CHAPTER 1
ERINA
There was a hallway within the High Lord of Vyaan’s keep that seemed as if it was painted in starlight.
The narrow hallway was located in the North Wing of the grand ancestral home, tucked away in a quiet section that led to a private sitting room, one that I regularly dusted and scrubbed.
The mysterious hallway presented an array of different-sized windows, and no two were the same. One was circular, another was arched. One was rectangular with silver metal panes running through it, another oval shaped. One appeared faceted like a gem, another had sharp, angular lines that comprised into the shape of a diamond.
The only thing all these windows had in common was the glass. Stained the darkest shades of blue, with navy and indigo, the glass was cut and assembled within each window until they made a stunning display of patchwork colors. Imbedded within the blue glass were silvery star-shaped gems.
This hallway was a stained-glass kaleidoscope of a starry night, as if it was perpetually bathed in moonlight. Even on the sunniest of days, this part of the keep felt like the calmest of nights.
That day, there was pelting rain pattering outside on the glass as my feet dipped into the blue pools of light, the silvery shafts of the stars stretching toward me.
Heaving out a long breath and sweating as I moved to the next window, I lugged my heavy stepladder to reposition it. I climbed back up, balancing on my tiptoes to reach the highest point of a crescent moon–shaped pane.If only I had wings like the Kylorr, then this would be easy,I thought.
Washing windows was one of my least favorite tasks, but I never minded in this part of the house. It was quiet, if a little drafty, and I could hum to myself without Maudoric shooting me a sharp look in disapproval, though I was somewhat convinced that was just how she always looked. I’d never seen her mouth not pinched down into a severe line.
As I polished the glass, my mind drifted. I thought of Kavelyn and her adventures, of the story I was currently working on. I thought of sparkling crystalline caves, deep in the wild night jungle, and I wondered how she would feel, surrounded by shimmering gems that shone like the stars in this hallway. Would she be tempted to take them? To bring them back to her poor village, even if theft was against Noxillian law, punishable by death? I wondered what I could call the gems in the cave. Or were they crystals? Were gems and crystals the same thing? Could they be considered as such in the kingdom of Noxily? Theycouldbe the same, I supposed.
That was the beauty of stories—I could make anything possible in them.
I frowned. How would the cave light be captured in my illustrations? What expression would be on Kavelyn’s face? One of awe? Or one of sadness? Her heart had just been broken, of course. Most terribly.
I sighed. I draped the window rag over my shoulder and dug my hands into the deep pockets of my apron. Velle never understood why I wore such a “bulky, ugly thing” as I cleaned. But itwas because the ordinary keeper’s uniforms didn’t have pockets at all, only a belt, and I could hardly keep my notebook and my pencils secured there. Maudoric had called my apron “sensible,” especially when I’d told her it was to help carry cleaning supplies and spare cloths. And so the Head Keeper had given me leave to wear it.
I pulled out my notebook and unwound the leather cord. The material was so worn that it felt supple and smooth beneath my fingertips. I flipped to one of the back pages—for this notebook was nearly filled up—and under my existing list titledThings to Ask SyndrasI wrote:Are crystals and gems the same thing?
I stared down at the growing list. Then, after a small moment of deliberation, I added another:What does heartbreak feel like?
Syndras would know that. Surely. She was nearly eighty. And if she didn’t…then perhaps more research in the library was due.
I flipped the page, glancing over a sketch I had done that morning, as dawn had broken over the territory of Vyaan, creeping its fingers beneath my frayed window curtain.
It was a messy sketch, half-drawn in desperation as I’d chased a dream. But I could see him in the smudged lines of it. His proud nose and cheekbones like daggers. The softened shadowed divots beneath them that made them all the deadlier. His curving, thick horns like black steel. The rugged scar that ran from the middle of his outer cheek down to his mouth. The charming smirk of his full lips, his sharp fangs poking into the bottom one.
I bit my own, feeling a pulse of longing, and sighed again. Pulled into the vision of him, I sat down on the top step of the ladder, plucking out a pencil from my pocket before absentmindedly shading in the outline of his black wings behind him—something I hadn’t been able to finish this morning before breakfast had been called. I’d only drawn him from the waist up, since the small pages of my notebook wouldn’t have been able to do the rest of him justice.
He might not have been in color, only a charcoal sketch withmy pencils, but his eyes, shaded with a light hand, were relatively close to the real thing. Eyes like silver pools. Eyes likezylarrs, which restless souls could feed from. Only, whenever I spied his eyes, it felt liketheywere feeding fromme. Taking a bit of my soul, a bit of my heart, every last time—though it was in my imaginings only.
Kaldur of House Kaalium. The High Lord of Vyaan.
The Kylorr male that I was in love with. A foolish, silly, hopeful kind of love, one that had struck me at first sight two years ago. On a rainy day—much like this one—when I’d come to work in his keep.
I darkened the outline of his irises, lingering on them before I forced myself to look away.
I flipped back to the last page, to my list for Syndras, my eyes running over the last question I’d jotted down.
Whatdidheartbreak feel like when the male you loved didn’t even know you existed?
“What are you doing, Erina?” came the soft hiss. I jerked my head up, snapping my notebook closed out of reflex, already wrapping the cord tight as I regarded Velle. “You were meant to help me in the west library, remember?”
“Oh!” I said. “I’m sorry—I thought that was after lunch.”
“Itisafter lunch. You missed it.”
I blinked, noticing that my stomachwasrumbling now that I focused on it. Another thing about being in this hallway was that it made time seem to slow. I strongly suspected there were many souls in this part of the keep, that the placement of azylarr, even within this hallway, would be beneficial.
