Page 102 of Fated to the Frost King

Where was the ever-trustworthy Lord General when I needed him? Shards, I would even take Mirelda at this point. I had hardly ever even spoken to the guards, the courtiers, or the villagers, let alone as their queen.

But sure enough, all of them, even Draven’s wolf pack, were looking directly at me. Surely the wolves wouldn’t have brought anyone who was a threat, and Nevara was a force in her own right.

I cleared my throat. What wouldhedo if he were here?

Did I care? It wasn’t like I aspired to his particular kind of rule, or any rule. But I had to say something. Had todosomething.

“Let them pass,” I said, my voice coming out too quietly to be heard.

I tried again, this time louder, and the guards began raising the portcullis. I raced back down the steps to meet the villagers.

The guards took a hesitant step aside, their hands glowing with protective sigils as they followed me.

“What happened?”

An older female stepped forward, her face covered in dirt and blood. Her hands were shaking as she glanced uneasily at my crown. “Monsters, your Majesty. They took down the whole village.”

My heart dropped into my stomach.

I scanned the faces of the others, only to find the same horrified expressions, the same hastily bandaged wounds and torn garments. The claw marks that lanced through their skin and cloaks…

Hearing reports of frostbeast attacks was horrifying, in a distant sort of way. But it wasn’t at all the same as seeing the scant few survivors firsthand.

“I’m so sorry,” I said before I could help myself.

My mind raced with the next steps. I’d never been responsible for another soul—aside from Batty. I wasn’t even good at keeping plants alive.

But no one behind me said a word, their silence louder than my scattered thoughts. Were villagers allowed in the royal infirmary?

Before I could decide, the small crowd parted. Lumen appeared in their midst, a scrap of fabric in his crimson-stained mouth. No, the end of a cloak, I realized, tethered to a shivering fae child who he was all but dragging through the snow.

Once they were closer, he stepped behind her, shoving her lightly with his massive head until she was standing right in front of me. Then he looked up, his glacier-blue eyes staring straight into my soul as if to say,this is your responsibility now.

He and Nevara were feeling especially helpful today, it would seem.

I could barely make out any features under the shadowed hood, so I knelt down to better discern if the child was injured. Or rather, the girl, I amended.

She had delicate features underneath a crusting of dried blood that soaked all the way through her intricately woven braids. Her lips were ashen, her navy eyes wide with shock.

I lifted my gaze back to the villagers. There were at least thirty of them, male and female. But not a single other child.

“Where are the other children?” I asked no one in particular, dread pooling in my stomach at the answer I already knew.

Lumen whined softly and pressed his head against the girl’s side.

“I see. And her parents?” This time, I looked at the villagers.

They glanced among themselves, shaking their heads.

“I don’t see how anyone could have survived that,” said a male with a voice like gravel. “We would have been dead, too, but we were on the outskirts. The wolves—” he paused, looking like he was nearly as terrified of his giant canine saviors as the monsters who slaughtered his village. “They killed the ones that came for us.”

I swallowed a lump in my throat, turning back to the little girl. Her moonlight locks were long and thick. Arranging it so artfully would have been no easy feat.

Had her mother braided it, or her sister? Had they sung songs the way that my mother had to me as she painstakingly separated each section of hair?

Were those same patient hands coated in blood now, slowly turning blue from an icy grave because I couldn’t access my storms-damned mana to help control whatever the hells was going wrong with this kingdom?

I got to my feet in a single burst of motion. No, I couldn’t use my mana, and I couldn’t fight their monsters, but I was their queen. I did not have to be useless.

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