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June 18 - July 10, 2024
The child was perhaps four, perhaps eight—it was hard to tell, because she was so, so small, even by human standards. Just a frail little creature with slick black hair that curtained wide gray eyes.
The three winged men landed before her, smiling at their luck.
the deep purple of the Hiaj Nightborn King.
Rhysand-like
“A lamb? More like a viper.” “Or a garden snake,” another scoffed.
But then a shadow fell over them all. The men stilled. They lowered heads in reverent bows. The cool air shivered, the darkness twisting around their faces and wings like a blade caressing a throat. The Hiaj king did not utter a single word. He did not need to.
But they said he was blessed by the goddess Nyaxia herself, and anyone who had ever met him would swear it to be true. Power seeped from his every pore, and death stained his every breath.
A wave of poorly suppressed snickers from the other soldiers.
Idk if theyd be snickering tbh
This was not the stare of a panicked child who didn’t know what she was doing. This was the stare of a creature who understood she was confronting death itself, and still chose to spit in its face.
“A little serpent,” he murmured.
The men behind him laughed. He ignored them. It...
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Again. For him to be uber powerful, and for them to become scared in his presence, I dont think they wold be joking around.
The corner of the king’s lips curled. “Good. You should not trust me.”
Goddess, she was so light,
Who is the narrator?
The sweet scent of it permeated his nostrils as he tucked her against his chest.
Why is she not being eaten?
saw a fragment of himself in this child. And there, right beneath the clenched fist of her palm, something warm and bittersweet stirred in his chest at the sight of her. Something more dangerous than hunger.
Hundreds of years later, historians and scholars would look back upon this moment. This decision that, one day, would topple an empire. What a strange choice, they would whisper. Why would he do this? Why, indeed. After all, vampires know better than anyone how important it is to protect their hearts. And love, understand, is sharper than any stake.
Some might find it stupid for me, a human, to hunt at night, when I was at a considerable disadvantage compared to my prey.
Ok Feyre
Did he recognize me? Sometimes they did.
Don’t look away, little serpent, Vincent whispered in my ear.
Dance around naked in your bedroom with it for all I care.”
The humans I had seen in the slums this morning were nothing like me, and the vampires that surrounded me even less so. Only Ilana lingered somewhere in between, just like I did.
I dont understand how she could be similar to the vampires, or how shes in between.
“Fine. I’ll leave in the morning.”
Didnt take much to change her mind.
Vincent joked often, in his dry, sardonic way, that this country never did anything halfway.
That sounds familiar.
He had left his wings out, which was rare. Usually he spirited them away with his magic, unless it was some diplomatic event that required him to flaunt his Hiaj power.
Ibrihim Cain. And—” “Ibrihim?”
I found Ibrihim across the room. He was a young vampire, barely older than I, with an unusually meek demeanor. As if he could feel my stare, his gaze flicked to me from beneath a mop of curly black hair.
Love interest?
About ten years ago, when Ibrihim was on the cusp of adulthood, his parents had pinned him down, removed his teeth, and hobbled his left leg.
Wtf why
“He can’t possibly think he could win,” I muttered. Vincent gave me a sidelong glance. “Everyone here probably thinks the same of you.”
An overwhelming cloud of lilac scent wafted over us.
He glanced over his shoulder, directly at me. His eyes were rust-red, a striking enough color to be visible even from across the room. His gaze was casually curious. Still, the intensity of it skewered me.
Nvm. This is def the love interest lol
I never drank. Vampire alcohol was incredibly strong for humans, and that aside, it was dangerous for me to dull my senses.
Until a powerful force stopped me. A strong grip folded around my shoulders, pulling me back against a firm wall of a body. “They’re dead.”
At least anger was useful—a sharp edge to cut another’s heart, or a hard shell to protect your own.
a moon, a mask, and a weeping woman—the symbols of the three kingdoms of Nyaxia.
Most powerful and mysterious of all was the Ministaer himself, who was said to not even be a living being anymore, but merely a flesh-vessel for Nyaxia’s will. This, to me, sounded like bullshit.
A dark-haired man moved about the room frenetically, circling the tables. I recognized him—I’d seen him looking around, a bit panicked, before the Ministaer’s speech.
“My brother! They killed my fucking brother!” His wings were out now, outstretched, the feathers many different shades of brown-black. …Just like the wings of the Rishan man who’d been covered in Ilana’s blood.
his eyes wild, I realized they looked just like the ones that had stared into mine last night as I slowly sank my knife into his heart. I stiffened.
a deep, smooth voice came from the far corner of the room.
The voice was oddly familiar.
“Raihn fucking Ashraj.
The man I had seen at the feast. I recognized him right away, because here, just as he had at the ball, he stood out as markedly different than any other vampire.
There it was: the bloody bandage wrapped around his thigh. Right where, say, a short human girl might have plunged a dagger when trying to break out of his grasp. Fuck.
I started to rise, my hands going to my swords.
I thought she had daggers?
I couldn’t bring myself to speak. That was fucking Asteris.
After the feast was over, we had started to somewhat warily explore the rest of the Moon Palace and discovered hundreds of fully furnished and stocked suites throughout it.
Why aren't they attacking her?
The blades curved gracefully, polished black steel with red marks etched into the flat—long swirls of decorative smoke and stark, staccato glyphs locked in a dance. The hilts—silver, topped with two interlocking moons—welcomed my hands as if they had been waiting for me my entire life. And yet, it felt wrong to even touch them.
It was only the thought of that flash of black, then white—Asteris, I was sure of it—that stilled my hand.
Im confused at what this is.
Instead, I made a dramatic show of looking him up and down—lingering at his thigh and trailing up to the crotch of his leather pants, and said, “A little.”
Thank the gods, she had said. Not the Goddess. Interesting.
They must've been turned, were maybe human once.
but it was only now that I actually stopped to think about how it had gotten there or why. Had people lived here once? If so, why was it abandoned in favor of the Nightborn castle?
