Table of Contents
Blurb
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
About the Author
By Jade Mere
Visit Dreamspinner Press
Copyright
The Architect and the Castle of Glass
By Jade Mere
Chasing his dream will send him into a dark and twisted nightmare.
Tahki’s only goal is to become a world-famous architect, even if that means betraying his father’s wishes by abandoning his comfortable life for one of unpredictable danger.
After Tahki blindly accepts what he thinks will be a dream job, his skills as an architect are put to the test as he is given the bizarre—and slightly unethical—task of turning a remote castle into a new-age machine for Prince Dyraien. The castle provides a challenge unlike any he’s had before, and Tahki finds the only way he’ll be able to succeed is to swallow his pride and work alongside Rye, a guarded young man who is quick to see the flaws in both Tahki and his work.
Yet the looming deadline proves to be the least of Tahki’s troubles. When a horrifying creature begins to haunt him, Tahki turns to Rye for help. The more he learns about the history of the castle, the more terrifying the hauntings become. Even with Rye by his side, Tahki realizes achieving his dream might send him down a dark path from which he can’t return.
Dedicated to my family. Thanks for putting up with me and all my quirks.
Chapter 1
THE WALLS had eyes.
It was something Tahki’s brother often said. You couldn’t do anything in the palace without someone seeing you. Even now, with the lamps long extinguished and the moon only a sliver in the desert sky, Tahki felt exposed. Objects that looked nothing like a person—potted aloe plants, an empty spice cart, silk tapestries—appeared suspicious.
He tried to keep focused on the sandstone path as he ran barefoot across the courtyard. Warm air filled his lungs. He left the palace and all its sleeping inhabitants behind. No one had seen him. Not tonight, not the previous night, and not the night before when this whole business of sneaking out had started, the night he’d made the decision to finally compete at the World Fair of Innovation and Invention.
Tahki tripped over a loose tile and stumbled, his tool belt crashing to the ground with a thunderous clank. He stood stock-still and waited, his eyes darting to the palace on the hill behind him. If anyone saw him like this, they might mistake him for a thief instead of the son of a renowned ambassador. He took a deep breath and rubbed his drawing wrist. If he rushed now, he might make a mistake. The fair was fourteen days away, which meant he had less than twenty-four hours to earn his father’s permission to attend. All the greatest minds from around the world traveled to the fair every year to enter their inventions in competitions. Weapons experts, transportation designers, architects, they’d all be entering in their respective fields, and with any luck, Tahki would be submitting his architectural designs right beside them. Only his father stood between him and the fair. Between him and his freedom.
He scooped up his tools and continued down the path. Three years ago, Tahki had turned fifteen, and every year since, he’d asked to leave Dhaulen’aii and travel to the fair, but his father’s answer had always been the same: too dangerous. Six months ago, when he’d turned eighteen, he realized that if he wanted to attend the fair, he’d need to prove to his father he was a capable architect.
And tonight he would prove just that.
Tahki stepped inside an ancient red-roofed temple and threw his tools atop a pile of paper and charcoal. The temple had stood over five hundred years. It smelled of tea tree oil, jasmine, and a musky odor he’d come to associate with unwashed monk robes. The temple was small, only one room that might fit a dozen people inside, an unused and neglected space after a sandstorm took out one of the eastern walls ten years ago. Almost every one of the twelve pillars looked chipped, and the tiles on the east roof sagged. The square room was empty, save for an altar against the far wall and a red rug below it. Monks still left food on the altar every few weeks to rot as homage to the gods. People starved on the streets, yet the monks wasted food every week to honor these deities who never came. He didn’t understand how the monks leaving food for the gods was any different from children leaving baby teeth on their bed stand in exchange for a copper coin. Adults deceived children all the time, so why wouldn’t they understand that they too were being deceived?
Flies buzzed around a pile of rotten mangoes. Tahki walked to the altar and threw the red rug over it to quiet the swarm. When you lived in the largest desert in the world, your greatest enemy was the heat. But the monks insisted on putting themselves in a deep meditative trance inside the sweltering temples. Sand fever had already claimed a dozen victims, and summer was still a month away. The monks were more at risk than anyone because they refused to leave the temple when it became too hot. It was stupid to suffer so much and get nothing in return but a sore ass, but then, he’d never understood meditation.
His father, however, did and joined the monks every afternoon for several hours of mindful practice. It was his father’s love and dedication to the gods that had given Tahki the idea to repair the temple. Not just repair it, improve it. If he could make the temple more bearable to meditate in, his father would finally acknowledge his talent for architecture and allow him to enter the fair.
Before Tahki set to work, he checked his progress from the night before. He ran his hand along the unfinished support beams he’d paid a carpenter
