Once the rain started, it came on fast. Typical of the House of Night.
Viktor joked often, in his dry, sardonic way, that this country never did anything halfway. The sun either assault unrelenting heat, or it retreated completely beneath many layered-gray clouds. The air was arid and so hot you swore it would bake you alive, or cold enough to make your joints crack. Half the time, within the haze, but when it was visible, it gleamed like polished silver, its light so intense it made the dips and hills of the sand resemble the waves of the ocean–or what I'd imagined such a thing would look like.
It did not rain often in the Nightborn kingdom, but when it did, it was a downpour.
By the time I made it back to the Palace, I was soaked. My path up the side of the building was treacherous, each grip of stone slippery, but it wasn't the first time I'd made the journey in the rain and it wouldn't be the last.
When I finally vaulted into my bedchamber, many
stories above the ground, my muscles burned with the efort. My hair was dripping wet. I wrung it out, sending a symphony of droplets spattering to the velvet bench beneath the window, and turned to the horizon. It was so hot that the rain summoned a silver cloud of steam
over the city. The view from up here was very different than the one from the rooftop in the human quarter of the city. That had been an expanse of clay blocks, a painting of varying shades of brown squares beneath the moonlight. In the heart of Sivrinaj, though in royal Nightborn teritory, every glance overflowed with sumptuous elegance.
The view from my window was a symmetrical sea of undulating curves.
The Nightborn drew their architectural inspiration from the sky and moon. Metal-capped domes, polished granite, silver that cradled indigo stained glass. From up here, the moonlight and rain caressed an expanse of platinum. The ground was so flat that even though Sivrinaj was a massive city, I could still glimpse the dunes in the distance beyond its walls.
Eternity gave vampires so many years to perfect the art of dark, dangerous beauty. I'd heard that the House of Shadow, across the Ivory Sea, crafted their buildings the way they crafted blades, each castle an intricate
set of pointed spires sprawling with blood-kissed ivy. Some claimed theirs was the most exquisite architecture in the world but I didn't know how
anyone could say that if they saw the House of Night as I did, from this room. It was even stunning in daylight, when no one here but me could witness it.
Fuck.
I carefully closed the window, and I had barely finished latching it when the knock sounded at my door. Two raps, quiet but demanding.
I was lucky I hadn't gotten here just a few minutes later. It had been risky to go out tonight, but I couldn't help myself. My nerves were too strained. My hands had to do something.
I hastily removed my coat and tossed it into a discarded pile of clothes in the corner, then grabbed my robe and wrapped it around myself. It would
be enough to cover the blood, at least.
I rushed across the room and opened the door, and Viktor didn't hesitate before striding in.
He gave my room a cold, judgmental look once over. "It's a mess in here."
Now I knew how Becky felt. "I've had bigger things to worry about than cleaning."
"Keeping a tidy space is important for mental clarity, Catherine."
I was twenty-three, and he still lectured me that way.
I touched my forehead, as if he had just bestowed upon me information that rearranged my universe. "Fuck. It is?"
Viktor's moon-silver eyes narrowed at me. "You're an insolent brat, litle snake."
He never sounded more affectionate than when he was insulting me. Maybe it meant something that both Becky and Viktor cradled their tenderness in harsh words. They were so different from each other in every other sense. But maybe this place made all of us that way. Taught us to hide love in sharp edges.
Now, for some reason, that rebuke made my chest clench. Funny, the things that make the fear finally bubble to the surface. I was scared, even if
I knew better than to give voice to it. And I knew Viktor was, too. I saw it in the way his smirk slipped away as he looked at me.
Some might think that Viktor was not frightened of anything. I did for a long time. I grew up watching him rule, watching him seize absolute respect from a society that respected nothing.
He was my father in name alone. Perhaps I didn't have his blood, or his magic, or his immortality. But I had that ruthlessness. He had cultivated it in me, one thorn at a time.
Yet as I grew older, I learned that being ruthless was not the same thing as being fearless. I was afraid constantly, and so was Viktor. The man who was afraid of nothing was afraid for me his human daughter. His world was designed to kill her.
Until the Kijara. A tournament with the ability to change everyone, anyone.
Until I won, and it freed me.
Or I lost, and it damned me..
Viktor blinked, and we both made the mutual, silent decision not to voice such thoughts. He looked me up and down, as if noticing my appearance for the first time. "You're wet."
"I took a bath," I said curtly.
"Before training?" His eyebrows arched upward.
"I needed to relax."
Well, that was true. I just decided to do it in a very different way than soaking in a lavender bath.
Even that statement came a little too close to acknowledging the reality of our situation for Viktor's comfort. His mouth slanted, and he ran a hand through pale blond hair.
His tell. His only one. Something was weighing on him. It could be about me and the impending trials, or...
I couldn't help but ask.
"What?" I asked, quietly. "Trouble with the Rishan?"
He was silent.
My stomach dropped. "Or the House of Blood?"
Or both?
His throat bobbed, and he shook his head. Yet that little movement was enough to confirm my suspicion.
I wanted to ask more, but Viktor's hand fell to his hip, and I realized he had brought his rapier.
"Our work is more important than such boring things. There will always be another enemy to worry about, but you only have tonight. "Come."