Page 59 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

I knew so damned little of my father.

“Septimus wants us to go there,” Raihn said. “He thinks that Vincent hid something there. Something to do with the god blood.”

“And why does Septimus think this?”

A dark laugh. “I wish I knew how that man knows half the things he does.”

I felt that, too. Especially since I had my own secrets to protect.

“I have to admit,” Raihn said, “it does seem like the perfect hiding spot. Right there on the eastern tip of the House of Night. No one needs to go there for anything. Inaccessible as fuck. Overrun with hellhounds and demons. And Vincent had kept some odd trinkets from there in his chambers, which seems unlike him. The place, from what I hear, is little more than ruins now. Fallen into some disarray since Vincent left it two hundred years ago.”

My brow furrowed in thought. “I think his niece lives there. Or… niece once removed. Twice removed.”

Evelaena? Something like that.

“Right. Another reason why this will be complicated. I don’t think she’ll be very happy to see us.”

To see us?

“We’regoing?”

“What did you think we were going to do? Send a couple of servants to go search for us?”

At my flat stare, Raihn laughed. “My, how you’ve adjusted to royal life, Your Highness.”

“Fuck you,” I muttered.

But then the truth of his words sunk in.Complicated. That was right. No Hiaj would welcome the Rishan king at their gates. Not even accompanied by me. Perhapsespeciallynot accompanied by me, because this was Vincent’s only living relative—who probably thoughtshewould be Heir when Vincent died.

“That was the face I made when I thought about it, too,” Raihn said.

“Tell me we’re taking an army with us.”

“Right, with all those loyal warriors that I have to spare.” He raised his brows at me. “What about you? You plan on calling in some loyal and cooperative Hiaj soldiers to escort us? Or are they all too busy trying to kill my people?”

My face answered his question.

“Exactly,” he said.

“Wouldn’t it be smarter if you stayed here? A king shouldn’t leave his castle unguarded.”

“A king shouldn’t leave his queen unguarded, either, especially not one as prone to getting into trouble as you.” He gave me a sly grin. “Besides, if you think I’m going to miss the chance to get out of this damned place and go get my hands dirty, you don’t know me at all.”

I thought he would say that.

INTERLUDE

Turning is a fate worse than death. It is death, in a way—death of a version of yourself that you will never see again. Born vampires cannot possibly understand, nor are they usually especially inclined to. To them, the turmoil of the Turned is a sign of weakness. A snake, after all, does not mourn its skin.

What they will never understand is how much that skin takes with it.

The man clings to his humanity through every second of his transformation. It must be ripped away from him, stitch by stitch. Turning is a terrible process. It nearly kills him. He loses weeks, months, to illness, taken in an onslaught of delirium. Dreaming of his home. Dreaming of his mistakes. Dreaming of the family he does not yet know he would never see again.

He barely remembers the aftermath of the shipwreck when he emerges from this haze.

The king is beside him, perched at the edge of his bed, watching him with the kind of detached interest that one affords a new pet.

He offers a goblet, and the man gulps it down frantically, liquid spilling down his chin. He has never tasted anything so wonderful—so sweet, so rich, so—

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