Page 37 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

She hesitated, eyes narrowing, questioning it. But I shook my head again, harder this time, a wordless command:Go. Now.

Maybe we could take the Rishan, but if Bloodborn were here now, Jesmine and her people—my people—were about to be decimated.

She crept closer again, the smoke clearing enough for me to see the protest in her eyes—the unspoken,What about you?

I tried to wave her away. The motion was too much. My vision blurred. Darkened.

I didn’t remember losing consciousness. But suddenly, I was flat on the ground, staring into Raihn’s face as he leaned over me. He was saying something I couldn’t make out. It didn’t matter, because I was slipping away before the words left his lips.

I didn’t want his eyes to follow me into unconsciousness.

But they did, anyway.

12

ORAYA

For the first time in weeks, I did not dream of Vincent.

Instead, I dreamed of Raihn, and the way his face looked as he died, and the way my blade felt sliding into his chest.

I dreamed it over, and over, and over again.

* * *

I openedmy eyes to a familiar cerulean glass ceiling. Raihn’s dead face faded away into scattered silver-painted stars.

I tried to move but my body didn’t cooperate, rewarding me with a sharp pain in my side.

“Not yet.”

My chest ached. It hurt to hear Raihn’s voice. It took me a minute to muster up the courage to turn my head—I half expected to see him the way I saw him in my nightmares. Dead, my blade in his chest.

But no, Raihn was very much alive. He was beside my bed, leaning over me. I realized that the sharp pain in my side was because he was dressing my wound, and—

Goddess.

I shifted uncomfortably as I realized that I was topless, save for the bandages wrapped around my chest.

Raihn chuckled. “You were at your most seductive.”

I wished I had a barbed retort for that, but my brain felt like my thoughts were moving through sludge.

“You’ve been given some drugs,” he said. “Give it a minute.”

Mother, my head hurt.

I remembered the attack. Running to the armory. My blade pressed to Raihn’s chest, for the second time.

You want to do it, so do it.

And I didn’t. Couldn’t. Even with his heart right there for the taking.

I could have ended all of this. Could have taken back my father’s throne. Could have avenged his death.

I swallowed, or tried to. As if sensing it, Raihn finished securing the bandage to my side and then handed me a glass.

“Water,” he said.

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