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

by Carissa Broadbent

The king knew, in this moment, that his greatest love would also be his ruination, and that both would come in the unlikely form of a young human woman.

Obsessed w this call back already

Maybe the king always knew that his greatest love would be his ruination. Maybe he knew it the moment he met her. He’d know it the second time he died, too.

Huh…

But I felt anything but powerful when I was forced to recognize that Raihn—the man who had lied to me, imprisoned me, overthrown my kingdom, and murdered my father—genuinely cared for me.

The door burst open, the slam against the walls splitting the silence like a sword through flesh. Vale stood in the doorway.

Woooo character crossover lets go

I’d liked chipping away at stone—I didn’t even remember why, now. But I did remember making this little dagger, and the pit of nervousness in my stomach when I’d presented it to him. I had held my breath when he surveyed it, face stoic. “Good,” he had said, after a long moment, and he’d tucked it into his pocket, and that had been that. The first of countless times I’d found myself reaching for Vincent’s approval and wondering desperately whether I’d gotten it. And now here it was, lying with the death warrants of thousands. Two versions of him that I couldn’t reconcile in life, and now was even further from understanding in his death.

“You’re dying to kill me,” I murmured. “So what the fuck are you waiting for?”

The weapon was incredibly powerful, enhancing Vincent’s already-significant magical strength. It was his and his alone, rejecting all other wielders. I used to joke that the sword was Vincent’s true greatest love. For most of my life, I think I believed it. Now, the image of Vincent’s bloodied face, straining to look at me in his final breaths, cut through my mind. I loved you from the first moment. My chest was very, very tight.

He extended his hand. “But,” he added, softly, seriously, “you are one hell of an ally.” Ally. A lifetime ago, he had offered me an alliance. I knew it was a mistake to take it then, too. But I was powerless now, just as I was then. A human in a world of vampires. An Heir with no teeth. A daughter with no way to avenge her father.

I stared at them in shock. In silence. They were Vincent’s wings. Featherless, of course, as all Hiaj wings were. The skin was darker than night, so black light curled up and died within them. The talons were silvery white, like drops of moonlight. And… And I had the accents of red. Marks of the Hiaj Heir. Bright, bloody red, running down the wing in delicate streaks, collecting at the edges and along their outline. I tried to move them and did so, jerkily, in a way that I’m sure looked ridiculous. Wings. My wings.

Vincent had ruined me. He had saved me. He had loved me. He had stifled me. He had manipulated me. He had made me everything that I was. Everything that I could be. Even the greatest parts of my power, the parts he never wanted me to find, were his. And now here I was, poring over every wound he gave me. And no matter how much they hurt, I never wanted them to heal, because they were his. And I missed him too much to hate him the way I wanted to. And I hated him most of all for that.

“I wasn’t lying,” he said. “I wasn’t responsible for the attack on the Moon Palace.” I peered over my shoulder and shot him a flat look. He huffed a laugh. “I guess I’ve earned that face. But I’d come too far to let one woman with a knife bring me down.” Then, after a pause, “Well. That woman with a knife. Met another one who was a whole different story.”

“Because I’m so tired, Oraya.” His mouth brushed over the tip of my nose. Almost a kiss. Not quite. “I’m so tired of pretending. Tired of pretending I don’t think about you every night. That I’ve ever wanted anything⁠—”

But so much had changed since then. Because when I closed my eyes, I wouldn’t see pleasant visions of Raihn’s naked body or his kisses or his affection. I would still see his bloodied form on the ground. I would still see him killing my father. I would still see my blade in his chest.

The sudden wave of anger was coldly all-consuming. “And what the hell was that supposed to be?” I said. “Was that supposed to be a mercy? You dying for me?” His face shifted, a line between his brows. “I⁠—” “I dream about my blade going into your chest every fucking night, Raihn.”

I felt so stupid. So unimaginably stupid. Until this moment, I hadn’t realized what I’d done. Here I was thinking that I’d made this great noble sacrifice. Thinking that I had saved her—or tried to, even if my plan had gone… differently than I’d hoped. I hadn’t. I’d just given her something else to have nightmares about.

“No. Oraya isn’t like Nessanyn.” “And you aren’t Neculai.” “Damn right I’m not,” I muttered, though I sounded less convinced than I’d like. I wasn’t like him. So why did I feel him shadowing my every move these last few months?

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.

