Prince Of Time

Book by Glenna Mcreynolds

The White Palace
Deseillign Waste

Avallyn Le Severn walked the length of the palace corridor alone, her strides smooth and sure, her boots silent on the marble floor – the tread of a desert walker. A faint flush warmed her cheeks beneath her vision visor, a damnable inconvenience she needed to remedy before facing the tribune. All other signs of her inner turmoil were hidden beneath a layer of carefully contrived calm that two days of travel over the trackless Waste had not shaken.

She had been summoned.

She had come.

And now it would begin.

A sere wind blew through the open windows on each side of the hall, bringing with it the withering heat of the day. Sand moved with every breath of air, drifting over the sills and spilling onto the floor, a fallow flow from the endless Sand Sea. Someday the dunes would engulf the White Palace and there would be nothing but sand from the Dragon's Mouth to the Old Dominion. But for now, the sweepers would come. For now, her concerns lay elsewhere.

The color in her cheeks deepened, yet her stride did not falter.

He was here, as sworn by the monk from Sonnpur-Dzon.

He had been found, in this time, on this world.

Her prince.

The years of waiting were over. The destiny for which she'd been born would now begin to unfold in all its terror and glory with him by her side, the one for whom she had waited – the prince of the Fata Ranc Le, the Red Book of Doom. In another life he had written his fate upon the pages of the scarlet-bound book with the touch of his hand, and so had bound himself to her.

Sweet Mother, she had waited. Waited in despair that he would never come, and in fear that he would. She'd scarce believed it when the monk had confessed to letting him walk out of the Sonnpur-Dzon monastery three months ago without so much as a by-your-leave. Ten thousand years he had been in the coming, and the monks had lost him in a matter of minutes.

A mendicant, the monk had called him, a wandering brother who had come to the monastery to pray and meditate. He had revealed himself on a new moon night in the Sanctuary of Demons, a golden dragon grasped in his right hand and a blazing sword in his left, a warrior as the Book had foretold. He'd disappeared in a whirl of blue fire, walking off the monastery's great wall into the night sky – and the monks had let him. The next morning no body had been found, only the prince's tracks in the snow where he had landed with celestial grace.

The powers of a mage, the heart of a warrior, and the courage of a saint. So it had been written of the prince, and so it was. Thank the gods, she thought. They would need all three to survive their fated journey.

The Prince of Time.

A thrill of excitement edged with fear sliced through her, threatening the thin veneer of her composure. He'd traveled far, a time-rider from a primitive, barbaric age. Would he be a danger, she wondered, this warrior-saint from out of the past? History was littered with destruction wrought in the name of saviors. Would the prince of the Fata be such a peril? And if he was, would her course be changed?

No, she vowed. The fiercer and more barbaric, the better. Only the Prince of Doom, as some called him, would have a chance of surviving their destination, and only the mightiest warrior would have even half a chance of bringing her out alive with him.

Shadana, she sent up a fervent prayer. Let him be all that is written and more. No matter how fierce, her will would tame him to the deed. The duty they shared would bring him to his destiny, and in their moment of triumph, she would grace him with a kiss.

Her blush deepened, the damnable thing, but the prince was hers, and it was right that she should kiss him.

The entrance to the Court of the Ilmarryn loomed in front of her, white marble columns rising up out of the shadows on either side of a towering stone door, and for the first time since reaching the palace, Avallyn tempered her steps with caution, slowing her pace. Fey creatures of the tylwyth teg, the Ilmarryn were not to be trifled with, not even by a priestess of the old line.

At the door made from two great slabs of stone quarried from the caverns beneath the White Palace, she stopped and lifted her gaze. Names flowed down the granite panels, delicately chiseled letters run through with an arborescent crackling of rose quartz, the ancient lineage of the sylvan Ilmarryn traced back through the Prydion Age. Near the middle were names echoed in her own ancestry, Llynya of the Yr Is-ddwfn and Mychael ab Arawn, a lord of Merioneth.

Standing quietly, she used a novice's trick to school her breath and cool the blush from her cheeks. There was no advantage to her in allowing the tribune to see her excitement, and a distinct disadvantage to her if they sensed her unease. The tribune and their force of Sha-shakrieg Night Watchers were a means to an end, her end, and she would not have her desires or her weaknesses turned against her.

She moved her gaze over the gray doors once more. Beaded steel bars circled round with bands of iron had been fashioned into massive handles that ran the length of the granite panels, a testament to all who would enter: Those inside feared naught on earth.

Neither did she, now that the prince had come. Barbarian or not, whatever dangers lay ahead, they would face them together.

She stepped forward, onto the tile directly in front of the doors, and they swung inward. A rich scent rushed out to meet her, cutting through the barren dryness of the desert and enveloping her in the smells of fresh leaves and bitter tannins, in the sweet redolence of the flowers and plants thriving in the glass-domed forest, the Lost Forest of the Waste. 'Twas here where her heart was, in the woodland glades and meadows, not in the desert where she'd been born.