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“Follow me,” Arryn whispers. “Keep your hoods up.”
I don’t know what I was expecting from the place Arryn and Phaedron called the Crystal City, but it wasn’t this. I thought the Lands Below were filled with monsters and cruel, evil men who’d run you through with a sword instead of asking for your name. This was the prison where the dragon Rensivar and King Grathgore trapped our enemies to die, after all. It was supposed to be a nightmare.
But the cobblestone streets and narrow alleyways Arryn leads us down feel like any other city. Sure, it’s still early in the morning. Most of the doors are closed, and the town has a quiet, almost expectant feel. Garlands of flowers decorate the larger streets; fountains splash cheerfully at crossroads, filling the streets with their laughter. One street smells like baking bread and cinnamon rolls, while another holds the heavy aroma of roasting meat.
When we do see people sweeping out storefronts or setting up stalls, Arryn turns away, leading us on a twisting, circuitous tour. Eventually, we reach what has to be the castle, although it’s missing several key castle elements. Like outer walls. We walk straight through a series of delicate gardens until we’re standing before a row of massive arched windows.
“The ballroom,” Arryn explains, with a casual nod at the windows.
I raise an eyebrow. This castle has the worst defenses I’ve ever seen. King Grathgore could probably storm it by himself.
“What now?” Phaedron asks. His illusion arm is crossed over his waist in a way that looks almost painful, and his left hand clenches the hilt of his sword. Her name is Skyfire, he said. He also said he would come back to the Worlds Above for her. But that’s not how things worked out, is it?
“Now?” Arryn replies, with what sounds like a smile. “We wait.”
Great. I press my fingers against the stone wall. There’s a faint trace of magic here, but not nearly enough to be effective against a siege. It might stop a rock from breaking a window, but not a trebuchet.
“This is a horrible design for a castle,” I mutter, under my breath.
Arryn laughs. I glance up and see her leaning against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest. It’s such a strangely casual pose that for a minute I think I must have imagined the similarities between this woman before me and the prim and proper noblewoman who was supposed to marry King Grathgore’s grandson.
“Well,” Arryn says, smiling at me, “who’s going to attack?”
Oh. Right. I pull my hand away from the wall and its faint hum of magic.
“There’s still plenty of protected areas in the castle,” Arryn explains. “But the ballroom is a public space. It’s not exactly strategic. See?”
She tilts her head toward a window. Slowly, I inch my way across the stone and peek through the bottom of the window. I see a massive, elegant room with a polished stone floor and an arched ceiling almost lost in shadows and smoke from the dozens of candle-filled chandeliers. The room is filled with servants moving among the elegant tables, setting down plates and napkins or tying flowers to the fluted marble columns supporting the roof. I watch them with a lonely sort of ache in my chest as bells begin to toll behind me.
I know all the steps to that dance. I’ve been trotted out at enough royal functions to recognize the placement of the tables and chairs, and to know what the position of each says about the rank of the men and women who will fill them. There’s even a table to the left of the royal dais for the magicians, where we were free to eat and drink and smile but not to speak.
My breath catches in my throat. It wasn’t much of a life, living in the Kingdom of the Summer as King Grathgore’s chained pet, but it was my life. And now it’s over. No matter where I end up after walking through the portal I’ll create today, I’ll never go back to the Kingdom of the Summer. I’d never see King Grathgore’s banquet hall again.
The glowsoft orbs move around us in slow, soft circles as the servants finish preparing the room. The bells chime again, and Arryn whispers that it must be the end of the private wedding ceremony. There’s a dull roar, like the sound of the ocean before you can see the waves, and then the doors to the banquet hall open and the room fills with people.
Chapter29
Alindra
NOTHING LIKE IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE
People. All the enemies of the Kingdom of the Summer, the ones we’re told were such vicious and legendary fighters that they had to be locked away in the Lands Below forever. They’re dressed in silk and velvet, flowing gowns and jackets with long tails, with flowers and illusions in their hair. They’re holding hands, waving across the ballroom, embracing one another. They’re fussing with the seats and smoothing their skirts, scowling and smiling, coughing and laughing.
They’re people. Aside from their unnaturally pale skin, this could be a ballroom in the Kingdom of the Summer. It could be a royal celebration in any elven kingdom, anywhere on the continent.
I see no evidence of the cruelty I was taught to fear or the wicked, evil ways that supposedly inspired the war between our two kingdoms. Eventually, I accepted that Phaedron wasn’t the sort of monster I was raised to believe lurked in the Lands Below, but somehow it’s different to see the kingdom all together, laughing and celebrating, the sounds of their mingled conversations filling the air like warmth from the rising sun.
A bell rings, light and high, and suddenly the conversation stops. There’s a wave of scuffling, scraping sounds as everyone takes a seat, and then every head in the room turns toward the door. A tall, muscular man with dark hair walks through, the silver of his crown barely visible at this distance. He spreads his arms wide, says something I can’t make out through the glass, and is greeted with a flurry of applause. Then he steps to the side, and another couple walks through the doors.
The bride and groom. They enter the room together, arm in arm, the groom tall and radiant in thick red velvet with gold trim, and the bride’s dark skin glowing against a dress that looks like it was pulled from the summer sky.
I knew this was a wedding, and I knew who was getting married, but somehow the sight of Princess Elanerill of the Kingdom of the Summer still manages to make my breath catch in the back of my throat.
I’ve only seen her a handful of times, this granddaughter of King Grathgore. Once every decade or so, some magician would come up with a new theory to save the Princess from the magical wound that was bleeding her life energy, and we’d all shuffle up to the tower where she lay in the coma that was keeping her alive.
It never worked, of course. Heart magic is dangerous, finicky stuff, and we all knew the only way to actually save her life would be to somehow finish the spell. Or perhaps to kill the person on the other side of it, whoever it was in the Lands Below who’d tried to steal her heart.
Well. The man in red leans in to kiss Elanerill. She smiles at him like he’s the only person in the room, or maybe in the entire world. And now I know who tried to steal her heart, I realize, with a sharp little twist just beneath my breastbone. There’s another round of applause as the bride and groom walk elegantly down the small staircase and into the ballroom, and then a second couple comes through the open doors. The man moves into the light first. He’s tall and pale, with a dark, close-trimmed beard. And his partner—
