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665 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 14, 2023
We had a few precious hours until everything changed, for good or for bad.
I wouldn't waste a single one of them on sleep. I spent them counting the freckles on her cheeks, memorizing the pattern of her breaths, watching the flutter of her eyelashes. And when the sun went down, and Oraya stirred and blinked blearily at me with those moon-bright eyes and asked, "Sleep well?" I just kissed her forehead and said, "Perfect."
And I didn't have a single regret.
"“You don’t have more important things to do than play nursemaid?”
“As always, you have such a strange way of saying ‘Thank you.’”
“I’m just…”
Surprised.
He raised an eyebrow. “What if I told you all the nurses are afraid of you? The Nightfire queen who just tried to take down the Rishan army.”
“I’d say that’s smart of them.”
“I know you, Oraya. Don’t tell me you aren’t curious.”
I peered over his shoulder, out the open window to the eerie, desolate skyline beyond.
He smiled. “I thought so. Come on. Let’s go.”
This was a stupid idea.
I took his hand anyway.
"You have nothing but me," I said. "And yet, you'd let me go?"
"I have nothing but you," he murmured. "So I am letting you go."
"I'd spend a lifetime at the tip of your bladem and it would have been worth it."["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>
i cannot describe the depth of that emotion, nor the intensity of the terror that comes with it, bound together so inextricably. i came here to excise my greatest weaknesses, and instead, i now offer my heart to it.
“yours,” i ground out. “it’s yours.”
my blood. my body. my soul.
i had given her all of that a long time ago. i even had given her my life.
and i’d do it all again.
your soul is my soul. your blood is my blood. your heart is my heart.
“let me make you the queen that you are. let me guard your body, your soul, your heart. let me spend the rest of my fucking pathetic life at your mercy. if i need to die, then let me do it by your hand. please.”
i will not lie to you, little serpent.
i was expecting to kill you that night.
but what i was not expecting was to love you so devastatingly much.
so many regrets in the end. never you.
i pick you up. you’re so tiny and fragile in my arms. even though you’re terrified of me, you cling to my neck, like some part of you knows exactly who i am.
i’m already more afraid than i ever have been.
afraid of you and what you could do to me. afraid of the world that could kill you so easily. afraid of myself, gifted with another fragile heart that i know i cannot keep.
but, my little serpent, it is the most wonderful fear.
every minute with you is, even if i already regret all the mistakes i know i will make.
I will not lie to you, little serpent.
I was expecting to kill you that night.
But what I was not expecting was to love you so devastatingly much.
So I choked out, “Raihn,” against his lips, a question, an answer, a plea. Because that name was all those things, wasn’t it? Raihn. My downfall and my most valuable supporter. My weakness and my strength. My worst enemy and the greatest love I had ever known.
All of that in one name. One person. One soul I knew as well as my own, just as confusing, just as flawed.
Maybe it was because I was doing the same. Committing him to memory.
Making sure that every movement, every breath, every sound he made was marked onto my soul.
I wanted to capture him like rainwater. I wanted to savor him like blood. I wanted him to open me and touch everything within me that I’d hidden away from the world.
How could there be so much pleasure in vulnerability? How could there be so much pleasure in fear?
He murmured against my hair, “So you missed me.”
Arrogant prick, I thought. But aloud I said, “I love you."
His arms tightened. “Good. Because now you’re really stuck with me.”
His lips pressed to the top of my head.
And he whispered, “I love you too, Oraya. Goddess fucking help me, I do."
“Let me touch you,” he rasped. And Goddess, yes, he was begging, every word desperate. “Let me feel you. Even though I don’t deserve you. Please.”
"Let me make you the queen that you are. Let me guard your body, your soul, your heart. Let me spend the rest of my fucking pathetic life at yourmercy. If I need to die, then let me do it by your hand. Please."
"And for fuck’s sake, princess, I’m begging you, let me go to my knees for you."
The things you’ve seen here have so tainted your image of me? I meant to give this place all my greatest achievements, my greatest ambitions. Instead, it became a monument to all my greatest mistakes.”
So many mistakes in the end. Never you.
I’m already more afraid than I ever have been.
Afraid of you and what you could do to me. Afraid of the world that could kill you so easily. Afraid of myself, gifted with another fragile heart that I know I cannot keep.
But, my little serpent, it is the most wonderful fear.
