Page 87 of Prince of the Sun

“Oooo-wee!” Ber whoops. “Come and get us now, assholes!”

I can’t help it. I smile too.

Within half a minute, we reach the top. The rope swings us up and over the railing. The boys land with effortless grace. At this height, the wind is vicious; it whips at our hair and cloaks, flapping them around our bodies. Daerios slides me off his backand into the cradle of his arms before setting me onto the ground. When my toes touch the metal roof, I don’t release his neck right away. I linger, fingers brushing his collarbone. His hands grip my waist. My eyes move slowly upward, tracing the line of his body, from his torso to his chest to his neck to his chin and, finally, when I can fight it no longer, to his eyes.

Even though I’ve seen them dozens of times—perhaps hundreds, at this point—their blindingly bright silver makes my heart go still. And it isn’t just their color; it’s the emotion they wear. Daerios stares down at me with a mixture of hesitancy and hunger. My hands slide off his neck, running down to his chest. We breathe heavily, chests rising and falling with the lingering adrenaline of the chase.

Or maybe with something else entirely.

“Not to interrupt your eye-sex,” says Berendir, “but an army of elves are racing up the elevator as we speak.”

“Right.” I step quickly away. “We should…”

“Yes.” Daerios clears his throat. “I’ll just…”

“The portal,” I supply.

Cara and Berendir look at each other and roll their eyes.

“Right. The portal.” Daerios adjusts his stance, straightening to his full height. He holds out both hands, tucking in his pinky and index fingers and extending the middle and pointer fingers. He touches the inside edges of his hands together. “This will only take a moment,” he says.

Then he closes his eyes and begins to murmur.

It’s hard to hear his voice over the howling wind, but I think he’s speaking Maevish. An ancient subdialect of it, one that most elves do not use anymore and, by all accounts, should be extinct.

He speaks under his breath for over a minute. Nothing happens.

Cara and I exchange nervous glances.

“It’s not working,” Berendir says quietly enough that only wecan hear. “We’re too low to the ground.”

“No.” My foot taps on the steel roof. “No, it has to work.”

“We don’t—”

A crash sounds on the other side of the roof. Daerios doesn’t even flinch, but the rest of us spin around just in time to see both human and elvish guards spill out of the emergency door. They spot us immediately. One of the guards pulls out his bow and nocks an arrow.

“Daer.” Berendir shifts in front of Cara and me, holding out both arms. “If you’re going to take us to Elaërion, now would be a good time.”

I don’t know if Daerios hears him. He is completely absorbed in the spell, muttering like a man in a trance. The first arrow releases. It misses, but the rest of the group takes off across the roof, headed toward us at a dead sprint.

“Daerios!” Berendir yells.

As if on command, golden sparks begin to shower from the prince’s fingertips. Sensing that the spell is working, Daerios raises his voice. “Andon alacénima,” he chants, pulling his hands slowly apart. “Andon alacénima.”

I watch in amazement as the air peels open. That’s the only way I can describe it: Daerios’s fingers are knives slicing through the wind, taking the open air with them. As the blue sky is stripped away, black night appears in its place. Darkness in the shape of a crescent moon, then a half-circle, then, when Daerios’s fingers reach the steel floor, a full, complete, gaping hole in the sky.

A volley of arrows shoot toward us. Some miss their target. Others fly straight into the black hole and disappear.

Daerios’s eyes flutter open. When he sees that the spell worked, his face quickly transforms from serenity to knife-sharp focus. “Now!” he yells, ushering us toward the hole. “Through the portal!”

Cara glances over her shoulder at the approaching guards. “You don’t have to tell me twice.” She dives into the darkness. Berendir follows.

Daerios steps one foot into the portal. He holds out a hand, waiting for me. I step forward and take it.

Just as my fingers close around his, another hand grabs my other arm, yanking me backward. I cry out. The guards have reached us.

“No!” Daerios points over my shoulder with one hand and blasts out a stream of light. Whoever grabbed me must go flying backward, because their fingers loosen their vise and disappear. I have no time to register the fact that Daerios just used his magic—hiselementalmagic—in front of me for the first time. The portal wobbles, as if it’s about to give out. “Now, Quinn,” Daerios says. “We’re almost out of time.” He dives through the portal, pulling me with him.