Page 10

Everly

T here was no time to hide the skathryn before Mirelda intruded.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure she was smart enough to stay hidden anyway, but it was a moot point when Mirelda swept into the room on the heels of her curt knock. I closed my hands over the miniscule creature, fully aware of how suspicious I appeared.

Mirelda didn’t notice at first. She was busy looking critically at my hair, then my dress. My entire person, really.

“You’ll need to wear something more formal for dinner. The king’s orders.”

Gauzier and flimsier, she meant. Facing the king was already enough to rack my body with shivers, as much as I despised his effect on me. And he could shove his orders somewhere even darker than his rotting heart.

I knew it was unwise to anger him, but I wouldn’t give myself away by freezing my ass off.

“Until the king can keep his temper under wraps, I have every intention of being prepared for the rogue ice storm.” It was the best excuse I could manage, and not untrue.

Even the average fae weren’t completely impervious to the sensation of cold. They just weren’t as affected by it as I was.

Mirelda opened her mouth to argue, but a small squeak cut her off.

Shards blasted hells . I knew I shouldn’t have let the thing stay. My maid’s hawklike gaze flitted to my closed hands.

“What is that?” she demanded.

“That is…” I scrambled for a lie. “None of your concern,” I finished loftily.

Her lips parted in ire. “It is if it poses a risk to his majesty.”

I blinked, wondering if sneaking in a venomous creature to do away with the king was a common assassination plan. Perhaps I should have thought of it, though it had never occurred to me to treat the Frostgrave King as mortal.

With an exasperated sigh, I opened my hands, revealing my contraband. “I daresay a baby bat poses no threat to the king who massacred thousands of fae with a single breath and has spent the better part of the week fighting monsters.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but I barreled over her.

“You did say the king wanted me to dress for dinner? Something appropriate?”

My bargain was clear. My compliance for your silence.

Her gaze flitted to the tiny snowfiend, who had once again raised her wings to cover her face. One heartbeat passed, then another, while I mentally prepared to wrestle my disagreeable maid for the dubious privilege of keeping a rodent in my rooms.

At last, she cleared her throat. “Yes. He was very particular.”

A smile curved at the corners of her lips, far more unsettling than any scowl she had ever given me.

I suppressed a shudder, setting Batty on the arm of a chair before I followed Mirelda into the closet, not quite trusting what she would emerge with.

I hadn’t been inside the closet yet, but it appeared to be just as sentient as the tub, if not a little moreso. It presented one sparkling choice after another, obeying when Mirelda flicked her hand to the right or left.

Finally, the closet brought forth a gown of storm-gray silk, soft as snowfall and threaded with the faintest shimmer of silver.

The fabric moved like mist, the long, flowing sleeves trailing with every breath of air, weightless and treacherously delicate.

Curled along the neckline and hem was subtle embroidery, swirling with winter sigils that almost glowed when the light struck just right.

The bodice would fit snugly, laced in the back with a ribbon the color of sleet, and most importantly, the skirts were still flared enough to conceal my weapon. Still, it was hardly warm.

Mirelda tilted her head, studying it for a long moment before she gave a curt nod of approval, like the vindictive wench that she was.

With the thought of facing the king already dragging icy fingers along my spine, the last thing I needed was to be shivering my way through dinner and have him accuse me of being afraid. Or worse, fragile.

“That would look lovely draped in fur, don’t you think?” I said pointedly, not remotely concerned if it was true.

The closet went still, not so much as a whisper of fabric intruding on the newfound silence. Was that merely a reflection of Mirelda’s attitude, or had I managed to offend the closet itself?

My maid surveyed me with narrowed eyes, and I stared back like I had nothing to hide.

“Fine,” she said after a beat.

After only a moment of hesitation on the closet’s part, a fur stole flopped at my feet, much the way a carcass might drop from the mouth of a predator that found it distasteful. A matching arm muff followed in much the same fashion.

Mirelda smirked, but I still took the win, begrudging as it was.

