She was wrong.
But she didn’t give me time to tell her so before she threw her arms around me in a brief, fierce hug. “We’ll try again tomorrow,” she said, released me, and strode back into the house without another word.
Days passed. Our routine continued. Ketura arrived from Lahor, tired and battle-weary. She told us that the city had fallen into significant disarray with Evelaena dead, and it had taken some time to get things under control there.
“It was already in significant disarray,” Mische pointed out, which was very true, and I shuddered to think of how much worse it could have gotten.
Ketura added another teacher to my daily training routine, teaching me how to appear and disappear my wings, now that they were healed enough. She, at least, provided a more familiar instruction compared to Mische’s cheerful style—harsh, barked commands that made me appreciate just how brutal of a commander she must be to her soldiers. Still, she was effective—a week later, and I was semi-reliably able to conjure and spirit away my wings on command.
But uneventful as this time was, day by day, the signs of Mische’s unease slowly grew more obvious. I’d often catch her staring out the window, a little wrinkle between her eyebrows, rubbing the scars on her wrists.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel it too. It was too quiet, like we were trapped behind glass, frozen in artificial tranquility, while darkness encroached on the horizon.
One day, when Mische finished tending to the much-improved wounds on my wings, I said, “I think it’s time for us to go back to Sivrinaj.”
She paused before answering, “Raihn told us to wait until he sent for us.”
I scoffed. “And have you heard from him?”
That was an intentionally stupid question. I knew she hadn’t—her quiet anxiety told me that. I told myself this was why I knew, and not because I’d been watching for his letter just as closely.
Mische looked torn.
“You want to go,” I said. “So let’s go. What, Raihn’s king now so he gets to tell us both what to do? Fuck him. I’m the queen. My say counts just as much.”
I said it very confidently, even though we both knew it wasn’t that simple.
Still, at that, she cracked a smile. “I like that attitude.”
I knew she was going to agree. This was, after all, the girl who had run off and joined the Goddess-damned Kejari in order to force Raihn’s hand. But maybe it was a testament to her friendship with Raihn, and her respect for him, that she still had to think about it for a long moment.
But her impatience won out.
“Fine,” she said eventually, just like I knew she would. “You’re right. We can’t just wait around here forever.”
30
ORAYA
Raihn didn’t look happy to see us.
He hadn’t been expecting us to turn up when we did, clearly, even though Ketura had written before we left. The journey was long, especially because we traveled on horseback instead of straining my wings by flying the whole way, for which I was, reluctantly, grateful. We arrived at Sivrinaj nearly a week later, tired and travel-stained, and taken to Raihn’s study to wait for him.
When he opened the door, followed by Vale, Cairis, and Septimus, he paused in the frame for a moment, as if caught off-guard by our presence.
We stared at him, too, just as shocked by his—because he was covered in blood.
It clearly wasn’t his. Spatters of red-black dotted his face and hands, smeared on his fingertips, clinging to his unbound hair. He wore the fine clothes that he always donned in the castle, though they were disheveled, wrinkled on the sleeves where he’d pushed them up to his elbows.
It wasn’t hard to piece together what he’d just been up to. He had rebels to deal with. Rebels needed to be questioned—and punished. Raihn, I knew, was not the type to let others deal with his dirty work.
I’d grown so accustomed to seeing the different masks he’d worn over these last few months—the charmer, the king, the cold-blooded tyrant. Now, at the sight of him like this—blood covered, hair wild, that just-killed sheen in his eye—a visceral familiarity wrenched through me. Like we were in the Kejari all over again.
I wondered if he was thinking the same thing, because the slow, wolfish grin that spread over his lips echoed the one he used to give me in those trials… even if, this time, it took a little too long to reach his eyes.
“You two,” he said, “weren’t supposed to be back yet. I tell you to do one thing, and that thing is just don’t do anything, and you still can’t bring yourselves to listen to me?”
Mische’s nose wrinkled. “You look disgusting.”
“If I’d known you were coming, I’d have taken a bath.”
“No. I don’t think you would have.” She looked him up and down. “Long day, huh?”
The smile softened. “Long week. Long month.”
Then his gaze shifted to me. For a split second, it was just as exposed, revealing just a glimpse of too many emotions. Then the mask was back up, the role reassumed.
“I take it you’re feeling better.”
“Better enough.”
He eyed my wings. His face remained blank, but I still saw the faint glimmer of concern—felt it like I’d felt like his hands on them.
He wasn’t the only one staring.
Vale, Cairis, and Septimus were transfixed by those wings, too, and didn’t bother to hide it. Nor did they hide their wary curiosity, like they were trying to reconcile something that didn’t make sense.
The wings were a symbol of my power. Vincent only left his visible when he needed to remind the world he was the King of the House of Night. And mine were a near-perfect replica of his—that deep black, that blinding Heir red.
I’d made it easy for them to ignore my Heir Mark, hiding it beneath high-necked clothing. But right now, there was no ignoring the wings.
Septimus smiled, taking a puff of his cigarillo.
“You do carry them better when you’re conscious,” he said.
I didn’t like thinking of Septimus seeing me unconscious. Raihn didn’t seem to like it much, either, because he took a step closer to me, as if putting his body between us.
Mische glanced between all of us quietly, noting the obvious awkwardness, before another cheerful grin broke over her face.
“We’re starving,” she said. “Can we eat?”
It took a few solid seconds after Mische’s declaration for me to realize that a vampire had said the word “starving” in my presence and not a single one of them had so much as glanced at me.
Maybe I really was becoming a vampire, after all.
Raihn wiped the blood off his face with the back of his hand, or tried to, largely unsuccessfully. He scowled down at his blood-smeared hand with wrinkles on his blood-smeared forehead, and said, “I’ve worked up a bit of an appetite, too.”
“If you’ll excuse me,” Septimus said, breezing by us. “I’ll pass on dinner. Busy night, I’m afraid.”
He paused at the doorway, looking back at me.