I might’ve expected his expression to soften, but instead, it grew harder, like I’d offended him.
“You’re made for the sky, Oraya. Never let anyone take that away from you. Of course you’ll fly again.” He released me and returned to my back. Under his breath, he muttered, “Like I’d ever let that happen.”
My exhale was shaky with relief.
“So they’ll heal?”
“It’ll take some time, but they will heal. They already look a hell of a lot better than they did.”
They will heal. I had never heard three more beautiful words. Raihn said them like he’d will it into truth if he had to.
I heard rummaging behind me, and the sound of something unscrewing—a jar, maybe? I tried to look over my shoulder with limited success.
“What’s that?”
“Medicine. You’re due.”
I couldn’t turn enough to see what Raihn held—at least not without more pain than I was interested in—but I eyed the slight glow against the bedside table. It was good stuff, whatever he’d gotten.
There was a long, awkward silence.
“Do you mind if I—?” he asked.
Touch me. He’d have to touch me.
“I could get Mische if you want,” he said, “She’s out right now, but—”
“No,” I said curtly. “It’s fine. You’ve already been doing it, anyway.”
“It’s going to hurt, probably.”
“It’s fi—”
My body seized. My vision went white.
“Fuck,” I breathed.
“Thought it would be better if you didn’t have warning.”
Oh, I recognized that line. I half-smiled, half-grimaced as he moved on to another cut.
“So this is revenge,” I said. “I understand now.”
“Got me. You did a good job patching up my back, though. I’ll return the favor. Promise.”
A lump rose in my throat as I thought about that night for the first time in months—the night Jesmine had tortured Raihn for hours in the wake of the attack against the Moon Palace. So much about the memory now felt… different. More complicated.
“Must have been hard for you that night,” I said.
“Getting stitched up or getting tortured?”
“The questioning. You didn’t break.”
Jesmine’s methods were… thorough. Honed to perfection for their intended purpose, and that purpose was getting information out of unwilling participants.
“I wasn’t lying,” he said. “I wasn’t responsible for the attack on the Moon Palace.”
I peered over my shoulder and shot him a flat look.
He huffed a laugh. “I guess I’ve earned that face. But I’d come too far to let one woman with a knife bring me down.” Then, after a pause, “Well. That woman with a knife. Met another one who was a whole different story.”
I bit my lip as he applied another well-timed dab of medicine, but the pain was a welcome distraction.
“So has it been worth it?” I asked. “Being the Nightborn King.”
His hands paused. Then resumed.
“Does it count as bad bedside manner if you’re the one in bed? Trying to make us both equally uncomfortable?”
I shrugged and immediately regretted the way the movement jostled my wings.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll keep it interesting for you, since I know you need the distraction. Was it worth it? I saved the Rishan people from two centuries of subjugation. I took back what was rightfully mine. I got revenge upon the man who killed thousands of my people. I even get to wear a crown in front of the pricks who once treated me as a slave.”
All things I expected him to say. All things that I knew were true.
“That’s what I would say to anyone else who asked,” he said. “But it’s not anyone asking. It’s you. And you deserve the truth, if you want it.”
He moved on to another wound. I barely felt it.
I’d regret it if I let him keep going. I knew that whatever he said to me would hurt. Would be complicated.
And yet, I said, “One honest thing.”
“I don’t know if it was worth it.” The words came fast, low, in a rough exhale, like they’d been pressing on the backs of his teeth for far too long. “The night Neculai lost his throne, I just wanted to burn it all down. I never wanted... this. Feels like it’s all cursed. This crown. Maybe the only way to survive as a ruler of this place is to become just like the ones who came before you. And that—that terrifies me. I’d kill myself before I let that happen, and I hope that if I couldn’t, you’d do it instead.”
It was more of a confession than I expected. I had to force the lightness into my voice as I said, “I already did that, remember?”
He laughed humorlessly. “I told you that you should have let me stay dead.”
“And what about that? Would that have been worth it?”
Another question I immediately knew I shouldn’t have asked. Another wound, another stab of pain.
“To die, rather than killing you?” he said quietly. “Yes. That would have been worth it. Even I had to draw a line somewhere. And you’re the line, Oraya.”
Mother, I was a fucking masochist. Asking questions with answers I didn’t know what to do with.
He cleared his throat, as if to scrape away the uncomfortable sincerity of those confessions. “I need to adjust your wings. Can you lift them a little?”
I tried to do so, wincing. What I’d intended to be a stretch became an awkward lurch, and the bed creaked as Raihn’s weight fell back.
“Careful, princess. You’re going to take my eye out.”
“They don’t listen to me,” I snapped.
“You’re just adjusting to having two new, giant limbs stuck to your back. When I first got mine, I could barely even walk properly. Just kept drifting to the sides because the weight threw me off.”
I couldn’t help it. That image made me chuckle.
“Sure, laugh,” he grumbled. “We’ll see what your walking looks like soon. Here. Alright if I help?”
I hesitated, then nodded.
“It’s hard at first to figure out how to isolate the right muscles. But…” Gently, so gently, his hands moved to the underside of my wings, where they met my back. “You’re stiff. If you relax your muscles, they won’t fall off. I know it feels like they will.”
His hands slid up, applying gentle pressure along the way, coaxing them to spread. My instinct was to move them myself, but Raihn said, “Don’t you dare. I don’t want to get stabbed in the eye again. Just… relax.”
Another stroke, at that tight knot of muscle. I twitched as his thumb ghosted over my skin.
He stopped immediately.
“Did that hurt?”
I didn’t answer right away. “No.”
No. It was the opposite of hurt. Awkwardly so.
“Do you want me to stop?”
Say yes.
But it had been more than a month since I had felt safe. Longer than that since a touch had felt… comforting.
I found myself answering, “No.”
He resumed, slow, running along the muscle. Even through the thin layer of my shirt, I could feel the warmth of his hands. The roughness of his callouses.
“Just let go of it,” he said softly. “Let me support the weight of them. I’ve got you.”
As if he could hear the inner fight I was having with my subconscious. And slowly, slowly, with the help of his hands braced beneath my wings, the muscles relaxed.