Page 2 of A Fate of Ice and Lies (Fated #1)

Chapter

Two

ELIAS

With the hard-won battle behind me, my mind drifted to her. The human female, who was always present somewhere in my mind.

Hair the color of blood that fell in curls past slender shoulders. I could almost feel the soft tendrils wrapped around my fingers while I imagined her pouty lips parting as she breathed my name.

Clear eyes rivaling pristine lakes seemed to see me and somehow search for me as if we were something attainable. I pictured the weight of her attention on me; that made me want to puff out my chest in the hopes of impressing her, even with the veil keeping us apart.

How could I long for someone I’d never touched or seen in anything more than visions? It didn’t matter. The depth of my yearning was sealed in our distant silence.

It drove me mad and was the sole reason I requested a meeting with my parents, the king and queen of our realm. Despite their many duties to the kingdom, they always made themselves available to me and granted my request .

“I have to see her.” My words echoed off the high ceilings, pleading not with my parents but with King Thierry and Queen Renee.

My father drummed his fingers on the side of his throne, his crown gleaming as if in a taunt as his long black hair spread past his shoulders. “We lost three warriors today, and you want to speak of the female?”

“We lost three of my friends, Father,” I said, one side of my mouth ticking as I reined in my anger and spoke to my father with the respect he’d earned. “Two males and one female who I trained with, drank, and ate with. I know more than you what and who we’ve lost.”

He squeezed the sides of his chair but didn’t say anything.

“You know what it’s like to be gifted this bond.

” I referred to his and my mother’s soul bond.

“But you were never tormented with this aching need to see someone you couldn’t.

Mother was always right there. Nothing kept you two apart.

” I rubbed the center of my chest, where I felt my mate the strongest. “This. . .”

It was an anguishing taunt that seemed to grow more pronounced each day the veil kept us apart.

“You must be reasonable, son.” My mother, an empath who felt others’ emotions as if they were her own, wore her despair for my predicament across the light features of her face. Her worried eyes, identical to my violet ones, darted back and forth between my father and me.

“If you cross into the human realm, you wouldn’t just be dooming her world, but her as well,” my father reminded me.

“But maybe there’s a way?—”

“The kingdom needs you here, Elias.” His eyes darkened with his authoritative tone. “You are the prince, and the only warrior granted a Guardian to fight with him. Had you not been there today. . .”

The air trembled under his power, and I had to suppress the urge to bow my head to him. At that moment, he wasn’t my fun-loving father but my king.

I clenched my hands into fists. Had I not been there to fight with Nalari today, civilians would have died. The kingdom could have fallen.

“I could go and bring her back here,” I argued, knowing no human had ever lived among the fae, but my parents and I were royalty. Surely, if rules could be bent, it would be for us. Right?

To my surprise, my mother nodded. “You could.”

From his throne, my father straightened his already upright back and shifted his attention to my mother, though he kept his features void of emotion.

Could this mean. . .

The tiniest spark of hope burned deep inside my chest.

“But what would she think of you if she knew you were the cause of her world’s demise?” she continued, her voice carrying that tender note of hers.

Just like that, she stamped out that tiny glimmer of hope.

My mother rose from her throne and removed her crown to place it on her empty seat. She crossed the great room to me, her heeled shoes clicking with each confident step. She placed her palm against my cheek, and I had to look away at the tears that shimmered.

“Would she be as safe here as she would in her realm?” my father asked.

He rose from his throne, crossing the room where each echoing step ricocheted in my thrashing chest. His hands were soft and loving when he pulled my mother to his side.

She peeked up at him through thick lashes.

I couldn’t take seeing how their love carried them while I was denied my sole chance at a similar fate.

The bond between soul mates was an immeasurable gift.

A path to love and peace between two individuals who were incomplete by themselves.

It was pure and only strengthened the other as they got to know each other.

A deep connection that would make the stars themselves leave the sky in search of their one true home.

“She’d have a good life here,” I whispered desperately. “I’d take care of her. Protect her.”

