He shifted my face towards him, tugging a few strands loose to frame my cheeks, and a flush of heat shot through me. I shoved it down, glaring at him.
He sighed. “It looks terrible.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “If anyone asks why, I’ll tell them my fiancé left me in an iron cage for three days.”
“Four.”
My eyes narrowed at him.
“The trip lasted four days,” he repeated.
I’m not sure that it made a difference. It had all been the same to me, locked in a cargo hold. But he eyed me as though the distinction meant something, so I simply pulled from his gaze, watching the palace grow as we approached.
The front doors of the palace stood taller than my house in Leihani, flanked on both sides by wrought-iron gates like heavy black lace, presumably remaining open unless under siege. Thick ivy snaked through the metal whorls, trailing along walls and up towers, over rooftops and drooping past the cliff edge. I’d expected a square structure, like the castles I'd always imagined, but the City of Towers looked to me what a turf of grass must look like to ants, a mass of imposing blades pointed at the sun.
A liveried footman met us outside.
“You’re not worried I’ll run?” I asked haughtily, staring at the walls of open glass as Kye strode forward, leaving me in the dusty gravel of the palace drive.
He looked back, suddenly seeming tired. “No. If you escape with no intention of returning, you’ll kill yourself. You’ve signed a contract. In blood.”
“How—”
“You won’t run. There is no reason to put you in irons; you’re no longer a prisoner. Let’s go.”
The eyes of servants and nobles alike followed us with interest as Kye led me through the doorway and across a great, gleaming hall of glittering white marble. I felt myself shrink from the attention until we rounded a corner that manifested an empty space, and Kye turned to me.
“Back straight, chin high,” he instructed, hands clasped confidently behind his back as he reminded me of the ludicrous backstory Cain had invented for me. “You are the daughter of a lord, heiress to an estate. You’re used to people looking at you.”
“Iamused to people looking at me,” I snapped.
That was the problem.
Kye raised a brow, but I didn’t try to explain. If he hadn't understood why I hated enduring long stares from our conversation on my veranda, he wouldn’t understand now.
As he breezed through a little egress, I lengthened my spine, ignoring the covert glances of the palace residents. A rush of smells assaulted my senses. Damp mustiness overlaid by dried herbs, the boughs of crisp evergreens and lilacs hanging from rafters above and scattered across the floor.
The palace had looked like individual towers from the outside, but within, the rooms were wide and deep. I’d never seen so much glass. Some entire walls were made of it, ending in crystal ceilings that invited warm sunshine, even as broody clouds shifted overhead.
Kye guided me up a winding staircase, explaining that it was called the Southern-Sun Wing. I tried to keep track of where I was and from where I'd come, certain I’d become lost if I tried to wander the halls alone.
Up a winding set of stairs, across a crystal bridge surrounded by nothing but sky, Kye finally stopped over a threshold, his hand on a doorknob as his eyes shifted back to mine.
“You’ll get settled today, and you’ll meet Lady Selena tomorrow.” Eyeing a cobweb in the ceiling above me with severity, his hand turned, and he swung the door open, waiting for me to enter first.
A modest suite waited within. Cold and dark, but not entirely unwelcoming. A sitting room on one side, an oak table on the other, and what looked like a bedroom down the hall. Across the rounded wall, a fresco of tiny white alyssum flowers and green vines had been painted so long ago it’d cracked throughout every inch like fractured ice. A small balcony opened over the cliff side, looking out to the Juile Sea beyond, the distant crash of water a soft lullaby.
“My apartment is the larger version, just across the corridor from you,” he said, indicating to the door directly across from mine. He backed out then paused. “If you need anything, ask someone else. Don’t speak to my brother or any other royalty. Stay out of my way.”
His eyes flashed with warning. He left me standing in a foreign room, the door clicking shut behind him.
26
The sun hadn’t yet risen, but a small noise startled me out of sleep. Cheek cradled against my fist, my breath fogged in the still room, a film of moisture warm across the back of my hand. I pulled my coverlet over my shoulders, waiting to hear the noise again.
A rap of soft knuckles broke the silence. Sitting up in my chair, my neck and lower back ached in protest, my spine popping as I stood.
Early blue light streaked through the room from my unshaded window, long shadows slowly shrinking toward their masters. I crossed my arms and left the coverlet behind, the white spread hanging concave over the chair like a trampled white mushroom. A draft from the window followed me across the room, stealing my heat as I traversed the carpeted floor.
