Текст книги "The Ashes & the Star-Cursed King"

Автор книги: Carissa Broadbent

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Текущая страница: 35 (всего у книги 37 страниц)

78

ORAYA

I was nervous.

I stood in front of the mirror for a borderline embarrassing amount of time.

I could admit that I looked good. A small army of servants had seen to that, painting my face, smoothing my hair, pinching and prodding my body so that every swell swelled and every dip dipped in all the right places in this dress. Though, I definitely couldn’t take credit for making this thing look good. It was nothing short of a work of art. Even more magnificent, somehow, than the one I’d worn at Vale and Lilith’s wedding.

It was dark purple, nearly black, and tailored close to my body. It was scandalously revealing—cut low enough to reveal the dimples at the base of my spine, and plunging in the front, the bodice dipping between my breasts. It was designed to frame both my Marks, and it did that very well, the shape complementing every curve and point of the tattoos. The bodice was boned with deep red that echoed the color of the Marks, and those bones, at my hips, gave way to dots of scattered silver that resembled stars, growing thicker as they reached the skirt.

It rivaled the craftsmanship of every weapon I’d ever held.

And I did look every bit a queen. As I should.

The first few weeks of our joint reign had been tense, uncertain. But over the last month, Raihn and I had worked hard to cement our rule over the House of Night. The traitors had been sentenced. The Bloodborn had been expelled. Rebellious nobles had been deposed.

No one had come for our heads.

Yet.

But tonight was the first major festival to take place since the end of the war. Raihn and I would appear before the most respected of vampire society, and we’d make our offering to Nyaxia for the new lunar year. We’d need to be...

Royal.

Fucking royal, when one year ago, I’d spent this holiday barred up in my room, forbidden by Vincent to come to the festivities. It had been just a few short weeks before the start of the Kejari.

Little did I know, then, how close I was to everything changing.

I knew Raihn was approaching before I heard his footsteps. I often did, now.

He appeared behind me in the mirror, peering through the open doorway. He let out a low whistle.

“Really?” I said, turning around and examining the dress from the back. “You think so?”

“What the hell else would I think?”

He approached, and I watched him through the mirror. Goddess, the tailors were damned artists. His outfit complemented mine, cut from the same shade of deep purple cloth, the cuffs and the collar adorned with the same star accents.

It was also incredibly flattering. The jacket was shaped impeccably to his body. The buttons started low, leaving the top open to reveal deliberate glimpses of his Mark. Along with a decidedly noticeable expanse of muscled flesh.

“You know,” Raihn said, “it’s very easy for me to tell now when you’re doing that.”

“Doing what?” I said innocently.

He was one to talk. As if I didn’t also feel his eyes on my chest.

I turned around to face him. My fingertips ran down his throat, tracing the lines of his Mark all the way down to the soft hair of his chest. I thought of the night of the Halfmoon ball, when he’d opened his jacket for me and practically offered up his heart.

Are you going to kill me, princess?

Turned out that answer was yes.

He tipped my chin up. “You look too good to be this nervous.”

“It seems like whenever I look this good, something terrible happens.”

He choked a laugh. “You may have a point there. I’ve survived a few coups now and you looking good was a factor in at least two of them.”

Bloodshed and ballgowns. They really went together.

But I wasn’t ready to joke about it. The memory of the wedding was still too fresh. That, too, had been a grand gesture to show off the power of a new regime to its most important subjects.

And look at how that had ended.

Raihn swept his thumb over the wrinkle on my brow. “What’s that face for?”

I stared at him, deadpan, because he knew what that face was for.

“Nothing to be nervous about,” he said.

My eyebrows lowered, because fuck that bullshit, I knew he was nervous too.

He sighed. “Fine. You have me. But I’m feeling better already, because if you walk in there wearing that face, it’ll put any doubts about our brutal, terrifying power to rest.”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

“There we go.”

He smiled. Even though I could still feel the unease beneath it, the expression tugged deep in my chest. There was genuine happiness in that smile. Something a little looser, that hadn’t existed when we’d first met.

I remembered the first time I’d heard Raihn laugh, and it had struck me because I didn’t know it was possible for anyone to laugh like that—so freely. He smiled like that too. Totally un-vampiric.

I couldn’t help but return it.

A knock rang out at the door. Ketura poked her head in.

“The moon is rising,” she said. “Everyone’s ready for you.”

Raihn glanced at me and raised his brows, as if to say, Well, this is it.

I took his arm and very subtly wiped the sweat from my palms on his sleeve.

