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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“…called and called and he didn’t come.”
I blinked away the remnants of my dream. My neck hurt fiercely, wedged at an awkward angle against the arm of the chair.
Across the room, a broad silhouette sat before Mische’s bed, backlit by the lanterns.
“Why didn’t he come?” she whimpered, over and over. “I can’t get him to answer. I can’t, I—”
Raihn murmured, “Don’t worry about that right now.”
“How can I worry about anything else? How can I—”
“Worry about getting better. Just rest. Can you do that?”
“I—”
But the silhouette shifted, his hand going to her face—perhaps using magic—and Mische went silent.
I struggled to fight the haze of sleep. Vampire venom was a sedative. The Ministaer’s, old as he was, hit me hard.
I ignored the spi
When I stood, the floor tilted so sharply I was sure I’d topple over. Somehow I managed to follow Raihn into the adjoining bedroom. When I closed the door behind me, the shock was enough to jerk me from the remnants of my haze.
The back of Raihn’s shirt, once white linen, was soaked through with blood. The stains bloomed over his back like flowers—some patches of dry near-black, some streaks of stiffening burgundy, some blotches of fresh dark crimson. It covered the full expanse of his form, plastering the fabric to his flesh and dousing the tips of his hair.
“Fuck,” I whispered.
He let out a light scoff, then seized, as if the expression had hurt. “Yes.”
“I—what—what happened?”
What a stupid fucking question. As if I didn’t know exactly what would happen to the Rishan in questioning.
Raihn kept his back to me. His arms lifted, the movement stiff and stilted.
“How is Mische?” he asked.
“She’s been—”
As if he hoped the answer would distract him, he yanked his shirt off over his head.
“—the same.” The words deflated.
Raihn’s body went rigid with pain for several long seconds.
“Fuck,” I whispered.
“Fu-u-u-u-ck,” he agreed, in a ragged hiss.
There was so much blood on his back that at first, I couldn’t even tell what I was looking at. Only the harsh side-lighting of the lanterns cut through it, orange light defining the borders of the brutal wounds. The two gashes were symmetrical, ru
Not a single strike. Nothing quick. No, the skin had been carefully flayed away, a fine network of wounds fa
Another mark ran down the center of his back, too—a large diamond-shaped patch of mottled flesh over his shoulders, which then continued down his spine. The blood covered so much that I wasn’t sure if it was a part of his fresh injuries or something older.
I was speechless, even though I shouldn’t have been. It wasn’t the first time I had seen the results of torture. I knew that the Nightborn Guard was relentless. Trained to wield pain as just another weapon.
And yet, a dizzying bolt of rage speared me at the sight of it. Rage, and strange betrayal, and a single sentence: I told him not to break him.
And Vincent had looked me in the eye and agreed.
How old were the freshest of these wounds? How many had been inflicted after I had spoken to him? Did he know he was lying to me when he said it?
These questions shook me, hard, one after the other like arrows. Immediately, the voice in the back of my head smoothed over the sharpest of their accusations—he has a million other things on his mind; he had nothing to do with it; he had to do what was right for his kingdom.
But deep, deep inside my heart, somewhere I wouldn’t look at too closely, I could feel it. A crack.
“Your wings,” I choked out. “Are they—”
Raihn gave me a weak smirk over his shoulder. “This happened because I refused to reveal my wings. Made the right choice, don’t you think?”
The relief at this was short-lived.
He still had his wings, yes. But conjuring them with these wounds, right where they would co
I swallowed thickly.
“That needs to be treated,” I said.
“Mische has a pouch of supplies in her pack.” He started to turn, then winced and gave me an apologetic look. “Could you—”
I nodded and went to the next room, grabbing Mische’s bag and returning. Raihn was exactly where I left him, like moving even slightly was too much for him.
“Could you—could you kneel in front of the bed, maybe?” I said. “You could lean on it.”
“You implying I can’t keep myself upright, princess?”
I wasn’t implying anything. The minute I started stabbing, I was certain he’d double over and rip all the stitches out. Even if he had the pain tolerance of a statue. Statues would fucking crumble at that.
Apparently my face had changed, because he rasped a laugh. “I concede. Fine. You got me. You’re right.”
“I could try to find some alcohol,” I offered.
“I’ll be sending you off into the human districts to bring me some of that piss beer after this.”
“You’d have earned it,” I said, and meant it.
He chuckled again—Mother, I almost felt bad for making him do that—and slowly turned around.
