The Ashes & the Star-Cursed King (Crowns of Nyaxia, #2)

by Carissa Broadbent

“Sometimes.” A pause, then, “Sometimes I can’t… sometimes I just want to get away from that place.”

“They won’t bother you,” I said. “I’ll handle your training.” Her brows lowered. “Training?” “What, did you think you were going to wield legendary god power and overthrow the most vicious vampire house without getting back into shape?” Her brows lowered again. “I’m in great shape. Don’t know about you, though. That fight was a little too easy.” Ix’s tits, it was hard not to laugh at that face. I raised my palms. “Fine. I admit it. You keep me on my toes, too. I’ve never been better than I was when I was with you.”

“You aren’t supposed to be here,” I said. “Told you not to come.” I tried to sound very mean and failed. “Oh, fuck you,” Mische said affectionately, the way someone would say, I missed you too, idiot.

Mische’s nose scrunched. “Safe and relaxing?” She said this like the thought was ridiculous, and to be fair, anyone who had met Mische even once would know that it was. Mische was the opposite of safe and relaxing. Mische was so impulsive and reckless that sometimes, it genuinely scared me.

Septimus chuckled. “I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong end of that,” he said. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a cigarillo box. He slid it open, then hesitated, his hand hovering over the row of neat black rolls. A strange look came over his face—rigid stillness, like a wave of ice had fallen across his features. My brow furrowed, my gaze following his—to his hand over that box, frozen mid-movement, like his muscles had locked without his permission. His ring finger lurched in erratic spurts that shook his entire hand.

I let out a wordless grunt of exertion as the clangs of metal against metal came faster, faster, faster. I saw his mouth twist, just a little—heard what he didn’t say aloud: There she is.

“Why doesn’t she stay with you?” I asked. “I snore.” Mische sighed. “He does. He really, really does.” I knew he did, because I’d heard those snores every day for months, myself.

Lahor.” Raihn tapped the map again. “Lahor.” I stared at the city at the tip of his finger—a little ink drawing of broken stone. A single, tiny sigil was inked above it—a taloned claw holding a rose.

I’d memorized this map when I was a small child and these ink lines were all I’d had of the outside world. Lahor had always interested me, because its crest matched the one that Vincent bore on some of his clothing. The thought of Vincent came with the obligatory stab of grief, and then, shortly after, a wave of realization.