Page 217 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

Raihn’s slight hesitation told me more than his answer. “They were still counting, the last I heard from them.”

A lot.

Fuck.

He went on, “We could consider a surrender, but—”

Surrender? To a Rishan noble prick and a Bloodborn snake? No. Never.

I scoffed. “Fuck, no. I’d rather die fighting.”

No, I was sick of this. I’d spent a lifetime bowing before my supposed status as a weak human. Fuck if I’d die that way, too.

Raihn chuckled softly. “Glad you see it that way, too.”

“We need to go back.”

Back to Jesmine and Vale. Back to the armies relying on us, and quickly.

His thumb swept over my shoulder. “I’d tell you to rest longer, but I know better.”

“Would you sit around ifyouwere the one stuck here? This is my fight too.”

“It is,” he said, and I wondered if I imagined that he sounded a little proud.

“Besides,” I said, “I don’t know how much more time we have before Simon and Septimus go after them to finish the job. We need to do something before that.”

The mention of Simon’s name conjured a viscerally vivid image—his monstrous form looming over Raihn, looming over me, that mangled collection of steel and teeth nailed into his chest.

Mother, the look in his eyes—

I knew better than anyone that vampires could be monstrous creatures. I’d witnessed the worst of bloodlust, which reduced them to little more than animals. But whatever Simon had become was a far cry from typical vampire brutality. He had turned himself into something that should not exist at all.

Or more accurately, I suspected, Septimus had turned him into such a thing.

And I had the terrible feeling that what Raihn and I had witnessed—power that put both of our Heir magics to shame—was only a fraction of what it was capable of.

I knew that Raihn and I were having these same thoughts, in the silence that followed.

Finally, he said, “Here. Let me put that on for you.”

He took the bracelet from my still-open palm and gently fastened it around my right wrist—the same hand that bore my mother’s old ring. I flipped my palm over when he was done, looking at the two of them together.

“Perfect match,” Raihn said. “You’ve completed the set.”

They did look nice together. But more than that, it felt good to have one more connection to the past that had been taken from me.

“Thank—”

A sudden shock jolted through me. I gasped, lurching upright, pressing my hand to my chest.

My hand—My chest—

“What?” Raihn was already half-standing, one hand on my arm, ready to call for Alya. “What is it?”

I didn’t even know how to answer that question. I felt…strange. The last time I’d felt this way, it was when I’d looked down to see the Heir Mark tattooed over my chest. My breath came in rapid gasps. My hand, my throat—“burning” wasn’t quite the right word, but they—

I forced my hand away from my throat, splaying it out flat, doing my best to hold it steady through the tremors.

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