Page 51 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

After Oraya was gone,I spent a few minutes standing at the window, watching the sun rise over Sivrinaj, the smoky sky turning purple, then pink. The familiar burning at my skin started slow at first, as it always did, and it was almost fully dawn by the time I reluctantly pulled away.

A message had been left for me while I was gone. I picked up the parchment and read it. For a long time, I just stared at it. Then I cursed, shoved it into my pocket, and threw open the door.

I went downstairs, all the way down to the guest wing, staring straight ahead until I reached the one closed door. I pounded on it, not bothering to be polite, continuing even when there was no answer.

“Gods, have a little patience!” a light, cheerful voice came from inside, with a rush of footsteps.

The door swung open.

The moment it did, I said gruffly, “Youaren’t supposed to be—”

But I barely even got those words out before Mische’s face split into a grin that I saw for all of half a second before she threw herself at me.

And damn if it wasn’t good to see a friendly face.

Mische threw her arms around my neck and hugged me like she’d thought she’d never see me again. And of course, I hugged her back, because what was I, a monster?

Her hair had gotten longer, now near her shoulders. The caramel curls still smelled like sweat and the desert from her travel.

“You aren’t supposed to be here,” I said. “Told you not to come.”

I tried to sound very mean and failed.

“Oh, fuck you,” Mische said affectionately, the way someone would say,I missed you too, idiot.

15

RAIHN

“It was boring just wandering around by myself. What else was I supposed to do?”

“Stay out of trouble. Stay away from the capital of a civil war. Go find somewhere safe and relaxing to be.”

Mische’s nose scrunched. “Safeandrelaxing?”

She said this like the thought was ridiculous, and to be fair, anyone who had met Mische even once would know that it was. Mische was the opposite of safe and relaxing. Mische was so impulsive and reckless that sometimes, it genuinely scared me.

Once she finally released me from her chokehold of an embrace, she’d dragged me into her sitting room. She was wearing a dusty white shirt and trousers, still travel-stained. But if she was tired, she didn’t show it, curling up in an armchair and drawing her knees up to her chest as she demanded, wide-eyed, that I tell her everything. She’d heard the biggest news, she said, but she wanted to get it all from me.

There was not a single person in the world I was more comfortable with than Mische. She’d seen me at my worst. And yet… telling her the entire story of what had happened in the final trial of the Kejari and beyond… it was hard. I hadn’t collected all the events in one place like that before. My eyes fell to a particular spot on the carpet as I told her, as sparsely as I could, what had happened.

By the time I was done, Mische’s excitement had turned to such raw, eviscerating sadness that, when I flicked my gaze back to her, it made me choke a laugh.

She looked like she was near tears.

“Ix’s tits, Mish. It’s not that dramatic.”

But Mische just unwound her legs, crossed the room, and gave me one more long hug—this one not the puppy-excited squeeze of a reunion, but the quiet embrace of a supportive friend.

I wriggled away from her grasp.

“I’m alright. And you stink.”

“You can’t lie to me,” she muttered, then sat, cross-legged, on the floor, her chin propped in her hands.

“Seriously, Mische…” I picked at my fingernail. I wasn’t sure if the blood still stuck underneath it was someone else’s or my own from my incessant picking, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave it alone. “Things are rough here. You should go back to the country.”

It was the easy thing for me to say, for me to push Mische out of Sivrinaj, and yet a loud part of myself cursed at me for even saying the words—even knowing, of course, that she wouldn’t listen.

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