“Forgive me for what I’m about to say,” she said. “But why are you talking to me?” At that, I couldn’t help but laugh. “You are blunt.” She tucked a strand of wavy hair behind her ear. “I’ve grown up knowing I would live a very short life. It’s more efficient to be direct.”

“I never questioned any of it, either. For a hell of a lot longer than twenty years. But that’s what happens when one person gets to shape your entire world. They can make it into whatever they want, and you’re stuck inside those walls, whether they’re real or not.”

When she completed her ritual, she was shaken. She told them that their son would either save the House of Blood, or end it.

I looked like him. The resemblance struck me all at once, suddenly undeniable. The coloring was all different, of course, my hair night-black compared to Vincent’s blond. But we had the same icy pallor to our skin. The same flat brow, the same silver eyes. He spent an entire fucking lifetime lying about what was plainly painted on my face. But then again, that was our entire relationship. He’d raised me to look at the bars of my cage and call them trees.

This is what I was always meant to be. And he’d hidden that from me. He’d stifled me. He’d lied to me. He gave me his power and then spent twenty years making me small and afraid and telling me how weak I was. And yet, as I drew the blade, a lump of painful grief rose in my throat. I was everything I was meant to be. My father’s daughter. Victim and protégée. Greatest love and ruination.

“Go,” he breathed. “Go somewhere far away. Go to the human nations. Go learn about your magic. I’d tell you to go become something fucking incredible, Oraya, but you already are, and this place doesn’t deserve you. It never has. And I sure as fuck don’t.”

“You have nothing but me,” I said. “And yet, you’d let me go?” “I have nothing but you,” he murmured. “So I am letting you go.”

He kissed me like he was starving. Kissed me the way he had fed from me in a cave once, many months ago—desperate and deep and full of hunger, like I was the only thing tethering him to the world. And Mother, I felt that way, too, like I was grasping hold of something solid for the first time in so long. Like I had come home.

“Is this acceptable, princess?” My brow twitched. “Princess?” He laughed, low and rough. “Queen.”

“I hate you,” I choked out. But the words weren’t an admonishment. They were weak, sad, bare. They did not say, I hate you because you killed my father. They said, I hate you because I let you hurt me. I hate you because I grieved you. I hate you because I don’t.

“And,” I said, “I am queen just as much as he is king. When we’ve reclaimed our kingdom, I intend to rule beside him as such.”

“I always admired that about you,” he said. “That you fought even when you were afraid. Don’t you dare stop now. No matter what happens.” I gave him a wry smile. “You said that then, too.” Don’t you dare stop fighting, princess. It would break my damned heart. “I remember. And it did break my heart when you stopped.” I didn’t know what to say to that. I settled on, “Well. At least we’re fighting now.”

And tht is on growth

“Just want you to know, Oraya,” he murmured, “that you were the best part of it. The best part of all of it.”

My body went over the railing in what felt like slow motion. The last thing I saw was Raihn, his eyes wide and terrified, as he yanked his sword from a body and ran for me⁠— He looked so, so scared. I reached for him, but I was already falling. Worlds blended together in my weightlessness. In one world, I couldn’t hear anything over the sound of screams and explosions and desperate commands. In another, I could hear nothing but my father’s voice from an old memory. Could feel nothing but his grip, so firm it hurt—but then again, that was Vincent’s love, hidden in sharp edges and always just as painful. I told you not to climb that high, he said, voice harsh. How many times have I told you, you can’t do that? I know, I wanted to say. I’m sorry. You were right.

He was diving down after me, wings spread, covered in blood, a single hand reaching out for me. Something about this image looked so familiar, and then it clicked—the painting of the Rishan man falling, one hand outstretched. I’d always thought he was reaching for the gods. He was reaching for me.

You were—are—so fiercely, fiercely loved. I always hoped that you felt that wherever you were, even if we couldn’t tell you it directly.” And this—this was the thing that infuriated me the most. Because I didn’t know. I knew that I was loved by Vincent, and Vincent alone. But he’d erased everyone else. Let me believe that I was alone in this world. He never deprived me of food or shelter or safety. But he deprived me of that, and it felt almost as horrific.

Yes, the sword was powerful. But was that really why it had meant so much to me? Or was it just another way of chasing the approval of a dead man who couldn’t give it to me?

I didn’t need to collect more carnal moans. I wanted the rest of it. The way she breathed. The way she smelled. The exact arrangement of her dark lashes over her cheeks. What it felt like, just to be next to her.

