Page 1 of The Mirror in the Mountain

Chapter 1

Estelle

The High Queen had always stared at me in an unblinking way I didn’t like. Perhaps she was staring at my eyes—at the crown of gold around my pupils—that marked me as the one who would ultimately usurp her rule, as she herself had foretold. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that Queen Amerie’s cloudy blue gaze was staring even deeper than that. As though she could see straight through me into my very soul.

The great hall was filled with twirling streamers of pure silver that hung from the high ceiling, silver feathers that matched the mirror gateway that had brought us all to Morehaven drifting endlessly above the heads of onlookers, and music and merriment so loud, it felt suffocating. Yet even across the room, those milky eyes found mine with an utterly unnerving accuracy. I threw back the remains of my drink, its bubbles stinging my throat as I swallowed. Then I ducked behind a giant vase of cascading flowers as though it might do something to shield me from that all-knowing stare. Slowly, I backed away toward the wall of windows and the cracked doorway of my escape.

As I snuck out onto the balcony, my mouth twitched in irritation as I found someone already there. His raven black hair brushed against his high, bronzed cheekbones, casting ashadow across his intense gaze. There was an air of purposeful dishevelment to his courtly clothes. A fitted jacket clung to his broad shoulders and nipped in at his narrow waist, the buttons of his shirt undone enough to display the dark hair of his chest. Then his eyes flicked up to meet mine, his full lips pulling into a devilish smirk at my obvious annoyance that someone else was out here, even though I was the one who had technically intruded uponhim.

Obviously, he was also trying to escape the monotony of the function, for which I couldn’t blame him. Stepping forward, I noticed he was watching me as closely as I was watching him; his golden-brown eyes brazenly looking me up and down. He had the look of someone who knew his way around a fight, muscled in such a way that his fine clothes clung to the bulge of his biceps. Not that I couldn’t take him…but that was the last thought on my mind as he smiled at me. My heart was suddenly hammering as one dimple appeared lopsidedly on the right side of that crooked grin.

“Hello there,” he said with a lilting accent, marking him as a subject of Esterra—that dry desert fae kingdom in the East. He leaned forward in a graceful bow that had likely been drilled into him since his birth.

My answering curtsy was a short rustle of my voluptuous pale pink tulle skirts, their layers see-through save for the beaded sheath underneath. The quickness of the dip verged on rude, especially as I narrowed my eyes rather than looking demurely downward as I had been taught. “Hello.”

I glanced toward the other end of the balcony, wondering if I could make a quick exit to the gardens below. He looked at me askance, his dark hair falling over one eye. “Why does it feel like I’m the one intruding on your moment of solitude when it’s the other way around?”

I started slightly, surprised at his bluntness. “I imagine you also weren’t looking for company if you escaped out here.”

He smirked, that second flash of dimple making an appearance as equally diverting as the first. “Escaped is one word for it. But I’m not against company ifyou’rewhat it entails.”

I rolled my eyes. “You don’t even know me.”

He laughed, and my heart skipped a beat despite myself. “What if I’d like to?”

“Because I’ve made you feel so welcome? Or do you enjoy a companion who’s annoyed by your very presence?”

He smiled wider, the corners of his eyes crinkling, but his dark gaze flashed with a hint of danger that made my stomach dissolve into concerning flutters. My overbearing father rarely left me unchaperoned, but it wasn’t like I didn’t have friends of the opposite sex, even if most were clearly under my father’s thumb. And yet…there was something about him that made me uncomfortable in a curiously pleasant fashion. An innate connection I found myself yearning to investigate further.

Or maybe, despite my evasion of the simpering, soulless courtiers, and watchful eyes following my every move, it wasn’t true companionship I was trying to avoid.

“I enjoy a companion with spirit. You obviously havethatin abundance.” His voice was low, his gaze never leaving mine. “One that prefers fresh air and enough space to breathe to the courtly politics and drunken revelry of this function. And one who might be the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.”

I pressed my lips together, acting as though I was unfazed even as that flutter in my belly multiplied. “You’re very forward for someone I’ve only just met.”

“And yet it feels like I do know you, somehow.” He shrugged. “Tell me I’m alone in the feeling, and I’ll leave you to your solitude if that is your wish.”

I opened my mouth, but when nothing came out, I slowly closed it again.

“Your name, lady,” he demanded, his voice deep and sinful.

It was rare that someone didn’t know who I was, and him not knowing made my pulse climb with excitement. Because I was the Princess of Soleara and likely heir to all faeriedom considering the blistering force of the Celestial magic that had appeared to me two years ago on my Seventeenth. Though many already speculated about the obvious path of my future, no one was supposed to know about the prophecy since the High Queen had commanded I share it with no one.

“Yours first.”

Before I could so much as protest, he walked forward, catching my hands in his larger ones. I jolted at his touch, at the strange shock that sizzled between us the second his skin touched mine. And maybe that was why I didn’t pull away. Maybe that even explained why I leaned in to breathe him in—some intoxicating mix of citrus and anise that seemed to sear into my brain.

“Perhaps we can bargain then. For there’s one thing I want even more than your name.”

A shiver of anticipation ran through me, and I hoped he didn’t notice. Though the way his hands tightened on mine said otherwise.

“Oh?” I hoped my voice sounded as composed as I wished it did…but something about him was making calm hard to find.

Whywas my heart pounding like it might break free of my chest? For a fanciful moment, I wondered if he could hear its loud staccato.

“Your name, or a taste of those rosy lips, are all I could ask for, lest they haunt my dreams more than they already will.”

My jaw might have dropped at his forwardness, at the heated look on his face as I felt an answering blush on my cheeks.

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