Page 106 of Promise of Darkness
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Stormhaven restson a rocky crag overlooking the Innesmuch Sea. Though I’ve heard of it, I’ve never been here before.
Unless… I have.
That’s a disconcerting thought.
The lord of the Kingdom of Stormlight has never been on good terms with my mother. Though really, who is?
And while Queen Adaia and Thiago might be bitter enemies, the enmity between her and Prince Kyrian is the stuff of legends. It’s said that he loved a maid of the sea once, only to lose her when the oceans called her home. My mother had her minstrel compose a song about it to mock him, and Lord Kyrian sent her the minstrel’s tongue and fingers in a box.
“Are you sure I should be here?” I’m not looking forward to it.
“Don’t worry,” Thiago drawls. “He doesn’t bite.”
I stare at the long, stone staircase that wends its way up the cliff face. “Do we have to…?”
“Yes.” Thiago flashes me a smile. “Consider it your exercise for the day.”
“You seem remarkably cheerful.” I look at those stairs again. I can already feel my thighs groaning. Curse it.
“Here,” he says, setting foot upon them. “I’ll even go first, so you can stare at my ass the whole way.”
“How very thoughtful of you.”
I set myself to the climb. As suspected, it’s brutal and merciless and I hate the prince more and more with each step. “This isn’t helping your cause,” I mutter as we near the top. Or at least, I hope it’s the top. Every corner we turn, my hopes fade when I see another rise. “Why couldn’t Kyrian have installed lifting platforms? I’ve seen them at Greycliffes. They’re marvelous devices.”
“Because,” calls a voice rich with melody, “it amuses me to see my visitors huffing and puffing up my stairs. Especially if they’re enemies. It takes a bit of the fight out of them.”
I follow Thiago around the next curve of the cliff, and the stairs finally flatten out into an expansive balcony overlooking the seas. Stone sea serpents wend their way along the edge, forming a natural rail. I swear their polished brass eyes watch me as I pass between them.
“Thiago.” There’s a tall, lean fae male waiting there, clad in leather from top to toe and wearing a pirate’s swagger. He flashes a dangerous smile as he clasps Thiago’s hand and claps him on the back. “It’s been a long time, my old friend.”
“Not long enough, you bastard. I remember now why I don’t visit more often.”
Seeing the two of them standing together is either a woman’s best fantasy, or a gift from the Old Ones.
Kyrian’s dark eyes flicker to me, his smile thinning a little. “Princess Iskvien, you’re as beautiful as the stars say you are.”
“Are you on speaking terms with them?”
“Every night,” he purrs. “Haven’t you heard me whisper in your dreams?”
“One can hardly compete with the stars,” I mutter. He’s not what I expected, at all. Nor is he the man haunting my dreams.
“Don’t make me throw you off this cliff,” Thiago says. “Vi’s not the only one who had to climb those fucking stairs.”
“If the rumors are true, you wouldn’t have had to.”
“What rumors?” I ask.
Thiago’s brows darken. “Ignore him. He’s been sniffing the sea breeze for too long. Empties his head.”
Kyrian throws back his head and laughs.
There’s a certain sense of earthy rawness to the sound, as if the sea has given him a raspy undertone. Though his face is formed of near perfection—those lips a little too full, and his lashes a little too long—there’s also something feral about it. Not for him a court full of polished courtiers and bowing sycophants, I suspect. No, he looks like he’d be just as comfortable on the swaying deck of a ship as sitting on a throne. Comfortable anywhere he stood, even if it was a prison cell.
I wish I felt the same sense of confidence.