The torture, it seemed, had been limited to his back. A small mercy for him. There wasn’t a scratch on the front of his torso, though little scars nicked his skin, clearly much older than tonight. Warm light cascaded over the swells and valleys of his flesh—illuminating the landscape of his muscular form and highlighting every raised or pitted scar.
In any other moment, I might have wished I could freeze time there. He looked like a painting. Beautiful, but also interesting, every expanse of skin whispering of another story, another past.
The strange, irrational, overwhelming urge to step closer—to touch him—hit me in a wave, crashing and then mercifully subsiding.
I swallowed and pushed away those thoughts. “Kneel there. I’ll sit behind you.”
He obeyed, each movement slow and stiff. So painfully different than his typical grace. He kneeled at the edge of the bed and leaned against it, his arms crossed over the bedspread.
I sat behind him. Up close, the wounds looked even worse.
I let out a hiss through my teeth. How could I even begin to close these?
“That sounds promising,” Raihn said.
“I just—I’m sorry for what I’m about to do to you.”
“I’m glad your bedside ma
I didn’t even crack a smile.
I rummaged through the medical box. Mische had everything in here—disinfectants, needles, string, bandages, even little splints. I pulled out the disinfectant and hoped that it was magically enhanced in some way.
“You want a warning?” I asked.
“Probably not—FUCK.”
His hands clenched the bedspread as I poured the disinfectant over his back.
“I figured you were least expecting it then.”
“You figured right,” he grunted.
I strung the needle, eyeing his wounds. I felt like I was preparing for a whole other trial.
Trials. The thought of the word made my chest clench. Vampires healed much, much faster than humans. But… fuck, how could he compete like this?
“You’ve got to talk to me through this,” Raihn said. “A whole conversation. Then you’ll be in as much pain as I am.”
I choked out a laugh at that, though I quickly tried to disguise it as a scoff.
“I have to stitch you up and talk to you?”
No warning, he’d said.
So I didn’t give him any as I began stitching.
His entire body tensed. The bedspread shifted as he clutched it tighter.
“You alright?” I asked.
“Define ‘alright.’”
“Alive.”
He scoffed. “Glad you have such high standards.”
I didn’t want to ask. But I had to, even though I already hated the answer I knew was coming. “What did they ask you?”
“Ask. You make it sound so polite—fff.” He hissed as I made another stitch. “They wanted to know what I knew about the attack.” His voice took on an exaggerated flat, hard edge, mimicking Jesmine’s. “Was I sympathetic to the Rishan cause? Did I know of the assailants? Had I ever summoned Nightborn demons before? Was I aware of an organized Rishan rebellion? Mostly, they wanted to know if I destroyed the fucking Moon Palace.”
Did you? I almost asked. Vincent’s words echoed in my ears. I had little reason to trust Raihn.
But I didn’t say it aloud. I didn’t because I already knew that the answer was no, and already knew I believed him. Even if Vincent thought I was a fool for it.
“You said you don’t think this was Rishan work.”
“No. I don’t.”
“Why?”
“The Rishan aren’t organized anymore. Your dear father has done a wonderful job whittling them down over the last few centuries. They couldn’t get their shit together enough to do this.”
They. Not we. But then, I hadn’t seen Raihn so much as speak to any of the other Rishan contestants here. Not that that was unusual. Vampires were territorial and unfriendly creatures. Hell, most of the Hiaj didn’t talk to each other, either.
“I told them that, too,” Raihn chuckled, then seized, fingers tightening again. “Didn’t seem to believe me.”
I eyed the wounds before me. No, they didn’t. They didn’t believe him for hours and hours and hours. They didn’t believe him, by my estimation, dozens and dozens of times.
I decided to give him good news, because he probably needed it. “The Ministaer accepted Mische’s withdrawal.”
“He what?” He tensed, as if his instinct was to whirl around to look at me and he had to stop himself.
“Nyaxia must have changed her mind.”
He let out a long, long sigh—so relieved he didn’t even flinch at the next stitch.
“You did this,” he said, finally.
I blinked. He thought better of me than I thought, for him to come to that conclusion so quickly. It was… touching.
“No,” I said. “Maybe they realized it just made the most sense.”
“You’re a terrible actress.” I could hear the smile in his voice. Warm enough to ease the sting in my right hand. Almost warm enough to make me forget the way the Ministaer’s lips felt against my skin.