“Of course you would,” my father said at the same time my mother spoke.

“I’m sure of it, dearest.” She nestled closer to my father, a show of their affection I was all too accustomed to.

I’d never been jealous of it, though. Not until now.

“If you think she could forgive you and still love you after you tell her what you’ve done to her realm, if you’re certain you could keep her safe and still do your duty on the battleground with a clear head so that you may return to her after every battle”—she paused to raise a single brow—“you have your father’s and my permission to cross the veil and go to her. ”

My breath caught in my throat when my father gave me a single nod. I thought about it. Imagined her here with me, where I could show her a love greater than anything she could ever dream of. It meant the collapse of her world, though.

Not only that but the Guardians would strip my parents of the role they were born into. I couldn’t be responsible for that.

She wouldn’t be as safe in our city, outside the palace’s wards and security, and neither would my parents.

All because of me .

I turned my attention to my father, the king who’d be the only one who could grant such unprecedented permission. “You’d really let me go?” I asked him.

And give up everything entrusted to him and allow someone else to rule over the kingdom he had loved since birth.

His attention bore into me. “For you, yes.” While his expression remained passive, I heard the emotions in his voice. “There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you, Elias.”

My broad shoulders drooped forward, and I pushed a strand of my thick onyx hair back.

“Love should be selfless, or it isn’t real,” my mother said.

The truth in her statement pierced me, and while I wanted to lash out at my parents, I gave them a deep bow instead.

“I’m going to the tavern,” I said, ending our impromptu meeting.

“I’m sorry, son,” my father said. “Maybe the Guardians will bind your soul to another mate.”

My body jerked at his implication. While he’d meant to put me at ease with his words, they’d only made me angrier. Lonelier.

I gave him a polite bow before I left the room and the palace to make my way back to Somnio.

Once I stepped outside the castle walls, the frigid wind welcomed me like an embrace.

For a few beats, I lifted my face to the sky and let the snow fall on me before I used my magic to bend the folds between space.

I left Reignom behind to step onto the streets of Somnio, the city I called home.

My trek to the tavern I frequented most evenings was short, and by the time I reached my destination, my gloominess remained.

I didn’t want another soul mate. I wanted her. From the moment I saw her image in my mind’s eye, her hands held my soul. I belonged to her—my heart stolen from my own realm to hers with the beauty of her soft smile.

All the while knowing that as fae I could never cross to her world or see her in person.

Still the wonder of her enraptured me, leaving me a lovesick idiot overfilled with emotion.

Longing, yes, but joy was also mixed in with the sadness.

All while anger fought for space over the injustice of it all.

Missing her was akin to missing a limb. I’d learned how to move forward and even ignore the phantom pain of a love I’d never see to fruition. It was the cruelty of my fate, but at least I could hear the pretty ring of her voice and could visit her each time I closed my eyes.

It didn’t matter that my soul was torn in two completely different places. She in her human home, and me in my realm—never to cross paths.

Tearing through the veil wasn’t just forbidden but punishable by death.

All because of the mages that no longer existed.

Mages had been magical beings who were similar to fae, but not fae.

They had not only been gifted with long lifespans and magic but also experimented with spells, using their blood to bind the spells.

Their greed for more power sent them to other realms, seeking to conquer and destroy any beings who wouldn’t bow to them.

They’d corrupted our realm with soul magic that blackened and killed the very essence where magic lived inside each of us.

Where before, we’d cross through the veil—and some of us even lived among the humans in their realm—the Guardians had had to close it.

They’d had to enforce brutal punishments for anyone who sought their way through.

It had ripped families apart when fae were forced to leave their intended as well as the children they had created together .

It was as much for the protection of humans as it was for the beings in other realms.

On an inhale, I snapped myself out of my melancholy thoughts and reveled in the cold that carved deep into my flesh and straight to my bones.

Wind and snow lashed across the skin exposed from my short-sleeved tunic.

I hesitated at the entrance of the old tavern, taking one last deep breath of the chilly, crisp air before pulling open the hard wood door.