Page 10 of Bound to the Shadow Queen (Frostbound Court #2)

Everly

My mother was ignoring me.

Not that we were alone for long enough to truly question her, but she was keeping an intentional distance, cutting off conversation every time I even considered swinging it back around to the Dragon.

After I changed into my leathers, my uncle paraded me around and insisted I go flying with some of the Stormbreak Clan. And himself, of course.

In the decade I had been gone, I had never once risked bringing out my wings intentionally, let alone risked flying.

I hadn’t let myself miss it.

Then the journey here had been nothing but chains and panic and the unending agony of straining muscles that had long since atrophied with disuse, there had been no chance for even the illusion of freedom.

Now, though, with the clans shrinking to dark specks below and the mountains unfurling in jagged and endless peaks in the distance, I could finally admit to myself what I had been lying about for years.

I had missed this.

The rush of air tearing through my hair. The way the weight of my problems seemed to scatter like loose feathers from up here, falling far behind me.

And my mother’s face, at peace in a way I had almost forgotten existed.

I hated to be the one to shatter it.

But I hated her secrets more.

Edging my wings closer, I slipped just out of formation until we drifted apart from the group. I kept my voice low, careful, though the wind still carried it sharply between the two of us.

“What are you keeping from me?”

Her dark eyes cut sideways to me.

“Nothing it would benefit you to know.” Her tone was flat, final.

My talons slipped free from my fingers, one by one, frustration curling my hands into fists.

“That isn’t your decision to make,” I growled, my wings snapping open in a single beat.

The glow of the sky poured through them, casting jeweled colors that rippled over her face.

“You’re my child, Everly?—”

“No.” My wings flared again with the word. “I haven’t been a child in a long time.”

She reared back mid-flight as though my words had struck her, her wings jerking in an uneven beat. Guilt knifed through me, sour and immediate, but still I couldn’t bring myself to take it back.

“I’m sorry for the time we won’t get back,” I said, softer now, my wingbeats evening out to match hers. “But you can’t keep pretending I’m still the twelve-year-old girl whose hair you had to dye in secret.”

Her lips parted like she might respond, but Kaelen and my uncle were already gliding closer. Vaerin’s eyes narrowed with unmistakable suspicion.

My mother shook her head, either annoyance at his presence or denial at my words, I couldn’t tell. Then she angled her wings, diving toward the valley floor. Her message was clear.

She wouldn’t give me a chance to corner her again.

Though some of her reasoning might have been keeping an eye on the tensions below. For all I had accused my own clan of being hateful, I hadn’t considered that knowing me as a child might actually have softened them, until I beheld the icy disdain of Kaelen’s people.

Several of the newcomers had physically recoiled from my pale, shimmering wings, and refused to meet my crystal blue eyes. They might have backed down with a warning glare from their Thane, but their distrust was clear all the same, as was the underlying message.

Whatever advantage I might offer to their clan, I was still other . An enemy.

I considered that as I flew, why he would be willing to choose a bride his people hated. To unite the clans? To lay claim to the Winter Queen, however briefly I held that title?

The questions haunted me as I soared through the air, diving and twisting through the clouds. The wind was sharp and cold as it tore past me, stinging my cheeks and roaring in my ears.

Stretching my wings wide, I cut through the sky, each beat carrying me higher until the ground blurred into nothing but shadowed ground.

For a single fleeting breath, I let go. Let the air hold me the way it once had, before mages and vows and palaces made of ice.

Up here, I wasn’t a pawn or a bride or a Hollow. I wasn’t Seelie or Unseelie. Up here, I was untouchable. Almost free.

Almost.

Then it was time to return to the ground and the shackles of my uncle’s expectations and my mother’s suffocating protection.

That night, we gathered by the massive fire in the courtyard with the Stormbreak Clan.

Kaelen stood off to the side by the campfire, his expression easy as he nodded a silent invitation to join him. Warm golden eyes carefully assessed me as I took a seat next to him on one of the smooth log benches.

Whatever else about this situation that grated on me, it was hard to blame the Skaldwing personally.

I was grateful when Zerina fell back, albeit reluctantly, to stand guard between us and the rest of the village. Maybe it only offered us a semblance of privacy, but it was more than we would have found otherwise.

Flames snapped and crackled as they clawed at the dry logs, sparks drifting upward and fading before they ever touched the stars. Smoke curled low, clinging to my hair and wings.

