Page 9 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

My smile disappeared.

I no longer found it fun to toy with him.

I had been keeping everything about this meeting calculated, deliberate. But now I moved on nothing but impulse.

“I appreciate your honesty,” I said calmly. “And I appreciate Simon’s.”

I stepped down the stairs in two long strides and placed my hands gently on either side of Martas’s face. He really did look so damned similar to how he had centuries ago.

Maybe people never changed.

I hadfeltdifferent ever since Nyaxia restored the power of the Rishan heir line. I’d felt something change in me from the moment Neculai died, but I’d been able to stifle that power, subdue it into something easier to control and less likely to draw attention. But ever since that night, my magic had surged back with an uncontrollable force, like Nyaxia’s gift had ripped open a new vein of it.

It was actually something of a relief to use it at full force again.

I let it go.

Asteris was both exhausting and exhilarating to use. It felt like the raw power of the stars bursting through my skin, tearing through my body.

It tore through Martas’s, too.

The room went white, then black, then snapped back into an unpleasant sharpness.

Warmth spattered over me. A dullTHUMPcut through the silence, as a broken, crushed body fell to the floor in a pile of silk.

The light faded, revealing a sea of shocked, silent faces. I held Martas’s head, the features twisted into satisfying confusion. Now,thatwas a new expression for him.

A few people near the front of the crowd took several quick steps back to avoid the pool of black blood spreading over the marble. There was no screaming, no hysterics. Vampires, even vampire nobles, were well accustomed to bloodshed. They weren’t horrified, no, but they were surprised.

Maybe it was unwise to murder the brother of my most powerful noble.

In this moment, I didn’t care. I felt nothing but satisfaction. I wasn’t built for this bullshit—the preening, the parties, the politics. But this? The killing?

I was good at that. Felt good to give it to someone who deserved it.

I glanced over my shoulder. I wasn’t sure why—I did it without thinking.

The look on Oraya’s face struck me.

Satisfaction. Bloodthirsty satisfaction.

The first time in weeks I’d seen something that looked like fight in her eyes. Goddess, I could’ve fucking wept for it.

There she is,I thought.

And something about the way she stared at me, right in the eyes, speared through my costume and my performance. I could practically hear her saying it, too:There he is.

I turned back to the crowd, stepping backwards up the dais steps.

“I am the Nightborn King,” I said, voice low and deadly. “Do you think I’m going to beg for your respect? I don’t need your respect. Your fear will do.Bow.”

And I let the head fall with a sickening wetthump, rolling down the stairs right into his former body. Fittingly, the position it had fallen into did indeed resemble a bow of prostration.

The nobles stared. The world held its breath.

Iheld my breath, and tried desperately not to show it.

I was walking a very thin line here. Vampires respected brutality, but only from the right people. I wasn’t one of the right people. Maybe I never would be.

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