Page 40

Everly

I braced myself for more nightmares, but the reality was even worse.

Sort of.

I saw a bare, muscled chest flickering in the firelight. Felt lips searing against mine. Heard a dark voice murmur over and over again.

You’re welcome to try.

Hands traced along my spine, but this time they didn’t stop there.

You belong to me now.

Flames ignited, burning from orange to blue to a pale, frosted green, searing through every part of my body.

Morta Mea.

I wrenched my eyes open.

I was alone, of course, save for the softly snoring skathryn tucked into the pillow next to mine.

It was colder than it should have been with Mirelda keeping the fires burning high. But then, I had spent the last two nights with Draven’s body emanating heat to mine.

He was gone now. Not just from my bed, from the palace.

I could feel it. The stillness in the air, the absence of his mana.

Though, there was something… A low hum, pulsing faintly, soft and steady like a heartbeat under ice, but it was distant now. Blurred. Like a voice calling from across a frozen lake.

It had the distinct presence of his power, though nowhere near as strong as it should be if he were still here.

I sat up and pulled the furs tighter around me, eyes roaming the still-dim room. The fire had gone low, and my tea sat cold on the tray near the window.

I stood and paced the edge of the room, fingers brushing the carved frame of the hearth, the edge of the desk, the latch on the balcony door. Little anchors to give myself something to focus on aside from the storm that was constantly hovering in the distance.

Mirelda entered not long after with breakfast, bustling into my rooms like it was a normal day and this was my normal life.

Which, I supposed it was, for now, even if I couldn’t quite get used to that idea.

“You will eat this time,” she said without preamble, setting the tray down with a clatter.

She glanced up at last night’s tea in the windowsill, and her expression hardened even more.

I raised a brow. “Have you always been so charming in the mornings, or am I special?”

It was easy, this familiar pattern with her. Easier than thinking about Skaldwings and monsters and dreams that brought heat to my cheeks.

“You won’t be very special if you starve yourself to death,” she replied, dipping into my closet to pick out a dress.

Before I could assure her that I was in no danger of death by malnutrition, a soft, familiar knock interrupted us.

Nevara was early today.

Mirelda furrowed her brow as she crossed the room, easing open the door. My breath stilled in my chest.

Had Nevara Seen something?

But she walked in with footsteps that were slow to the point of hesitance, nothing in her stance implying urgency.

“Mirelda,” she greeted her with a nod.

She tapped her staff lightly before turning toward me.

“Everly.” She said my name like a greeting as well, but there was something strained in the word.

“Nevara,” I returned cautiously.

I hadn’t been sure where we stood since the attack, with her strange reticence at the Heartstone Ceremony and again in the War Room. I was even less sure now with this uncharacteristic…whatever this was.

She perched on the edge of an armchair near the fire, balancing her staff lightly against her legs.

An uncomfortable silence descended, during which Mirelda took the chance to shuffle out, laying the gown she had chosen over the screen. Whether it was cowardly or considerate, I couldn’t decide.

Nevara cleared her throat once Mirelda was gone. “I don’t See everything.”

It was vague, even for her, but there was something almost vulnerable in her tone. I reflected on the distance she had kept since the attack…not because she had Seen something that made her hate me.

But because she felt guilty about what she hadn’t Seen?

“I know that. I never blamed you,” I told her earnestly.

And I hadn’t. Though her absence had stung, I had never once faulted her for not warning me. She hadn’t asked to be the Visionary and she didn’t choose what she Saw.

Her shoulders relaxed, even as her lips turned downward.

“Sometimes you do.” Her voice was quiet enough that I might not have thought she meant me to hear, except that Nevara only ever said precisely what she meant to.

It didn’t sound like an accusation, so much as a prediction. She had told me once that the future wasn’t linear. It branched out like a tree. Were there other branches where I was more resentful?

Or was that still to come?

“I wouldn’t,” I said firmly.

She smiled sadly, then sat up straighter, shaking her head. “I didn’t come just to be morose. We have to leave earlier today since Master Barton is having a conniption over your absence these past several days.”

I sighed, standing to let Batty out the window. “I’ll be sure to apologize to him for having the gall to be attacked by a Mirrorbane.”

“He would appreciate it,” she assured me.

