Page 54 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

Never before had I ever been able to move about this castle freely. Never.

That was… a strange realization.

“Isn’t it nice to see you out and about?”

I tried very hard not to show that I’d startled, and failed. I turned to see Septimus bowing his head in apology. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

It sure seemed like he did, the way he slunk around like that.

“I’m glad you came around,” he said. “I heard you’ve agreed to help us on our little mission.”

“You say that like I had a choice.”

He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “Still. Better this way. Forcing you would have been difficult for everyone. I expect especially difficult for your husband.”

I hated it when people referred to Raihn that way. For the first time in my life, I was grateful for my too-expressive face. The sneer of disgust that flitted over the bridge of my nose before I could stop it.

I had a role to play, after all.

I’m the brute king, and you’re the prisoner wife who hates me.

Septimus chuckled. “I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong end ofthat,” he said. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a cigarillo box. He slid it open, then hesitated, his hand hovering over the row of neat black rolls. A strange look came over his face—rigid stillness, like a wave of ice had fallen across his features.

My brow furrowed, my gaze following his—to his hand over that box, frozen mid-movement, like his muscles had locked without his permission. His ring finger lurched in erratic spurts that shook his entire hand.

For several long seconds, we stared at his hand.

Then, he smoothly switched the box to his other hand, swiftly withdrew a cigarillo, and held it between his teeth as he put the box away again.

It was like the moment had never existed. He winked at me, smile smooth and charming and forever unbothered.

“Have fun training,” he said. “I’ll leave you to it. We’re going to have a busy few months ahead.”

And he sauntered off without another word.

* * *

Fine.I was out of shape.

It felt good to have my blades back again, but restoring that piece of my routine had only made it more obvious how much had changed. I had gone from a life of moving all day, every day, to lying in my bed staring at the ceiling. It was amazing how much conditioning could decay in a month.

A month. More than that. It hadn’t really hit me how long it had been, until I physically felt the way my body had changed in that time.

With every panting breath, every drill, every strike against the stiff fabric of the training dummy, it dug a little deeper.

A month.

More than a full cycle of the moon that my father had been dead.

I tried to outrun this thought. Tried to make my muscles hurt more so my heart hurt less. It didn’t work. The thoughts still chased me.

A month.

And I’d just made an alliance with the man who murdered him.

And now I’d cracked open the door to a single innocuous thought, and before I could stop myself, it was becoming something monstrous.

A month.

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