Page 119 of Slaying the Shifter Prince
I didn’t let the heat of that promise soften my glare. “Yes, but now I’m going to be presented to your parents with holes in my dress.”
Instead of replying, he pressed his lips together as though fighting a smirk and looked away.
But when we entered the glittering palace, perched atop its volcanic peak at the centre of the city, he didn’t lead me along its wide corridors to a throne room.
He took me down.
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The staircases grew narrower and darker as we descended. Some were hewn from rock and made for much taller people than I. He helped me down those.
“Where are we going?”
Pupils wide in the gloom, he surveyed the corridor ahead. “You’ll see.”
Down, down, down, we went, until at last we reached a large door that looked like it had been carved from the black rock of the volcano. “Some benefits of royalty,” he explained when it ground open at his touch.
Deeper darkness gathered beyond, but at the end awaited a flickering lantern.
Dread crept down my spine, digging its talons into my vertebrae. “I thought I was being presented to your parents.”
“After. First, I have something to present toyou. A wedding gift.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to see what waited in the lantern-light, but he offered me his hand and I took it, drawing comfort from his hot skin.
On either side of the corridor stood doors with barred windows and hatches just large enough to fit a tray through.
This was a dungeon.
The realisation twisted my stomach. If he’d brought me here to be punished, I had to give it to him for playing a very long game indeed. But, no, I didn’t believe that. I trusted him.
As though sensing my discomfort, his fingers tightened around mine and he kissed my knuckles. “It’s almost time.”
When we reached the edge of the lamplight, the corridor opened out into a room lined with pillars carved of the same black rock. At the centre, two masked guards held a stooped man. Their gleaming armour looked something like leather but not quite, and on their chests they wore the insignia of Dawn Court—a blazing sun emerging from a dark horizon.
Covered in grime and blood, their prisoner clearly hadn’t arrived in the dungeons this morning. Yet beneath the dirt and his tattered clothes, his arms and legs were still well-muscled. They hadn’t imprisoned him long enough for that to wither.
I frowned from the guards to Sepher. “I don’t—”
The prisoner’s head snapped up at the sound of my voice.
A single dark eye stared at me, wide and bloodshot. A bloody bandage covered the other, and bruising puffed up that side of his face. I still knew him, though.
I would know him anywhere.
“Eric.”
The air sucked from my lungs. My fingers spasmed against Sepher’s. It was a month since I’d seen him, but the rage flooding my veins was just as hot as it had been on the theatre’s catwalks.
Sepher disentangled himself from me and went to a low table between two pillars that I hadn’t spotted as we’d entered. “Since he’s your wedding gift, I considered tying a bow around his neck, but Celestine insisted it was in poor taste.” His smile was edged as he turned from the table, holding a sword as long as I was tall. “So I put one on this instead.”
Sure enough, a black satin bow gleamed around the sword’s hilt. It might’ve been merry if not for the colour or the dark lick of magic that cut through the air.
“After all, I’m really giving you the gift of justice.” He held the sword out for me to inspect.
A black snake and a silver one coiled together to form its crossguard and hilt. Tiny silver stars inlaid the black snake’s body, while dark voids studded the silver snake with constellations. Dark, decimating magic poured off it in waves.
I frowned up at him. “I don’t understand.”
