Page 38 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

I stared at it, and he scoffed.

“What? You think this is when I’d poison you?”

Honestly? Yes. I’d escaped. I’d fought him. I could only assume that they didn’t know my part in what had happened, or else I’d be chained up in a dungeon right now.

Raihn laughed softly—a sound so oddly warm I felt it run up my spine.

“That face,” he said, shaking his head. “Just drink, alright?”

I was very, very thirsty. So I did.

“Amazing what a close call some foot soldier’s arrow can be,” he muttered.

Raihn was bandaged up, too. He winced a little as he stood—I took a little pride in that, at least. He’d been healed, and well, but the remnants of Nightfire burns remained on his cheeks, and stains of dark blood bloomed through the fabric around his torso from the gash I’d opened.

I swallowed and finally felt like I could speak.

“You don’t have more important things to do than play nursemaid?”

“As always, you have such a strange way of saying ‘Thank you.’”

“I’m just…”

Surprised.

He raised an eyebrow. “What if I told you all the nurses are afraid of you? The Nightfire queen who just tried to take down the Rishan army.”

“I’d say that’s smart of them.”

Stupid of me to play along with this. This pretend version of what we’d been in the Kejari.

My head was killing me. I sat up, hissing an inhale at the pain that shot up my side. Raihn was right. That one soldier got a hell of a shot in.

“It was enhanced with blood magic,” Raihn said, as if he could read my mind.

Fucking Bloodborn.

That final piece of what had happened—the Bloodborn reinforcements arriving—fell over me like a blanket of cold dread. Jesmine’s men were well matched against the Rishan—an equal fight we might have won. But the Bloodborn tipped the scales. They were efficient and brutal.

Raihn stood at my bedchamber window, looking out over the nighttime cityscape of Sivrinaj. I wondered if perhaps he was staring at the Hiaj bodies now no doubt staked through the city walls.

He said nothing, so I said nothing. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of asking.

He turned around after a long moment, staring at me, his hands in his pockets. He looked tired. None of his kingly finery. He looked just like he had when we’d shared an apartment in the Moon Palace. Familiar. The version of him I had thought I knew.

His face was hard, tired.

“I know you want to ask, so I’ll tell you. We didn’t capture any Hiaj. We cleared out a few dozen dead bodies. Just as many Rishan as Hiaj, which should be satisfying to you. Just as it should be satisfying to know that the armory was destroyed. We lost enough valuable weaponry that it’ll take us the better part of a year to replenish the stores.”

I tried not to have any reaction.

It wasn’t satisfying. I’d sacrificed bodies we didn’t have for this. It was something, but it was closer to a draw than the victory I’d craved.

And here I still was. Captive.

Captive… but, oddly, alive.

I frowned down at myself. At the bandages around me, then at the bottles of medicine on the bedside table.

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