“Nice,” he muttered into my ear, as we followed Ketura out the door.

Raihn and I were led to the balcony of the castle. Not long ago, Raihn had been strung up here to die. Now, we would stand here to address our people.

This feast was always one of Sivrinaj’s grandest, and this year’s was especially grand besides. In light of our current unique circumstances, we’d decided to open it up more than usual, allowing citizens of Sivrinaj into the outer reaches of the palace grounds. Within the innermost walls, the nobles and officials gathered—all those, of course, who had sworn loyalty to the new king and queen. A crowd of Hiaj, Rishan, and human, alike.

A year ago—hell, months ago—such a thing would have been incomprehensible.

A year ago, the thought of even being among all these people, with my throat exposed, would have been paralyzing.

A wave of that terror passed over me as Raihn and I approached the doorway and I saw the sea of faces beneath—hundreds, maybe thousands. I paused at the silver arch, dizzy. Raihn’s hand found the small of my back, his thumb swirling a single comforting circle on bare skin.

He leaned close to me, his lips brushing my ear.

“You’re safe,” he murmured.

Seemed like some kind of magic, that he always made me believe him.

I straightened my back, wound my fingers through his, and strode out to greet my people alongside him.

Somewhere below, voices rang out in perfect unison:

“Announcing, on this blessed eve, the arrival of the King and Queen of the House of Night!”

The words shivered through the air, hanging there like smoke. They slithered over my skin. I felt Raihn flinch at them, too, like the reality of them struck him in a way he wasn’t expecting.

A ripple of movement, as all those countless eyes turned to us.

I stopped breathing.

And I still didn’t breathe—couldn’t—as all those people, Rishan, Hiaj, and human, lowered into bows, like a wave rolling across the sea.

Goddess help me.

What a sight it was.

I let out a shaky exhale. I was grateful for Raihn’s hand, clutching mine so hard it trembled.

He glanced at me through the corner of his eye, crinkled slightly with a smile of relief.

I muttered, quietly enough for only him to hear, “And you didn’t even have to rip off anyone’s head.”

Raihn stifled his chuckle.

The ceremony itself was brief—no vampire wanted to spend more time watching a bunch of religious ritual more than they wanted to spend it eating and drinking and fucking. The feast was to commemorate the end of one lunar year and the beginning of a new one. I’d seen Vincent perform this rite only once before, and I’d had to sneak out to do it, watching from the rooftop of a nearby building and quietly creeping away before anyone could smell me.

It was, needless to say, very different when you were at the center of it.

Raihn and I had to give Nyaxia three offerings.

First, wine—to thank her for the abundance of the year and ask for abundance in the next. We held the glass goblet up together, raising it to the sky, our magic urging the liquid from the glass in an eel-like swirl of deep red and sending it to the stars above.

Then, the bone of an enemy—in appreciation for her protection, and in request for continued strength. We had more than enough to pick from this year, but it seemed particularly appropriate to offer her one of Simon’s—a finger bone. We held the polished piece of ivory up to the sky, and with a flash of black light, Raihn’s Asteris reduced it to dust, swept away in the wind.

And finally, we would offer her our blood. This was the most important of the three offerings, the one that signaled our eternal loyalty and devotion. She had made our blood what it was, the scriptures said, and thus we would offer it back to her as a sign of our fealty.

Tonight, this seemed a little redundant, given just how much of it we’d spilled for her over the last few months, but neither of us was going to complain about a little more.

Raihn and I made this offering together, our blood shared. We used my blade—because of course, I still carried them everywhere—to open cuts across our palms. Then we pressed our hands together and cupped them. When we lifted them to the night sky, we offered Nyaxia a pool of mingling crimson and black.

Traditionally, Nyaxia would take this offering herself, calling the blood up to the stars.

But now, nothing happened.

Long seconds passed. Raihn and I both grew silently more tense.

If Nyaxia didn’t accept the offering, it would make a terrible impression on such an important night. I was prepared to fake it if I had to. It was all a show, after all. Our magic was more than capable of convincingly swirling some blood around in the air.

But finally—after what felt like an eternity, but was only seconds—the blood rose. It danced against the velvet-black like an unfurling wisp of liquid smoke, before being consumed by the darkness.

Raihn and I let out simultaneous exhales of relief.

The spectators, oblivious, broke into applause, mostly cheering that they were now free to go feast and drink. We turned to address them, raising our hands in celebration and thanks, and we looked every bit the picture of the royalty we were supposed to be.

But my eyes drifted up to the night sky, where swirls of odd, gleaming clouds lingered, like clustered fragments of moonlight.

