxus (god of sun), gives her a secret mission to foil this plan by killing Alarus’ soul. They journey through the underworld and when they get to the end to perform the spell, Asar has to sacrifice himself in order to resurrect Alarus. Before the spell can be completed, Mische kills her god, Atroxus and interrupts the spell. By interrupting the spell, Asar takes Alarus’ power. With Atroxus dead, the world falls into eternal night. The other gods, kill Mische for murdering Atroxus and Mische finds herself dead and in the underworld with the promise from Asar that he will bring her back.
The Songbird and the Heart of Stone Full Summary
If you recall from books 1 and 2, Mische is Raihn’s best friend. She was a human acolyte for the god of the sun, Atroxus, but was turned into a vampire against her will by a Shadowborn prince, Malach. In book 1, you get glimpses of Mische’s sun/fire powers that she received from Atroxus. Atroxus is a god who vampires do not generally serve, as vampires serve Nyaxia. In book 1, when the Moon Palace is set on fire and Mische is stuck inside, she gets so injured that she is removed from the Kejari. After the fire, she keeps saying to Raihn that “he didn’t answer”. Eventually, it is revealed that the god that Mische had served, Atroxus, didn’t answer her prayers and had taken away her powers in the midst of the fire.
In book 2 as Raihn and Oraya are fighting to regain control of the House of Night, Malach is visiting them at the house of night (it was not known to Raihn and Oraya that he is the one who Turned Mische). During one of the battles, Mische and Oraya come across Malach and Mische kills him. When Oraya and Raihn finally regain control they try to spin Malach’s death as the doing of the usurpers. Near the end of book 2, Mische confesses to Raihn that she cannot stay with them in the House of Night and that she wants to resume traveling as staying in one place isn’t what she does.
That being said, The Songbird and the Heart of Stone picks up some time after Mische has left the house of night. It starts with Mische in a cell within the House of Shadow. Shadowborn have mind reading abilities and Egrette, a House of Shadow Heir and Malach’s sister is interrogating Mische. She is able to enter Mische’s mind to confirm that Mische was the one who murdered Malach.
This man had taken everything from me. He had Turned me into a beast undeserving of everything I’d devoted my entire life to. He was the reason I had lost my magic. He was the reason my god had abandoned me.
Page 20, The Songbird and the Heart of Stone
Later, Egrette brings Mische before Raoul, the King of the House of Shadow as a birthday gift of retribution for killing his son. There is a brief moment where it is clear that something is off with Raoul, he has memory problems of some kind. They plan to kill Mische and send her head back to Oraya and Raihn, but before he kills Mische, someone tells him to stop. Raoul’s bastard son, Asar Voldari, asks the king to not kill her.
Asar Voldari. The Wraith Warden.
The stories seemed more befitting a myth than a man, even by the gruesome standards of vampire lore. They all ran together in my memory, grim tales of torture and spycraft, bloody tasks accomplished by bloodier means. Every king has someone to do their dirty work.
Page 34, The Songbird and the Heart of Stone
Asar noticed Mische’s tattoo that was a symbol of the Order of the Destined Dawn and believes that Mische as a “Dawndrinker” may be helpful in something that Nyaxia has tasked him with. Despite previously having her fire powers revoked by Atroxus and believing that Atroxus has abandoned her, in a moment of desperation to save her head, she calls out to Atroxus and is able to summon some fire. This is enough to prove that maybe she would be more helpful for Asar’s purposes so he takes Mische to Morthryn: a prison created by the gods and said to be cursed. There he tests Mische by having her participate in necromancy (raising the dead), as one of the prisoners of Morthryn has just died and happened to be a human acolyte of Atroxus. In order to resurrect someone you need items to represent five elements of someone: body, breath, psyche, secrets, and soul. Mische is able to contribute a candle that she lights using her Atroxus’ given fire power to complete the necromancy spell. She then finds out that Asar needs her and this other acolyte, Chandra, to go with him to the underworld. He was given the task by Nyaxia to resurrect her late husband, Alarus, the god of death.
In her sleep the night before, Atroxus comes to Mische and explains that a god cannot truly kill another god. When Alarus married Nyaxia, they had defied the White Pantheon. So when he and his siblings, the other gods of the White Pantheon, tried to kill their brother Alarus, they were only able to partially kill him, not a true death. Atroxus was aware of Asar’s plan to resurrect Alarus, so he asks Mische accompany Asar, but give Alarus a true death. He explains to her that to go to the underworld, they will pass through the five sanctums of death (the same as the elements needed to resurrect someone). Before Alarus’ death he had placed relics in each sanctum that represent the elements of himself. They will need to collect the relics from each Sanctum; however, Atroxus went in and locked each of the elements up. Therefore, Asar needs an Atroxus follower to use the power of the sun to unlock each relic (hence why he is bringing Mische and Chandra). Mische is terrified but feels like she has to earn back Atroxus’ love after a previous failed mission, so she agrees.
