But he obeyed—putting out the cigarillo on his own palm. The smell of smoke was replaced by that of burning flesh. Cairis wrinkled his nose.
“That’s nice,” he said drily.
“The Nightborn King asked me to put it out. It would be rude not to.”
Cairis rolled his eyes and looked like he was trying very hard not to say anything else.
Raihn, on the other hand, just stared across the room at those closed double doors, as if burning straight through them to what lay beyond. His face was neutral. Cocky, even.
I knew better.
“Vale?” he asked Cairis, voice low.
“He should’ve been here. Boat must be late.”
“Mm.”
That sound might as well have been a curse.
Yes, Raihn was very, very nervous.
But his voice was calm and breezy as he said, “Then I guess we’re ready, aren’t we? Open the doors. Let them in.”
2
RAIHN
The last time I had stood in this room with these people, I’d been a slave.
Sometimes, I wondered if they remembered me. I was nothing to them back then, of course. Another faceless body, something more akin to a tool or a pet than a sentient being.
These people, of course, knew who I was now. Knew what my past held. But I couldn’t help but wonder, as they filed into the vast, beautiful throne room, whether they actually remembered me. They certainly didn’t remember all those little mundane cruelties, to them just another part of another night. I remembered, though. Every humiliation, every violation, every strike, every casual agony.
I remembered it all.
And now here I was, standing before the Rishan nobility, with a Goddess-damned crown on my head.
My, how things had changed.
Not as much as I wished, though. Because secretly, even after all this time, I was still terrified of them.
I hid the truth with a performance that was so carefully curated—a fucking impeccable mimicry of my former master. I stood on the dais, my hands behind my back, my wings out, my crown perfect, my eyes cold and cruel. That last part wasn’t difficult. The hatred, after all, was real.
The nobles had been called from every corner of Rishan territory. They were old power. Most of them had been in power when Neculai was king. They were as finely dressed as I remembered, swaddled in silk garments so intricate that it was obvious some poor slave had spent weeks toiling over every stitch of embroidery. Their faces held the same haughtiness, the same elegant ruthlessness that, I knew by now, was shared by all vampire nobility.
That was the same.
But a lot was different, too. Two hundred years had passed. And maybe those two hundred years hadn’t marked their bodies, but they were hard years, and those hard years had certainly marked their souls. These were the handful of powerful Rishan who had survived a violent coup and then two centuries of Hiaj rule. They’d lorded over the ruins that Vincent had allowed them to keep.
And now they were here, standing before a king they already hated, ready to fight like hell for their pile of bones.
The worst of privilege. The worst of oppression.
I lifted my chin, smirk at my lips.
“What a somber bunch,” I said. “I’d think you’d all be happier to be here, considering the circumstances of the last two centuries.”
I’d intended to make my voice sound like his. A perpetual threat. Only thing these people understood.
Still, it was a little shocking to hear it coming out of my mouth.
I loosened my grip on my magic, letting wisps of night unfurl around my wings—highlighting, I knew, the streaks of red feathers. Reminding them who I was, and why I was here.
“Nyaxia has finally seen fit to restore us to rule,” I said, pacing along the dais with slow, lazy steps. “And with the power she has granted me, I will lead the House of Night into a stronger era than ever before. I have reclaimed this kingdom from the Hiaj. From the man who murdered our king, raped our queen, decimated our people, and took our crown for two hundred years.”
I was so deeply aware of Oraya’s stare, digging into my back as I listed Vincent’s misdeeds. I was constantly conscious of Oraya, actually, through this entire act—knowing she could see right through it.
But I couldn’t show distraction. Instead, I let my lip curl in disgust.
“Now, I will make the House of Night once again something to fear. I will restore it to what it used to be.”
Every I was carefully chosen, reminding them with every sentence of my role.
I’d watched Neculai give some version of this speech countless times, and I’d watched these people lap it up like kittens at milk.