The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King (Crowns of Nyaxia Book 2)

Raihn didn’t look happy to see us.

He hadn’t been expecting us to turn up when we did, clearly, even though Ketura had written before we left. The journey was long, especially because we traveled on horseback instead of straining my wings by flying the whole way, for which I was, reluctantly, grateful. We arrived at Sivrinaj nearly a week later, tired and travel-stained, and taken to Raihn’s study to wait for him.

When he opened the door, followed by Vale, Cairis, and Septimus, he paused in the frame for a moment, as if caught off-guard by our presence.

We stared at him, too, just as shocked by his—because he was covered in blood.

It clearly wasn’t his. Spatters of red-black dotted his face and hands, smeared on his fingertips, clinging to his unbound hair. He wore the fine clothes that he always donned in the castle, though they were disheveled, wrinkled on the sleeves where he’d pushed them up to his elbows.

It wasn’t hard to piece together what he’d just been up to. He had rebels to deal with. Rebels needed to be questioned—and punished. Raihn, I knew, was not the type to let others deal with his dirty work.

I’d grown so accustomed to seeing the different masks he’d worn over these last few months—the charmer, the king, the cold-blooded tyrant. Now, at the sight of him like this—blood covered, hair wild, that just-killed sheen in his eye—a visceral familiarity wrenched through me. Like we were in the Kejari all over again.

I wondered if he was thinking the same thing, because the slow, wolfish grin that spread over his lips echoed the one he used to give me in those trials… even if, this time, it took a little too long to reach his eyes.

“You two,” he said, “weren’t supposed to be back yet. I tell you to do one thing, and that thing is just don’t do anything, and you still can’t bring yourselves to listen to me?”

Mische’s nose wrinkled. “You look disgusting.”

“If I’d known you were coming, I’d have taken a bath.”

“No. I don’t think you would have.” She looked him up and down. “Long day, huh?”

The smile softened. “Long week. Long month.”

Then his gaze shifted to me. For a split second, it was just as exposed, revealing just a glimpse of too many emotions. Then the mask was back up, the role reassumed.

“I take it you’re feeling better.”

“Better enough.”

He eyed my wings. His face remained blank, but I still saw the faint glimmer of concern—felt it like I’d felt like his hands on them.

He wasn’t the only one staring.

Vale, Cairis, and Septimus were transfixed by those wings, too, and didn’t bother to hide it. Nor did they hide their wary curiosity, like they were trying to reconcile something that didn’t make sense.

The wings were a symbol of my power. Vincent only left his visible when he needed to remind the world he was the King of the House of Night. And mine were a near-perfect replica of his—that deep black, that blinding Heir red.

I’d made it easy for them to ignore my Heir Mark, hiding it beneath high-necked clothing. But right now, there was no ignoring the wings.

Septimus smiled, taking a puff of his cigarillo.

“You do carry them better when you’re conscious,” he said.

I didn’t like thinking of Septimus seeing me unconscious. Raihn didn’t seem to like it much, either, because he took a step closer to me, as if putting his body between us.

Mische glanced between all of us quietly, noting the obvious awkwardness, before another cheerful grin broke over her face.

“We’re starving,” she said. “Can we eat?”

It took a few solid seconds after Mische’s declaration for me to realize that a vampire had said the word “starving” in my presence and not a single one of them had so much as glanced at me.

Maybe I really was becoming a vampire, after all.

Raihn wiped the blood off his face with the back of his hand, or tried to, largely unsuccessfully. He scowled down at his blood-smeared hand with wrinkles on his blood-smeared forehead, and said, “I’ve worked up a bit of an appetite, too.”

“If you’ll excuse me,” Septimus said, breezing by us. “I’ll pass on dinner. Busy night, I’m afraid.”

He paused at the doorway, looking back at me.

“Good to see you doing better, Oraya,” he said. “We were all very worried.”

Sometimes it seemed like the man didn’t even have footsteps. He was simply gone, without so much as an echo behind him.

Raihn didn’t even clean up before we all went to the dinner table. I considered not attending—I still didn’t like to be around feeding vampires, vampire blood or no—but when I realized that Vale, Cairis, and Ketura would be there, the logistical benefit was just too great to pass up. I’d spent far too long wrapped up in my own grief and anger to actually do anything useful. And sitting at dinner with Raihn and his highest-ranking advisors was useful.

I was, of course, directed to a seat beside Raihn, though he barely looked at me when I sat. He seemed to be deliberately paying less attention to me, which was awkwardly noticeable. It had the obnoxious effect of making me more aware of him than I already was.

The others were given elaborate plates of bloody-rare meat, and, of course, enormous goblets of blood, which Mische chugged down immediately—royal table manners be damned. Raihn disappeared for a few minutes as the servants laid the table, then returned.

I eyed him. “Thought you were going to clean yourself up.”

Flecks of vampire blood still covered his face.

He winked at me. “Don’t pretend you’re offended by a little bloodshed.”

But I knew a message when I saw one. Raihn was letting himself be seen as the slaughterer. Someone who killed and didn’t even care enough to wipe the remnants of his victim off his face afterwards.

So… he didn’t trust his own inner circle. Interesting.

A few minutes later, my plate was brought out and set before me. I somewhat dreaded digging into the near-raw meat that the others had been given. But I also wasn’t about to highlight all the ways I was different by turning it away, either.

But at my first bite—

Sun fucking take me. I must’ve been hungrier than I’d thought, because this was incredible. I barely stopped myself from letting out an audible noise—surprise, pleasure, or both.

I could feel Raihn’s eyes on me. I glanced at him. He looked oddly smug. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said casually, and turned back to his food.

The realization dawned on me.