Of course it was love. What else could it be, for someone to see that much of you? To see so much beauty in the parts of someone that they hate in themselves?

We had a few precious hours until everything changed, for good or for bad. I wouldn’t waste a single one of them on sleep. I spent them counting the freckles on her cheeks, memorizing the pattern of her breaths, watching the flutter of her eyelashes. And when the sun went down, and Oraya stirred and blinked blearily at me with those moon-bright eyes and asked, “Sleep well?” I just kissed her forehead and said, “Perfect.” And I didn’t have a single regret.

“I love you,” he said, in a single, urgent breath. “I just—I need you to know that. I love you, Oraya.”

How did I get here, standing at the foot of my father’s legacy, fighting to rule the kingdom he told me I couldn’t even exist in?

No, I thought. You don’t want me to see those things. For nearly twenty years, I had seen only what Vincent had wanted me to see. I had become only what he wanted me to be. I had forged myself by his hand, by the bounds of the mold he’d poured me into, and never further.

I will not lie to you, little serpent. I was expecting to kill you that night. But what I was not expecting was to love you so devastatingly much. It hits me so suddenly, so overwhelmingly, that I don’t even have time to brace myself against it. You glare at me, like you’re ready to go down fighting even against one of the most powerful men in the world, and I smile a little, despite myself. It takes me a minute to recognize the sensation in my chest. Pride.

He tried to stroke my hair, but I felt nothing. Because Vincent was dead. All of it was true at once. That he had saved me. That he had crippled me. His selfishness and his selflessness. That he had tried. That he had failed. And that he had loved me, anyway. And I would carry all of that forever, for the rest of my life. And he would still be dead.

My entire life, I’d dreamed of asking Nyaxia for this very gift—but never did I think it would be under these circumstances. I said, “My Mother, I ask you for a Coriatis bond. Please.” My voice cracked over my plea. A Coriatis bond. The god-given gift I’d once thought would give me the power I needed to be Vincent’s true daughter. Now, I was giving up my father’s greatest weapon to bind myself to the man I’d once thought was my greatest enemy. To save his life. Love, over power.

“You should have let the flower of your love remain forever frozen as it was,” she said. “So beautiful at its peak. So much less painful.” But there was no such thing as love without fear. Love without vulnerability. Love without risk. “Not as beautiful as one that lives,” I whispered.

“You will be under my protection as an offspring of my acolyte, and that protection will extend to him, as your heart-bonded. But understand that my cousin will not be happy about this development. She will not act against you. Not today. Not tomorrow. But someday soon, Oraya of the Nightborn, there will come a day when Nyaxia brings a great reckoning. And when that day comes, you must be prepared to face her displeasure.”

The words I wouldn’t—couldn’t—say to Raihn that night. The vow I could not make. Now I whispered those words over and over again, clinging to them, as my soul itself shattered and reformed. “I give you my heart,” I murmured against his skin. “I give you my heart. I give you my heart.”

He was alive. I didn’t take in anything else about him, only that he was here and alive and standing right before me and alive and smiling and alive. And then his arms were around me, and mine around him, and the two of us held each other for a minute and an eternity, like two halves reunited. I buried my face against the bare skin of his chest and squeezed my eyes shut against the tears. For a long time, we stayed like that. And then eventually, he murmured against my hair, “So you missed me.” Arrogant prick, I thought. But aloud I said, “I love you.”

I’d admit it. I now thoroughly enjoyed the taste of piss beer. Raihn and I sat on a rooftop in the human districts, trailing our fine clothing all over the dirty clay roof, and watched the sky over the blocky buildings, the party reduced to a sparkling smear of light in the distance.

Hell, maybe the love scared me even more. To give someone that much of yourself. To give someone the power to destroy you. I could understand it—why Vincent never learned how to do it. I could understand how it would be easier to never feel that kind of vulnerability. And yet. I pressed Raihn’s palm to my face, leaning into his touch. And yet. There was such safety in that vulnerability, too. The ultimate paradox.

I’d never much enjoyed the sunlight. For most of my life, I’d avoided it. Just another reminder of how I was different—inferior—to the beings that surrounded me. Now, that seemed outrageous. I spread my arms out and closed my eyes, soaking it into my skin. “It’s something,” I said. “Isn’t it?” “Yes,” Raihn said softly. “It’s really something.” But when I glanced over my shoulder back at him, he wasn’t looking at the sun at all.