Page 25 of Promise of Darkness
And then he shuts the doors, leaving only a single key on my side, which I swiftly use to lock them.
I’m alone with the bed of sinful thoughts.
I don’t know why, but I’m suddenly certain these chamberswerehis. It wouldn’t surprise me to find it amuses him to have me sleep in his bed. I grab one of the pillows and sniff it, andugh, it smells of him.
Sweet dreams, my ass.
The only way I’m going to get any sleep at all is if I keep my knife beneath my pillow.
Three months. All I have to do is survive for the next three months, and then I’m free. Of my mother’s machinations, my sister’s scheming, and whatever the Prince of Evernight intends to do to me.
7
Iwake to eternal evening.
There’s a moment of disorientation as I stare at the canopy of the bed I’m lying in, and then it all comes rushing back. The Lammastide Rites. The Prince of Evernight. The deal my mother struck with him.
And now this.
Three months as the prince’s plaything—sorry, hostage.
There’s no sound coming from outside the room, though the clock on the mantle reveals I’ve slept late. The fey lanterns in the room are slowly warming, as if to provide some sense of normality in this twilight landscape.
Slipping from the bed, I find my trunk of clothes and swiftly dress in my hunting leathers. The knife Mother gave me is wrapped in my shirt, and my hand hesitates beneath its weight. The thought of serving as her assassin makes me feel sick to the stomach, but better to be armed than to be helpless, and I wasn’t allowed a sword.
I distinctly recall hearing the prince say I was free to roam as I willed, which means I’m up and out the door before anyone has a chance to stop me.
The palace is empty, though it feels as though something watches me from every shadow. I catch a rush of movement out of the corner of my eyes, which means there are demi-fey there, though whether they serve the prince is unknown. They’re wilder fae, nature spirits and ethereal sprites that dance to their own whims. Sometimes vicious, sometimes capricious, entirely unpredictable.
Valerian may be called the City of the Dead now, but it was once known as the City of Dreams, thanks to its cocooning blanket of almost ever-present twilight. Magic kept the ice and cold out, and as I slip through the palace ruins, I realize the spell that shields the city from the worst of the weather must still be in place.
Silence echoes through the hallways.
Snow lingers in drifts on the carpets, as if it crept in through crevices unknown.
There’s no sign of the servants the prince promised were here, but there’s also no sign of him, which can only be a boon.
It’s in the heart of the palace, where snow drifts lightly against the walls, that I realize the true beauty of the place. The enormous inner courtyard is no courtyard at all, but the remnants of a ballroom. Glass shards crunch beneath my boots, and as I look up, I see the broken spans of stone that hint at the remains of a roof.
The moon shines directly overhead. It must have been a glassed roof once upon a time, built to take advantage of the ever-present night skies. A silvery blue light cascades over everything, and what is left of the ballroom mirrors refracts it back until the entire snowy room seems to glow.
A single pair of wraiths waltz slowly around the ballroom, caught by the ravages of time in a never-ending loop. They litter the streets of Valerian, an ethereal reminder of the war.
Its only as they sweep past one of the stone columns that supported the roof that a small piece of paper catches my eye.
It’s tucked inside a crevice in the column, and from this angle the moonlight falls directly upon it. Something about its placement seems furtive.
I pluck it from the stone, unfurling the small scroll.
If you’re reading this,then you’re being held by the Prince of Evernight. To escape this tangled web, you must discover what happened to his wife. Trust your instincts.
I freeze.
It’s written in a style similar to my own hand. Sloped Asturian letters. Someone else from my mother’s court, perhaps? Definitely feminine, judging by the looping scroll of the letters.
But who?
Another captive?