And for some reason, Acaeja’s warning rang out in my mind:

There will come a day when Nyaxia will bring a reckoning.

Not today. Not tomorrow.

But it will come.

Then I blinked, and the strange clouds disappeared—like they’d never existed at all, just another figment of my imagination.

79

RAIHN

The feast was one for the record books. Historians would, one day, write about this party, though they’d have to make some things up, because if they were there, they were probably too drunk to remember it firsthand. It was almost a shame that Cairis wasn’t around to appreciate it. He’d have been impressed.

After the ceremony, Oraya and I were thrown into engagement after engagement, shuffled around by Vale and Lilith from one set of nobles to another, making deadly-polite conversation and making sure all the right people knew just how frightening and powerful we were.

I preferred the Kejari. I was much more comfortable fighting with swords than words. Still, Oraya and I both turned out to be better at this than we thought. The hours wore on, and the event was, by all accounts, a success.

It was the small hours of the morning by the time I finally managed to slip away from my obligations. Oraya and I had gotten separated some time ago—Vale dragging me one way and Jesmine dragging her another—but one of the many benefits of the Coriatis bond was that I now always knew when Oraya was safe and when she wasn’t. I sensed no hint of distress, so instead of fighting through the crowd to look for her and risking getting pulled aside by yet another Rishan noble, I decided to find someone I actually wanted to talk to.

It was never that hard to find Mische at these types of events. She was always either near the food or the flowers. This time, I found her near the flowers. She’d wandered away from the main party, walking through the garden’s blooming shrubberies. When I came across her, she was staring into a wall of blossoms, silhouetted against them.

I’d paused for a moment, my smile fading.

Something about the image was so... sad.

“Careful where you wander unannounced out here,” I said, approaching her. “There are at least a dozen couples fucking somewhere in this maze.”

She laughed a little as she turned to me. A bit of my concern eased when I saw the overflowing plate of food in her hand. If she’d been empty-handed, I’d know we were really in trouble.

“Surprised you’re not one of them,” she said.

“Yet.”

That thought distracted me briefly. I was joking, but also, it wasn’t a bad idea.

She scoffed, then took a bite of a pastry. “That went well,” she said, through a mouthful. “The ceremony. The party, too. I haven’t seen anyone die yet.”

I wasn’t sure if that was the measure of a successful royal vampire party or an unsuccessful one.

But that thought faded away as I watched her. She was now carefully avoiding eye contact, looking very interested in the flowers.

“Thought you were done keeping secrets from me, Mish,” I said.

She stopped mid-chew. Then turned to me, wide-eyed, dismayed.

“She said she wouldn’t tell you!”

She?

My eyes narrowed. “She?”

Mische’s eyes widened more. “Fuck,” she hissed.

“Right. Fuck. Who’s she? Oraya?”

“I’ve got to go look at the—”

She started to turn away, but I grabbed her elbow.

“Mische. What the hell is wrong?”

She let out a long sigh, then turned back to me. “I just—I didn’t want to do this here.”

“Do what?”

I hated when suspicions were confirmed. Mische hadn’t been herself the last few weeks. She hadn’t been the same since the prince. Or—who was I kidding? She hadn’t been the same since the Moon Palace. My gaze fell to her arms, and the long gloves covering the burn scars she didn’t let anyone see—even me.

“What, Mische?” I asked, more gently.

She nudged food around her plate with her fork. “I’m... I decided I’m going to go away for a while.”

My heart sank.

“Away? Where?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Everywhere. Anywhere.”

“We already did that. You and I. We saw everything worth seeing.”

“We never made it to the Lotus Islands.”

“I have. They’re not that great.”

She still wouldn’t look at me.

“Mische, if this is because of the House of Shadow—” I started.

“It’s not,” she said, too quickly. “It’s—argh.” She winced, squeezing her eyes shut, then set her plate down on a stone wall.

“Whatever the House of Shadow does, we will deal with it,” I said, voice low. And fuck, I meant that. “We’ll protect you. I’d never, never, let them—”

“I know,” she said. “Trust me, I know. It’s not about that.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Well—” She shrugged, opening her hands. “You have to. I was never meant for staying still, Raihn. You know that. Not even—before.”

Funny how hundreds of years later, she still stumbled over it every time she referenced her Turning.

But she was right. I did know that. That’s why Mische and I had made such good companions for so long. We were running from a lot together. Content to spend eternity letting the wind take us where it would.

“I thought that, too,” I said. “But...”