Oh, for fuck’s sake. So he was a good cook. So what.

I didn’t give him the satisfaction of acknowledging aloud how delicious it was.

Didn’t stop eating, though, either.

“So.” Raihn leaned back in his chair, taking a long swig of blood. “Cairis. You had something you wanted to talk about.”

Cairis glanced around the table, then pointedly at me, and then at Raihn. “Here?”

“Here. I think Vale will be interested in your idea.”

Vale looked like he was already dreading whatever this was going to be. His wife, on the other hand, seemed like her interest was piqued. She was a very openly curious person, and I appreciated that. Maybe because it was a deeply human trait. I wondered how much she understood of this conversation—she was a foreigner, and her Obitraen, from what I’d heard, was not very strong yet.

“If you insist,” Cairis said, and turned to Vale. “We need an event.”

Vale stared flatly back at him. “An event.”

“Something big. Something with a lot of flash. Something to provide an excuse for us to invite all the nobles to Sivrinaj and flaunt the king’s significant and awe-inspiring power, and whatnot.”

Vale looked unconvinced, and Cairis leaned across the table.

“Wars aren’t just fought on the battlefield, Vale.”

“Unfortunately not. But I’m not thrilled to hear what any of this has to do with me.”

“The event will be your wedding celebration.”

Vale let out a breath through his teeth and an immediate, forceful, “No.”

“Come on, Vale.” Raihn arched a brow. “You don’t want the best party planner in Obitraes throwing your wedding for you?”

Despite Raihn’s joking tone, I got the impression that no one was really giving Vale—or Lilith, for that matter—a choice in the matter.

Vale gave Cairis a dagger stare. “We’re already married.”

“So what? It’s just the celebration. Besides, does it really count without all the… sparkle?”

Cairis waved his hands in the air, as if to demonstrate the proverbial sparkle.

Vale looked pissed.

Lilith looked around with a wrinkle of genuine confusion between her brows, like she was putting a lot more effort than her husband into understanding this.

“Why us?” she said, in heavily accented Obitraen.

“Wonderful question.” Cairis took a long sip of wine, then set the goblet down hard. “Because Vale, unlike the rest of us dogs, is a true Nightborn Rishan noble. He has a name that commands respect among the Rishan who have the most… we’ll call it apprehension… about the king’s rule.” He smiled. “And a wedding is always a nice, non-political celebration, isn’t it?”

I’d seen the aftermath of enough vampire weddings to know that was certainly untrue.

“No,” Vale said, returning to his food.

“I’m not giving you an option on this one, Vale,” Raihn said. So very deliberately casual, in all the ways that told me nothing was casual about this conversation.

Vale set down his fork. He stilled, staring unblinking at Raihn.

“Lilith is foreign and Turned,” he said, between his teeth. “This isn’t the high-ranking political marriage you seem to think it is.”

“Unfortunately,” Cairis said, “it’s the best we’ve got.”

Vale’s eyes, amber gold, fell to me. “Is that really true? We have the king’s own marriage we could celebrate.”

Raihn’s calculated disinterest fell away like a discarded cloak. He sat up straight.

“That,” he said, “isn’t an option.”

And thank the fucking Mother for it. I’d sooner kill myself than put myself at the center of that kind of spectacle.

Anyway, everyone at the table knew that that would be a terrible idea. I was no great political mind, but even I knew that presenting my marriage to Raihn as anything other than straightforward and settled would be a mistake. The fact that I was still breathing already cast doubt upon Raihn’s ability to rule.

And besides, I was supposed to be something closer to a slave than a wife. Not a prize to be celebrated, but an enemy to be humiliated.

Even Vale knew this. He winced a little, as if mentally bracing for the response.

“And you know exactly why.” Raihn’s voice was harsh, leaving no room for argument. “This isn’t a debate. You are doing this.”

Vale’s self-control briefly warred across his face, but his temper won out. “You know what they’re like. I refuse to put Lilith at their feet.”

Raihn let out a bark of a laugh, such a cruel and vicious sound I felt it up my spine. “They?” he spat. Suddenly he was on his feet, palms planted on the table, eyes brighter than flames. “You are one of them, Vale. I saw you be one of them for the better part of a fucking century. And you had no problem with their behavior then. But now you have a Turned wife, so everything has changed? Now it affects yours, so you can be moved to care? Don’t feed me that bullshit.”

No performances here. That was all real. More real, I suspected, than Raihn wanted it to be.

Vale’s body was rigid. Tension drew tight in the air, all of us balancing on its edge. I was half certain that Vale was about to lunge across the table at Raihn. My hands drifted to my blades on instinct—ridiculous, because what was I going to do, leap to Raihn’s defense?

But then Lilith jumped to her feet, shattering the breathless suspension.

“Stop,” she said. “This is a stupid fight.”

I wasn’t expecting it. My brows lurched without my permission. Mische let out a laugh that seemed mostly unintentional.

Lilith looked around the table before her gaze settled on Raihn.

“The House of Night needs this?”

The anger drained from Raihn’s expression when he looked at Lilith.

“Yes,” he said, voice immediately softer. “I wouldn’t be doing it otherwise. I promise you that.”

No more performances here, either. The truth. It should have been surprising, for a vampire king to speak to a former human foreigner with more respect than his high-ranking noble general. And yet it didn’t surprise me at all.

Lilith considered this, nodding slowly.

“I am not afraid,” she said.

Vale grabbed her hand, as if trying to drag her back to her seat.

“Lilith—” he grumbled.

But despite her fractured Obitraen, Lilith’s tone was final, her stare not breaking from Raihn’s. “If it is what the House of Night needs,” she said, “then we will do it. That is it.”