Chapter 25
The ship sat docked in a monstrously wide harbor, and for the first time, I drank in the view of a true seaport. One long stretch of wood after another, the docks resembled a maze floating on the water, jutting out over the waves like a mess of teeth. Straight, twisted, crooked—the under bite of a shark’s jaw. Boats and ships crowded over one another, hollowed wooden crates buoyed between the vessels so they didn’t touch.
Every corner of the harbor was alive with movement. Like Leihani, a market took up space on the pier, the merchant huts tall, fortified. Guards roamed the port. Wore the same Navy uniforms as those on the admiral’s ship, their clothes and hats cobalt blue, long swords swinging from their hips.
Ahead lay a cavalcade of bright houses. Structures of pink, green, orange, and blue, built into the hills of cobblestone, into each other. Everything looked like one giant, winding building, though roofs were pitched separately, some high, some low. Windows and balconies held processions of flowers, some with a table and chairs; others held mere railings across the front of a door.
I stood at the ship’s port-side railing, garbed in a dress Kye fitted over my tapa cloth. The corset dug into my ribs, its dropped waist like a knife in my hip bones.
They’d sent for a gown that buttoned all the way to my neck, hiding the dark bruises that scoured my flesh. Kye’s eyes had flickered over them as he finished the final ties.
I’d thought I’d combust when he’d pulled it out, gesturing for me to lift my hands over my head while he gathered it into a wide hole for me to climb through. His half-witted comment hadn’t helped either.
Suck it in, island witch. I’m skilled at taking these off, but I’ve never laced one up before.
Kye and Thaan spoke behind my back, their voices so low I couldn’t hear their words, though I was certain the subject was me. I didn’t care. Eventually, Kye came to stand beside me as I gazed out over the deck, his playful nature nowhere to be found.
“Ugly, isn’t it?” he muttered, staring at the happy little houses.
It was anything but ugly, but I didn’t argue. I didn’t even want to look at him.
He clicked his tongue. “Going to have to fix your hair before we enter the palace.”
“I’ll braid it.”
He scoffed. “I’ll do it. I don’t trust you not to shove a pin in my eye.”
I stared icily ahead, watching the people move. Somewhere behind us, I knew Thaan watched.
“That island was no good for you.”
“Don’t speak to me as if you care what’s good for me.”
He sighed, lacing his fingers together, leaning his forearms over the railing. “I don’t care what you say to me in private. But while we’re surrounded by royals, nobles, and palace servants, you will be respectful.”
My eyes batted against the wind as I ignored him.
“Or you’ll have more than my charm to answer to.”
“Fine.”
A carriage appeared in front of the gangway, and I shoved off the railing, knowing it was ours. Kye grabbed my hand, pulling me back to face him.
“Fine, Your Highness,” he said, his fingertips piercing into my wrist.
I flung my arm away, lifting my heavy skirts to descend the rope ladder without another look at him.
Our hired coach passed under an iron portcullis, and gradually, a shining structure came into view.
Laurier Palace. The City of Towers.
It looked nothing like the castles I”d constructed from sand. Built out of the cliffs, it hung over the Juile Sea, an unyielding fortress of stone and water. Trees grew all the way to the palace doors, thick and ponderous, surrounding the castle the way stars cradle the moon. The western red cliffs of Calder met the southern cliffs at a sharp corner, like an arrowhead pointing out of the earth, and it was easy to see why this place was chosen for the King to call home.
Towers rose from the cliffs, wild and tall like stalks of bamboo. There must have been a hundred of them, stretching into the sky as they inched closer. I tried to count and couldn’t keep track. It might’ve been easier to count the grains of sand in the sea. The vivid onyx stone of the palace shined over the cliffs below, clashing with the thicket of trees in the most decadent way, but it was the wide, sparkling windows I stared at. Glass covered every side, leaving Laurier Palace more crystal than castle.
As we neared, Kye began to fidget.
I watched him from the corner of my eye. Crossing and uncrossing a leg over his knee. Shifting his weight. Scratching his arm under his sleeve.
