Page 9

Everly

I dined in my rooms that night, and for the next several nights thereafter, and I continued to sleep in my chair.

Though sleep was a strong word. The nightmares only got worse. Sometimes I heard screaming, saw monsters worse than my imagination could conjure in the waking hours.

Then every night, I was awakened by the same ominous scraping against the window, and a shadow flitting through the moonlight.

When I pressed my face against the glass, all I could see was drifting snow flurries against a wintry sky. I squinted to see further, past the walls to the forest resting at the base of the mountains.

My blood ran cold.

Enormous shapes moved through the trees. Dark shadows with claws and glistening silver teeth. Guards shouted warnings from the walls, their voices carrying in the still night air, audible even through the solid glass.

Shimmering shields of mana snapped into place just before flashes of light rained down like arrows onto one of the shadows. I could almost make out the sound of a scream, then the shadow stopped moving.

The palace was supposed to be safer, heavily patrolled and guarded at every level, even to the outer village. How had a monster gotten so close?

Every day here yielded more questions, but never anything resembling an answer.

In the meantime, Mirelda continued her reign of passive-aggression. She brought breakfast like it was a personal affront, each tray a new insult to flavor itself, from plain eggs to unsweetened porridge and something that might once have been a vegetable before it gave up on life.

She continued to bring my gowns without question, though, readying me without forcing me to rely on my own mana. Whether she thought I was spoiled or just too ignorant, I wasn’t going to question her assistance, only hope that it held up.

I would have prayed to the Shard Mother, but the goddess that had cursed me twice over was hardly likely to help me now.

So I wished, and I pretended and I hoped that it would be enough, though I was no closer at all to finding a way out.

Then there were my royal responsibilities, which were mostly ornamental. Each morning, a soft knock announced the arrival of the Visionary, silvery and spectral as ever.

She didn’t offer any more cryptic warnings or hints or whatever they had been. In fact, she rarely spoke at all. When I worked up the nerve to ask questions, she deflected them with practiced ease, all the while regarding me with something between curiosity and wariness.

Fortunately, I was still being spared the full force of court appearances. No throne room summons. No politics. Just the occasional courtier in a hallway doing a very poor job of pretending not to whisper words like bastard or poor the moment I passed.

Then they would bow, which was even worse. They had no great love of the Visionary either, but at least they feared her.

The king had yet to return.

Not that I wanted him to, but the marriage bond didn’t seem to appreciate his absence nearly as much as I did. Sometimes there was a humming along my skin, light and anxious. Other times, my ring would prod at me, like a thousand needles of ice. For not sealing the bond? For the distance?

I didn’t know, and I still didn’t have any books to check.

With any luck, that would have been the extent to which I had to deal with the king. But of course, luck was a tool of Fate, and I already knew Fate despised me. So I wasn’t surprised when the week ended and Mirelda announced it was time to dine with the court.

And that my husband would escort me.

At least I had fewer tedious tasks to see to today.

After I sat for my portrait, the Visionary declared me free to prepare for the evening, leaving me with only a slightly ominous comment about the court. She had said nothing at all about the king, and I had tried very hard not to spiral into panic at the implications of his return.

I took my rare moment alone to collect myself since Mirelda rarely gave me more than twenty seconds alone.

I was warming myself by the faintly flickering fire when I heard it: a scratch, followed by a thump.

I froze, eyes darting to the frosted window where a shadow flickered just beyond the ice-slicked pane. The sun hadn’t yet set, and monsters couldn’t roam in the daytime, but the sound was too persistent to be an accident.

Another scratch sounded, and I let out a slow huff of air. This was getting out of hand. If something else wanted to kill me, it could damned well get in line. And if it was just an innocent creature or a phoenix delivering a letter, I could send it on its merry way.

Either way, I was tired of letting this entire shards-forsaken palace get the better of me.

I surged to my feet and stormed to the window, reaching under my skirts and yanking my dagger from its sheath just in case.

