Raihn stared expectantly at me, but I said nothing.
“What?” he said. “No questions?”
I shook my head.
“No insults? No refusal? No argument?”
Do you want me to argue? I almost asked. But then I’d have to see that little concerned twitch on his face, and I’d have to recognize that he did want me to argue, and then I’d have to feel that complicated emotion, too.
So I just shook my head again.
He cleared his throat. “Alright. Well. Here. This is for you.” He’d been carrying a silk bag, which he now handed to me.
I didn’t ask.
“It’s a dress,” he said.
“Alright.”
“For the meeting.”
Meeting. That sounded important.
You don’t care, I reminded myself.
He waited for me to ask, but I didn’t.
“It’s the only one I’ve got, so don’t bother arguing with me about it if you don’t like it.”
So pathetically transparent. He was practically poking me with a stick to see when I’d react.
I opened the bag and glanced down to see a pile of black silk.
My chest tightened. Silk, not leather. After everything, the idea of walking through this castle in anything other than armor…
But I said, “It’s fine.”
I just wanted him to go.
But Raihn now never left a conversation without a long, lingering stare, as if he had a lot to say and it all threatened to bubble up before he left my room. Every single fucking time.
“What?” I asked, impatient.
Mother, I felt like my stitches were popping open, one by one.
“Get dressed,” he said at last, to my relief. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
When he was gone, I closed the door and sagged against it, releasing a ragged exhale. Keeping myself together for those last few minutes was agonizing. I didn’t know how I was going to do it in front of a bunch of Raihn’s cronies. For longer. For fucking hours.
I couldn’t do it.
You will, Vincent whispered in my ear. Show them how strong you are.
I squeezed my eyes shut. I wanted to lean into that voice.
But it faded, as it always did, and my father was dead once more.
I put on the stupid dress.
Raihn was nervous.
I wished I didn’t recognize this so easily. No one else seemed to. Why would they? His act was meticulous. He embodied the role of conqueror king just as easily as he had embodied the role of human in the pub, and the role of bloodthirsty contestant, and the role of my lover, and the role of my kidnapper.
But I saw it, anyway. The single muscle tightening at the angle of his jaw. The slightly glazed-over, too-hard focus to his stare. The way he kept touching the cuff of his sleeve, like he was uncomfortable in the costume he wore.
When he returned to my room, I’d stared at him, caught off guard despite myself.
He wore a stiff, fine black jacket with blue trim and a matching sash over his shoulder, striking against the silver buttons and subtle metallic brocade. It was achingly similar to another outfit I’d seen him wear once: the outfit he had worn at the Halfmoon ball, the one that the Moon Palace had provided for him. Even then, though, he’d left his hair unkempt, his chin stubbled, as if the entire thing had been reluctant. Now, he was clean-shaven. His hair was neat and tied up to reveal the top of his Heir Mark over the back of his neck, peeking over the neck of his jacket. His wings were out, revealing the streaks of bright red at their edges and tips. And…
And…
At this, my throat grew so thick I couldn’t swallow—couldn’t breathe.
The sight of the crown on Raihn’s head drove a spike between my ribs. The silver spires sat nestled in Raihn’s red-black waves, the contrast of the two jarring when I had only ever seen that metal against my father’s sleek fair hair.
The last time I had seen that crown, it had been soaked in blood, ground into the sands of the colosseum as my father died in my arms.
Had someone had to pick through what remained of Vincent’s body to get that crown? Had some poor servant had to clean his blood and skin and hair from all those intricate little whorls of silver?
Raihn looked me up and down.
“You look nice,” he said.
The last time he had said that word to me, at that ball, it had sent a shiver up my spine—four letters full of hidden promise.
Now, it sounded like a lie.
My dress was fine. Just fine. Plain. Flattering. It was light, finely-made silk that clung to my body—it must have been made for me, to fit that well, though I had no idea how they had known my measurements. It left my arms bare, though it had a high collar with asymmetrical buttons that wrapped around my side.