Page 22 of Bound to the Shadow Queen (Frostbound Court #2)

Draven

When an unearthly screech sounded against my window pane, I was forced to question my sanity in allowing my wife’s vermin to live, but even I didn’t kill without reason.

The skathryn was annoying, but it wasn’t dangerous. I was less sure about its chosen owner, though Everly herself was less dangerous than the secrets she kept.

Surely she was just about tapped out of them by now. Then again, she could always surprise me and be the Shard Mother in disguise, or perhaps even a mountain troll masquerading as a squirrel.

I reluctantly cracked my window and the door for her ungrateful beast to flap through to her rooms, hating the way her scent wafted in, along with the intense sensation of the lingering panic I could only hope would keep her from hurling herself into danger again.

All the way to my war room, I tried not to think about my wife.

Her strange reaction to the locket, our shared nightmares, or the fact that she was actually stubborn enough to freeze to death in her rooms rather than ask her healer to light her fires.

There was a jarring contrast between her furious, relentless presence in my rooms and how frail she looked shivering in her bed the night before.

Now that she was back in her rooms, I would need to tell Mirelda she had returned.

I gritted my teeth, sitting down at the table to read through missives Eryx had left for me.

The maid had earned her trust in blood, just like my Lord General had, but my wife’s presence here still felt uncertain. Temporary.

Or perhaps I was just worried about what form her next betrayal would take, and who would be caught in the crossfires.

A knock sounded at the door just before it creaked open, and Soren Redthorne strolled in as though the place belonged to him.

Frost unfurled over the maps on the table, and his golden eyes tracked the movement. His easy smile only deepened the irritation already coiled in my gut.

“It’s quieter here than I expected,” he said, hands clasped behind his back. “Almost peaceful.”

I glared at him, doubting very much that he had decided to pay a visit to my war room for its placid ambience.

“What do you want, Lord Redthorne?” I asked, my tone flat.

He chuckled softly. “Just trying to make conversation.”

I blinked once. Twice. I didn’t want conversation, least of all with him.

My mana stirred, restless beneath my skin, and I stood abruptly, intending to leave him to his own words. That was when his tone shifted.

“There are rumors,” he said.

I paused mid-step. “I don’t waste my time with gossip.”

“Funny,” he mused, “I don’t believe that for a moment. But this also isn’t the usual kind.”

I turned slowly, narrowing my eyes. “Get to your point before I lose what little patience I have left.”

“You won’t be able to hide her forever.”

I reached out with my mana, wrapping an icy coil around his neck and squeezing. “Threats, Lord Redthorne?”

He shook his head, though his expression hardly faltered. It was further proof that he was more than the emissary he pretended to be, no doubt trained against all manner of torture.

As all spies were. Only a fool believed an emissary from the other courts was anything else.

“I want to help,” he rasped. “She’s my friend.”

A bitter thought sparked to life, a memory of Everly’s laugh at the dinner table, her attention fixed on the Autumn emissary as he offered to play host to her in my palace.

Friend. Was that really all she was to him?

My jaw clenched as I released him with a crack of ice. He dropped to his knees, coughing and rubbing at the bruises blooming along his neck.

“It isn’t too late to get ahead of this,” he added. “There is still time to?—”

The door slammed open, effectively silencing the Autumn fae.

He climbed to his feet as my Lord General strode into the room. Eryx’s gaze swept from me to Redthorne, his stoic expression revealing more worry than it usually did. His voice was steady, but grim.

“Scouts report a flight of wyverns near the Frostmere Plains.”

My blood iced over. My gaze shot toward the window and the skies just beyond it.

Wyverns.

I hadn’t seen a single one in months, and I had hoped, or wanted to hope, that the fire-breathing beasts had died out. But now there was an entire flight, at least five predators, that gorged on mana as if it were marrow.

That meant charred soil, poisoned lakes, and villages burned to ash.

And Nevara was due to return today, even accounting for the slower speed of an extra rider.

My grip tightened around the missive in my hand, frost veining outward across the parchment until the words bled into a blur of frozen ink.

The wyverns would find her easily, if they hadn’t already. Mana called to them like blood to wolves, and between my shards-ordained Visionary and her shards-blessed griffon, they were a veritable beacon in the sky.

I bit out a curse and snapped my head toward the windows, scouring the cloud-swept sky for the winged shadows.

Eryx shifted at my side, waiting for orders. Soren remained quiet for a change, but I felt his calculating stare.

If the wyverns caught her first… no… that didn’t matter right now.

My oldest friend was in danger, and if I didn’t hurry, I would have more than monsters to bury.

We rode hard, but still, it wasn’t fast enough.

The wind slashed against my face as the Aldrath steeds thundered beneath us. Their hooves ate the ground like flames devouring dry wood. Their breath steamed in the air, every stride carrying us closer to the smoke staining the horizon.

Fire cascaded through the air, too chaotic for me to risk icewalking until I was closer. Cursing, I urged the mounts faster, kicking my steed’s flanks to push him to his limits, especially as the wyverns’ shrieks grew louder.

The wolves had stayed behind, more chaos in an aerial attack than help, but Soren and Eryx were both at my back. However little I trusted the former, he had proven his battle skills more than once.

