Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 165618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 828(@200wpm)___ 662(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 165618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 828(@200wpm)___ 662(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
But Catla Truelock has bigger concerns.
Her father’s done what he’d been threatening to do. He’s arranged her marriage to a man not of Catla’s choice.
It’s the demon way, but Catla knows her new betrothed, and she doesn’t like him. He’s aloof. He’s arrogant. And he’s both in spades.
Tanyn, the new king of Sky’s Edge, feels differently about the half-demon beauty from Night’s Fall. He’s made his decision on who he wants to be his queen.
She’s perfect.
He simply has to convince her.
Tanyn sets about doing that, but he’s interrupted when his fiancée receives a death threat.
It’s then all the royals of the Four Realms understand that the danger is not over. For reasons unknown, there’s a sinister faction in their lands who’s targeting them, and the women who will rule at their sides.
Now, Tanyn has to keep his Catla safe, at the same time convincing her to wear his crown.
And Catla has to decide if she can leave everything she knows to be the bride of the handsome king in a land that is not her own
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Prologue
CURSE
Tanyn
Three Days after the Midnight Masque in Night’s Fall…
King Tanyn alighted from the craft.
He heard the hiss of the door closing behind him, but he paid no mind to it.
His mind was on the ice steps in front of him.
He allowed those steps to lead his gaze and his attention up to the castle that rose high above him, a riot of snowy turrets with golden warmth flooding from lit windows.
The whole thing was a fancy, a folly, a magician’s trick.
And a not-so-inside joke.
But underneath, it was a witch’s curse.
Berg Castle, the royal residence of the monarchs of Sky’s Edge for the last six hundred years, was coated in snow.
This, while the inhabitants of that realm, if lore could be believed (and Tanyn knew it could), were delivered direct from the pits of the fiery levels of the hells.
It had not been built to resemble the fairytale castle it appeared to be now.
It had been built to convey power. To intimidate.
Pain, betrayal and loss were what caused it to be packed with snow.
Tanyn ascended steps he had not ever taken in his life, for he’d been born to sit on the throne but was banished from that castle when he was barely able to walk.
He stood at the top landing in front of golden doors that shone so brightly, not only from their color, but also from the eternal gilded fire blazing from the large lantern that hung above him.
He turned and stared at the lights spread before him, demarcating the capital city of Sky’s Edge, Abyssinia.
His city.
His realm.
His.
He turned back to the doors.
For this, his first visit since he was a year old, he had dismissed all the staff who worked there.
It was his first visit as king.
Therefore, he had to push through the doors himself.
He did not wander the chambers.
He did not marvel at the centuries-old magic that had created the snow walls and ice marble floors, ice crystal chandeliers and frost-edged windows.
He did what he promised his mother he would do when this day arrived.
He descended three levels under the castle.
He went to the dungeons.
Once there, he took the skeleton key he’d demanded, and received, and used it on the antique lock to an area of the castle he’d been told hadn’t been used in four hundred years.
He threw open the old wooden door fortified by iron and instantly recoiled.
Centuries of torment, misery, torture and lost hope had a feel that endured time.
It also, he just discovered, had a smell.
He allowed himself to adjust to it, and after he entered, instead of voicing his command, he turned to the bank of switches at his side which had been installed when electricity had been harnessed for a variety of uses.
Tanyn hit the switches.
The space illuminated.
He’d been told, due to the fact it had not been in use for a very long time, this area had not been updated at all since the early 1900s, and the meagre light fixtures proved it.
He moved through the shadowy first room, which could be considered a form of reception area, though not a welcoming one, if the chains affixed to walls, walls not made of glinting snow but of glittering black stone, told the tale.
Next up was a sort of lounge, with rickety tables and chairs left to disintegrate, plus an old iron stove that had provided warmth back in the day for the guards.
It wasn’t providing warmth now, and this area was certainly not included in the temperate seventy-three degrees that the rest of the castle rested at, regardless of its wintry walls.
More magic.
But no magic down there. It was as cold as the Borea Sea.
He moved through the guards’ lounge, down the long hall made of stone punctuated by wood doors, also fortified by iron, that had small, barred windows to look through to see the prisoners and slit doors at the bottom to shove food inside the cells.