The next day, before they go to enter the underworld, a guard of the House of Shadow is assigned, presumably by the king Raoul, to go with them, Elias. The 4 of them, plus Asar’s semi-dead dog, Luce, enter the underworld, from Morthryn, which is kind of like a bridge to the underworld through the sanctums (also known as the Descent) and spans throughout most of the sanctums. They start in the sanctum of body. There are wraiths everywhere who are attracted to the living and can kill them– one of whom Mische recognizes. They battle their way through a temple where they retrieve the first relic: a black obsidian tree branch coated in blood. The branch was what Nyaxia had tried to use to attack Alarus with in their initial meeting. The group are able to escape to the an offshoot of Morthryn (which is supposed to be wraith-free) to rest before moving on to the sanctum of breath.
In the night, Mische wakes up and finds Asar fighting wraiths in the hallway. Throughout Morthryn, there are gates to enter the underworld with glyphs and spells to keep out the dead. However, as Morthryn ages, and without Alarus to help maintain the sanctums and Morthryn, the underworld is beginning to crumble. This means that souls are not able to pass through the descent as they should (think: stuck in Purgatory) and it puts more pressure on the gates. Asar is using his magic to repair the gates/wards, and Mische is able to use her magic to help him complete the spell repairs faster. Asar is impressed with her magic skills and asks her to help him fix wards because their shadow magic has a connection– potentially because Mische received her shadow-born powers from his brother. Mische is very hesitant though, she does not use her shadow magic as it feels like a betrayal of her sun god. This is despite the fact that her sun/fire powers are very much dwindling. Using the power of the sun also gives her scars all along her arms since she is a vampire, who are naturally opposed to the sun. Asar lets her know that it doesn’t feel like her god really loves her since she receives wounds every time she uses his power, and she ultimately agrees to help since it would benefit their overall mission of retrieving the relics. One night when they are fixing wards, she sees the wraith she recognizes again who is calling out to her to help him. Asar asks her about it and she tells him that his name is Eomin. She keeps to herself that he was a guard at the Citadel where she was a priestess and that they had crushes on one another. But when Mische’s sister, Saescha, caught them brushing elbows she reprimanded Mische because she is a “chosen” follower of Atroxus.
Eventually they reach the sanctum of breath where once they battle their way to the temple there, they are up against Ophelia who clearly knows Asar and is not quite a wraith, but also not alive. Asar stalls her and Mische and Chandra use their powers to retrieve the second relic: poppy petals, from the field where Nyaxia and Alarus had their first kiss.
They make it back to Morthyrn and Elias and Asar get into a fight because Elias recognizes Ophelia and suspects that Asar is doing all of this for her. He tells Asar that they should just turn around and keep the relics they have, that the relics would bring the House of Shadow more power and references how much power it gave the House of Night when they were wielding Alarus’ teeth and blood (book 2). Asar declines and later that night, Mische has a nightmare and runs into Asar. She is upset because she did not see Eomin in the sanctum of breath and is worried about how he will be stuck in the descent forever. Asar is able to show her that he did pass and that he was able to help him do so. He tells her that he goes into the descent to help souls pass by sometimes just listening to them and basically showing them empathy. He is able to figure out in talking with Eomin and helping him pass that he died in the journey with Mische to preach the light of Atroxus to vampires.
“We all have ghosts in our pasts, Iliae. We can’t give them the power to define our futures, too”
Asar, page 225, The Songbird and the Heart of Stone
Throughout the book, we get flashbacks of Mische’s life at the Citadel as a chosen priestess of Atroxus before she was Turned and the “sins” she committed during that time. In these flashbacks, you begin to get a better picture of her relationship with Atroxus and where her crisis of faith began. In one, the acolytes capture a vampire. Mische believes that every soul can have light in it and tries to befriend the vampire in jail. But one day, the other acolytes tie him down in the sun to let the sun kill him as an offering to Atroxus. They hang up his corpse in the courtyard which infuriates Mische and she climbs up and cuts his corpse down.
“Vampires are tainted. They are the product of their goddess’s betrayal.”
“But that isn’t their fault.”
“No, a’mara. It is not. But their goddess is to blame for that. She is the one who damned them to such a fate. There is nothing left in them to save.”
