The Isolten countryside gave way to small houses and then larger ones, and I let out an audible gasp when we hit the road paved with stones and our carriage was bolted up onto the strange and rocky pathway.

“The stones are common here,” Etan said. “The coast is teeming with them, so you’ll see the same ones everywhere, especially here in the capital.”

“Are we already there?” I asked, poking my head out to see.

“Almost. And I’d come back in if I were you. Just because we’re nearing the castle doesn’t mean there aren’t dangerous people out there. In fact, I’d wager we’re getting closer to more.”

“Oh.” I pulled myself into my seat, trying to see what I could without being too obvious about it. There were wide two-story houses set close together with only enough gardening space before them to grow very small patches of flowers. They shortly gave way to crammed-together homes that seemed to go up and up. There were shops on the bottom level, many with glass and lead windows, showing off the wares inside.

A woman beat out a rug; a man pulled an unwilling cow down an alley. Some very dirty children ran around in naked feet, while I saw at least one tidy daughter, gripping her mother’s hand as they moved up the road.

“Do the poor live here?”

“Some. Lots of people live in the city in general. Some prefer the labor of the tanner or the seamstress to a field. But it’s cramped and, as you can see, not very clean. Still, with the various industries popping up, it’s good work.”

“It smells.”

He sighed. “Yes, Miss High and Mighty, it does. But it gets better closer to the castle.”

A few minutes passed, and Etan pointed out his window, motioning for me to come over and see. “Chetwin Palace. Just there.”

I looked out to take in the most foreboding building I’d ever seen. The roofs were pitched at a very steep angle, perhaps to withstand the frequent snows, and they were covered in some dark, shiny material. The stones used to build the palace were the same ones used on the roads: woven through with veins of white, which were somehow unsettling when I compared them to the warmer-toned stones used in Coroa.

It was intimidating, to be sure. And yet, somehow, I couldn’t help but be moved by its strange beauty as we approached. As if reading my mind, Etan spoke as we turned onto the palace drive.

“I used to be completely awestruck when we came up to the palace as children. The soaring towers, the flags whipping in the wind. No wonder people think that kings are gods. Look at their homes.”

He gestured a hand across all of it, as if there wasn’t a word big enough to encompass the grandeur. He was right, of course, and it was both wondrous and, somehow, terrifying.

“You know how you feel about marriage? That’s how I feel about crowns. You couldn’t pay me any sum of money that would draw me close to one again . . . but, all that said, I loved Keresken Castle. I was always finding a new corner that held some beauty I’d never seen. And the way the light falls through the stained glass in the throne room . . . it left me breathless. Still does.”