Page 2 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

His last words were not,You have beautiful eyes.

His last words were, “End it.”

She was shaking her head, the cold fire in her face fading to dismay.

But he knew he was doing the right thing, and those eyes reassured him. Because they were strong and determined and unique, neither human nor vampire, fierce and thoughtful.

Better than his. More deserving of what would come next.

“End it,” he said, and pulled her wrist.

And he did not look away from those eyes as he died, by the hand of the only person who deserved to kill him.

Maybe the king always knew that his greatest love would be his ruination. Maybe he knew it the moment he met her.

He’d know it the second time he died, too.

1

ORAYA

My father lived in the hazy moments before I opened my eyes every day, caught between waking and dreaming.

I treasured those moments, when my nightmares had faded but they’d yet to be replaced with the grim shadow of reality. I would roll over in silk sheets and draw in a deep inhale of that familiar scent—rose and incense and stone and dust. I was in the bed I had slept in every day for fifteen years, in the room that had always been mine, in the castle I had been raised in, and my father, Vincent, the King of the Nightborn, was alive.

And then I would open my eyes, and the inevitable cruel clarity of consciousness would roll over me, and my father would die all over again.

Those seconds between sleep and waking were the best of the day.

The moment when the memory returned to me was the worst.

Still, it was worth it. I slept whenever I could, just to claw those precious seconds back. But you can’t stop time. Can’t stop death.

I tried not to notice that those seconds grew fewer each time I woke.

This morning, I opened my eyes, and my father was still dead.

BANG BANG BANG.

Whoever was knocking on the door did so with the impatience of someone who had been at it for longer than they’d like.

Whoever was knocking.

I knew who was fucking knocking.

I didn’t move.

Icouldn’tmove, actually, because the grief had seized every one of my muscles. I clenched my jaw, tighter,tighter, until it hurt, until I hoped my teeth cracked. My fists were white-knuckled around the sheets. I could smell the smoke—Nightfire, my magic, eating away at them.

I had been robbed of something precious. Those hazy moments where everything was as it had been.

I slipped from sleep with the image of Vincent’s decimated body still seared into my mind, just as dead and just as mutilated in my sleeping moments as it was in my waking ones.

“Wake up, princess!” The voice was so loud that even with the door closed, it boomed through the room. “I know those catlike senses of yours. You think I don’t know you’re awake? I’d rather you let me in, but I’ll barge in if I have to.”

I hated that voice.

I hated that voice.

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