Page 17 of A Bond of Ice and Glass (Crowned By Wings #2)

S now falls around me, shimmering like flecks of glass.

They land on the balcony outside my childhood room, where I stand alone, my breath fogging the air in front of me.

But it’s not the cold that makes me shiver.

It’s him .

I smell him before I see him, feel his presence before I hear it.

He steps out from behind me. Tall, menacing, dressed in black-gold armour. The crown on his head—my father’s crown—drips with blood. His cloak whips behind him, frost-bitten and bloodstained, as he stops in front of me. I look up at him, to finally see his face… but he moves away again.

“I waited while you forgot me.” His voice rushes over me from behind. “I bled for you. Burned for you. No more waiting.”

A pause, his hand touching my skin, lifting the hair from my neck.

The snowflakes turn to ice, cutting my skin, but I don’t move. Don’t breathe.

“You… are my wife, and I’ll bring this world to its knees if that’s what it takes to make you mine again.” His lips press to my skin, kissing the side of my throat. “I’m coming for you, Mist. I’m bringing you home.”

My breath hitches, and the runes form on the ground, burning in the fallen snow. Runes I don’t recognise but feel deep in my soul, like they’ve been written there all my life.

His lips move up, slowly trailing a path to my mouth, until they’re pressed against mine. His kiss scorches me, searing right down to my bones.

No, this isn’t a kiss. It’s a claiming.

A promise I don’t understand yet somehow accept. And I still crave it.

Until fire blooms behind my eyes, and I wake up gasping for breath…

Sirens wail in the distance. The air reeks of smoke when I open my eyes and wince at the sound of horns bellowing outside my window. What in the gods is going on?

I stumble out of bed, sweat clinging to my body, my fingertips numb from the cold. Except the room isn’t cold. It’s roasting and filling with smoke. For a moment, I’m paralyzed with fear, with the memory of waking up in a castle full of smoke as Erax took me all those years ago.

But this isn’t the past and there shouldn’t be a fire.

Coughing, I rush over to the window and press my hands against the warm stone. Ice spreads beneath my palms, cracking and spreading out in intricate patterns. My breath hitches.

No, no, no, no. This can’t be real. Not again. Not again!

Everything is on fire. Panic flares through me as black flames cover the grounds below, melting everything until nothing but ash remains. A horn bellows by the gates, signalling the alarm, while bells toll in the distance.

We’re under attack.

Women and children scream as they scramble for safety, and guards rush to man the gate. A watch tower crumbles and crushes several people under its weight. More screams as magic crackles in the air—thick, dark, heavy. Then I see it.

The sigil burning in the ash on the ground.

The two dragons devouring each other, one breathing fire while the other breathes roses. It’s his sigil.

My heart thrashes against my ribs. Erax has finally come to take me away again. No, please gods, no!

Behind me, the door bursts open, and I whip around. Noble storms into my room, his entire body covered in blood and ash. Even his blond hair has been stained black from it all.

“Maelena!” He wipes the blood from his sword on his cloak. “You need to stay here. Don’t leave this room. Do you understand?”

“What’s happening?” I ask, despite knowing already.

I just need to hear it. To make this nightmare real, even though I don’t want to.

“An attack,” Noble answers curtly. He strides to the window and sweeps his gaze over the chaos. His expression isn’t surprised or horrified. It’s calculating, like he’s fought a million battles before and won them all. “We’ll handle it. Just… stay here.”

I stare at the muscle thrashing in his jaw, giving away his unease.

He might be experienced in battle, but something tells me even he wasn’t prepared for this attack so soon. Maybe they thought they had more time to prepare.

“You’re lying.”

His jaw tenses. He doesn’t look away from the window. “You’ll be safe in here.” He slides me a grin, winking at me. “You have the best warrior in the realm protecting you.”

Even in moments like this, he’s still trying to lighten the tension with a joke.

I can’t find it in me to smile back. I’m close to passing out.

“Where’s Loch?”

Noble nods towards the window. “Warding the gates.”

I follow his gaze, but smoke chokes the view. Flames dance across the rooftops. The gates are gone behind the blaze, swallowed in chaos.

All I can see is ruin. All I can hear is screaming.

So many screams…

It’s like that night all over again when Erax came for me.

When he tore my world apart and dragged me into a prison worse than death.

I won’t survive that again. I won’t go back. I’d rather throw myself from this window than let him take me.

Noble’s hand lands on my shoulder. I flinch, twisting away before I can stop myself. His jaw tightens, but instead of anger, there’s something else in his eyes. Something that looks like… regret. Or maybe guilt. It vanishes as he lowers his arm.