It was always quieter after supper. The villagers had retreated to their huts, leaving only the night watch in the shield-yard.

Warriors sharpened steel with slow, steady strokes, their voices carrying low in the dark.

Every now and then, wings beat the air as patrols launched into the night.

For the first time all day, it was just us.

Kaelen poured two cups of shadebloom, the bottle of lavender liquor glowing faintly in the firelight. He handed one to me without a word, his eyes on mine as though he were gauging whether I would refuse. I didn’t.

It was Unseelie, through and through. Floral, and effervescent with a dark and bitter aftertaste that somehow made you want more. I drained my glass, relishing the way it washed over my tongue like petals from violets, before wordlessly handing it back for him to refill.

And Shard Mother bless him, he did so without judgement.

“So, has our long day of being scrutinized by both clans convinced you to swoon over our alliance yet?”

A dry laugh slipped past my lips, but cut off as he moved to sit next to me on the log. He refilled his glass as well, before resting the bottle between his boots.

“It isn’t that simple,” I said carefully.

“Try me,” he said with a wink.

I took another long sip of shadebloom while collecting my thoughts.

“I still don’t even understand what you really want from me,” I sighed. “Or why would you marry someone your clan— your brother —hates, who has no mana to protect your people?”

He let out a low chuckle, grinning down into his cup before meeting my eyes again.

“Well, you did make a rather fetching image in your stockinged feet with your abominable hair all askew,” he said with a twist of his lips.

I rolled my eyes, but something tugged my attention toward the western skies. To the auroras that were an entire world away.

This banter between us should have been easy, but the weight of the firelight and Kaelen’s closeness made it feel heavier, somehow.

He studied me for a long moment, shifting on the bench so that his wings blocked out the nearest eavesdroppers, the crackle of the fire swallowing the space between us.

“Fetching enough to alienate your people?” I finally asked.

The corner of his mouth tugged upward, his gaze lingering a moment longer than was polite. But then it shifted outward, past the circle of flames, as though measuring the village itself.

“Our clans have been warring with each other for centuries,” he said at last, his voice low and deliberate. “Stars, that goes for all of the Unseelie clans, but Skaldwings in particular. All that blood, all those grudges, and for what?”

I arched a brow, letting the corner of my mouth twist.

“And you think marrying a half-Seelie bride will solve that? Perhaps you’ve had a little too much of my uncle’s ‘good drinks’ for one evening,” I said, dramatically snatching the bottle of shadebloom from where it rested in front of him.

His lips twitched again, the barest ghost of amusement.

“No,” he said, tipping his cup as though in mock salute, then his tone turned more serious. “But it would be a start. You aren’t just a half-Seelie. You were crowned on a Seelie throne.”

Images flashed through my mind. A haze of moving portraits. Draven’s eyes glowing as bright as the starlit sky. The blade of ice that sliced through our palms and the mana that encompassed us, that bound his soul to mine. The reflection of my glimmering crown shining through his emerald gaze.

I cleared my throat before taking another sip from my cup.

“Barely,” I muttered. “With my wings a secret, and under duress from all sides.”

“It doesn’t matter. You are still a symbol, even if the people are too angry to see it,” Kaelen responded evenly. “Let alone that the other Seelie Courts would hesitate before attacking someone who was attached to the Frostgrave King in any capacity.”

That was true enough. I didn’t imagine any of the Seelie Courts would risk Winter’s wrath that way, but that didn’t mean anything if Draven felt differently.

“The king might very well kill me himself when he finds me.” I wasn’t sure if I believed it, but I wasn’t sure that I didn’t.

“I can’t speak to that, but I don’t deal in delusions.” The humor drained from his voice as quickly as it came. “Winter is crumbling. Everyone can see it. Right now, the Unseelie are rejoicing because he’s distracted by the frostbeasts, but we both know that won’t last.”

The words fell heavy between us, mixing with the snap of the fire. Kaelen wasn’t wrong. I still didn’t believe that Draven would let the Unseelie taking his bride stand, but even if he did…the monsters were getting worse.

Images flooded through my mind of frostbeasts prowling too close to villages, the wreckage I’d seen with my own eyes. Tar- and blood-stained snow.

They were getting worse because, whether by birth or circumstance, their promised savior had been defective.