He finally pulled out a small wooden box of pins, winding my thick hair at my crown. I wasn’t sure where he’d managed to acquire a dress, hair pins, and the richly leathered, feminine boots he tossed into my lap. Likely at port, during the few hours we’d been anchored there before he’d unlocked my cell. I didn’t ask.
He shifted my face towards him, tugging a few strands loose to frame my cheeks, and a flush of heat shot through me. I shoved it down, glaring at him.
He sighed. “It looks terrible.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “If anyone asks why, I’ll tell them my fiancé left me in an iron cage for three days.”
“Four.”
My eyes narrowed at him.
“The trip lasted four days,” he repeated.
I’m not sure that it made a difference. It had all been the same to me, locked in a cargo hold. But he eyed me as though the distinction meant something, so I simply pulled from his gaze, watching the palace grow as we approached.
The front doors of the palace stood taller than my house in Leihani, flanked on both sides by wrought-iron gates like heavy black lace, presumably remaining open unless under siege. Thick ivy snaked through the metal whorls, trailing along walls and up towers, over rooftops and drooping past the cliff edge. I’d expected a square structure, like the castles I”d always imagined, but the City of Towers looked to me what a turf of grass must look like to ants, a mass of imposing blades pointed at the sun.
A liveried footman met us outside.
“You’re not worried I’ll run?” I asked haughtily, staring at the walls of open glass as Kye strode forward, leaving me in the dusty gravel of the palace drive.
He looked back, suddenly seeming tired. “No. If you escape with no intention of returning, you’ll kill yourself. You’ve signed a contract. In blood.”
“How—”
“You won’t run. There is no reason to put you in irons; you’re no longer a prisoner. Let’s go.”
The eyes of servants and nobles alike followed us with interest as Kye led me through the doorway and across a great, gleaming hall of glittering white marble. I felt myself shrink from the attention until we rounded a corner that manifested an empty space, and Kye turned to me.
“Back straight, chin high,” he instructed, hands clasped confidently behind his back as he reminded me of the ludicrous backstory Cain had invented for me. “You are the daughter of a lord, heiress to an estate. You’re used to people looking at you.”
“I am used to people looking at me,” I snapped.
That was the problem.
Kye raised a brow, but I didn’t try to explain. If he hadn”t understood why I hated enduring long stares from our conversation on my veranda, he wouldn’t understand now.
As he breezed through a little egress, I lengthened my spine, ignoring the covert glances of the palace residents. A rush of smells assaulted my senses. Damp mustiness overlaid by dried herbs, the boughs of crisp evergreens and lilacs hanging from rafters above and scattered across the floor.
The palace had looked like individual towers from the outside, but within, the rooms were wide and deep. I’d never seen so much glass. Some entire walls were made of it, ending in crystal ceilings that invited warm sunshine, even as broody clouds shifted overhead.
Kye guided me up a winding staircase, explaining that it was called the Southern-Sun Wing. I tried to keep track of where I was and from where I”d come, certain I’d become lost if I tried to wander the halls alone.
Up a winding set of stairs, across a crystal bridge surrounded by nothing but sky, Kye finally stopped over a threshold, his hand on a doorknob as his eyes shifted back to mine.
“You’ll get settled today, and you’ll meet Lady Selena tomorrow.” Eyeing a cobweb in the ceiling above me with severity, his hand turned, and he swung the door open, waiting for me to enter first.
A modest suite waited within. Cold and dark, but not entirely unwelcoming. A sitting room on one side, an oak table on the other, and what looked like a bedroom down the hall. Across the rounded wall, a fresco of tiny white alyssum flowers and green vines had been painted so long ago it’d cracked throughout every inch like fractured ice. A small balcony opened over the cliff side, looking out to the Juile Sea beyond, the distant crash of water a soft lullaby.
“My apartment is the larger version, just across the corridor from you,” he said, indicating to the door directly across from mine. He backed out then paused. “If you need anything, ask someone else. Don’t speak to my brother or any other royalty. Stay out of my way.”
His eyes flashed with warning. He left me standing in a foreign room, the door clicking shut behind him.