Every minute with you is, even if I already regret all the mistakes I know I will make.
Vale and Lilith, now whispering and chuckling to each other like they were the only ones in this ballroom.
A soft smile spread over Mische’s lips. “They’re cute,” she said.
“let me make you the queen that you are. let me guard your body, your soul, your heart. let me spend the rest of my fucking pathetic life at your mercy. if i need to die, then let me do it by your hand. please.”
'i was the heir of the house of night, and i was the daughter of vincent the nightborn king, and i was every bit as powerful as both those things suggested.'
'i was desperate to have something to love. something to care about when i didn’t give a damn about myself.'
“you have nothing but me,” i said. “and yet, you’d let me go?”
“i have nothing but you,” he murmured. “so i am letting you go.”
'i was expecting to kill you that night.
but what i was not expecting was to love you so devastatingly much.'
maybe the king always knew that his greatest love would be his ruination. maybe he knew it the moment he met her.
i was everything i was meant to be. my father’s daughter. victim and protégée. greatest love and ruination.
➻ 'I craved honesty the way a flower craved sunlight. I even craved the pain of it, driven deep into my heart.'
➻ 'Raihn. My downfall and my most valuable supporter. My weakness and my strength. My worst enemy and the greatest love I had ever known.'
➻ “I’d spend a lifetime at the tip of your blade, and it would have been worth it.”
➻“You have destroyed me,” he murmured. “And I have hated every moment of it, too.”
I scoffed. “You’re a dreamer.”
“Couldn’t have made it this far if I wasn’t.”
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 am the Nightborn king,” I said, voice low and deadly. “Do you think I’m going to beg for your respect? I don’t need your respect. Your fear will do. Bow.”
I was everything I was meant to be. My father’s daughter. Victim and protégée. Greatest love and ruination.
His act was meticulous. He embodied the role of conqueror king just as easily as he had embodied the role of human in the pub, and the role of bloodthirsty contestant, and the role of my lover, and the role of my kidnapper.
I liked anger. It was tangible and strong, and it made me feel powerful. But I felt anything but powerful when I was forced to recognize that Raihn— the man who had lied to me, imprisoned me, overthrown my kingdom, and murdered my father— genuinely cared for me.
I’m fucking exhausted. So tired of pretending.
Even then I’d been pretending. Pretending I didn’t feel what he did. The hunger.
I scoffed. “You’d offer me your throat? That’s stupid of you.”
“Maybe. But you do have a fucking exquisite mouth, and an even better tongue.”
Goddess. Now he was definitely teasing me.
“Oh, fuck you,” I muttered.
“And there she is,” he chuckled.
And I missed him too much to hate him the way I wanted to.
And I hated him the most of all for that.
“Your father, Oraya, felt all those things too. He was just as broken as the rest of us, and he was so determined not to acknowledge it that he flayed you with those sharp edges and then berated you for having skin instead of steel.”
“I’m fine,” I said.
Mische said softly, “You don’t have to be fine.”
She said it so simply. Like it was just a truth, nothing to be judged or disagreed with. I knew that she believed it, and in this moment, I loved her fiercely for that.
They were once-grand apartments that were now dusty and rat-infested, with cracked windows that let in flecks of the overnight rain over the tile floor. When Mische pulled back the covers of her bed and several roaches ran out, she simply stared down at it with a look of utter disgust on her face, threw the covers back into place, and said brightly, “This can be Septimus’s room.”
“I came here to excise my greatest weakness, and instead, I now offer up my heart to it.”
❝ Maybe the king always knew that his greatest love would be his ruination. Maybe he knew it the moment he met her.❞
➴ Even young, I knew a wounded pride was better than a wounded body. Better to be ashamed and alive than overconfident and dead.
➴ I hate you because I let you hurt me. I hate you because I grieved you. I hate you because I don’t.
➴ “So what do we have?” “We have us.” “A human and a usurped king,” “No. Two Heirs who won the Mother-damned Kejari.”
➴ We’ll rip apart the worlds that subjugated both of us, and from the ashes we’ll build something new.
➴ I’d tell you to go become something fucking incredible, Oraya, but you already are, and this place doesn’t deserve you. It never has. And I sure as fuck don’t.
➴ “You have nothing but me, and yet, you’d let me go?” “I have nothing but you. So I am letting you go.”
➴ Just want you to know, Oraya, that you were the best part of it. The best part of all of it.