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15

BESSA

“No,” I whispered as Mika stared excitedly. The entire piece of parchment trembled in her hands. Before she could accidentally tear it, I gently placed my hands over hers.

“The prophecy. It’s here. I can’t read it. Gods, I can’t read it!”

“That’s because you’re shaking it too much,” Wyot said. “Here, give it to me. I’ve got a steady hand.”

We all watched in silence as Wyot’s eyes skimmed the parchment, his eyebrows furrowing in a heart-sinking way. “Hm,” he finally said, dropping it carelessly. “I never was one for prophecies. Too limiting.”

I sank into a chair, my gowns deflating slowly into a crumple around me. “I take it there’s no wiggle room, eh?”

“Not so much ‘no wiggle room’ as no room to even breathe,” Mika admitted, rapidly reading it herself.

A throat clearing, like the crack of ice, echoed through the library with the force of an impending avalanche.

It was as if we’d all forgotten the chandler was there. Mika jumped three feet in the air, and I nearly bolted from the room. Only Wyot kept his cool, spinning around, his hand going to the sword at his waist. “What are you still doing here?” he asked warily.

“A few lines on an old piece of parchment. That’s what has you tied in knots?” Ambrose demanded, looking at each of us in turn.

When he got to me, his gaze lingered. The way he dragged his eyes up and down my body with an absolute look of contempt made everything inside of me want to ignite. Eska responded to my internal blaze with little manic movements under my hood, but I kept her hidden and calm. How dare he judge me? He didn’t even know me. If I was a real queen, I might even wonder how he dared to look at me so brazenly, but I found myself turning away instead, my stomach buzzing like a caught bee and the heat rising under my dress. His look was pure decadence in its intensity alone.

“You need a piece of parchment to tell you what to do? No wonder Frostvale has been frozen for so long.”

At the complete silence in the room, I was sure my siblings all thought of Dad. I certainly did. It was uncanny how very near to his mannerism Ambrose had emulated. Dad had no time for any nonsense. He raised three kids in a frozen landscape, fought in a war with his son for his adopted daughter, and still woke up every day to make his precious life-giving bread. He wouldn’t care a fig for prophecies, only the tangible. Like flour and salt and snowmelt water.

The candle maker continued as if our silence was assent. “What will you do? Hide that one forever? Forge a new one? The truth will get out. It always gets out.”

“But we could keep it hidden for many, many years,” Mika said viciously. She held up the small roll of parchment, no bigger than her palm. “See? It says right there.” Mika jabbed her finger at the lines and started reading, holding the curled page with one hand to keep it flat. “The first born son of the seventh king will herald magic in the frozen world, bringing warmth to light on the night of his birth and thereafter. No one can see this!”

Ambrose refused to look at the parchment while Wyot stared in disbelief. “Are you really letting this outsider in on our secrets?” our brother asked.

“I thought you said you liked him,” Mika pointed out.

“That was before he was let into the circle of trust in less time than it takes me to blink,” Wyot all but growled, brotherly protectiveness seeping into his entire body.

I noticed Ambrose’s fingers twitch at that. Out of nowhere, he snatched the prophecy. Without further ado, he threw it into the nearest hearth fire. No one said a word or even moved, instead we stood frozen with shock. We all watched as the roll went up in flames with a whoosh, and blackened, curling in on itself until it was nothing but ashes.

Mika’s voice was a squeaky whisper. “What did you do!”

Ambrose wiped his hands on his pants as if the prophecy had stained him somehow. “With all due respect, your majesty, make your own destiny.”