A wry smile flitted across Raihn’s mouth. “They have a way of bending reality, don’t they? Making it exactly what they say it is.”

My knuckles were white around my mug. The words flowed over my tongue before I could stop them. “I feel like—like such a fucking idiot. Because I never questioned any of it.”

I didn’t want to see the pity in Raihn’s eyes. I kept my gaze glued to the table as he murmured, “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.”

How could he sound so calm about it? I was desperate for calm.

“And they just get to die?” I spat. “They just get to escape the consequences?”

The hatred in my words took me by surprise. I should have been ashamed to think such a thing—that Vincent’s bloody death had been the easy way out, cheating us all out of answers.

I wasn’t, and that scared me.

My eyes flicked up to meet Raihn’s. Warm and red in the dim lantern light, they held no hint of the pity I’d expected. Instead, they were fierce and steadfast.

“No,” he said. “We get to use the power we got from them to make this kingdom into something they fucking despise. What’s the point of any of this if there’s nothing to actually fight for?”

There had always been a snide, petty part of myself that had doubted whether Raihn’s grand declarations were just another performance for my benefit.

In this moment, I knew he was telling the truth. I knew it because the determination—the spite—in his eyes mirrored the glimpses of it I saw in myself.

It was a sudden realization, a truth snapping into place to reveal an uncomfortable portrait. The simple thing had always been to hate Raihn, to tell myself that he was my enemy, my captor, my conqueror.

But Vincent had spent my entire life telling me convenient lies. Maybe I didn’t have the stomach for it anymore.

Maybe the complicated truth was that Raihn was more like me than anyone ever had been. Rishan Heir or no.

He leaned a little closer. Those eyes drifted from mine—running over my forehead, my nose, my lips.

He murmured, “We need to talk about—”

SMACK, as his forehead whacked against mine, making me see stars.

“Fuck,” I hissed, jerking back and rubbing my head. Raihn did the same to his as he peered over his shoulder, annoyed, as the same young man who had approached me earlier held up his hands apologetically.

“Sorry, sorry!” He took in Raihn’s considerable size, then made the very nervy decision to clap him on the shoulder. “That was an accident. Crowded in here. Didn’t mean to get in your—”

Then the man’s face changed. The smarmy smile faded. His eyes widened, and just kept going, until they were comically perfect circles.

He stumbled backwards, nearly tripping over two of his companions.

“Highness,” he breathed.

My heart sank.

Fuck.

Raihn’s face fell as the boy dropped clumsily to his knees, his hands raised.

“My king, I apologize. I—I apologize. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Raihn ducked his head, wincing, as if he could make the boy unsee what he had recognized. But it was too late.

And just like that, the room turned.

It took a few seconds for people to realize, but once they did, the silence spread through the crowd like the blanketed fall of night. Soon every set of eyes was trained on Raihn, all wide, all terrified.

And for one moment, Raihn’s gaze fell back to me—utterly devastated. Just a glimpse, before he quickly swept it away under a mask of nonchalant ease.

He rose and raised his palms. “No harm done,” he said. “Didn’t mean to cause a commotion.”

He glanced around at the room, now pin-drop silent, half the patrons on their knees and the other half looking too terrified to even make themselves bow.

“We should go,” he muttered to me, and took my hand.

I didn’t even pull away as he led me out the door, the crowd parting around us like they couldn’t get away fast enough.

33

ORAYA

Raihn didn’t talk for a long time when we returned to the city streets. He was walking fast and I matched his pace, not sure where we were going. He adjusted his hood, looking straight ahead, not so much as glancing at me.

But he didn’t have to.

I felt a pang of sympathy for him. He had few pieces of his human identity left. I knew how much he valued the shards he could salvage. As much as he tried to pretend it was all about shitty beer, I knew otherwise.

I shouldn’t care. I knew I shouldn’t care. Yet I just kept walking beside him.

“Sorry,” he muttered, finally, once we had walked a couple of blocks.

“It’s nothing.”

It wasn’t nothing. Not really.

“I guess I can’t go back there for a while,” he said. “But at least…” He stopped short, and I realized that we’d come to the same boardinghouse he’d brought me to before. He flashed me a wry smirk, barely visible under the shadow of his hood. “At least we have some other safe havens.”

The man at the front desk was, once again, asleep—at which I could’ve sworn Raihn breathed a sigh of relief. He led me up to his apartment. The place looked the same as it had the last time we were here, though a little messier—more papers scattered over the desk, a used wine glass beside the basin, the bedsheets a little rumpled.

I eyed those bedsheets longer than I meant to.

Raihn sat down at the edge of the bed and fell back over it, sprawling out as if collapsing from exhaustion. Then he caught my eye and grinned.

“What?” he said. “You want to join me?”

A teasing prod, of course. And yet I could imagine it so clearly. How his body had felt beneath me. How he’d smelled. How he’d tasted.

What he’d sounded like when he came.

How he’d held me when I did.

I hated him for touching me the way he had back at the cottage. Just brought all those unwelcome thoughts back to the surface.

“You ever have companions up here?” I asked.

What the hell?

Why did I even ask that?

I made a mental note to never drink again.

His smile broadened, brow furrowing. “What?”

“Nevermind.”

“Are you asking if I fuck other women in this bed?”

“Nevermind,” I grumbled, turning away.

But he caught my hand, fingers gently intertwining with mine—not pulling, though, just hanging there between us.

“I’m married,” he said. “In case you forgot.”

Despite myself, I almost smiled. “A difficult marriage. No one would blame you for seeking some easy pleasure.”

What are you doing, Oraya?

He scoffed. “Easy pleasure. Like there’s such a thing.” His fingers drew a little tighter—pulling my palm closer, drawing my fingers between his, the slide of his rough skin against mine sending uncomfortable shudders through other parts of my body.

His eyes didn’t leave mine.

“I like a little fight,” he murmured. “Besides, she’s ruined me for all others. My own fucking fault, though. I knew it from the beginning.”

His hood had fallen back, dark red hair fanning behind him on the bedspread. His shirt, partially unbuttoned, revealed a triangle of his defined chest and a hint of dark hair. The muscles of his throat shifted as he swallowed, perfectly in time with the slight shudder in my breath—like he sensed my desire, and was reacting to it.

He was lonely. I was lonely. Both of us were mourning the worlds we’d thought we’d known.

At least this time, I was willing to admit to myself that I was tempted. Maybe that was why I was willing to dangle my fingertips close to the flames.

“Hard pleasure, then,” I said.

“Only good if it hurts,” he replied.