Flashback conversation between Atroxus and Mische, Page 238
The group moves to the sanctum of psyche. As they are making their way, all of a sudden Asar looks down at his arms and he has an heir mark on him, denoting the new rightful ruler of his House of Shadow, and therefore meaning that his father, Raoul, is now dead. Elias steps forward and
…when he finally opened his mouth, it wasn’t to offer allegiance to his new kind or words of mourning for his old one. He just said, “Fucking finally.” and drove his dagger into Asar’s side.
Page 246, The Songbird and the Heart of Stone
He pushes Asar off a cliff and Luce and Mische jump after him into the depths of the sanctum of psyche. Mische sees her life in the citadel before her, specifically her “offering night” to Atroxus where you finally get all the pieces put together that her relationship with Atroxus was more than just a ‘special’/chosen priestess, instead Atroxus had chosen her from the young age of 8 to eventually be one of his wives.
Stay in this moment, before he opens you up and takes you like another meaningless offering, before he leave you alone in a room of gold, staring at the dress he ripped off you and discarded.
Stay in this moment, before you have that little crack of doubt.
Because the doubt would lead to the desperation, and the desperation would lead to mistakes, and the mistakes would lead to my downfall.
Page 251, The Songbird and the Heart of Stone
You also are able to piece together that Mische ended up in the House of Shadow originally to save a vampire soul to the light in order to earn and keep Atroxus’ love because she was doing things to lose his favor and love.
I believed that our god would protect us, that we would find a vampire soul to save in his name, that we would return home heroes. I believed it because I had to. I had to earn his love, and the price to keep it just went higher and higher.
Page 252, The Songbird and the Heart of Stone
She realizes that she is sharing her memories with Asar when Chandra rescues her from the sea she was in. Despite Chandra’s pleas to leave him, Mische turns back to go rescue Asar, but then Chandra is attacked by wraiths. When she tries to save Chandra, she is hit with the memory of what Chandra had done to end up in the jail of Morthryn. Chandra was tasked with being the healer to help vampires in labor, but she would then kill the vampire babies in the name of Atroxus. Mische realizes that she doesn’t have time to save both Chandra and Asar, and being appalled by Chandra, she leaves Chandra to die. As she goes to save Asar, she is able to witness the memories that he is processing, specifically when Malach killed his dog, Luce, and when Asar first attempted necromancy to resurrect the dog. Then it pivots to him meeting Ophelia and ultimately her murder by Malach because he was jealous of Asar. Asar tries to use necromancy on Ophelia, but it fails and turns her into a half-dead/half-alive being.
When they finally get to the temple within the Sanctum of Psyche, Mische finally uses her shadow magic to fight a reflection of herself and gets the next key: a silver ring that Alarus had worn to bind him to the White Pantheon that he removed on his wedding day to Nyaxia. They get out and realize that Elias is gone and had stolen one of the poppy petals. One of the petals missing will not prevent them from resurrecting Alarus, but it likely gives Elias some power like Alarus’ teeth and blood did in book 2.
As they trek to the sanctum of Secrets, they take a break by visiting Esme, Asar’s friend and the former warden of Morthryn who is dead and somehow has a house in the Descent. Esme tries to talk Asar out of his mission and she has a private conversation with Mische about how the burns on her arms will never stop if she remains with her allegiance to Atroxus. Mische and Asar finally have a conversation about the memories they saw of each others, specifically which Asar finally finding out that Mische is a “bride of Atroxus” rather than just a special acolyte or priestess and how messed up the whole relationship between Atroxus and Mische is.
“Because I know what it looks like to be so desperate for redemption, you would sacrifice anything.” …
“You were meant to be bound to a god from the time you were a child? You were meant to be one of hundreds of wives? You were meant to sacrifice yourself for him?”
Asar, page 324-325, The Songbird and the Heart of Stone
“It is an injustice, Mische, that this is what you got when you asked for love,” he [Asar] murmured. “This isn’t what love should feel like.”
It isn’t? I almost said. Because this was what I was taught love was– something you hurt for, something you bled for. You give your god your life, your blood, your virgin body. You give your charges of devotion and never accept theirs. You give and give and give until you have stripped your soul bare.
Page 325-326, The Songbird and the Heart of Stone
Right when you think things might start to get ~steamy~, they are attacked in the house by Ophelia, wraiths, Malach, and Mische’s late sister: Saescha. Esme is able to fight them off so Asar and Mische can escape. As they enter the Sanctum of Secrets, there is a Mische flashback to before her Turning when Atroxus gave her the mission to save a vampire. It seems as though he knows he is sending her on a fool’s mission, but she sees it as redemption and winning him back after she cut down the vampire corpse and disappointed Atroxus.
