Page 113 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

I came up behind them in the hallway, where Vale was whispering to Lilith in Dheran.

“Mind if I cut in?”

The look Vale gave me probably had been used to gut disobedient warriors on the battlefield.

“Of course,” he said.

“Ketura wanted to talk to you.”

“Can it wait?”

I smiled. “Better not to keep her waiting. She might bite.”

Excuses aside, that was true.

Vale glanced at Lilith, and I said, “I have a few minutes. I can escort Lilith back to her room.”

He still didn’t move.

Fair enough for Vale to be protective of his wife—he was right for that. But the suspicion in his expression went beyond your typical possessive newlywed behavior. Fitting suspicion, maybe, for someone who lived in Neculai’s court for so long—even if in a very different capacity than I did. Neculai took everything for himself, willingly or not.

One might’ve thought it would be a little satisfying to be looked at with that kind of wariness by a noble. Instead, it made me deeply uneasy.

“She’ll be safe,” I said. A little bit of a lilting joke. A little bit of genuine reassurance. “Promise.”

Reluctantly—and with a small nod from Lilith—Vale left.

I gestured down the hall, and Lilith and I set off in silence.

She definitely was an unusual woman. I fought a bemused smile when she spent the entire length of the first hallway staring at me outright—not just the typical curious glances, but actuallystaring, and doing absolutely nothing to hide it.

“You’ll walk into a wall if you don’t look where you’re going,” I said, in Dheran.

At that, she almostdidwalk into a wall.

She smiled. “You speak Dheran.”

“A little out of practice,” I said.

Goddess, I hadn’t spoken my own mother tongue in centuries. The syllables now felt uncomfortable on my tongue. Maybe because I felt like a very different man when I spoke them.

Her brows lowered, as if in deep thought. “Because you’re Turned. Vale told me that.”

I really did struggle to stifle my laugh at that one. Cairis had complained about her bluntness, but I found it oddly refreshing. I’d never once had someone so directly say something so rude.

At my reaction, her brows lowered. “That was impolite,” she said, though she said it as if it was a guess, like she really wasn’t sure how to read the expression on my face.

“No. It’s true. I was born in Pachnai. Very human, at the time. And you’re from...?”

“Adcova.”

“I haven’t heard of it.”

“No one has.”

“Do you like what you’ve seen of Obitraes so far?”

“It’s… it’s unlike any place I’ve ever been. It’s beautiful and dark and intriguing—” Her eyes went far off, staring straight ahead, as if far past the wall at the end of the hall and beyond. “I imagine I could spend a lifetime here and not see all it has to offer. The history in this place, and the—”

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