Her eyes swirled, and she amended. “Will.”

I let out a small laugh. “The Shard Mother thought you needed to see Master Barton?”

“Yes, she has a surprising sense of humor sometimes.”

It was odd to hear someone talk about the Goddess of our realm like she was a personal friend. Especially when I had enjoyed rather the opposite relationship with said Goddess.

“You don’t have to tell me,” I muttered, not quite as fondly as Nevara had.

The Visionary gave a wry twist of her lips. “Yes, well, she also showed me that there will be extra tongue clucking if we don’t get there soon.”

I slipped behind the dressing screen to change into the warmer gown Mirelda had laid out for me, more a habit than out of modesty since Nevara wouldn’t have been able to see me.

The dress was the warmest one yet, deep blue velvet edged in rich white furs that settled around my shoulders with a comforting weight. I got the feeling I would need it. The court was sure to have armed themselves with gossip in my absence.

Mirelda swept in with tea and winterberry scones, like she had sensed that I was preparing to braid my own hair. Perhaps that was in her own mana. She gestured for me to sit in the chair opposite Nevara, setting the scones down next to my uneaten breakfast with a pointed glance.

I sat down and dutifully picked from the plate, another faint pulse of mana washing over my skin.

“Do you know if Draven is still here?” I asked as Mirelda combed through my hair.

It was Nevara who answered. “No, they left before first light.”

I stared into the flames, taking a sip from my cup. “I wasn’t sure. I can still feel him… sort of.”

Her expression turned thoughtful for a moment, then she nodded.

“That is likely the ward stones,” she said. “He took measures before he left, to keep the palace safe.”

Of course he had. He was an endless contradiction, the way he protected and punished in turn with the same ruthless efficiency.

I had read about ward stones, but they were only ever mentioned in passing.

“And he made them with his mana?” I asked.

“No one can make ward stones anymore. Few people can even power them. They’re from the old mana. Before Seelie and Unseelie. Before the Courts and the Crowns. More like, he infused them.”

“If you can just infuse existing ward stones, why doesn’t everyone have them?” I couldn’t help but ask.

It would save so many lives, entire villages.

Mirelda responded this time.

“Most of them are lost, and few existing bloodlines even remember the art of using the stones. Even if they did, few but his Majesty have enough mana to power them,” she tacked on proudly, tugging another braid into place. “Let alone to make them so strong.”

Nevara nodded her agreement.

“How can you tell?” I asked. “How strong they are, I mean?”

“The shimmer,” she said simply.

I glanced out the window, narrowing my eyes to see past the falling snow. Sure enough, there was a faint glimmer rising in a dome shape toward the palace.

I blinked, something curiously close to concern edging along my spine.

Draven was out fighting monsters while using some of his mana—a significant amount, by the sounds of it—to power the wards?

It was hard to think of the king as mortal when he walked around like the living embodiment of mana and winter’s wrath, but everyone had limits.

“I’d like to know more,” I said, resting my cup back on the tray. “About that and…” My marriage bond. My mana. “Other things. Could one of you help me call for some books?”

A genuine smile crept onto Nevara’s lips for the first time since she entered the room. “I can do better than that.”

When Mirelda first explained that I would have to call my books with mana, I’d nearly given up hope of having anything to read ever again.

I hadn’t considered the possibility of a real library.

A tangible place. One I could actually walk through, with rows of shelves I could touch and stories I could claim for myself.

Let alone that it would take up the Southern Wing of the palace, or for nearly every wall to be filled with books that climbed several stories high. For the shelves floating in midair, orbiting the room at varying speeds, some slow and graceful, others zipping by like shooting stars.

My mouth hung open, my eyes greedily taking in every square inch of the space. This was well worth my long morning of portrait sitting. My mind swam with questions, urgent ones, like: How had I been here for weeks and never known this existed?

How had Nevara never once thought to mention it?

Or Soren, for that matter, when we had discussed books more than once?

And more importantly… how much would I have to beg to convince Mirelda to let me move in here?

The floor was inlaid with veins of pale quartz, glowing softly beneath our boots.

Chandeliers of frozen crystal hovered above, dripping with frost that never melted.

Whispering runes pulsed along the walls, and every so often, a book simply vanished in a blink of blue light, only to reappear on another shelf moments later.