I didn’t.
Raihn could not come with me where I was going, either, and I knew he wanted to stop me just as much.
Neither of us gave in.
I had no choice but to walk through that door, and no choice but to do it alone. Raihn had no choice but to lead the people who had followed him into the shadow of death, and no choice but to be the only one who might—might—be able to hold off Simon long enough for me to secure this weapon.
Neither of us had chosen our roles. But they were a part of us anyway, seared onto our souls as clearly as the Marks on our skin.
It’s hard to describe the sound of thousands of wings. A low, ominous, rolling roar, like thunder rising in a slow build. I was a child the last time I’d heard it, peering out the window to see the wings blotting out the moon.
I’d lost everyone that day.
They were approaching fast. When I spoke again, I had to raise my voice over the din.
“Give them fucking hell,” I said. “Alright? Don’t you dare let him win.”
The corner of his mouth quirked. “I don’t plan on it.”
I started to turn away, because the pressure in my chest was too much, the words I couldn’t say too heavy. But he grabbed my wrist and pulled me back, holding me close in a brief, fierce embrace.
“I love you,” he said, in a single, urgent breath. “I just—I need you to know that. I love you, Oraya.”
And then he kissed me once, roughly, messily, and he was gone before I had the chance to say anything else.
Just leaving me standing there, swaying, with those three words.
I love you.
They lingered too long. I wasn’t sure if it was them or the magic that made me so dizzy, unsteady on my feet, chest tight, eyes burning.
I watched Raihn’s silhouette rise into the air, soaring toward that wall of darkness.
A single speck, against a wave.
Suddenly, I felt so incredibly small. Like the human Vincent had always told me I was, helpless and weak, in a world that would always despise me. How did I get here, standing at the foot of my father’s legacy, fighting to rule the kingdom he told me I couldn’t even exist in?
I turned around and faced the doorway.
The darkness was unnatural, all-consuming.
You don’t want to see what’s inside there, Vincent whispered in my ear. He sounded oddly sad. Ashamed.
No, I thought. You don’t want me to see those things.
For nearly twenty years, I had seen only what Vincent had wanted me to see. I had become only what he wanted me to be. I had forged myself by his hand, by the bounds of the mold he’d poured me into, and never further.
It had been comfortable.
But now, too damned much was relying on me to not venture beyond those walls.
I stepped into the darkness.
66
RAIHN
One would think that after almost three hundred years as a vampire, I’d stop feeling like a human. One would think that after two hundred years of freedom, I’d stop believing the things that Neculai had once told me.
The divide was always so clear—us versus them. The Turned would always bear some mark of our human weakness, human flaws. I’d spent so fucking long sawing away all evidence of those weaknesses in myself. I was physically stronger than I’d ever been. Stronger, maybe, than even Neculai had been.
But when I flew up into the night sky—a sky that was an unnatural, ungodly black with the wings of Rishan warriors—I was fucking terrified.
As a young man, I used to think that bravery was the absence of fear. No. I’d learned since then that the absence of fear was only stupidity.
I let myself feel it for thirty seconds, as my eyes took in that wave of warriors that just kept going and going and going, and then I stuffed it down my throat.
I veered left, soaring toward Vale. The army had split now, Ketura’s troops sweeping to the ground in a wave of fluttering feathers, like rain falling down over the desert, to join the human soldiers to face the Bloodborn.
Everyone was moving fast. Too fast. Minutes, and these unstoppable forces would collide.
I still wasn’t quite used to seeing Vale look relieved to see me.
“Highness,” he said, raising his voice over the wind and the steady drumbeat rhythm of wings.
“Don’t let them get beyond the ruins,” I commanded.
He looked down to the rocks below. I saw him put the pieces together—what must be down there.
“Understood.” His eyes flicked to me, the question in them obvious. “Did you—”
“Oraya is searching.”
That answer made it sound so mundane. Not like I’d just left her to wander off into an ominous magical pit.