Once I had dressed, behind the screen, away from her, she combed through my waves with quick, practiced fingers, then swept smoky pigment along my cheekbones and eyes. A deeper shade of midnight blue was pressed to my lips, and my lashes were painted with kohl so dark it gleamed like obsidian.

Delicate chains of silver and twilight crystals draped around my throat and wrists, cool against my skin.

By the time she was done, I had nearly tricked myself into a strange sort of calm. Not peace, exactly, just the cold acceptance that the day was happening, with or without my permission.

Mirelda made the final adjustment, settling a crown onto my head that was far more impressive than the delicate one I had worn for my portraits. It was silver and ice-forged, spiked like a ring of spears, and just heavy enough to remind me it wasn’t mine by choice.

I turned to the mirror. The version of myself looking back was far more composed than I felt. Every inch of me looked the part. Regal. Untouchable.

A beautifully packaged lie, not unlike the Frostgrave King.

The air shifted like I had summoned him with my thoughts.

The temperature dropped. A gust of rage swept into the room just before the distant slam of a door echoed through the hallway.

I went still.

Maybe it was the lull of the past few days, where I hadn't been forced to see him. I had settled into an uneasy quietude. But somehow, in that silence, I had let my guard lower, again.

A mistake.

Because now, I remembered the intensity of his presence. The overwhelming crush of power, like an avalanche demolishing everything in its path. I remembered the way that in spite of myself, my entire being sharpened into awareness when he walked into a room.

I turned to look at the king.

It was impossible to think of him as my husband. The word didn’t belong anywhere near the fae who had turned a mountain pass into a graveyard.

Even now, he was all cold command and predatory grace as he strode into the room, a shadow crowned in ice.

His coat was tailored with ruthless precision, deepest black like whatever was left of his soul, the silver clasps at his throat sharp and jagged, like carnivorous teeth. Every step echoed, measured and merciless, as if the palace itself flinched to move out of his way.

My heartbeat thudded in my chest with an unsteady concoction of anticipation and dread.

He was ethereal and untouchable, and by all accounts, my enemy. It seemed impossible that I knew what it was to have his arrogant mouth pressed against mine, to feel the otherworldly warmth that emanated from a male whose very marrow was forged from unrelenting ice.

His gaze found mine, and I struggled to breathe, trapped in the memory of the ceremony neither of us wanted.

His pupils dilated, swallowing the frosted green of his irises, as if I had pulled him into that memory with me. Something flashed in them, visceral and unrestrained. It vanished the next heartbeat, buried beneath his usual arrogance and disdain.

I sucked in a breath at last, forcing myself to focus on the people he had killed. My aunt’s patient hands and her husband’s easy laugh and their son’s mischievous smirk. One by one, I went through the long list of people I had known who were dead at his hands.

Whatever the shards-damned marriage bond stirred up in either of us, he was still just a monster. Flawless exterior or not.

His jaw flexed. He looked me over once, slowly, his features carved from unrelenting marble. Then he turned without a word, crossing to the door.

I trailed after him with a sigh half-caught in my throat, the chill of his mana still saturating the air in my path. A thought struck me, and I darted a panicked glance around the room.

The tiny skathryn had been resting on the chair, out in the open where he would see her. Would he turn her to ice? Feed her to one of his wolves? I swallowed hard, risking a glance at the chair, but she wasn’t where I had left her. Maybe she had hidden when his mana swept in like a wrecking ball.

When I stepped up behind him, he stilled, his hand on the door but not opening it. His gaze pinned me once more, sharper now, as if I had managed to offend him just by existing.

Like I had killed people he loved instead of the other way around.

“I hope they taught you basic etiquette at your hovel,” he said, voice low and dark.

Icicle-sucking bastard.

I smiled, more a baring of my teeth. “A lofty hope, indeed, considering our king seems to have missed his own lessons on manners.”

Mirelda gave a very quiet cough that was definitely not a laugh. Draven’s eyes narrowed, not surprised, just vaguely annoyed, like I was the inconvenient echo he couldn’t quite get rid of.

I stepped toward the door, adjusting the stole around my shoulders and grabbing the muff from the endtable before turning to face him once more.

And trying not to react to the way my muff felt just a bit heavier than before.