My voice trailed off. Because I hadn’t really thought about it this way before—that I actually felt like I had a home now, beside Oraya. I didn’t have to run from anything anymore.

For all the times I’d reassured Oraya about her safety, I’d never felt safe myself. Not until, I realized, now.

“This can be good, Mische,” I said. “You have a home here.”

She smiled weakly. “You have a home here. This isn’t my home.”

But, I wanted to say, I thought your home was always with me.

But none of this was about me.

For a long time, Mische had been my little sister. I’d treated her as something to be protected. But she wasn’t a child. She was an adult, and a damned capable one.

“When?” I said.

“Not for a while still. I told Oraya maybe a few weeks—”

Oraya. Oh, I’d almost forgotten about that interesting little bit.

“Speaking of Oraya,” I said, “why do I have to start talking to my wife to find out what’s going on in your head?”

Mische shrugged and said casually, “Maybe I just like her better than you.”

I touched my chest and made an exaggerated expression of pain. Such a casual, fatal shot.

She laughed, and I was so grateful for the sound I didn’t even care about the insult. Hell, I was glad she felt comfortable talking to Oraya, if she wasn’t going to be comfortable talking to me.

But her laughter faded. “It was just... easier,” she admitted. “It’s just... It’s you and me, you know?”

I did know. I understood exactly. Sometimes she and I were so close we couldn’t really see or understand each other.

“And,” she added, “I just didn’t want to see you make that face. That sad face.”

The sad face?

“Did I make it?” I asked.

“Yes. It was heartbreaking.”

I wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

“Listen, Mische... I will always support you going where you want to go and doing what you want to do with your life. And yes, I’ll miss the hell out of you.”

Ix’s tits, I really would miss her.

“But if this is what you really want, then who am I to question that? You said this place isn’t your home. But it can be. A home is somewhere you come back to. And if you really feel like you need to leave, that’s fine. But this place—us—we will always be here for you to come back to.”

Her eyes, big and round, gleamed in the moonlight. Her lip wobbled slightly.

The sad face. Goddess damn it.

“None of that bullshit,” I grumbled. “You said a few more weeks. We can do this then.”

But before the words were out of my mouth, she threw herself against me in a hug. I grumbled, but folded my arms around her anyway, squeezing her tight.

A few weeks, I reminded myself.

Hell if I wasn’t grateful for them.

Saying goodbye to Mische would be like saying goodbye to an entire version of myself. Wasn’t sure I was ready to do it tonight.

“Thanks,” she murmured.

For everything.

I knew exactly what she meant.

I knew it, because I felt it, too.

“It’s nothing,” I said. Even though we both knew it wasn’t true.

That was enough uncomfortably blatant emotion for Mische and me. We’d said all there was to say, and Mische wandered off, significantly lighter, to go find more food, leaving me alone to wander the gardens. I took a few minutes of solitude, collecting myself.

I hadn’t had much quiet time, lately. It was actually nice. Even if it was occasionally punctuated by the vocal moans of one couple or another from the shrubs.

Eventually, I decided to go find Oraya. I wondered if she was still trapped in conversations with nobles, or if she’d finally managed to extract herself, too.

Just as this thought crossed my mind, I turned a corner to see her standing at one of the garden walls, looking out over the festivities below.

I stopped short.

I couldn’t help it. I needed to just take a minute to look at her. Her wings were out now, the red shockingly vibrant even under the moonlight. Her gown glittered like the night sky itself. And her posture—she held herself like such a queen.

Sometimes, I found it impossible to imagine how Oraya had ever thought of herself as helpless. She was the most powerful person I’d ever met.

I approached her. She turned before I made it to her side, and the little smile she gave me eased the remaining lingering tension in my chest.

“You escaped,” I said.

“So did you.”

“In a way. I found Mische instead.”

Maybe it was the bond that told Oraya what that meant, or maybe it was my face, or maybe both, because she cringed slightly.

“Oh.”

“Mhm.”

“Are you alright?”

I shrugged. “She’s her own person. If that’s what she needs to do, that’s what she needs to do.”

Oraya stared hard at me in a way that told me she knew I wasn’t feeling quite so nonchalant about the whole thing. I sighed.

“A few weeks is a few weeks. We’ll deal with it then.”

I took a drink of my wine, and then frowned down at it, wishing it was something more satisfying.

Oraya followed my gaze.

“I think this party is hosting itself at this point,” she remarked, looking out over the crowd. Then she met my eye with a playful, knowing glint. “Do you want to go somewhere more fun?”

No hesitation.

“Fuck, yes.”