Page 68 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

“Oh, yes. So many of us. And then there were none.”

“Why did he let you live?” I asked. “Because your birth position couldn’t threaten him?”

Evelaena laughed, like I’d just said something very charming and foolish. “Birth position didn’t matter. My uncle was a very thorough man.”

Then, before I knew what was happening, she reached for the straps of her dress and slid them off her shoulders. The light fabric pooled around her waist, leaving her torso and breasts bare—and revealing a star-shaped scar right between them.

“He didn’t let me live,” she said. “He dragged me out from under there and put his sword through my chest. I lay right here beside my brother and sister’s bodies. I thought my playmates and I would go to the next world together.” She smiled serenely. “But the Mother was with me that night. The Mother chose me to live.”

Goddess.

I asked, “How old were you?”

“Five summers, perhaps.”

My throat thickened.

I knew what Vincent was capable of. It shouldn’t have shocked me—disgusted me—to think of him slaughtering children when he slaughtered the rest of his family. And yet, the knowledge thatthiswas the truth hiding behind his nonchalant non-answers, behind his matter-of-fact acceptance…

I have never hidden from you,Vincent whispered in my ear,the fact that power is a bloody, bloody business, my little serpent.

No. But it had taken me far too long to look closely at what that meant.

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” I said quietly.

Evelaena’s strange solemnity broke, melting back to her wine-dipped euphoria. A grin spread across her bloodstained mouth. “I’m not. It all went as the Mother wanted it to. And it wasn’t so very horrible, considering all that we gained.”

It was horrible, though. It was so horrible I had to bite my tongue hard to keep from saying so.

“I know he knew that, too,” she said. “That I survived for a reason. To look after Lahor. Someone needed to. But he was so very busy. I never received any answers to my letters.”

Her gaze fell back to me, piqued with interest I’d spent my entire life learning how to recognize. “Strange, how no one knew that his blood ran in yours.”

She took a step closer, and I took a step backward.

“How strange of him,” she murmured. “To let a daughter live, the closest link to his line, when so many had been sentenced to death for much lesser crimes.” Her eyelashes fluttered. Another step—she was now so close I could feel her body heat from her bare skin, vampire-delicate.

“Half human, yes?” she whispered. “I can smell it.” Her fingers reached for my cheek, my jaw, my throat—

My hand fell to my blade.

“Step back, Evelaena.”

Her nose brushed mine, eyes lifting as her full lips curled. “We’re family.”

If I had to take her down now, I’d have to stab her right in the center of her chest—right over the scar that my father had left on her when she was only a child. What sickening poetic justice.

I didn’t want to kill Evelaena—at least, not yet. We hadn’t even come close to getting what we came here for, and who knew what chaos killing the lady of the house would unleash.

I said firmly, “Step back.”

She didn’t move.

“There you are.”

I never thought I would ever again be grateful to hear that voice. And yet, here I was.

Raihn leaned against the doorframe, taking in the scene with an expression that told me I was absolutely going to hear more about this when we were alone.

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