A Love From A Different World

Chapter 59

A moment later, they were squinting at the glaring sun of a turquoise sea, just as Rhysand was trying to reorder her body around the dry, suffocating heat, even with the cooling breeze off the water. He watched Celeana blink a few times—and that was as much reaction as she let herself show as she yanked her hand from Rhys's grip.

Rhysand pretended that his heart did not squeeze at that. He was becoming very good at pretending as of late, he noted.

They were standing on a landing platform at the base of a tan stone palace, the building itself perched atop a mountain-island in the heart of a half-moon bay. The city spread around and below them, toward that sparkling sea—the buildings all from that stone, or glimmering white material that might have been coral or pearl. Gulls flapped over the many turrets and spires, no clouds above them, nothing on the breeze with them but salty air and the clatter of the city below.

Various bridges connected the bustling island to the larger landmass that circled it on three sides, one of them currently raising itself so a many-masted ship could cruise through. Indeed, there were more ships than he could count— some merchant vessels, some fishing ones, and some, it seemed, ferrying people from the island-city to the mainland, whose sloping shores were crammed full of more buildings, more people. More people like the half dozen before them, framed by a pair of sea glass doors that opened into the palace itself. On their little balcony, there was no option to escape—no path out but winnowing away ... or going through those doors. Or, he supposed, the plunge awaiting them to the red roofs of the fine houses a hundred feet below.

Beside him, he felt Celeana taking it all in.

"Welcome to Adriata," said the tall male in the center of the group.

The handsome High Lord of Summer had rich brown skin, white hair, and eyes of crushing turquoise blue. As Rhysand looked at the male, waves of memories pressed against him.

Like how he'd been forced to watch as his courtier's mind was invaded and then his life snuffed out by Rhysand myself. As Rhysand lied to Amarantha about what he'd learned, and spared the male from a fate perhaps worst than death.

Trying to push those memories away, Rhys merely drawled, "Good to see you again, Tarquin."

The five other people behind the High Lord of Summer swapped frowns of varying severity. Like their lord, their skin was dark, their hair in shades of white or silver, as if they had lived under the bright sun their entire lives. Their eyes, however, were of every color. And they now shifted between Celeana and Amren.

Rhys slid one hand into a pocket and gestured with the other to Amren. "Amren, I think you know. Though you haven't met her since your ... promotion." Cool, calculating grace, edged with steel.

Tarquin gave Amren the briefest of nods. "Welcome back to the city, lady."

Amren didn't nod, or bow, or so much as curtsy. She looked over Tarquin, tall and muscled, his clothes of seagreen and blue and gold, and said, "At least you are far more handsome than your cousin. He was an eyesore." A female behind Tarquin outright glared. Amren's red lips stretched wide. "Condolences, of course," she added with as much sincerity as a snake.

Wicked, cruel—that's what they were, the mask that he had never wanted Celeana to see....

Rhys gestured to Celeana, hating this. "I don't believe you two were ever formally introduced at the ball. Tarquin, Celeana, Celeana, Tarquin."

The male's eyes were already trained on Celaena and Rhysand hated it. Hated the emotion that washed over him when Celeana turned her own spectacular eyes on the male. As her eyes took him in, as she looked him up and down appreciatively. As the two of them looked at each other with a small smile on both their faces.