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November 17 - November 23, 2025
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 sheer degree of fucking obsession that grief forces upon you. It took everything I had to force my mind to think about something other than him—it had exhausted me so completely.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t smell you, princess?”
“I hate this place.” He exhaled the words, ragged, like he’d torn them from deep in his chest. “I hate these people. I hate this castle. I hate this fucking crown. But I don’t hate you, Oraya. Not even a little.”
It was upper-class arrogance to underestimate them, and I didn’t have the luxury of that.
Because if I let you go, you become my enemy in earnest. And I can’t kill you, princess. I’ve tried. I can’t.
And I missed him too much to hate him the way I wanted to. And I hated him most of all for that.
“Love is fucking terrifying,” he murmured. “I think that’s true no matter who you are.”
Humans mourn time, because it’s the only currency that really matters in a life so short.
A life in which nothing means anything is not a life at all.
“Raihn has a lot of flaws, Oraya,” she murmured, “but he knows how to love.”
“Magic is… I know some people think it’s just another discipline, but I think it lives close to our hearts. I think it draws right from our souls.
“You’re a dreamer.” “Couldn’t have made it this far if I wasn’t.”
“Some people have been saying it was stupid of me to keep you alive at all. I guess I’m a stupid man.”
“I know better than to make a deal with a desperate man,” I said. “Besides, you’re right. I am tired of being caged. I recognize bars when I see them.”
“I’d spend a lifetime
at the tip of your blade, and it would have been worth it.”
My blood. My body. My soul. I had given her all of that a long time ago. I even had given her my life. And I’d do it all again.
Touch was one thing. But words... words were complicated.
“Sometimes we need a little trouble to get shit done.”
Good. Let us leave something on each other’s corpses.
But one can always feel a god’s eyes. And Nyaxia looks directly at him that night. He can feel her stare like a blessing, a curse, an iron stake nailing him to a destiny he does not want. And she smiles—a cruel, beautiful, devastating sight.
