My belly was filled with flutter-by wings as I left my chambers by the doorway for the first time.
Just outside it was a wide hallway. About halfway down it, the wall on the right side ended, and the hallway became a gallery, overlooking a huge open area on the first floor below.
From here, I could see not only the first floor but all the way across to the other side of the palace’s second floor. The gallery ran around all four sides of this level in a succession of marble columns joined by waist-high railings of elaborate bronze scrollwork.
Looking over the closest railing, I gasped at the grandeur below.
What I could see was a wide open space that looked like a square courtyard, at least fifty feet by fifty feet, but it was completely enclosed within the home and appointed with such opulent detail and luxurious materials my eyes hardly knew where to land first.
The gleaming floor was decorated in mosaics and beautiful rugs.
The buff limestone walls were adorned with panels of rare colored marble and elaborately carved pilasters bearing depictions of starfish and seadragons and various water gods.
They stretched all the way from the floor to the ceiling high above, which was painted with a huge mural of a stormy sky. Just as in the dining room, the spectacular painting was framed by a massive gilded cornice carved with oceanic motifs.
The handcrafted details must have taken decades if not centuries to complete. At least that would be the case for human artisans—perhaps Elves worked faster.
“That’s the Great Hall,” Elanor told me, overlooking the railing as well. “It’s the center of the castle. The six doors leadingfrom the Great Hall go to the Dining Hall, which you’ve seen, the Music Room, the Morning Room, the Breakfast Room, the Gameroom, and the Receiving Room. We can explore them all, if you like.”
“Where is Pharis’ room?” I asked the healer in as casual a tone as I could manage.
Elanor answered in just as casual a tone, but it was decidedly non-specific.
“On one of the upper floors. The Prince enjoys a view from high up.”
I’ll bet he does.
Like Seaspire, Stormcrest Castle was enormous. After an hour of touring, we hadn’t seen nearly all of it, but Elanor stopped and suggested a detour when we reached a set of large exterior doors with inset glass.
The windowed doors revealed a bright day and a large lawn sloping down to the ocean.
“Ready for some fresh air, Raewyn?” the woman asked.
“More than ready,” I told her. “I haven’t seen the water in so long.”
Elanor opened one of the doors, and the freshness of crisp Autumn air reached my nose and skin, raising gooseflesh on my arms and making me sigh in pleasure.
We traversed a wide stone terrace and took a shallow set of stairs down to the lawn, heading toward the ocean.
Off to either side of us were large flower gardens, surrounded by high, manicured hedges. I could get only a glimpse of the gorgeous flowering plants within them before we passed the openings and my view of them was blocked by the hedge walls.
Up ahead, I spotted several large beautiful trees with low-dipping limbs. Between them, at the end of the lawn, a decorative marble wall underpinned the expanse of endless blue sea. I assumed that viewing point was our destination.
“It’s so beautiful,” I said as we emerged from between the high hedge walls on either side to an unobstructed view of the ocean. “It almost takes my breath away.”
“Mine too, in every season. I never get tired of it,” Elanor said.
As we reached the marble wall, I did lose my breath.
But it wasn’t the ocean vista that stole it.
At Seaspire the land beyond the low decorative wall had dropped off into a cliff. Here, there was a lower terrace, impossible to see from a distance.
And on it, Pharis was sparring with another man, practicing hand-to-hand combat.
Shirtless.
For a moment, I was back in the King’s palace, watching surreptitiously from Stellon’s suite as Pharis practiced his battle skills in the courtyard below. It was the first time I’d glimpsed his Gleaner tattoo—the larger one, on his chest.