As they are in the sanctum of secrets, the setting that Mische and Asar see are different. Mische sees a beach in Vostis where the Citadel is and Asar never reveals what he sees. They are both very injured and given there is nothing else living in the underworld, they have no blood to feed on. Mische does not want to feed from Asar because it feels like a complete betrayal to Atroxus but ultimately they both feed from each other, we finally get a ~spicy~ scene and they begin to heal. They make it to the big building within the sanctum where they once again run into Ophelia, Saescha, and Malach. They briefly battle them, but make it into the inner temple where they are safe, but there is an empty box in the center and they think the relic is gone. They decide to wait out in the temple until the coast is clear and Mische tells Asar that it is her fault that Saescha is stuck in the underworld; however, she feels disappointed in Atroxus because of how pious Saescha was and wonders how he could have allowed her to end up there. We finally get THE ~spiciness~ on an altar, and in that scene, they drink each others blood.
“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.”
Page 395, The Songbird and the Heart of Stone
However, the blood spilling upon the altar summons Atroxus who sees Mische being unfaithful to him. He is furious and calls her out, but she asks him why her sister is stuck in the underworld and why he allowed that to happen. He forces her to remember why her sister died which is a memory she had deeply repressed. When Mische was first Turned, she is on the streets looking for her sister and when she finally found her, the bloodlust took over Mische and she kills her sister. Mische begs him to save Saescha and spare Asar when they kill Alarus and he agrees and tells her that the relic is not gone, just to look beneath the surface of the temple. When she finds Asar again, he looks shaken up like herself, but does not tell her what he saw. They find the relic: a golden arrow that was given to Alarus with the intention of killing Nyaxia.
They finally make it to the Sanctum of Soul and Asar tells Mische that he is going to need her help to perform the necromancy. They run into their enemies one more time where Asar kills (a soul death) Malach. As Ophelia is trying to kill Mische, Mische is able to empathize with Ophelia and help her pass peacefully into the Underworld. Asar and Mische start to perform the necromancy spell when Mische finally realizes that Asar is going to sacrifice himself as the soul portion in order to complete the spell because Alarus is his ancestor. Once Asar disappears, Mische keeps holding on to one part of her magic to not let Asar go, when Atroxus appears. Mische realizes that Atroxus wants Alarus dead because the gods have a communal pool of power, and having one of them dead would give Atroxus more power. She ends up taking the golden arrow relic and driving it into Atroxus’ neck killing him. His death shatters the sun and plunges the world into darkness.
This interruption of the spell pulls Asar back, but steals Alarus’ power to Asar. Mische is fatally injured from her fight with Atroxus when Nyaxia appears. She criticizes them for not completing the mission and refuses to heal Mische. The other gods of the White Pantheon appear and chain up Asar until they figure out how to handle him and his power. They toss Mische aside and she dies. She awakens in the Descent (presumably in the sanctum of body) to Vincent (the dead King of the Nightborn– throwback to book 1) telling her that they have work to do.
I realized, as my fading vision took in his tear-streaked face, that Asar would never let me go. Not in life, and not in death. He would shatter it all for me.
Page 481, The Songbird and the Heart of Stone
Songbird and the Heart of Stone Review
This book was SO good. I actually was not sure if I was going to like it because I was not super captured by Mische’s character in book 1 and 2. But her character was such a breath of fresh air to read. Once I started reading it I realized how many books I have read recently with angry female main characters. Mische is optimistic and fun, but is still complex and has depth.
The slow revelation of what her relationship to Atroxus actually consisted of was really well done and I really enjoyed the character development of her learning what love should actually feel like. The book also left on such a good cliff hanger and the connection to book 1 with Vincent was perfect. I also loved the tension between Asar and Mische and slow build to their love.
There are a few things I was starting to get sick of. Every single time we have to run into Ophelia and Malach and have the same fight. I think it would have been more interesting if they had to fight someone in the sanctum that kind of related to something in their past with that sanctum (if that makes sense). It was just that the same battles over and over were getting a little dry.
Also…. random, but, I need to go back and read books 1 and 2 because I swore that I thought that vampires feeding from each other did not do anything? I thought that was why they had to drink blood from animals or humans. Maybe I am misremembering, but I was so confused when Asar and Mische feeding from one another worked.
All of that being said, I give this one a 4/5 stars and I cannot WAIT for the next book to come out in August!
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