Page 36 of Flame and Starlight

“It helps that I’m not worried about a little human girl wandering around trying to get herself

killed. You can take care of yourself now.”

I rolled my eyes and tugged him over to the first stall. It was filled with rings, bracelets, and

necklaces, all adorned with beautiful gemstones. A shimmering white opal ring caught my eye. “That’s beautiful,” I gushed to the seller. “Do you make these?” She smiled and nodded, her lilac

eyes lighting up with my praise.

“Charge it to my account, please.” Her smile grew, showing her sharp white teeth, and I whipped

my head around to him as he picked it up. “Which finger?” I held my right hand up and flipped him

off. He laughed and slid it on. “That’s a great way to say thank you.”

“Thank you,” I said. And I meant it. It was beautiful. He shrugged and offered me his arm again. “To answer your question more seriously,” he said as I eyed all the trinkets and crafts. “It does, in

fact, help that I know you’re strong enough to take care of yourself. But it’s also nice to get out of my

court and my worries for a few days. I know Emric is keeping an eye on things. This is a vacation for

me, too.”

“I get that.” We walked up to a small red cart with a male shoving warm sugared pecans into

bags. Asher bought a bag and handed it to me after he took a few in his palm.

“Can I ask you something personal?” I shoved a couple of pecans in my mouth and looked up at

him.

“I’m surprised you even asked permission.”

I rolled my eyes and groaned. Those pecans were a small piece of heaven.

“I know you told me about your tattoos to scare me.” I felt him stiffen under my grip, but I pushed

on. “But you didn’t tell me the reason behind them all. The reason you had to do what you did.

Because I think that maybe there was a reason behind each of them. Maybe it’s not the most moral

reason, but I have a hard time believing you murdered people for fun.”

He sighed. “A couple centuries ago, there was a war. And I fought in it.” He took a breath. “And I

was good at it. The monster that Theron had created inside of me reared its ugly head. I fought

alongside my family, my real family. But any blood relative I had left perished in that war. So that’s

how I got my title, through bloodshed and loss.” Each sentence came out short and clipped. Like he

couldn’t get it out of his mouth quickly enough. I looked at each stall we passed, but I wasn’t really

seeing anything.

“What was the war fought over?”

He gave a harsh laugh. “What is any war fought over? Egos and territory.” I nodded. “Each tattoo

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