The Summer Palace and Other Stories (Captive Prince Short Stories #1-4)

by C.S. Pacat

For now it was the simple pleasure of Laurent beside him, their hands linked, with only sunlight and fresh air about them. Here and there, they stopped, and everything was a delight: the leisure to kiss, to linger under the orange tree, the bits of bark that clung to Laurent’s chiton after he was pressed up against it. The gardens were full of small discoveries, from the shaded colonnades, to the cool waters of the fountain, to a series of balconied garden outlooks, where the sea stretched wide and blue.

It was so close to his own thoughts—that everything he knew was gone, but that this was here in its place, this one bright thing.