Page 140 of Wicked Prince of Frost

“I have the last shard.” Each syllable tastes like ash in my mouth.

Mingi starts to speak, probably to ask where it was this whole time, only to press his lips in a tight line when Iseul’s hand alights on his shoulder. She shakes her head and motions to Violet’s body with a nod.

Not enough.

I couldn’t save her. I was not strong enough.

But you could be.The voice is not mine but every bit as familiar. One I have not heard in an age.

I stand abruptly. “Stay with her.”

“Where are you going?” Mingi calls after me.

I am already gone, sprinting blindly across the palace grounds, heedless of the world around me.

Before I know it, I find myself in the underground cavern, darting for the mirror in the center of the silver lake.

I cross the narrow walkway. My gaze lands on the smooth surface of the water, summoning the memory of my brief swim with Violet in the water.

Everything. Violet has touched every facet of my life. There is nothing I can see, nowhere I can go, that will not remind me of her.

Stopping before the mirror, I force my fingers to unfurl from around the final shard.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

VIOLET

There is still so muchI want to tell him. But as the world dissolves into shadow and ice, I must content myself with what I could express to him through our last kiss.

Warmth is drained from my body, leaving me numb as the nothingness swallows me.

I don’t fight the absolute eternity that stretches before me.

I couldn’t.

Even if I wanted to.

So, instead, I welcome it with open arms.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

JOON

The jagged glassrests against my palm, coated with my blood and hers. Rough edges grind as I press it into place.

Blue light shines behind the cracks, growing brighter and brighter. The sheer intensity forces me to shield my eyes. It retreats back into the glass with a sharp hiss of air. Between one heartbeat and the next, a ring of power explodes out. The force of it throws me back. I land several feet from the water’s edge. My head cracks against the hard-packed earth. Stars explode behind my eyes.

The weight of invisible shackles falls away. It’s as if I’ve spent a lifetime pinned at the bottom of a lake beneath a boulder that has finally shifted and rolled away, letting my consciousness rise to the surface. Waking. Whole and alert.

I am free from the burden that has held me as its unwitting prisoner for so long.

When I blink, I am no longer in the underground cavern, but in a secret, narrow room within the Eastern Court with Eojin at my side.

My little brother makes the face he always does rightbefore he laughs. I motion for him to remain quiet. Eojin covers his mouth with both hands, shoulders shaking with silent giggles.

We were not allowed to join Mother and Father at dinner tonight to see our mysterious uncle, who had left Arum before I was born, and now returned at long last.

Sneaking into the spy’s room with Eojin to let him have a look at the mysterious man we’ve yet to meet is little more than an excuse to satiate my own curiosity.