“I won’t let him hurt you again.” His voice is low, rough. “He’ll have to go through me first, and I don’t plan on dying anytime soon.”

He means it. I can feel it. But before I can speak?—

“Now isn’t this touching?”

The voice slices through me like shards of ice.

I freeze, my breath catching. It’s his voice.

The voice that haunts my dreams and calls me his.

“I came to rescue my wife,” he says, stepping through the door with a slow, almost lazy grace. His armour gleams black-gold in the firelight. Magic curls and snaps around him like shadows.

“And what do I find?” His eyes land on Noble. “A traitor, still touching what doesn’t belong to him.”

Noble steps in front of me. A cruel smile twists across Erax’s lips.

“Tell me… brother . Did you really think I wouldn’t come for her?”

It’s Erax. The man from my dreams is King Erax!

Before Noble can lift his sword, Erax raises his hand. Shadows pool from his fingertips, curling around him like smoke fed by flames. He steps forward, the light from the moon catching him. It’s then I’m finally able to see the king who’s been haunting my dreams.

Blood coats his armour, streaking down his jaw and painting his skin like war paint. His black cloak is torn, his eyes wild and glowing, and his hair—it’s like pure starlight. Nothing like the pictures I’ve seen of him.

For a moment, our eyes meet, and I’m betrayed by the way my heart skips a beat. More horrifying is the way my stomach flips, not in fear, but in excitement.

I clench my hands into fists, ice hissing across my palm. Erax watches the frost bloom across my skin, and his smirk deepens.

Then he turns back to Noble.

“You stole from me,” he growls. “My wife. My bond. My queen. I’ve spent every moment since thinking of ways to make you suffer.”

Noble lifts his sword, pointing it at Erax. “You don’t deserve her.”

“What, and you do?” Erax scoffs at him.

“At least I’d never hurt her,” Noble spits back. “That’s all you ever do. And you think I’m the fucking monster?”

That wipes the smirk off Erax’s face. But it was the wrong thing to say.

Erax flicks his hand, and the shadows spiral forward.

Noble staggers as they close around him, pinning him to the floor. The ground beneath us groans and cracks, fractures spreading like veins of darkness.

I stumble away from it as the shadows wrap around Noble’s limbs, twisting and tightening like invisible chains.

“Stop!” I run to Noble’s side, falling to my knees with him. “You’re killing him! Stop!”

“He betrayed me!” Erax bellows. “ And he touched you !”

“He didn’t!” I turn to look at him, at the raw, undiluted fury exploding from him. “Please, don’t… Don’t kill him!”

Something in my voice seems to reach him.

Erax pauses. The magic stills, but only for a heartbeat. Then his eyes harden, and with a sharp flick, he throws Noble against the wall with a pain-filled roar.

And then he comes for me.

I push until my spine hits the wall. My eyes flick to the bed, where my dagger lies under the pillow.

Erax follows my gaze, and that vicious smirk returns to his lips.

“So eager already, huh?”

My blood chills.

“Y-you…” I stutter in panic. “You’re?—”

“Your husband,” Erax finishes. “Your king. Two things they tried to take from me. Never again.”

He takes another step, each one deliberate.

“I told you I’d come for you, Mist. No one in this realm can keep me from what’s mine.”

I shake my head, heart slamming against my ribs, unable to believe what he’s saying.

Unable to accept it.

“I’m not going with you,” I choke out.

“Oh, yes, you are.”

Erax makes his way towards me slowly, magic curling and hissing around his hands again.

“I’ve come a long way. Bled for you, burned for you, remember? I’m not leaving without my wife.”

“I said no !”

My own magic explodes out of me.

Sheets of ice splinter across the floor and up the walls like frozen webs, the room turning to frost.

Erax watches it unfold, then murmurs, “Your magic. It’s waking, isn’t it? Freyren is still protecting you.”

Freyren. That name again.

“Get away from me!” I scream.

This time, when he looks at me, it’s not with hunger or awe. It’s with rage.

“I hoped you wouldn’t make me do this,” he says, his voice dangerously low, as more shadows gather around him like blades. “Then again, you never did surrender easily, did you?” A bitter laugh. “I was a fucking idiot to think you would.”

He lifts his hand, his expression twisted between fury and a tinge of regret.

And then I feel it.

First in my chest. Then in my blood.

The slow, agonising pain of his magic searing and clashing with my own, trying to smother it.

The last thing I see before I pass out is my husband’s eyes—one gold, one green—and his voice is whispering to me like a promise mixed with a prayer:

“Remember me when you wake up, Mist.”

But I don’t want to remember him.

I want to forget everything. The fire. The blood.

Our bond.