Page 197 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

We had to be ready.

“You should be getting some rest,” a familiar voice said behind me. “I hear it’s a big night.”

I peered over my shoulder to see Raihn peeking through the flap of the tent.

I put my finger to my lips. “You’ll wake Mische.”

No one got their own tent. We’d rather spend our energy carrying weapons than supplies. That meant the warriors—us included—were packed three or four to a tent for the hours we were forced to rest. Raihn and I spent that time wedged in with Mische and Ketura, trying to sleep while also dodging Mische’s flailing limbs.

Raihn slipped from the tent, closing the flap behind him. When my eyebrows jumped, he raised his hands. “Relax. I’m in the shade.”

He was. Kind of. The tent blocked the strongest of the light, and it was a hazy day today. The shadows were long now, sunset approaching.

Still seemed like an unnecessary risk. But then again, I also knew there was no point trying to tell Raihn to avoid the sun.

I scooted backward, so I was sitting beside him. He squinted out over the horizon, taking in the same view of Sivrinaj that I’d just been admiring.

“Looks small from out here,” he murmured.

I nodded.

“The first time I saw Sivrinaj,” he said, “it was when I was dragging myself out of the ocean. I thought I’d crossed into another world. Even the biggest cities I’d been to were nothing like this. I thought,Thank the fucking gods. I’m saved.”

I shuddered a little. Raihn, of course, had not been saved. He’d been walking into his own prison.

It was hard to imagine that version of him. The sailor from nowhere, who had never seen anything as grand as Sivrinaj’s castle. Just a broken, frightened human man who didn’t want to die.

I could remember so clearly the way Raihn’s voice had cracked when he’d told me this story the first time.

He asked me if I wanted to live,he had told me.What the hell kind of a question was that? Of course I wanted to live.

“Do you wish you’d said no?” I murmured.

I didn’t even need to specify what I was talking about.

He took a long time to respond.

“I cursed myself for that answer,” he said at last, “for a long, long time. Death would have been better than those next seventy years. But... maybe there’s something to be said for the years that came after that.” His eyes flicked to me, crinkling slightly with an almost-smile. “Maybe even the years that come after this one.”

The corner of my mouth twitched. His brow flattened.

“What’s that face for?”

“Nothing. It’s just... a very optimistic thing for you to say.”

He threw his hands up. “Well fuck, if we can’t be even a little optimistic, what are we doing any of this for?”

It was, I had to admit, a fair point.

“So you think we can do this,” I said, my gaze slipping back to the city. “Tomorrow.”

Optimism wasn’t exactly what I got from his long silence.

“We’d better,” he said.

“It’s just quiet,” I said. “It’s...”

“Unnerving.”

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