She didn’t have to say anything more. If the debris on the table was all that remained of it, then more than half the blade was missing.
I picked up one of the shards, pressing it to my palm. The magic thrummed against my skin, calling to my blood—Vincent’s presence near, as if his ghost loomed over the corpse of his prized weapon.
Another piece of him gone.
I had so wanted to preserve this weapon—to be worthy of wielding it. When I’d finally managed it, I felt like I’d achieved something he’d always held just out of my grasp, even if I had to do it in his death.
Yes, the sword was powerful. But was that really why it had meant so much to me?
Or was it just another way of chasing the approval of a dead man who couldn’t give it to me?
I didn’t even like wielding rapiers. Never had.
“The magic in it is strong,” Alya said. “It would be a shame to waste it. I couldn’t recreate it from scratch, but we may be able to use the pieces—”
“Could you forge them into something else?” I asked.
They exchanged a glance. “It’d be tough,” Jace said. “But I’ve done harder.”
I opened my palm and let the shard fall to the table with a metallic plink. Vincent’s ghost stepped back into the shadows.
“Could you make them,” I asked, “into dual blades?”
I glanced back at Raihn, and the pride in his face caught me off-guard. His eyes crinkled with a barely-there, knowing smirk.
And Goddess damn him, I could practically hear him saying it:
There she is.
63
ORAYA
Raihn and I left the next day.
The orders had been given. The armies had been rallied. The contingencies had been accounted for. It seemed ridiculous to think there was little more we could do to prepare, but the truth was that time was more precious than planning for outcomes we couldn’t guarantee.
Raihn and I flew off on our own. We’d set up rendezvous points with the other armies, which would be marching out not long after we left. We’d get a small head start, which, we all prayed, would allow us to slip by unnoticed while Simon and Septimus were distracted by the movement of our forces. Having everyone move individually would hopefully mean a much smaller chance of being intercepted.
We left with only sparse supplies, the new blades that Jace and Alya had forged for me at my hips. When they’d presented them to me before we left, I was speechless, cradling the weapons for so long that they exchanged an awkward glance.
“If they won’t work for you—” Alya had started.
“No. No, they’re beautiful.”
Beautiful was a pitiful word, actually, for what these were. Once I’d thought that the Nightborn craftsmanship of the blades Vincent had given me was the epitome of deadly elegance. But these—I’d never seen anything like them before. A mix of vampire and human artistry, the blades seamlessly melded between fresh polished steel and the red shards of what had once been the Taker of Hearts. I’d sketched my previous swords for Jace, and he’d achieved an incredible recreation, tailoring them to my preference in style and weight—the blades slightly curved, and incredibly light.
When my hands folded around those hilts, it felt like coming home. I could still feel the echo of Vincent’s presence when I touched them, but it was only an echo—a part, not the whole.
These felt like mine.
Raihn and I flew for a long time without talking much, keeping an eye out for Rishan spies patrolling the air. I was glad we were leaving Alya’s quickly, because Jesmine and Vale both suspected that Simon either knew where we were or would very soon, given how many resources he and Septimus would be pouring into finding us. Several times, we had to carefully reroute to avoid guards in the skies, hiding ourselves in the clouds.
We weren’t far from our destination. The map on my hand moved with us, shifting in scale and angle to show us our position relative to our target. It was only a day’s travel, even with the convoluted detours.
When dawn approached, we stopped in the desert and pitched a tent, hidden in a rocky area of stone and brush that would hide our location from above. We’d pushed our timing as far as we could on such a cloudless day—the sun was already peeking over the horizon by the time we crawled inside. The shelter was barely big enough for both of us, designed to be temporary and portable.
Raihn let out a grunt as he flopped down on the rough, uneven ground. We hadn’t bothered packing bedrolls—we could sleep anywhere, we figured, for a single day. Better to save the weight.
“Now this,” he said, “is what I expected when I became a king.”
“I’m sure you’ll miss it tomorrow.”
“You’re probably right.”
He was still smiling, but the joke seemed a little less lighthearted.
I lay down beside him, hands folded over my stomach, staring up at the canvas. The fabric was so lightweight that while it kept out the worst of the sun, I could make out the outline of it through the cream fabric, like an all-seeing eye.
I thought about the hundreds of vampire soldiers sleeping today in tents just like this one, staring up at this sky, wondering if they were going to die tonight.
“They must be on their way,” I murmured.
They. The Rishan. The Hiaj. The humans. Simon and Septimus. Everyone.
“Mm. Probably.”
Raihn rolled over. I did the same, so we lay face to face. We were so close that I could see every strand of color in his eyes, faintly illuminated by the light through the canvas. So many disparate strands—brown and purple and blue and red and near-black. I wondered if they’d looked like that when he was human.
I found myself trying to commit them to memory, those eyes. Like coins I wanted to slip into my pocket.
In his presence, I felt safer than I did anywhere else. And yet, sometimes when I looked at him, paralyzing fear seized me, so much sharper than the fear I felt for myself.
In these moments, I thought of what Raihn’s dead body had looked like in the colosseum sands, and I couldn’t breathe.
A wrinkle formed between his brows. His thumb brushed my cheek, then the corner of my mouth.
“What’s that face for, princess?”
I didn’t know how to answer that question. “I’m scared” didn’t say enough and said too much.
Instead of answering, I leaned forward and pressed my mouth against his.
The kiss was more than I had intended it to be. Deeper, softer, slower. He met it with equal fervor, lips melting against mine, tongue caressing me with gentle strokes. So easily, my hands found his face, pulling him closer as his touch fell to my sides. He lowered me to the ground, his body moving over mine, natural as the movement of the ocean over the shore, our kisses never parting.