Page 83 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

I let out a hiss of pain. Drops of my blood, bright human red, smeared against the fungus as the veinlike cords slithered back around the heart. It momentarily seemed as if the wings were flexing, stretching—an illusion of shifting muscles.

Then the fibers pulled away, retreating along the walls of the ruins, and the thing that had so resembled a heart opened.

Warmth suffused the air. The red glow drenched the shadows. I stared into it, blinking, forcing my eyes to adjust.

The heart had shifted, now mimicking open, cupped hands. At its center was a crescent moon of polished, gleaming silver, painfully white against the fading red surrounding it. It was perhaps the size of my palm, the two tips sharp as blades—so sharp that at first, I thought that maybe it was intended to be a weapon, until I noticed the delicate silver chain attached to one end.

A pendant.

Once the light faded, it was unremarkable, if very pretty.

I reached for it—

* * *

My father’sblood is hot and slick on my hands. The wings are still warm. I need to keep wiping the blood on my shirt. I look like what I am—a monster, just like the ones that crawl through the ruins of Lahor every night.

I do not have regrets.

This is not what the historians will write one day about me.

No one will remember the names or faces of the children that I killed tonight. A Nightborn tradition of power, killing children. My father killed my younger brother minutes after he drew his first breath. I was sixteen years old when I watched him throw that little bloody wad of fabric over the railing, feeding it to the demons circling below. He always made it clear that I was to function as his heir, but never as a threat.

I hid so carefully, all these years. Tramped down every scrap of my power. Endured every abuse. I did it all with a placid stare on my face, never letting him see the hatred beneath.

It was not useful to hate my father. It was useful to learn from him.

So I learned.

It was so satisfying to see it on his face when he realized his mistake. That he had underestimated me my entire life.

Whenever I think of the faces of the children, my nieces and nephews and cousins, I replace them with that of my father. The realization of his hubris, his miscalculation.

It made every year in this shithole worth it.

I think only of my father as I nail his wings to the wall, muttering spells beneath my breath.

I think only of my father.

I think of the Kejari.

I think of a crown on my head.

I do not have regrets.

I do not have regrets.

* * *

I couldn’t breathe.My stomach churned. I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t feel.

My hand hurt—Mother, my hand hurt so fucking much. It was that pain that rooted me back to the world, and I clung to it. I forced my eyes open. My vision was blurry, as if I’d just been staring directly into the sun, though this tower was still dim with only the warm beginnings of sunrise slipping through the shattered stone.

I looked down.

My hand was covered in blood. I flipped it over to see that I’d been clutching the pendant, so tightly that the sharp edges had carved a perfect imprint of the crescent moon into my palm.

What the hell had just—

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