Page 19 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

How convenient it would be, if I found a letter tucked away in one of his drawers.My little serpent,it would read.If you’re reading this, then I am gone. It would be unfair for me to leave you with no answers…

But Vincent was not the kind of man who wrote down his secrets. Maybe I’d told myself I was coming here for supplies, but really, I was coming here for answers.

A fucking dream.

Because instead, this was a room that made as little sense as he did. I found nothing here but discarded pieces of him, just as disparate in death as they were in life.

My eyes burned. My chest ached. A sob bubbled up inside of me with such violence that I had to press my hand over my mouth to stifle it.

I never used to cry. Now, it seemed like the more I tried to stop myself, the more viciously it clawed its way out of me.

I choked it down with an ugly sound that I was grateful no one could hear.

No fucking time for this, Oraya,I told myself.This isn’t what you’re here for.

My gaze fell to the center of the desk—the pile of broken glass. That was peculiar. It was mirrored, the shards neatly stacked on top of each other, as if someone had assembled them into a perfectly aligned pile. The metal reminded me of the full moon, silver bright and gleaming with hammered indents that shivered beneath the cold light. Elegant swirls adorned its smooth edge, driving to the center before being interrupted by the jagged edge. I squinted and could make out a faint cast in those carved lines—red-black. Blood…?

Why would he keep this broken trinket here? Right in the middle of his work?

I touched the edge of the top shard—

A gasp ripped through me.

The edge was razor sharp. It sliced open my fingertip, leaving a streak of red rolling to the edge—but I barely noticed either the cut or the pain.

Because the shards began tomove.

In the span of a blink, the shards of glass spread out, locking into place with each other—forming a shallow, mirrored bowl, the drops of my blood rolling down to be cradled in its center.

And yet, as shocking as this was, what left me staggering was the sudden, overwhelming, disorienting sense ofVincent—Vincent as he’d been in this room, standing where I stood, blood spilling into the same bowl. A sudden, intense anxiety rose in my throat, all in broken pieces—fragmented thoughts of cities, generals, Sivrinaj, Salinae, hundreds of feathered wings staked throughout the city walls. Anger and possession and determination, but beneath it all, a powerfulfear.

I yanked my hand away, gasping. I felt nauseous, dizzy.

“Vincent?”

I thought I’d imagined the voice at first.

“Vincent? Highness? I—how can—”

The voice was faint and distorted, as if coming from somewhere very, very far away, and through heavy winds.

But even so, I recognized it.

“Jesmine?” I whispered.

I peered into the bowl again. My blood pooled there, spreading out more than such a small quantity of liquid should have, coating the silver.

I squinted and leaned closer. The flickering reflection of the Nightflame made it hard to see, but was something moving—?

“Oraya?”

The voice—confused—was definitely Jesmine’s. I could barely hear her.

I was now bent over the desk, my forearms braced, my awareness pulled in so many directions—to the faint presence of Jesmine, somewhere many miles away, to the presence of Vincent in the past.

This was a communication tool of some kind. A spell, a—

Voices.

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