Page 11 of Heart of the Summer Queen

Step by step, I follow him into the room. The torch illuminates several yards around us. It’s too dark to tell how far back the room reaches, but judging by the echo of our footsteps, it must be cavernous.

The glint of a chair’s curved leg catches my eye. While frozen furniture isn’t an unusual sight here in the Crystal Palace, there’s something peculiar about it. Something I can’t quite put my finger on...

Though the king continues through the room, taking his torch with him, I stumble toward the strange silhouette.

The light grows fainter as he drifts farther away. But when I reach the object, there’s enough light to discern what it is.

This isn’t a chair or a table or any other type of furniture at all.

It is a person.

Afrozenperson.

What I thought was the curved leg of a chair is instead the skirts of a dress, flicking out in mid motion.

The torch light disappears before I can identify her face. Before I can determine whether she is Dalia.

I stagger back.

This is what the Winter King has been hiding. A graveyard.

“Adara,” he says, the light growing brighter as he starts toward me. Now I’m able to examine the statue’s face clearly, and my shoulders sag in relief when I realize she isn’t my sister.

The king stops a few paces behind me. Even as seconds drags into minutes, he doesn’t close the distance between us. Nor does he explain why he’s hiding this girl in here.

“Where is she?” My words are as hollow as I feel.

He hesitates. I wonder whether I must make my demand again, this time angrier, but then he turns and says: “This way.”

The king edges into the darkness, and I hurry after him. Breath suspended.

Finally, he stops and raises his torch.

Three statues emerge. Like the first, they’re all female. The only difference is these statues are lying on slabs of ice.

The Winter King offers no sign of which is Dalia. He just stays there, silent and still.

I rush forward to examine each girl, but neither the first nor second is my sister. Both appear my age and must be Summer Brides. A plaque at the head of their beds contains their names and a year—presumably the year in which they were frozen.

The first girl is called Riana, chosen in the Year 1352, while the second is called Satine, chosen in the Year 1353. Both were chosen in the two years prior to my sister...

My whole body trembling, I start over to the third statue. And it takes just a glimpse of her face for me to fall to my knees.

My sister. Even in death, she is as graceful as ever.

This entire time, she has been here in the palace.

I knew this forbidden chamber would contain the king’s darkest secrets. I just never imagined that it would contain Dalia herself.

I grab her hand and squeeze, willing my touch to free her from this prison.

But nothing happens. I cannot thaw that which is already frozen.

She is long gone from this world, taken by this wicked king.

The man I now call my husband.

Yet he claims he did not murder my sister. I assumed that meant my sister might be alive. But the evidence lying before me now proves that was a pitiful hope.

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