One beast bellowed out an ear-splitting cry, like steel raking over stone.

Another answered, then another.

Frost coated the reins, flooding from my fists in a wave of fury. We crested the ridge just as one plummeted from the sky, blue-fire spewing from its gaping maw. The air shook with its force, heat wafting out from the valley with the intensity of their flames.

Below, at the valley’s edge, right next to the mountain’s foothills, light fractured upward—bright, iridescent starlight splintering through glass.

Nevara.

She stood with her staff raised, mana unraveling from her in threads of searing brilliance. Each strike sent the wyverns back, elegant and exacting, as though death itself had chosen to dance at her command.

Two wyverns already lay broken on the rocks, their bodies twisted and smoking. Three more circled above, shadows eclipsing the sun.

Ice surged beneath my steed, racing outward to form a jagged bridge that lifted me higher, close enough to strike at the wyverns overhead.

Below, Eryx and Soren charged toward Nevara and Noerwyn, both trembling with the force of their mana.

Soren rose carefully in his saddle until he stood on it, balancing with a predator’s grace as Autumn’s fire coiled in his fists. The flames licked upward, growing larger, hungrier as they begged for release.

Eryx stopped at the massive griffon lying on its side, blood seeping through its pristine feathers.

Lady Noerwyn was nearby, standing guard over the injured creature.

Blood streaked her temple, and one arm was bound haphazardly with cloth.

She used her mana to fling rocks and splinters of ice in chaotic arcs, her furious screams echoing through the valley as she scrambled for everything at her disposal to draw attention away from my Visionary.

“Here! Over here, you flying shitbeast! Yeah! You!” she screamed.

I couldn’t afford to slow down, but I cast a shield around her just in time to stop a stream of fire from reaching her.

I could practically hear Eyrx sigh as he leapt from his steed to fight beside her. His unending need to protect those most vulnerable had likely drawn him to my wife’s sister.

She was not a trained warrior and lacked the polished precision to fight a beast of this caliber, but she was a raw, chaotic fury in her own right. Her white curls had broken free from their usual tight bun, their tips stained crimson with blood as she shouted more obscenities at the wyverns above.

“Fire breathing bastard!” she hissed, volleying a spray of dirt and stone directly into the wyvern’s glowing eyes. It roared in response, turning its attention toward her at last. She stumbled backward under the full weight of its stare.

Eryx stepped in front of her to take the brunt of the fight, not that Noerwyn understood she was so outmatched.

The bridge eventually blocked them from my view, and I pressed on, climbing higher and higher, my sights set on the largest wyvern.

His scales shivered, pale embers burning just beneath them as he circled Nevara.

The creature’s eyes were wide with hunger, his scales glowing with iridescent mana that didn’t belong to him. Fury ignited in my veins as I realized he was already siphoning it from her, already draining her of the power she needed to fight back.

As soon as I was overhead, I vaulted from my saddle, the wind howling past as I hurtled through open air. Frost seared between my palms, ice knitting together in ragged shards until a jagged spear formed between them.

I roared and drove it down through the wyvern’s neck.

The impact cracked like shattering glaciers, the spear exploding into splinters that doused the fire guttering in its throat.

The wyvern shrieked, flames sputtering to smoke as it writhed, its massive wings thrashing with enough force to shake the air itself.

The jolt nearly flung me into the open sky, but I hooked my hand into a ridge of bone-hard scales, clinging as it bucked upward in a surge of fury. Smoke gushed from its jaws, scorching my face with heat. My frost hissed against the flames, ice pouring down its throat in sharpened fragments.

The wyvern rolled violently, its wings snapping like sails in a storm. I felt the world spin with it, the sky and ground blurring into a dizzy whirl. Its claws lashed back, talons the length of scythes catching my arm and raking deep through my leather armor.

Blood spattered across its scales, steaming where it struck the heat still burning inside its chest.

Pain sharpened my focus. I slammed my other hand against its throat, forcing raw mana outward. Ice blossomed like a living thing, crawling across its scales, hardening, choking off its next burst of blue-fire. The wyvern cried again, snapping at me with jaws wide enough to shear me in half.

Finally, I could be precise enough to icewalk.

One heartbeat I was clinging to its neck, the next I was gone, reappearing above its skull.

Frost condensed at my feet, forming a spiky platform that shattered as I launched myself down.

A fresh spear of ice burst into being, crystalline and brutal, its length trailing mist like a comet.

And I rammed it through the wyvern’s serpentine eye.

Its wings faltered as it convulsed. We plummeted together, a tumbling mass of ice, blood, and fire. Its tail whipped against me, spines tearing through leather and skin, but I held fast, driving the frost deeper until the beast’s scream broke into a wet, choking gurgle.

The ground rushed up. At the last second, I wrenched myself free, icewalking to a jagged outcrop as the wyvern slammed into the valley floor. The impact thundered through the earth, bones snapping, fire dying in a hiss of smoke and blood.

I stood above the wreckage, my chest heaving as frost steamed from my skin. My arm burned where its claws had bit into my skin, blood dripping hot against the ice beneath my boots.

But the beast did not rise again.

It was a hollow victory, when another shriek reached my ears right away…sounding in symphony with a rare, panicked scream from my Visionary.