Page 8

Everly

T he palace was almost calm in the king’s absence.

Without his tempestuous moods affecting the temperature, my room had thawed to something close to tolerable. It was mild enough that I risked exploring the balcony while I waited for…whatever my day held. There was still a chill in the air, but no icy gales came along to sweep me over the railing.

Bracing myself with a firm grip, I rose up onto my toes, peeking over the side to see as much of the palace as I could take in.

Despite the gray skies looming overhead, thick with the promise of snow, the view was… beautiful. Stunning, really, in the way that almost made you forget to breathe.

Mountains stretched beyond the palace like shimmering sentinels, their snow-laced peaks rising into the clouds. Glittering veins of crystal cut through the slopes like frozen lightning, catching the scant rays of sun that filtered down through the clouds.

Below the balcony was the main courtyard, carved from pale stone that glimmered with frostlight. It looked abandoned now, compared to last night, save for a few guards pacing along the inner walls.

I leaned over the edge to get a better look at what appeared to be gardens that wrapped around the eastern wing, bracing myself on the stone.

“Surely things are not yet that dire,” an unfamiliar voice sounded from far too close at my back.

Shards .

For the second time in as many days, I was caught off guard. I was too used to being alone, and safe , to remember the kind of vigilance I had been taught as a child. I spun around only to freeze when I realized who it was.

The Visionary.

She looked much the same as she had in the throne room. Her pale skin shimmered like moonlit frost, and her hair fell in iridescent waves down her back, the front pieces braided back with strands of silver and crystals.

Her eyes were different today. More…still than they had been in the throne room. Her expression, too, was slightly less guarded, though no easier to read. It made me realize how young she looked, not much older than my twenty-two years.

She held her staff in one slender hand, an artful twist of silver and pearl. A pale pink crystal rested in the twisting metal at the top, several shades lighter than her gauzy gown.

“Your yet is certainly inspiring,” I responded after the silence had stretched for too long, wondering if she had Seen that things would get dire or was merely being conversational.

“But no,” I added, dusting the snow from my skirts. “I wasn’t thinking of jumping.”

Her lips curved, not quite a smile. More like amusement threaded with something I couldn’t name.

“Is there…something I can help you with?” I tried not to sound rude, but I couldn’t deny that her presence unnerved me.

I had secrets. She had a gift for unearthing them. We weren’t exactly a friendship waiting to blossom.

She raised her eyebrow like she knew exactly what I was thinking.

“His Majesty has arranged your schedule. I’m here to ensure you keep it.”

Shards.

I had assumed he would send another guard. Was her Sight stronger with proximity? Did I have a way to politely ask for literally anyone else to accompany me?

“Do you usually act as a palace escort?” I hedged.

In addition to your roles as wedding officiant and execution advisor.

She let out a small huff of air like she had heard what I didn’t say.

“Well, we’ve come a long way from my ancestors locked away in a tower to save the fragile nerves of the court from the horror.

” She gestured to her eyes. “So when I’m not roaming the halls making ominous predictions at random, just to watch them scramble, I do occasionally enjoy taking on a more productive task. ”

She smiled sharply, leaving just enough doubt as to whether she was joking.

I felt an unexpected, and entirely unwanted, twinge of sympathy. She wasn’t a Hollow, but she was other , nonetheless. Chosen at birth to be tied inextricably to the king, treated as other by her own people, her life was not so different from mine.

Still, I couldn’t quite trust her. It wasn’t just her powers or even her ruthlessness in the throne room. She reminded me a bit too much of the mages, somewhere in her unreadable expression and the faintly glowing crystal embedded in her staff.

The scars along my back prickled uncomfortably, but I didn’t see another option outside of outright offending one of the most powerful fae in the palace.

“Fair enough,” I tried to inject some measure of warmth into my tone, telling myself this could be for the best.

Hadn’t I just been thinking that I needed information? No one in the kingdom knew more than the king’s seer.

Something subtle shifted in her eyes, reminiscent of the throne room, like stardust churning through frost-smoke. She nodded, more to herself than to me.

“A wise decision. You have plenty of enemies already.”

I froze, waiting for her to expound, but she left me to ruminate in my own head.

Did she mean in the court? Or someone more dangerous…like the uncle I had fled a decade ago. But he would never think to look for me in the shards-damned Winter Palace.

So she couldn’t mean him. I tried to think of a way to make her expound without it sounding like an interrogation.

