CHAPTER 6 #3
For years I have imagined Solaris as a continent consumed with rot brought on by the curse. But there is beauty here too, and that genuinely surprises the hell out of me.
By now it’s midday and the road trails farther into the mountains.
The earth grows rockier, forcing Bromir and Onyx’s horse, Zael, to slow their steady trot uphill.
I notice the skeletal trees clinging to the slopes in scattered clusters, and when we ride close enough, I realize they are not skeletal at all.
Their bark is dark as charcoal, yes, but blue veins run through the trunks in narrow branching lines, as though light has somehow found its way beneath the surface and frozen there.
The branches arch overhead in twisted shapes resembling the temples of the high priests.
The farther north we ride, the cleaner the air becomes in some ways—sharper, almost—but threaded through with something metallic and cold that settles uneasily at the back of my throat.
It tastes metallic, almost like blood, with a sharp hint of iron.
I’m beginning to suspect Solaris is determined to make me question every certainty I have ever possessed.
Onyx nudges Zael onward, forcing Bromir to follow, and I glare at the back of his head as if that might compel him to slow down. I can’t resist a look over my shoulder at a nearby stream. Onyx notices, and we stop to water the horses.
During the brief reprieve, I take one of Otto’s honey cakes from the parcel, letting out a low moan as the sweetness floods my mouth. Onyx says nothing while I eat, but I catch him watching me once, his gloved hands resting on the reins, expression unreadable.
“What?” I ask.
“You’re glaring at the honey cake.”
“Because I resent how much I like it. This really is one of the most delicious things I’ve ever tasted.”
Onyx nods in agreement before staring off into the distance as I all but inhale the delicious pastry.
Once the horses are watered and I’ve eaten enough honey cakes to give me a bellyache, we continue our ride and the afternoon sky darkens.
I catch glimpses of Onyx’s face, noting his dark cloak stirring in the wind, broad shoulders set, gaze fixed ahead as though he already sees what lies beyond the next ridge.
This part of Solaris, for all its strangeness, fits him.
Or perhaps he fits it. The similarities are subtle; hard edges to certain parts of the landscape, concealed light in unexpected places.
The same unsettling ability to be both forbidding and beautiful depending on how long one is foolish enough to stare.
I immediately resent the comparison I’ve just made in my mind.
Not because it’s wrong, but because it feels too close to admiration.
And I do NOT admire this man. Though I did witness a softer side of him, he is the captain of the king’s Shadow Guard.
And he was sent to find me. I should be disturbed, enraged—anything but relaxed as I navigate this land with him.
But I’m not—and that alone may be my first mistake.
* * *
After what feels like hours, the road curves along a high ridge, and the world seems to open all at once. At first I think the mountain ahead is only that—a mountain, black and immense. Then I see it.
Andell rises on the horizon, right behind the mountains, and my breath catches. I can practically feel the city before my eyes can take it in. There’s magic here. And it is—overwhelming.
Towers spear upward from its face, carved so seamlessly into the rock that I can’t tell where the natural mountain ends and the work of human hands begins.
High walls coil around the lower city in dark terraces, following the shape of the cliffs as though they had grown there rather than been built.
Large bridges arch between spires and windows glimmer like scattered stars.
Near the summit, a structure vast enough to make the rest seem small looms against the sky with the stillness of something eternal.
It is without a doubt the most beautiful architecture I have ever seen—and the sight of it fills me with such immediate dread that my stomach knots around itself.
Beside me, Onyx says nothing.
I don’t look at him. I can’t. My eyes are fixed on the city rising higher and higher the longer I stare, on the impossible scale of it, and the cold promise of what waits for me once I enter.
Somewhere inside those walls waits the king I have spent my entire life hating and fearing.
The man whose curse has consumed our continent.
The king who has been hunting magic because of a curse placed on his bloodline.
The worst part is that after Lycar, after Otto, after everything I've seen with my own eyes these past few days, I no longer know where my life is leading—or if I'm meant to survive any of it.
I think what terrifies me most is knowing the king has been obsessed with finding me, and I don't even know why.
The only thing I know for certain is that we’re riding toward him.
A chill settles over me, and I find myself wishing Otto had hidden me beneath the kitchen floorboards and lied about it.