Page 2 of Court of Secrets and Flames

My occasional sneaky, late-night jaunts into town to help a friend stock a food pantry for those in need were my only glimpses of freedom.

Until my sister Leesa disappeared, and I was summoned to Flighthaven.

Now I’m a prisoner again.

“You good, Knox?”

The bronze-winged man glances at us while asking the question. The prince grunts out a reply. ‘Yes.”

From this angle beneath him, I don’t miss the way his bottom lip keeps tensing like something’s bothering him.

Not that I care. What I am curious about is why the man called him Prince Silver when he first captured me. At the time, I was too overwhelmed to fixate on it, but since then, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to think. The kingdoms know him as Prince Knox Barda, so I’m guessing Silver must be some kind of nickname or codename. But despite my curiosity, I refuse to ask.

I refuse to give the asshole the impression that I give a single damn about him.

The asshole-in-question’s wings, both marvelous and horrifying in their enormous expanse, beat the air with powerful thrusts as we descend through a rent in the clouds. I thought I knew him, trusted him, but as the ground draws near, so does the crushing weight of his betrayal.

He’s ripped me from the only homeland I know to deliver me to the people I trained to fight against.

Because he’s one of those people.

“Almost there, Lark.” He speaks in a flat, cold tone, as if the frigid air we’re flying through has extracted every ounce of warmth from his body.

I guess now that the jig is up, he no longer has to pretend.

Knox’s descent slows as we break through the final wisp of cloud cover and approach a courtyard unlike any I’ve ever experienced. The Tirenese soldiers surrounding us cup the air with their powerful wings to curb their descent too.

My gaze travels upward along the lines of an impossibly tall and majestic palace with long arcs of pale stone. Even from the air, I recognize the gardens are magnificent. Hedges cut into the shapes of dragons. Cobbled pathways laid out in intricate designs, and a riot of blooms in a rainbow of colors.

Inside the gardens, towers pierce the sky with an elegance that surpasses anything I’ve ever seen in Aclaris.

The masterpiece of this palace can only be fully appreciated from the air.

In a land where the citizens are just as likely to fly in as walk or use carriages, everything here seems to be created on a larger scale to accommodate wings.

Here, each tower boasts wide windows adorned with long balconies featuring short stone railings. Easily low enough to trip over. Their purpose mystifies me until one of the soldierslands on a balcony, opens the window like a door, and rushes inside.

Clearly he’s running ahead to report our arrival. But to whom? The king himself?

As each soldier lands, they do a strange shrug, as if rotating their shoulders, and their wings disappear from sight.

My head swims.

My ears ring.

I’ve never been so far from home. Nor so confused or out of place before. Not even on my first day at Flighthaven Academy.

Around us, a thick curtain wall dotted with battlements wraps around the palace, keeping the massive structure protected from the outside.

“Welcome to the Royal Palace of Tirene. My…home.” Sterling releases me onto the cobbled stone of the courtyard. When his gaze sweeps over me, an odd emotion crosses his face before his features re-settle into an unreadable mask.

Stepping back, I stretch and work out the kinks after hours of being held in the same position. A hard glint enters Sterling’s dark brown eyes that wasn’t there before.

Despite the fact that he’d clearly rather be anywhere but here with me, he’s still so attractive it’s maddening. Tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular, he’s honed his body into a seductive weapon thanks to years of training and fighting. A leather tie pulls most of his thick dark hair off his face, allowing one escaped lock to kiss the rich bronze skin of his high cheekbone. A day’s worth of stubble covers the lower half of his face, almost hiding the scar carving a path down his chiseled jawline.

All those features combined create a man of harsh and dangerous beauty. And while I wish I could say that his betrayal killed off my attraction to him, that would be a lie.

I blink, and his silvery wings vanish. He’s magicked them away just like the other Tirenese.

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