I didn’t remember losing consciousness. But suddenly, I was flat on the ground, staring into Raihn’s face as he leaned over me. He was saying something I couldn’t make out. It didn’t matter, because I was slipping away before the words left his lips.
I didn’t want his eyes to follow me into unconsciousness.
But they did, anyway.
12
ORAYA
For the first time in weeks, I did not dream of Vincent.
Instead, I dreamed of Raihn, and the way his face looked as he died, and the way my blade felt sliding into his chest.
I dreamed it over, and over, and over again.
I opened my eyes to a familiar cerulean glass ceiling. Raihn’s dead face faded away into scattered silver-painted stars.
I tried to move but my body didn’t cooperate, rewarding me with a sharp pain in my side.
“Not yet.”
My chest ached. It hurt to hear Raihn’s voice. It took me a minute to muster up the courage to turn my head—I half expected to see him the way I saw him in my nightmares. Dead, my blade in his chest.
But no, Raihn was very much alive. He was beside my bed, leaning over me. I realized that the sharp pain in my side was because he was dressing my wound, and— Goddess.
I shifted uncomfortably as I realized that I was topless, save for the bandages wrapped around my chest.
Raihn chuckled. “You were at your most seductive.”
I wished I had a barbed retort for that, but my brain felt like my thoughts were moving through sludge.
“You’ve been given some drugs,” he said. “Give it a minute.”
Mother, my head hurt.
I remembered the attack. Running to the armory. My blade pressed to Raihn’s chest, for the second time.
You want to do it, so do it.
And I didn’t. Couldn’t. Even with his heart right there for the taking.
I could have ended all of this. Could have taken back my father’s throne. Could have avenged his death.
I swallowed, or tried to. As if sensing it, Raihn finished securing the bandage to my side and then handed me a glass.
“Water,” he said.
I stared at it, and he scoffed.
“What? You think this is when I’d poison you?”
Honestly? Yes. I’d escaped. I’d fought him. I could only assume that they didn’t know my part in what had happened, or else I’d be chained up in a dungeon right now.
Raihn laughed softly—a sound so oddly warm I felt it run up my spine.
“That face,” he said, shaking his head. “Just drink, alright?”
I was very, very thirsty. So I did.
“Amazing what a close call some foot soldier’s arrow can be,” he muttered.
Raihn was bandaged up, too. He winced a little as he stood—I took a little pride in that, at least. He’d been healed, and well, but the remnants of Nightfire burns remained on his cheeks, and stains of dark blood bloomed through the fabric around his torso from the gash I’d opened.
I swallowed and finally felt like I could speak.
“You don’t have more important things to do than play nursemaid?”
“As always, you have such a strange way of saying ‘Thank you.’”
“I’m just…”
Surprised.
He raised an eyebrow. “What if I told you all the nurses are afraid of you? The Nightfire queen who just tried to take down the Rishan army.”
“I’d say that’s smart of them.”
Stupid of me to play along with this. This pretend version of what we’d been in the Kejari.
My head was killing me. I sat up, hissing an inhale at the pain that shot up my side. Raihn was right. That one soldier got a hell of a shot in.
“It was enhanced with blood magic,” Raihn said, as if he could read my mind.
Fucking Bloodborn.
That final piece of what had happened—the Bloodborn reinforcements arriving—fell over me like a blanket of cold dread. Jesmine’s men were well matched against the Rishan—an equal fight we might have won. But the Bloodborn tipped the scales. They were efficient and brutal.
Raihn stood at my bedchamber window, looking out over the nighttime cityscape of Sivrinaj. I wondered if perhaps he was staring at the Hiaj bodies now no doubt staked through the city walls.
He said nothing, so I said nothing. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of asking.
He turned around after a long moment, staring at me, his hands in his pockets. He looked tired. None of his kingly finery. He looked just like he had when we’d shared an apartment in the Moon Palace. Familiar. The version of him I had thought I knew.