I opened the door and peered in. She sat on the bed with a book, cross-legged, her wings slightly unfolded behind her.
I took a careful assessment of her in that split-second—eyes, skin, wings, wounds.
The wounds looked better than they had the night before. Wings looked a bit more relaxed, too. I’d practically ached on her behalf yesterday, just feeling the strain of those muscles. The tension, I was sure, long predated the wings. Oraya was always trying so hard to bear all that armor. I knew she’d been holding those shields up for twenty years.
I was staring. Oraya looked unamused.
“What?” she barked, again.
I smiled at her. “You’re so charming, princess.”
She stared at me.
“I’m leaving,” I said.
She blinked twice, a little too fast. Her face changed, grumpiness shifting to— My brow twitched.
“Look at that face,” I said. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were worried.”
“Why?” she asked, voice tight. “Where are you going?”
“Back to Sivrinaj.”
“Why?”
I gave her a tight smile that was more of a baring of teeth. “Because Rishan nobles are fucking pricks.”
Could practically hear Cairis scolding me for even giving her that much information—information that could be used against me.
Her expression shifted again. Disapproval. Hell, maybe hatred. She tried to tamp it down and failed, of course.
“Oh.”
“Mische is staying here with you, and some of the guards.” I nodded to her wings. “Keep those out for now. Ketura will be here in a few days. She can teach you how to get rid of them. Not hard once you get the hang of it.”
She stared at me, wrinkle between her brows, saying nothing.
“Try to contain your excitement at my departure,” I said flatly.
I glanced at the table. An empty bowl sat there—scraped clean. I couldn’t help feeling some satisfaction at that.
Oraya still said nothing.
I wasn’t quite used to her being so quiet.
“Well, that’s it,” I said. “Take care of yourself. See you in a few weeks.”
I started to close the door, but she said, “Raihn.”
I stopped mid-swing. Peered back in. She had leaned forward slightly, her lips pressed together, as if in protest against whatever thrashed behind them.
“Thank you,” she said. “For fixing my wings.”
My fingers tightened around the door frame.
As if that was something to thank me for. Common decency.
“Like I said, you were made for the sky,” I said. “Would be an injustice to let that be taken away.”
The faintest hint of a smile brushed her mouth, a glimmer of sun through the clouds.
Then it faded as her eyes went distant. I wondered if she was thinking of Vincent.
She blinked that expression away fast.
“Safe travels,” she said flatly, turning back to her book.
I gave her a faint smile. “Thanks.”
I left around midnight that night, armed to the teeth with two of Ketura’s guards with me. Not enough, Vale would’ve said, but I’d rather leave the rest for Oraya and Mische. Both of them were forces to be reckoned with, certainly, but Oraya was injured and Mische… well, it seemed like I saw more burn scars on her arms every time I looked at her.
I looked back one last time before we flew away. Immediately, my eyes floated up—to the second floor of the little cottage, where a set of moon-silver eyes stopped my heart in its tracks, just like they did every damned time.
Oraya leaned against the window frame, arms crossed. When my gaze met hers, she lifted one hand in an almost-wave.
It felt like some kind of small victory.
I waved goodbye to her, and then I was gone.
INTERLUDE
Time is cheap for vampires.
The slave learns this quickly. As a human, he’d felt every passing second—missed opportunities slipping by, as if swept away by an eternally rushing river. Humans mourn time, because it’s the only currency that really matters in a life so short.
There are many things about his new life that the slave despises. But of all he grieves for his fading humanity, the loss of time’s mark is the most devastating. A life in which nothing means anything is not a life at all.
Years blur by like wet paint drowned in the rain, drenching a forever-blank canvas. The vampires of the king’s court revel in this agelessness. Centuries of life had dulled the common pleasures, making their tastes extreme and cruel. Sometimes, humans are the subject of this cruelty. Other times, human lives are too short and fragile. Turned vampires, then, are the next best thing—durable, longer-lived, but every bit as disposable as the humans they once were.