The night sky over Valtherion was scattered with stars. A gentle breeze slipped through the tall windows, carrying with it the fragrance of flowers from the palace gardens. The palace looked serene that night… but not for Duke Diego of Scamender.
The young man walked once again inside the palace. His midnight-blue robe, embroidered with gold, swept quietly across the marble floor. His dark eyes scanned every corner of the corridor, as though searching for something that only his heart—not logic—could recognize.
"I don't even know why I came here again," he muttered softly, half amused with himself.
But the image of the girl from earlier that afternoon—sitting beneath the sun, cheeks flushed, hair neatly tied with a soft fringe across her forehead—wouldn't leave him. She wasn't a noble. She was no one. Yet it was precisely that which made her intoxicating.
And just as his thoughts drifted, he stopped.
