Page 9 of The King of Frost and Shadows

For twelve years following her disappearance from Ardanos, I’d been obsessed with hardening my heart more than the icy land outside of Dunscaith Castle … and locating her. I pushed the midnight-blue covers from my body and placed my bare feet on the smooth, cool floor. Normally, the cold didn’t bother me, but this morning, the chill caused a faint shiver.

How strange.

Granted, upon seeing her last night on Earth with some rancid human all over her, something had shifted in me. Something more hungry for violence than normal.

I glanced out the wall of windows across from my bed, darkness still blanketing the sky despite the sun’s ascent. I normally allowed the sky to lighten to twilight during the day, but I wasn’t in the mood for anything but dreary darkness to match the turmoil inside me.

Images of Lira as a girl flashed through my mind. I’d always found her cute, but now … now she was—

I halted my thoughts.

Her beauty didn’t mean a blasted thing to me. I’d brought her here for one thing only.

Vengeance.

She was a pawn in my game of chess with the Seelie king and queen. Nothing more than that. The Seelie royals had killed my parents and taken me to their kingdom to die so that my people would be ruined. They’d even betrothed Lira to the wildling dragon prince, Pyralis, even though she’d always been marked as my future wife, meant to rule by my side.

Destroying her was part one of my plan to take back what was rightfully ours. I would make her parents bow to me and destroy their alliance with the dragons. After all, the Seelie betraying their own kind had been bad enough, but promising the Seelie princess to a scaley, fire-breathing destroyer had made their betrayal even worse.

Those sunscorched traitors had taken everything from me—even the boy I used to be. I wouldn’t allow my people to stay here on this dragon-decimated island to starve to death.

A knock on the door brought me back to reality.

“Tavish,” a familiar voice called out.

My cousin, the man who’d risked his life to rescue me from the Seelie palace dungeon. If it hadn’t been for him, I would’ve died, and the Unseelie royal line would have ended, weakening my people further. Though we’d had our severe disagreements since the night I’d lost my parents, he’d become like a second father to me.

“Come in.” I flexed my wings, stretching them from my back. Outside the window, a group of men headed towardthe rocky embankment with satchels on their backs and fishing rods to catch food from the ocean.

The oversized double doors opened, and Eldrin stepped inside then shut them behind him. “I was surprised you didn’t alert me when you came back with the thornling.” His long white hair was tied in a ponytail. With how dark I’d kept the sky, there wasn’t enough light to make his eyes look silver, and they appeared gray like mine.

I didn’t bother answering. He hadn’t asked a question, and even though he was the one person I trusted more than life, I didn’t feel like dancing around a lie. Being fae was a curse at times.

I snagged the black tunic from my night table and slid it over my head. It smelled of Lira’s magic—wild roses, moonlight mist, and vanilla. Her scent was more potent than I remembered despite the suppression of her fae side.

No wonder she had dominated my thoughts last night … so much so that I couldn’t risk entering her dreams for fear I would go to her. My plan had been to continue to demoralize her until she realized she couldn’t escape me, even in her dreams, but after seeing her in person, I feared it might backfire on me.

“I know the girl is here, so why aren’t you more joyful?” Eldrin strolled across the room past my bed and took a seat at the small rectangular table my chessboard sat upon, his back to the open window.

Gritting my teeth, I took a shallow breath. “She’s innocent. I take no joy in doing this to her. It’s merely something I must do for my people so we can reclaim our rightful land instead of staying exiled in this dreadful place.” I lifted the black belt that held what had been my father’s sword, which I’d claimed as my own upon my return. The dark sword with its white-edged tip was unusual and not somethingfrom the Unseelie land, which made it impervious to our magic. I placed it around my waist. I didn’t go anywhere without it … unless I had to go to Earth, which had happened only twice to date.

Eldrin shook his head and turned to the chessboard, moving his fae guard two spots over. “She isn’tinnocent, Tavish. She’s a blasted thornling. Her parentskilledyours and wanted you to die.”

Internally, I flinched, but on the outside, I didn’t budge. Showing emotion was a weakness, something I had learned the hard way when I failed my people. “That wasn’t by her hands.” I hated feeling this way, and last night, it had hurt to see her fear as she’d tumbled toward what she’d thought was her death. I’d waited so long to catch her, needing to prove to myself that her fear and distress wouldn’t affect me.

And I’d hated every second of it, though I’d forced myself to appear heartless. After all, while at one time we might have been cordial, we were now mortal enemies. I had to keep my reasons for taking her at the forefront of my mind.

“Tavish, do you remember the last time you didn’t listen to me?” Eldrin leaned back in his seat, gesturing to the spot across from him. “And what you had to do to get the people tonotrebel against you? If you’d listened—”

“I know what I have to do.” I hated it when he spoke down to me like this, and I only tolerated it in private. He had our people’s best interests and mine at heart. “I created the gauntlet.” A necessary means to keep traitors in check.

“Exactly.” He placed his hand firmly on the table, causing the chess pieces to tremble. “That girl is not innocent, and when she remembers everything, she’ll be like all the others. We need to break her before she regains her magic.”

I slid on my boots and rolled my shoulders. He was right. I couldn’t let my boyish memories influence the man I was now. “Which is why I’m heading down to the prison to see her.” My heart jolted for a second, and I pulled my wings tightly around me. That had to be yet another strange side effect of being on Earth, like the buzzing when we’d touched.

He smirked. “Very well. Should I come with you?”

I opened my mouth to say no, but I realized that his company would remind me of everything I already knew. “Of course.”

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