Page 77 of Prince of the Sun

I tear my gaze away from the beam of light shining from my sliced palm. I take in the faces of the elves surrounding me. No one speaks. The guards are transfixed. Daerios looks caught somewhere between amazed and horrified. And Saechon—he smiles like a hungry panther. Like a starved creature come upon a feast at last.

“We found it,” Daerios whispers.

And those words—those words more than anything—are what break me from my shock.We foundit. As if I were not a human but a prize dug up from the sand. In the guards’ distraction, I tug loose my arms and lunge at Daerios. I go straight for his throat.

“Qui—” But his words cut off as my fingers wrap around his throat. The light vanishes. I don’t care if it burns him. I don’t even know if it doesanything. I just want him to suffer. For lying to me. For trapping me. For calling his brother and handing me over to my death.

For making me fall for him first.

Before I can do any real damage, the guards are on me. They pull me off Daerios, who gasps in a breath of air. Light still pours from my palm, sweeping across the floor as my arm swings back and forth. I ignore it, instead glaring at the gasping elf before me. Dimly, I’m aware of Saechon telling the guards to subdue me. As a faint tingle enters my body where the guards’ hands touch me, as it begins to spread through every inch of me, carrying with it a deep tug toward oblivion, I look Daerios right in the eyes, and seethe.

“I will never forgive you.”

I awake on horseback. My body bounces and jostles, tucked into one of the elvish guards, arms and legs tied up and pulled side-saddle. I jerk my neck up, knocking the guard’s chest. He grunts.

“Where we goin’?” The words come out slurred, as if the magic coursing through my body is some sort of sedative.

“New York City,” the guard says.

I twist my neck around to find that it’s the one who yanked open my palm earlier. Râd doesn’t meet my gaze. Just stares intently at the path ahead. We’re on one of the highway-side horse trails that the elves started blazing shortly after they arrived on Earth. I look down at my hands, checking to see if light is still flowing from the cut, but I find them wrapped in gauze and bound together.

“Whas in Neyork?” I ask, blinking against the darkness encroaching on the edges of my vision.

Râd is silent, and I think he’s going to ignore my question. But then, just before the darkness closes, wiping out the whip of the wind and the pound of the hooves, he says, “The King of Elaërion.”

When I regain consciousness, the first thing I hear is birdsong. Northern flicker and the common yellowthroat, two birds that used to call during fall in Minnesota. I think, for one delusional moment, that I’m back home. That, when I open my eyes, I’ll be lying in next to Lake Hiawatha with Michael and our parents.

But when my eyes blink open, they find not sand and waves but hills of grass and swaying leaves. A cluster of rocks. Down the hill, a gravel path lined with benches. A bridge over cloudy grey water. This doesn’t look like New York. This looks like—

“Welcome to Central Park.”

My neck snaps over to the source of the voice. From my place curled up in the grass, I find, seated on a throne made entirely of bedrock, an elf with light brown hair that hangs past his shoulders, a slightly crooked nose, and a thin metal crown woven with golden leaves. His long hands, smooth and sun-worn, dangle over the arms of the chair.

To either side of the throne stand Daerios and Saechon, hands clasped behind their backs. Both are laden with weapons—sabers, daggers, bows slung over their shoulders—as if expecting trouble. Saechon stares straight forward, but Daerios’s neck is bent, eyes on the ground.

When I see him, my heart breaks all over again. I’m not even going to pretend otherwise. It aches and bleeds. I don’t care if it makes me weak or foolish; when I think of his betrayal, I feel as if I have been scooped of all my innards and filled with gravel. Pebbles that grate against the underside of my skin. I want to cry, but I can’t.

Instead, I look directly at the king. “So, this is your throne room.”

Varith Ariar crosses his legs. “I prefer to be close to nature.”

“What do you do when it rains?” I push myself up onto my elbows. “Use human children as umbrellas?”

Varith lifts an eyebrow. “That would be a most inefficient method of coverage.”

I struggle over onto my knees, keeping my eyes firmly away from Daerios. “So.” I crouch and rise slowly. To either side, guards inch closer, sabers held at the ready. “Here I am. Your human sacrifice.” I hold out both arms. “Are you going to fatten me up before we head to Elaërion, or am I good to slice up as is?”

The King surveys me for a long moment. “My son said you figured out our code.” He leans forward, laying his chin on his fist. “I must say, I’m impressed. No human before you thought to look to academia.”

“No human before me had her brother kidnapped by your kind. At least, as far as my research shows.”

“Ahhh. Yet another piece of the puzzle: who took Michael Kallister?” The King leans back, folding his hands on his lap. “Because, I can assure you, it was not me.”

“I have very little reason to believe you.”

“I’m aware. Pray tell, what did the elves look like who took your brother? If you remember.”

Oh, I remember, all right. I’ll never forget their faces. Their black eyes. Their pale, near-translucent bodies. Every detail of the elves who murdered my father are burned into the back of my eyelids. I see them as I lie awake at night, as I daydream in class, as I conjugate verbs from English to Mandarin.