Page 10 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

If one or two refused to bow, I could handle that. But Heir Mark or no, I needed some loyalty from my nobles, especially if I ever wanted to get out from beneath Bloodborn control. Ifallof them refused—

The door burst open, the slam against the walls splitting the silence like a sword through flesh.

Vale stood in the doorway.

I never thought I would be relieved to see that man. But Ix’s tits, I had to physically stop myself from letting out a sigh of relief.

He took in the scene—me, the crowd, the advisors, Martas’s bloody body—and immediately strung together what he’d just walked into.

He strode purposefully into the room, so fast his long dark waves flew out behind him. The crowd parted for him. A woman followed him, then lingered at the back of the crowd, looking around the throne room with wide, curious eyes, curly chestnut hair piled atop her head.

“My king,” Vale said, as he approached the dais. “I apologize for my tardiness.”

Before me, he immediately dropped into a smooth kneel—right at the center of the crowd, right into the pool of Martas’s seeping blood.

“Highness.” His voice boomed through the throne room. He knew exactly what he was doing—knew to make himself as visible as possible. “You have my sword, my blood, my life. I swear to you my loyalty and my service. It is my greatest honor to serve as your Head of War.”

A strange echo of the past in those words. The last time I’d heard Vale say them, it was to Neculai. Inwardly, I cringed at hearing them directed at me.

Outwardly, I accepted them as if they were nothing but what was expected.

I lifted my gaze to the others, waiting.

Vale was a noble. He was respected. He’d just tipped some precarious scale.

Slowly at first, and then in a wave, the other nobles lowered into bows.

This was exactly what I’d wanted. Needed. And yet, the sight made me so viscerally uncomfortable. I was all at once very conscious of the crown on my head, worn by centuries of kings before me, kings who were cursed to rules of cruelty and paranoia. Kings I had killed, directly or indirectly, just like they had killed the ones who came before them.

I couldn’t help myself. I glanced over my shoulder again—just for a split second, barely long enough for anyone to notice.

Oraya’s eyes skewered me. Like she was seeing that little shard of dark honesty, stripped bare.

I looked away quickly, but that stare stayed with me, anyway.

3

ORAYA

The look on Raihn’s face lingered with me longer than I wish it did. Why would he give me that? Something so honest.

I hated that I knew it was honest.

I was ushered out of the throne room quickly after that, Raihn striding away without giving his nobles a second glance, casual in a way that I knew was calculated. Ketura’s guards flanked me, and Raihn walked several steps ahead, though I could see the whitened knuckles at his side. He didn’t even say a word to me as Cairis, Ketura, and the noble—his new Head of War?—flocked around him, the group of them disappearing down a side hallway while the guards ushered me to the staircase that led back to my rooms.

Septimus joined me several steps up. I smelled him before I heard him. He walked silently, but that damned cigarillo smoke gave him away.

“Well that,” he said, “was interesting, wasn’t it?”

He eyed the guards, who had visibly stiffened in his presence.

“Oh, pardon my rudeness. Am I interrupting?”

The guards said nothing. As always.

Septimus smirked, satisfied with this non-answer.

“I knew your husband’s past was a subject of… we’ll call it controversy, among the Rishan nobles,” he went on, to me. “But I have to say, that exceeded my expectations. Suppose I’ll probably have to call in more troops from the House of Blood.” He flicked ash to the marble staircase, grinding it under his heel. “Looks like the Rishan won’t be much help, if that’s the best they have to offer.”

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