“Yes, I’m sure there were plenty of females unhappy when I was chosen.” It wasn’t subtle, but it was the best I could come up with.

It wasn’t enough, apparently, since she turned to go without responding.

Her head tilted in a clear command for me to follow. “The portraitist is expecting us.”

She tapped her staff lightly before walking back into the sitting room. I followed her out into the main hall, my mind spinning with questions that had no good answers, and my palms aching from where my nails pressed against the broken skin.

Every few feet, the Visionary tapped her staff against the floor once again.

The rhythmic sound was oddly entrancing.

I focused on the sound, taking a deep breath in with one tap, and letting it go with another.

Slowly, it began to comfort some of my frayed nerves.

Is that why she does it, out of habit? Or does it have a purpose?

“It helps to guide me,” she answered the unspoken questions for the second time.

Shards.

“Can you See thoughts too?”

She gave a wry shake of her head. “Not everything is about mana. Some things are obvious when you aren’t staring them in the face.”

Once again, I was left guessing at the layers in her words, wondering whether they were truly an explanation, or whether she was applying them to me.

I wouldn’t have believed that a life among so many people, surrounded by the threat of exposure, could feel tedious, but as it turned out, even the impending threat of death could not make sitting for a portrait less boring.

The royal portraitist infused his art with mana, but he still made every single brushstroke by hand—painstakingly, and after much consideration. On top of that, he had a sharp tongue that he clucked every time I had the nerve to twitch.

The endless ordeal left me no opportunity at all to speak with the Visionary.

Not during the portrait, and not during the meeting with the palace financier who had me sign at least seventy-five documents with a quill dipped in ink made from dragon’s blood.

It was binding, of course. Like my marriage wasn’t binding enough.

I barely read them. I had nothing to my name anyway, as he reminded me several upon several times when he noted clauses that didn’t apply to me.

When we were finally finished, the Visionary led me back to my suites. She bypassed the sitting room door, continuing through the double doors that led to the entryway I now shared with the king.

The doors closed behind us, leaving us in relative privacy. Whether that was an invitation to speak or a coincidence, I still took my chance to question her. There were so many things I wanted to know, but nothing as important as trying to decipher whether she knew what I was.

“Do you choose what you See ?” I asked as we stopped outside of the bedroom door.

She pursed her lips, her hand tightening on the silver staff.

“It is generally considered rude to ask a Visionary about her powers.” Her even voice belied the light rebuke in her words.

“Not as rude as shackling someone to the Frostgrave King,” I returned evenly.

She huffed out what might have been a scoff or a laugh; it was impossible to tell. Then she leaned against the doorframe, turning her sightless eyes on me.

“Technically, that was the Shard Mother. She chooses what to show me. What has been, what is, and the possibilities ahead.”

Possibilities. Not certainties. Was that why she had nodded when I chose to accompany her today? Had it solidified one of the possibilities in her mind’s eye? One that meant I kept my secrets long enough to leave?

It was as close to hope as I was going to get, I supposed.

“Thank you for answering, Visionary,” I told her.

Though I wanted to encourage her to open up for selfish reasons, my words weren’t insincere.

I believed her when she said it was considered rude, and I doubted she would have bothered to respond under normal circumstances. Whether she felt guilt over my marriage to a monster or had some other motive for telling me, it was information, nonetheless.

I wasn’t sure yet how it could help, but it was a step in the right direction.

“Nevara,” she murmured.

“Nevara?” I echoed dumbly.

She took a breath, straightening to her full height.

“My name,” she said in a stronger voice. “It’s Nevara.”

Her tone was a contradiction. Stilted, like the words had cost her something, but pleading, too. Like she wanted me to call her by her name, and not the title she had never asked for.

“Are we going to be friends then?” I asked the question lightly, mostly to break up the silence that had crept in unexpectedly.

I didn’t have friends outside of Wynnie. It had been too much of a risk, even without the added threat of that person being the king’s seer.

Her features darkened.

“I don’t know yet. I don’t See my own future.” There was something in her tone, like she had been close to adding a but .

“But you See mine?” I prodded, furrowing my brow at her abrupt bout of somberness.

She took in a breath, turning to leave. I thought she would go without answering me like she had this morning, but she hesitated.

“Sometimes.” The quiet word echoed off the towering walls.

She was gone before I could ask her if she meant she only got visions sometimes…or that I didn’t always have a future to see.