The cold bit into my skin like a thousand shards of glass when I wrenched open the window, but I barely felt it over the pounding of my heart. My grip tightened on the dagger as the shadow lunged?—

And tumbled. Right into my chest.

I stumbled back with a muffled curse, my dagger clattering to the floor as a soft, shivering weight landed against my sternum before plopping gracelessly onto the fur rug.

I knelt down cautiously to examine the miniscule white figure that all but blended in with the colorless rug.

It was…a skathryn . A small bat-like-creature, with fur as white as snow, ears too big for its minute head, and wings tipped with shimmering silver. Just what I needed. A venomous flying rodent invading my space, especially one known for its aggression.

Shards damn my curiosity . Why couldn’t I have just left the mystery alone?

It let out a pitiful squeak when its dark eyes landed on my dagger, pulling its wings around its face, like that would make it harder for me to see it. I followed its gaze, having all but forgotten about my weapon.

I should have been ready to use it, at the very least to fling the thing back out the window, but it was hard to consider killing something that already looked so defeated.

I pulled my lip between my teeth uncertainly. “You…are kind of pathetic, little bat.”

It shivered with another small squeak, which only confirmed my words. I let out a sigh.

Could skathryns even get cold?

They weren’t rare, exactly, but they were uncommon, at least in the countryside, so my knowledge on them was limited to what I had read in books.

The creature hardly seemed bright enough to trick me, though.

I reluctantly sheathed my dagger before I moved slowly to pick it up, cautious of the icy venom in its fangs.

Their poison was slow moving, and the palace healers were hardly likely to let me die, but frostbite in my veins was still an unappealing prospect.

The skathryn didn’t move, save for a soft trill as it flopped into the warmth of my hands. I cradled it instinctively, tilting my head as I studied the small, quivering form. It didn’t look injured—just pitiful, like the weight of the world had finally proven too much for something so small.

Closer now, I could see the tiny, half-formed fangs peeking past its lips, and the faint pink sheen woven through its diaphanous wings. Not just small. A baby. And a female, judging by the sharp, spiked edges of her wings—still soft at the tips, not yet hardened.

I sighed again. “Where’s the rest of your colony?”

Skathryns didn’t travel alone. Especially not the young. But this one…

She blinked up at me with wide, impossibly dark eyes, mesmerizing pools of onyx threaded with glints of starlight, as if the night sky itself had been tucked behind her pupils.

Had she been orphaned? Abandoned?

Forced out from her family?

No, no, no. I was not sympathizing with a bat who was probably just too stupid to find its own kind. I walked decisively toward the window, setting her on the sill and prodding her tiny back with my finger.

“Go on, now. You might not be able to find your family, but I’m sure they can find you. Just go…wait on the rooftop or something. Hang out and squeak a bit.”

The skathryn gave a dramatic shiver, turning on its clawed little feet to face me and crawling clumsily in my direction.

I shook my head, considering whether I had misjudged its ability to manipulate. Surely they shouldn’t be so sensitive to the cold. They were creatures born of winter.

“No, no. You’re not staying. Things here are difficult enough.” I opened the window wider and gestured. “Go on. Shoo.”

It dropped its head, letting out a high pitched keen before it scrambled off the balcony’s edge and disappeared into a gust of wind. I hadn’t even taken the breath for a sigh of relief before it looped back through the open window like a tiny, winged boomerang and latched onto my shoulder.

I pursed my lips, glaring daggers at the bat.

She stared back, unbothered.

Another slow sigh escaped me. “Is everything in this shards-damned palace determined to make my life complicated?”

The baby ice bat gave a soft, contented chirp and tucked herself against my neck, which was decidedly unwelcome and uncomforting. Even if she was weirdly warm for a flying, venomous rodent, and even if I was stuck in this palace with no friends or allies…

Shards damn it all to every hell.

I left the window open for a long moment, waiting to see if the creature would change her mind.

She didn’t. And…I couldn’t bring myself to actually make her leave.

Maybe her family would find her, but maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe they weren’t even looking.

I couldn’t leave her to fend for herself in a freezing kingdom full of monsters. Not when I knew all too well what that was like.