The Palace of Dusk

Yazan and Tala didn't resist. There was nowhere to run. The tall shadow guards surrounded them and led them silently through the streets, over a shadow bridge across a calm black river and up a long staircase climbing the hill towards the palace.

Noon and Feather walked behind them, without saying a word.

The Palace of Dusk was the most magnificent and strangest building they had ever seen. It wasn't built of stone but of shadow itself: the shadows of thousands of towers and domes from every city in the world, piled on top of one another, moving and shifting slowly, as if the palace were breathing. Violet smoke coiled around its towers like snakes.

They entered the throne room.

The hall was enormous, with tall black pillars that vanished into the darkness above and a floor as glossy as ink. Through a huge window at the far end they could see the black sun with its golden rim.

At the end of the hall, on a throne of pure darkness, sat King Dusk.