The paths that wound up Eletheria's slopes were marvels in themselves, wide enough for three men to walk abreast, paved with stones that caught and held the light like captured stars. Each turn revealed new wonders, fountains carved from single blocks of coral-pink marble, their waters singing sweetly as they fell, gardens where impossible flowers bloomed in colors I had no names for, archways that framed glimpses of the sea below like living paintings.
But it was the temples that stole my breath entirely.
They rose from the hillside like prayers made manifest, their columns soaring toward heaven in perfect proportion. Where the architecture of my father's fortress was all sharp angles and brutal practicality, these buildings flowed with organic grace. Every surface was adorned with carvings that seemed to move in the shifting light, vines heavy with fruit, dancing figures locked in eternal celebration, creatures of myth and wonder intertwined in patterns that drew the eye ever upward.
I paused before a shrine to Ayena, its entrance guarded by twin statues of her sacred doves, their marble feathers so delicately carved they seemed ready to ruffle in the evening breeze. Inside, filtered sunlight revealed frescoes that made my pulse quicken, gods and mortals entwined in acts of loveboth tender and wild, their faces radiant with pleasure that transcended the merely physical.
This was worship as I had never imagined it. Not the grim sacrifices and blood-soaked altars of home, but something joyous and life-affirming, as natural as breathing.
Higher still I climbed, past lesser shrines and meditation gardens where robed figures sat in silent contemplation. The sun was beginning its descent toward the western horizon, painting everything in shades of gold and amber that made the whole island seem to glow from within. My heart raced with more than exertion as I pressed onward, driven by a hunger I could barely name.
Then I saw him.
The youth of similar years to mine reclined on a marble bench in a grove of olive trees, naked as the day he was born and utterly unconscious of his beauty. Golden hair spilled across shoulders that might have been carved by master sculptors, and his limbs were arranged with careless grace that spoke of perfect confidence in his own form. He was reading, actually reading, not simply posing, a scroll that fluttered gently in the warm breeze.
My steps faltered, and heat flooded my face with such intensity I feared I might combust on the spot. I had seen naked men before, of course, in the training yards, the baths, during campaign, but never like this. Never displayed with suchunconscious artistry, never suffused with golden light that transformed human flesh into something approaching the divine.
The youth looked up at my approach and smiled, warm and welcoming as summer sunshine. "Good evening, traveler. You look as though you've journeyed far."
"I... yes." The words came out as little more than a croak. "From the Three Isles. I've come to pay homage to Elyon."
"Ah, a pilgrim! How wonderful." He gestured toward another bench with easy hospitality. "Would you care to rest? The temple will be there when you're ready, but the sunset waits for no one."
I should have declined. Should have continued my climb toward the temple complex that crowned the island's peak. Instead, I found myself sinking onto sun-warmed marble, my travel pack settling beside me with a soft thud.
"Is it always like this?" I asked, gesturing vaguely at the paradise that surrounded us.
The youth laughed, rich and musical. "You mean the naked lounging about? Only when the weather's fine." His eyes sparkled with mischief. "Though I suppose it must seem strange to someone from the outer islands. Different customs and the like.”
Different was certainly one word for it. Where I came from, men covered themselves from throat toankle except when necessity demanded otherwise. Nudity was associated with vulnerability, shame, defeat. Prisoners stripped before execution. The idea that someone might bare themselves simply for the pleasure of feeling sunlight on their skin was as foreign as speaking in tongues.
Yet watching this beautiful creature stretch like a cat in the dying light, I began to understand the appeal. There was freedom in it, a rejection of the constraints that bound men in heavy cloth and heavier expectations. Here was someone who had never known the weight of crown or chain, who moved through the world as gods intended mortals to move, unashamed, unafraid, utterly alive.
"You seem troubled," the youth observed, head tilted in curious study. "Something shadows your eyes despite the beauty around us."
Perceptive as well as beautiful. I forced a smile, the same bright mask I'd worn through countless court functions. "Only the fatigue of travel. This place is beyond anything I'd imagined."
It was true, though far from the whole truth. Eletheria was a revelation, each sight more wondrous than the last. But beneath my amazement ran a deeper current, dark as blood and twice as bitter.
My father.
Even here, surrounded by beauty that should have driven all other thoughts from my mind, Icould not escape the specter of King Dorin. The messenger's words echoed in my memory like funeral bells; the king had fallen in battle, mortally wounded during the sack of some distant city whose name I'd already forgotten. Even now, his ship raced across darkening waters, carrying him home to die on familiar soil as he had demanded.
I had not seen the wound that would claim him, had not witnessed the moment when enemy steel found its mark beneath his armor. But I could picture it clearly enough: my father, the great warrior king, scourge of the archipelago, finally meeting his match in some foreign warrior's blade. Blood on polished stone, smoke rising from another conquered city, and the terrible satisfaction in his voice as he gave his final command.
"Turn the ship for home. I'll not breathe my last on foreign soil like some common raider."
The messenger had delivered those words with reverent precision, as if they were sacred verses instead of the ravings of a dying tyrant. Common raider, indeed. As if the smoking ruins he left behind meant nothing, as if the screams of the conquered were mere music to his grand finale. Another city sacked, another people ground beneath the iron heel of the Three Isles, another line added to the litany of his victories. The perfect capstone to a reign written in blood and ash.
And soon—gods help me, so very soon—that legacy would pass to me.
I closed my eyes against the vision that rose like fever dream behind my lids: myself seated on the Coral Throne, the crown of black iron and sea-pearls heavy on my brow, courtiers arrayed before me in expectant silence. What would they bring me first? Requests for executions? Plans for new conquests? Maps marked with the locations of cities not yet reduced to rubble?
The throne had been carved from a single massive brain coral, its surface polished smooth by centuries of royal occupants. As a child, I'd played at its base while my father held court, building castles from scattered bones and pretending not to hear the screams that echoed from the dungeons below. The crown rested on a pillow beside his right hand, its iron circlet studded with pearls the size of gull's eggs, each one torn from the waters around a conquered island, each one a small monument to devastation.
How many times had I watched men kneel before that throne, begging for mercy that never came? How many times had I seen my father's face light with pleasure as he pronounced sentences of creative cruelty? The rack, the breaking wheel, the oubliettes where prisoners were left to contemplate their sins in eternal darkness; these were the tools of kingship as I'd learned it.
"A strong ruler must be feared," my father had told me countless times, usually while blood was being mopped from the throne room floor. "Love is weakness. Mercy is weakness. Show either, and your enemies will smell it like wolves scenting wounded prey."
