Damn my pride, but I wasn’t about to say those words aloud, especially not to Vale.
It was the truth, though. I didn’t have a concrete theory. I didn’t think Septimus would openly turn against us—at least, not yet. He’d locked himself into this alliance, too. He’d have to work harder at getting out of it than this.
But sometimes, there’s just something in the air.
I sniffed and shot Vale a wry smirk. “You smell that?”
“What?”
“Blood.”
I leaned back against the stone wall, my hands in my pockets. “I’ll stay here tonight.”
“But—”
“Pull whoever we can spare from their posts throughout the rest of the city. Put them here.”
A pause. I could tell that he wanted to call me stupid for staying here personally, even if—especially if—I suspected something might happen.
But he just said, “As you wish, Highness.”
And without another argument, he spread his silver wings and launched into the sky with a whoosh. I lifted my chin and stared after him as he disappeared into the soupy mists.
I settled at the stone lip of the wall and unsheathed my sword. It had been a while, but there was a comforting familiarity to the way my muscles had to move to wield it. I lay the blade over my lap, taking in the dark steel, the faint red smoke rolling from the blade. I knew it by heart. Like an old friend.
I almost wanted something to go wrong tonight. Give me something to kill. I missed it. It was simple, easy, straightforward. The opposite of these last few weeks.
At least, it used to be.
The memory of Vincent’s face in his final moments flitted across my mind, unwelcome. Nothing simple about that.
I pushed that thought away, leaning back and watching the thick clouds drift across the sky. Waiting for something. Even if I didn’t know what.
Let them come.
I was looking forward to it.
9
ORAYA
I knew something was wrong before the explosion hit.
I was no stranger to gazing longingly out this bedchamber window. An entire life locked in this room had that effect. But these last couple of weeks, I’d been doing more than gazing. I’d been waiting.
Waiting for a mass exodus of Bloodborn and Rishan soldiers.
Waiting for a mass exodus that didn’t come.
The Bloodborn left a few days ago, and though it wasn’t quite the scale of movement that I’d been expecting by the way I’d heard them talking, it was enough to keep me hopeful. I’d thought the Rishan would be following tonight.
But hours passed, and the Rishan didn’t move. A knot of unease tightened in my stomach as I watched and waited, growing with every passing minute. I tried to use the mirror again, this time to warn Jesmine, but was met with nothing but misty clouds in my pool of blood. Apparently, she’d already moved. The attack was already underway.
Soon, I was pacing the length of the windows, eyes glued to the armory in the distance, mind racing.
Jesmine was a strong, competent general, I told myself. She wouldn’t have moved unless she had verified that she had a path to success. And the conditions of the night were ideal. Cloudy, to hide Hiaj flying in the skies. Many of the Bloodborn had left. That was something. It just wasn’t the skeleton force that I’d been expecting. Unless I’d missed something.
But Vincent whispered in my ear, You know better, little serpent, than to be willfully ignorant.
No. He was right. I stopped at the window, fingertips pressed to the glass. Something had changed. The Bloodborn that had pulled out certainly wouldn’t be enough to take a city like Misrada.
And—
The explosion wiped away all my thoughts.
It was loud—so powerful I felt it in the pads of my fingers against the glass, even from across the city. A burst of shimmery smoke erupted from the distant armory in a plume of white and blue.
I watched, breathless, as the flare of light burst, then dimmed. I hadn’t seen anything quite like it since…
Since the attack on the Moon Palace, many months ago.
Jesmine. Fucking brilliant. Petty. But brilliant. She’d used magic wielders to recreate the destruction of the Moon Palace, creating a violent distraction. I didn’t blink as distant silhouettes plummeted through the clouds and smoke—countless Hiaj, diving down into the wreckage.
The sight chilled me down to my bones.
I needed to get down there.
I needed to get down there right now.
The explosion had triggered an eruption of activity in the halls beyond my chamber. I ran to my door and leaned against it, listening to the frantic sound of distant running footsteps and shouting voices. Then I pounded at the oak, so hard my fist began to ache.
Whoever was on the other side took a long time to open it, like they weren’t sure whether it was a good idea.
A young Rishan man with wavy blond hair and a look of general bewilderment on his face stood there, looking as if he was immediately regretting his decision.
I blinked. “You aren’t Ketura.”
When I had a guard, it was most often her.
“No,” he said. “I’m Killan.”
If Ketura wasn’t here, that meant that she had been pulled away somewhere else. Perhaps she was already at the armory.
Shit.
“Let me through,” I said, already moving, but Killan clumsily blocked my path. I craned my head to see several more soldiers, donning armor, rushing down the hall.
“I am your queen,” I snarled. “Let me pass.”
Let’s see if all Raihn’s you-aren’t-a-prisoner-you’re-a-queen bullshit actually meant anything.
“I can’t do that, Highness,” Killan said. “I’ve been instructed to guard you. It’s dangerous out there.”
I’ve been instructed to guard you, the boy said, like I didn’t see his nostrils flaring when I got too close. He wasn’t equipped to guard anything. He didn’t even know how to resist the smell of human blood.
If this was all that was left in this castle, that meant they were really desperate.
I took a step backwards. Two.
Killan loosened a visible exhale of relief.
Remember who you are, Vincent whispered.
What the hell was I doing, asking this boy for permission to leave? Letting him think he could guard me?
I’d won the Goddess-damned Kejari. I’d won battles against vampire warriors twice my size and ten times my age. I was the daughter of Vincent of the Nightborn, the greatest king to rule the House of Night, and I was his rightful Heir, and I was better than this.
Mother, I had missed anger. I embraced it now like welcoming an old lover back into my arms.
Nightfire roared to my fingertips and tore up my forearms.
It wasn’t hard to deal with Killan. The boy had probably never even hit another living thing with that sword, and he certainly wasn’t prepared for me to be the first. The touch of Nightfire had him gasping in pain, bloodless wounds opening over his arms where I grabbed him and flung him against the wall. He tried to fight back, weakly, but I knocked his sword from his grasp, sending it clanging to the marble floor.
It felt so good to fight again. So good I wanted him to push back harder. I wanted more of a challenge.