Page 110 of Fated to the Frost King

I had never seen her rooms, but Lumen led the way. Apparently, she hadn’t been joking about her tower, since he brought me to the highest turret in the most remote part of the castle.

Up and up we climbed, one spiraling staircase after another, until Lumen came to a halt outside an arched door made of pale, gleaming wood.

Nevara opened before I could knock. Her hair was pulled up in an intricate style, her gown as immaculate as ever, but her face was drawn, her usual unearthly glimmer nowhere to be found.

“Does anyone ever surprise you?” My tongue tripped over the words that were nowhere near what I wanted to ask.

She stepped back, opening the door wider to allow me entry. “I wouldn’t go right to surprise, but Soren does occasionally put me off guard with the things he’s willing to utter aloud.”

The words were forced. She didn’t smile, or even twitch her lips, which only made the talons of dread pierce deeper into my spine.

I stepped slowly into the room without responding.

I hadn’t been sure what to expect from Nevara’s suites. Something cold and austere, like the rest of the palace? But this room stood in complete opposition to the rest of the palace.

Sunlight streamed in from windows in the vaulted ceiling, basking the room in warmth. Her bed was low to the ground, layered in thick velvets and furs that looked all the more inviting for someone who spent most of her life wading through other people’s tragedies.

Pale wooden furniture curved in rounded arcs, every edge smoothed. I watched her run her fingers along them as she moved without the help of her staff. Anchors, I realized after a moment. Markers for her to feel without the need to see.

Shelves wrapped along each wall, stocked with books embossed in raised script, and rune-carved stones that whispered the contents as she traced the spines. One muttered something about blood vows before Nevara snapped her fingers to silence it.

It wasn’t a room designed to impress. It was a sanctuary. A haven for someone who didn’t need sight to know every corner, every sound, every spell.

And it was perfect.

“This is…” I swallowed. “Not what I expected.”

“I’d be disappointed if it were.” Though she made an effort at her usual dry tone, something in her voice fell flat.

I opened my mouth, likely to ask something far too blunt about why she was still in her tower, but she spoke before I could.

“Do you remember when you asked me if we would be friends?” Her voice was far away, her face still angled toward the books instead of me.

“Yes, you said you didn’t know. But here we are.” I wanted to inject my tone with levity, but her despondence had me on edge.

She smiled in a sad sort of way. “Yes. That surprised me.Yousurprised me. A Visionary doesn’t have friends, usually. All of my ancestors stayed here in this tower—some because they were chained, but others chose to. On days like today, I understand why.”

I swallowed, mouth suddenly dry.

“Why?” I asked quietly.

She angled herself toward me at last, squeezing her shimmering eyes shut. “Because then you care. You want to do things you shouldn’t, like cross the lines that are branded into the blood of your lineage by mana older than time itself. You want to save people you can’t.”

I sucked in a breath, trying to decipher her meaning. Had she Seen my death after all, after everything I had done to try to avoid it?

My fingers trembled while I placed them on her arm, trying to comfort us both.

“The future isn’t linear, Nevara. You told me that. I’m still standing here, against the odds.”

A breath escaped her, something close to a sob. Shining tears sparkled in her eyes, like drops of pure starlight sent from the Shard Mother herself. Ethereally beautiful and impossibly sad.

She sucked in a breath, closing her hand over mine. “No, the future is not linear. But this was the only way that I could See. I hope that you’ll remember that.”

Remember that…

I couldn’t remember anything if I was dead, but what else could possibly have her this shaken when she had spent alifetime balancing the weight of lives and a kingdom on a scale that never quite settled out?

Unless it had never been about me.

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