Page 235 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

I pull my hand away.

* * *

I felt sick.I didn’t even come back to awareness this time until the wall was already down, and I had fallen to the floor with it. I was on my hands and knees on the stone, retching. I’d eaten very little today. Nothing had come up but a few spatters of putrid liquid.

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and raised my head.

Now the only thing that stood before me was the column. Column—no, that wasn’t a strong enough word for it. An obelisk. The carvings on this one were, I could see now, a little different than those in the rest of the cave, even if I couldn’t fully articulate how—the strokes a little messier, the circles a little more crooked. The Nightfire had dimmed—or did I imagine that the room was darker now? The angry red glow of the carvings seemed more aggressive with each of my heartbeats, matching them in cadence.

My father’s memories—hurt, anger, fear—burned in my veins. The terrifying dual-blade of his love and his disgust for my mother. I hated feeling it.

I hatedhimfor feeling it.

I stared at that obelisk. I blinked and a tear rolled down my cheek.

I didn’t want to.

The memories, the emotions, had only grown more intense as I moved to the center of the room. I was losing my grip on myself. This, I feared, might break me. Worse, it might break whatever fragile image I still had of the father that I’d loved—the father that had loved me.

What a fucking coward it made me, to still treasure that, after everything.

But I came here for a reason. There was only one place to go next. One remaining piece of the lock.

I stood, swaying on my feet. Stepped into the final circle.

I didn’t need to open the gash again. My hand was already covered in blood.

I laid it against the stone.

70

RAIHN

My wings wouldn’t work. I couldn’t slow myself, stop myself, before the ground rose up to hit me.

Pain. I tried to move. Something cracked.

I couldn’t make my eyes open. When I tried, a face I hadn’t seen in a very, very long time leaned over me.

My brow furrowed.

Nessanyn?

She looked just as she had two hundred years ago, curly dark hair falling around her face as she leaned down next to me. Her eyes, chestnut-dark and a million miles deep, stared hard into me, wet with tears.

Who wins?she asked, voice cracking.Who wins, if you fight him?

She’d said it to me so many times, back then. Countless times, dragging me back from the line every time I thought I would cross it.

I’d always thought that Nessanyn was so much stronger than I was.

But now, in this version of her, it seemed so obvious that she was just terrified. She was a lonely and abused woman who was a prisoner in her own marriage.

She didn’t fight because she was too afraid. Because it took a stupid kind of courage to keep fighting even when you knew every odd was stacked against you.

I reached out and touched her chin. She grabbed my hand and held it there, a tear rolling down her cheek.

Who wins?she said again.

---