In the winding streets of the Persian Empire, a poor girl is chosen to become the third prince's concubine.
Aliya Farhad has no interest in the lofty ideas of the palace, the staff, or her lover. Prince Cairo has all the interest in his blue-eyed A...
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I HAD EXPECTED THE BALCONY to be in pieces, or at least in a state that one could safely consider a wreck, but just like many other things in the Palace, I'd been proven wrong.
The balcony — well, really, more of a terrace than what one would actually call a balcony — was a small, circular piece of space that, though cluttered, was really quite clean, unplagued by falling debris or shards of brick and stone in the way that I had imagined.
It was, however, heavily infested by plants — a few roses and marigolds, and perhaps a hundred other pots that I could not even being to name. They filled the air with a soft, sticky sweet sort of fragrance, the sort that made reminded me of the feeling of being warm and sleepy on a sunny afternoon back home.
I took one more deep, deep breath before walking in and closing the door behind me.
I'd learned that on most nights in Archaem, the sky would blanket the city in a manner similar to a gigantic, oversized blanket, stars scattered randomly throughout like the silver thread Prince Cairo liked edging the borders of his shirt. But it seemed that tonight would be the opposite way around — instead of an expanse of black, there was an almost loud, blinding amount of stars all around, little twinkles flickering in and out of sight; not quite what you'd call dim, not yet what you'd call bright. They stretched much further than what my eyes could see, backdropping chimney smoke, ragtag markets, and the little figure of a man sitting on the edge of the railing, a wine glass perched in one hand.
I paused.
It seems like there is something about the Palace that makes everyone living in it look just a tad bit lonely.
For a second, I couldn't help but wonder if other people looked at me like I was lonely, too.
Maybe.
Just maybe.
I took a couple more steps forward, my slippers stomping onto piles of unfortunate leaves and making them crunch, but when I looked up, Prince Cairo hadn't yet even begun to turn my way.
I raised an eyebrow.
Drunk? ...Or, something else?
Reaching up, I tightened the woolen coat slumped over my shoulders, trying my best to convince myself that whatever chill that had just passed by me had most certainly been caused by the fact that we were two very, very, very high stories above the ground and nothing else.
Well, at least partly.
"Shahzadeh?" I wasn't quite sure what I had expected my voice to sound like — whether it would echo off into the night much in the same way it had within the Palace's incredibly soundproof walls — but I certainly hadn't expected it to sound quite so small, and to make me feel quite so scared in comparison.
