Page 145 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

Raihn.

I glanced at the table, which had the male Bloodborn’s arm slumped against it, like he had been reaching for something in his final moments. Just beyond his grasp was a long object, wrapped in white silk. Immediately, I recognized it. They’d taken it from my room.

Vincent’s sword. The Taker of Hearts.

This time, I didn’t hesitate. I sheathed my blades and unwrapped the sword. When my hand closed around the hilt, it didn’t hurt at all. Mother, how could I ever have thought it hurt? This wasn’t pain. This was power.

This is what you were always meant to be, my little serpent,Vincent whispered in my ear.

I flinched at the sound of his voice—so much more real whenever I touched this sword.

But he was right.

This is what I was always meant to be. And he’d hidden that from me. He’d stifled me. He’d lied to me. He gave me his power and then spent twenty years making me small and afraid and telling me how weak I was.

And yet, as I drew the blade, a lump of painful grief rose in my throat.

I was everything I was meant to be.

My father’s daughter. Victim and protégée. Greatest love and ruination.

I did not know how to reconcile all those things. Suddenly I no longer cared to. It didn’t matter what he had wanted of me.

I had his power.

Nightfire rolled up the delicate blade like the sun setting blaze to the horizon.

I didn’t even have to consciously call to my wings. Suddenly they were out, and spread, and the air was rushing around me as I roared out the door and into the hall, the wind burning away the tears in my eyes.

* * *

Where are you?

I had been taken to the basement of the castle. I slipped into the tunnels that so few people knew how to navigate like I did—the tunnels that Vincent had hoped might one day save him from a coup just like this one. Sounds of bloodshed echoed in the walls, as if the castle itself was moaning and screaming in its final death throes. Some of the doors I passed had blood seeping beneath them, dark and slippery on the stone landings.

I ran, and ran, and didn’t stop—didn’t stop to think, didn’t stop to question why I was sticking my throat out to save him. I didn’t know. I wouldn’t know. All I knew was that the truth of it stood before me, an inevitable action.

Where are you?

The castle had dungeons. But Raihn was a king. Not only a king, but a king who was reviled by the man who intended to take his crown.

I knew exactly what Simon thought of Raihn. Turned. Slave. Tainted. He thought Raihn was only fit to be used by people like him—not the other way around.

Simon needed a show of strength. He wanted to put Raihn in his place in front of everyone. Just like Vincent had once lined the city with Rishan bodies on stakes.

Vampires didn’t kill for practicality. They killed for joy. Retribution. Spectacle. Fear.

You don’t do that in a dungeon. You don’t do that quietly in a back hallway.

Where are you?

I ran up the stairs. My thighs burned.

I kept thinking of Vincent, and all those Rishan wings pinned to the walls of Sivrinaj.

All the times he’d hung some poor bastard who defied him out in front of the castle.

Where are you?

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