this book was pure cunt! the passion!! the electricity!! i love this series to the depths of my soul. i was a completely different bitch prior to reading this series. i can’t comprehend that none of it was real and that i’m simply expected to move on with my life 😖💔 i was everything i was meant to be. my father’s daughter. victim and protégée. greatest love and ruination.

The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King is the sequel to the Serpent and the Wings of Night and the last born in the Nightborn Duet, although it is part of a larger series (the Crowns of Nyaxia). Without any spoilers, this book follows Oraya and Raihn as they battle the enemies surrounding them on all sides, face traitors and deadly plots to overthrow the throne- and must figure out their complicated feelings for each other.... The plot was well balanced, with the right amount of action and all the missing lore we didn't get in book one. The twists were a little predictable (the wing thing was so cool, though), but I enjoyed myself nonetheless. ok so why did this finishing this entire series feel like waking up from a dream in which you lived a totally different life to wake up and realize not one bit of it was real?!? i self-inserted myself into this world, these characters to the point that my day to day lingo was switching up!!! i’m not the same as i once was. the ache and deep void i feel makes me want to light myself on fire!!🫨 And there is even a surprise to her growth but I won’t talk about it. Just know that it was so amazing and unexpected! When certain aspects of his past came to light, my heart couldn’t help but bleed for him. But you hate him for what he did to Oraya, because of the hold he had on her soul for so long. But the understanding that washes over you because of what he went through is what you call character development.i was the heir of the house of night, and i was the daughter of vincent the nightborn king, and i was every bit as powerful as both those things suggested.' In Part Four: “Halfmoon”, Oraya and Mische return to Sivrinaj where Raihn and his inner circle plan a celebration for Vale and his newly turned wife’s wedding. However, Raihn is convinced that Vale is a traitor. Meanwhile, Oraya struggles with her feelings for Raihn that boil over in a sensual dance during the party in front of the leader of the rebels, Simon, and Septimus. Then, Cairis betrays Raihn, but Oraya saves him from execution and the two flee the castle. Vincent had ruined me. He had saved me. He had loved me. He had stifled me. He had manipulated me. He had made me everything that I was. Everything that I could be. Even the greatest parts of my power, the parts he never wanted me to find, were his. And now here I was, poring over every wound he gave me. And no matter how much they hurt, I never wanted them to heal, because they were his. And I missed him too much to hate him the way I wanted to.”

It slowed down a lot more, which I loved and didn’t mind in the least. It allowed for the plot to just breathe, for the world to be build even further with talks of vampiric politics and war strategies. For themes to be unraveled through magic and gods and fantasy.Power hurts. It requires sacrifice. Do you want to change this world, little serpent? Climb the bars until you're so high no one can catch you. Afraid of you and what you could do to me. Afraid of the world that could kill you so easily. Afraid of myself, gifted with another fragile heart that I know I cannot keep.