Knight, Heir, Prince

A LAND OF FIRE (Book #12)

A RULE OF QUEENS (Book #13)

AN OATH OF BROTHERS (Book #14)

A DREAM OF MORTALS (Book #15)

A JOUST OF KNIGHTS (Book #16)

THE GIFT OF BATTLE (Book #17)

THE SURVIVAL TRILOGY

ARENA ONE: SLAVERSUNNERS (Book #1)

ARENA TWO (Book #2)

ARENA THREE (Book #3)

VAMPIRE, FALLEN

BEFORE DAWN (Book #1)

THE VAMPIRE JOURNALS

TURNED (Book #1)

LOVED (Book #2)

BETRAYED (Book #3)

DESTINED (Book #4)

DESIRED (Book #5)

BETROTHED (Book #6)

VOWED (Book #7)

FOUND (Book #8)

RESURRECTED (Book #9)

CRAVED (Book #10)

FATED (Book #11)

OBSESSED (Book #12)

Listen to THE SORCERER’S RING series in audio book format!

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Copyright © 2016 by Morgan Rice. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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CHAPTER ONE

Even without every noble in Delos staring at him, Thanos would have felt the nerves of a groom on his wedding day. He stood by the altar that had been set up in the castle’s largest feast hall, and somehow he managed to stand perfectly still – but only because his soldier’s training kept him from showing any fear. Standing out in front of all of them, he could feel his stomach knotting with the pressure of it.

Thanos looked about while awaiting his bride. The feast hall swam in white silk and shone with diamonds, hardly a surface there that didn’t glitter. Even the servants attending the nobles wore clothes that would have shamed most merchants. As for the nobles themselves, today they looked like something out of a bard’s tale, dressed in silk and velvet, dripping with gold and silver.

To Thanos, it was far too much; yet he hadn’t exactly been given a say in it. Delos’s royals had gotten the wedding the king and queen decided they should have, and anything less than perfection would have disappointed his bride. He glanced over and saw them: King Claudius and Queen Athena, sitting together on thrones carved from ironwood and covered in gold leaf. They sat proudly, obviously delighted by his decision to accept their choice of bride.

The high priest, decked in a robe of gold reflecting the rays of the sun, stood beside him. He seemed like a kindly man, and Thanos, feeling more alone than ever, wanted to take him aside and ask him: What do you do when you aren’t sure that you belong somewhere?

Yet he could not.

It wasn’t just that Thanos was nervous about the wedding. It was so many other things as well. There was the fact that back on Haylon, the rebels there were relying on him to help them to free the Empire. That thought brought a flash of determination with it, because he would help them, whatever it took. Yet here he stood in this hall, surrounded by the enemy.

There was also the fact that Lucious was here, standing in the corner, dressed in royal purple and silver, smirking as he eyed the serving girls. Thanos had to fight to keep from walking over there and strangling him with his bare hands.

And then there was the thought that would not let him be:

Ceres.

That brought with it a spike of pain that felt, even now, as though it might burst through his chest. He could still barely believe that she was dead and gone, lost on a prison ship while he’d been on Haylon. Just the thought of that threatened to drag him back toward the darkness that had consumed him when he’d heard the news.

Stephania had pulled him out of that. She’d been the one shining point in it all, the only person in Delos who had brought him any happiness when he had wanted to end it all, when he could not envision a life without Ceres.

It was not that he did not love Stephania; he did. He had come to love her. It was, rather, that he could not let himself forget Ceres. It was as if the two loves still co-existed in his heart. He could not understand it all. Why had Ceres been meant to come into his life only to leave it? Why had Stephania been meant to come into his life at the moment she had? Had Ceres come to him to somehow prepare him to accept Stephania? Or had the two nothing to do with one another?

Music stirred. Thanos turned and his heart caught to see Stephania arrive to the strains of lyre music. His heart beat faster as she walked, all the nobles standing as she went, accompanied by handmaidens who threw rose petals and rang bells to drive away any lingering bad luck. Her dress was a pure, elegant white that made it look as though the whole room had been designed around it. She wore a diamond-studded caul over her golden hair, flowers worked into it with elaborate grace. The veil that covered her face shimmered with silver thread and tiny sapphires that mirrored the shade of the eyes beneath.

Thanos felt his fears melt away.

He watched as she approached, seeming to glide her way through the hall to the altar. She stood before him, and Thanos lifted the veil from her features.

He felt his breath catch. She was always lovely, but today she looked so perfect Thanos could barely believe that she was real. He stood staring at her for so long that he barely heard the priest begin the ceremony.

“The gods have given us many feasts and ceremonies in which to reflect on their glory,” the high priest intoned. “Of these, marriage is the most sacred, for without it there would be no continuation of humankind. This marriage is an especially glorious one, between two of the great nobles of this realm. Yet it is also between a young man and a young woman who love one another deeply, and whose happiness should find a place in all our hearts.”

He paused to let the words sink in.

“Prince Thanos, will you present your arm to be bound to this woman for all time? To love her and honor her until the gods take you from one another, and to see your families made one?”