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ORAYA

My father lived in the hazy moments before I opened my eyes every day, caught between waking and dreaming.

I treasured those moments, when my nightmares had faded but they’d yet to be replaced with the grim shadow of reality. I would roll over in silk sheets and draw in a deep inhale of that familiar scent—rose and incense and stone and dust. I was in the bed I had slept in every day for fifteen years, in the room that had always been mine, in the castle I had been raised in, and my father, Vincent, the King of the Nightborn, was alive.

And then I would open my eyes, and the inevitable cruel clarity of consciousness would roll over me, and my father would die all over again.

Those seconds between sleep and waking were the best of the day.

The moment when the memory returned to me was the worst.

Still, it was worth it. I slept whenever I could, just to claw those precious seconds back. But you can’t stop time. Can’t stop death.

I tried not to notice that those seconds grew fewer each time I woke.

This morning, I opened my eyes, and my father was still dead.

BANG BANG BANG.

Whoever was knocking on the door did so with the impatience of someone who had been at it for longer than they’d like.

Whoever was knocking.

I knew who was fucking knocking.

I didn’t move.

I couldn’t move, actually, because the grief had seized every one of my muscles. I clenched my jaw, tighter, tighter, until it hurt, until I hoped my teeth cracked. My fists were white-knuckled around the sheets. I could smell the smoke—Nightfire, my magic, eating away at them.

I had been robbed of something precious. Those hazy moments where everything was as it had been.

I slipped from sleep with the image of Vincent’s decimated body still seared into my mind, just as dead and just as mutilated in my sleeping moments as it was in my waking ones.

“Wake up, princess!” The voice was so loud that even with the door closed, it boomed through the room. “I know those catlike senses of yours. You think I don’t know you’re awake? I’d rather you let me in, but I’ll barge in if I have to.”

I hated that voice.

I hated that voice.

I needed ten more seconds before I could look at him. Five more—

BANG.

BA—

I threw back the covers, leapt from my bed, crossed the room in a few long strides, and threw open the door.

“Knock on that door,” I breathed, “one more fucking time.”

My husband smiled at me, lowering his raised fist, which had indeed been ready to knock one more fucking time. “There she is.”

I hated that face.

I hated those words.

And I hated most of all that when he said them now, I could hear the hidden undercurrent of concern—could see the way his smirk stilled as he took me in, feet to eyes, in quick but thorough evaluation. His gaze paused at my hands, drawn into fists at my sides, and I realized I was clutching a scalded scrap of silk in one.

I wanted to use it to threaten him, remind him that the silk could be him if he wasn’t careful. But something about the flicker of concern over his face, and all the things it made me feel, killed that fire in my stomach.

I liked anger. It was tangible, and strong, and it made me feel powerful.

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.

I couldn’t even look at Raihn’s face without seeing it spattered with my father’s blood.

Without seeing how he’d once looked at me, like I was the most precious thing in the world, the night we had spent in bed together.

Too many emotions. I stomped them down viciously, even though it physically hurt, as if swallowing razor blades. Easier to feel nothing.

“What?” I asked. It was a deflated question, not the verbal strike I wanted it to be.

I wished I didn’t notice the slight disappointment on Raihn’s face. Worry, even.

“I’ve come to tell you to get ready,” he said. “We have guests.”

Guests?

My stomach churned at the thought—the thought of standing in front of strangers, feeling them stare at me like a caged animal, while struggling to keep myself together.

You know how to control your emotions, little serpent, Vincent whispered in my ear. I taught you that.

I flinched.

Raihn’s head cocked, a wrinkle deepening between his brow.

“What?”

Fuck, I hated that. Every time, he saw it.

“Nothing.”

I knew Raihn didn’t believe me. He knew I knew it. I hated that he knew I knew it.

I stomped that down, too, until that emotion was just another numb buzz in the background, coated over with another layer of ice. It took constant effort, keeping them that way, and I was grateful I could focus on that.

Raihn stared expectantly at me, but I said nothing.

“What?” he said. “No questions?”

I shook my head.

“No insults? No refusal? No argument?”

Do you want me to argue? I almost asked. But then I’d have to see that little concerned twitch on his face, and I’d have to recognize that he did want me to argue, and then I’d have to feel that complicated emotion, too.

So I just shook my head again.

He cleared his throat. “Alright. Well. Here. This is for you.” He’d been carrying a silk bag, which he now handed to me.

I didn’t ask.

“It’s a dress,” he said.

“Alright.”

“For the meeting.”

Meeting. That sounded important.

You don’t care, I reminded myself.

He waited for me to ask, but I didn’t.

“It’s the only one I’ve got, so don’t bother arguing with me about it if you don’t like it.”

So pathetically transparent. He was practically poking me with a stick to see when I’d react.

I opened the bag and glanced down to see a pile of black silk.

My chest tightened. Silk, not leather. After everything, the idea of walking through this castle in anything other than armor…

But I said, “It’s fine.”

I just wanted him to go.

But Raihn now never left a conversation without a long, lingering stare, as if he had a lot to say and it all threatened to bubble up before he left my room. Every single fucking time.

“What?” I asked, impatient.

Mother, I felt like my stitches were popping open, one by one.

“Get dressed,” he said at last, to my relief. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

When he was gone, I closed the door and sagged against it, releasing a ragged exhale. Keeping myself together for those last few minutes was agonizing. I didn’t know how I was going to do it in front of a bunch of Raihn’s cronies. For longer. For fucking hours.

I couldn’t do it.

You will, Vincent whispered in my ear. Show them how strong you are.

I squeezed my eyes shut. I wanted to lean into that voice.

But it faded, as it always did, and my father was dead once more.

I put on the stupid dress.

Raihn was nervous.

I wished I didn’t recognize this so easily. No one else seemed to. Why would they? His act was meticulous. He embodied the role of conqueror king just as easily as he had embodied the role of human in the pub, and the role of bloodthirsty contestant, and the role of my lover, and the role of my kidnapper.

But I saw it, anyway. The single muscle tightening at the angle of his jaw. The slightly glazed-over, too-hard focus to his stare. The way he kept touching the cuff of his sleeve, like he was uncomfortable in the costume he wore.