Page 153 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

Even when I asked the question, I knew the answer. My mother was human. Some humans could wield Nyaxia’s magic, but none of them became especially skilled in it, certainly never more than vampires.

Raihn gently pulled apart the pages, leaving us at the final parchment. This one, unlike the others, wasn’t a letter or journal entry. It was a page torn from a book—a diagram of moon phases. At the bottom was a small, silhouetted symbol—a ten-legged spider.

“That’s a symbol of Acaeja,” he said.

Acaeja—the Goddess of the Unknown and Weaver of Fates.

Realization rolled over me as I thought of what Septimus had said about my father. That he’d searched for the god blood. That he’d used seers to help him do it.

Sun fucking take me.

My eyes snapped to Raihn, and he raised his brows in silent confirmation that he’d had the same thought I did.

“What did she do for him?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I—I wish I knew. Months of searching, and this is all I have.”

He sounded frustrated with himself, embarrassed to be offering me so little. And yet, I felt downright gluttonous with all I’d just been given.

I had a name. Goddess, I had aface.

And I had a million questions and a million possibilities.

I picked up the first parchment again—the drawing. My fingertips traced the old ink lines.

He drew this. He drewher.

Why, Vincent?

Did you love her? Did you kidnap her?

Both?

But I heard no voice in my head. Why would I even be able to conjure a fake version of him that was anything but secretive, when that was all he had ever given me in life?

Or maybe his voice had left me, because he knew I didn’t want to hear anything he had to say.

My eyes stung, my throat tight. My thumb caressed that parchment, back and forth. Raihn’s presence beside me felt far too close and yet not close enough.

“She looks like you,” he murmured.

Something about the way he said that hurt. With such admiration. Like there was no greater compliment.

I traced the cascade of dark hair over her shoulder, the straight angle of her nose, the eerily familiar thoughtful downturned slope of her mouth.

“I wish I could give you more,” he said softly. “More than a name. More than a few scraps of paper.”

“Why?” I choked out. “Why did you do this?”

I knew. In my heart, I already knew.

Raihn drew in a long breath, and loosed it slowly. “Because you deserve so much more than what this world has given you. And I know—I know I was a part of that. I took away your ability to get those answers. This isn’t enough. I know it isn’t. But...”

His voice trailed off, a little hopelessly, like he was reaching for words but couldn’t find any. I couldn’t find any, either, past the painful gratefulness that swelled in my chest, pulling tight. Yes, Raihn was right. He had taken away my ability to look Vincent in the eye and demand answers.

But even this, mere scraps of a past, was more than my father had ever given me. It meant something. It meant more than I wished it did.

I could feel Raihn’s stare, even though I kept my gaze dutifully to the bedspread, ashamed of what he might see within it.

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