After his spy left, King Malek stood on the quarterdeck with his feet braced and his fingers clasped behind his back, staring out at his sleeping city. The floating metropolis emerged like a monster from the fog, undulating softly with the waves, creaking and groaning, a hundred lanterns bobbing like eyes across the darkness. No matter where he looked, the sight gave way to mist—endless, impenetrable gray. The vapors hung like a weight on his kingdom, so thick the sun couldn't penetrate, so dense a constant moisture licked his cheeks. He was almost surprised they hadn’t grown gills.
Sometimes he liked to imagine what it might be like to feel the sunlight kiss his skin, to marvel at the burning embers they called stars, to see the sky painted pastel every morning and every night instead of monotone gray. Mostly, he wondered what it would be like to fly.
The avians had long reveled in their floating world high above the clouds, leaving those below in squalor. If the prophecy was right, those days would soon be over.
Lyana Aethionus.
The name moved through his thoughts like a current, carrying warmer tides. The dove princess. On the rare nights when he got to dream, he often pictured her eyes. They were green, he knew, but were they hard like jade or soft like seafoam? Did they twinkle like emeralds or were they as dull as the ocean he'd spent his life upon? Would they look at him like a stranger or would they one day be the first to understand the burden he carried, the burden the two of them might carry together?
It wouldn't be long before he had his answers. And if she was the woman he'd been searching for, if she was in fact the queen who'd been promised, Malek knew one thing for certain—he would have her, no matter the cost.
Thank you for reading!
I hope you enjoyed the world and characters introduced in this prequel novella. If you’d like more, don’t miss the first book in my new series, The Raven and the Dove—available on Amazon now and free in Kindle Unlimited!
