Page 127 of Fated to the Frost King

“Because I know you never meant to care about the king. And I know what it means that you do.”

I didn’t respond. She was right, and we both knew it. As hard as I had fought it, I did care about Draven.

And that was dangerous for us all.

Chapter 43

Everly

The ground was drenched in blood that rained down from a crimson sky, each drop landing like acid that ate away at the grass, the trees, the people… Wynnie was running toward me, a child in her arms. They were screaming at me to help them.

I stretched out a hand, not caring that the acid burned my skin, but my legs were stuck. The ground split open, ice cold water flooding around my feet before freezing me in place.

No. No. No.

The child cried out, her screaming slicing all the way through me as a Wretch bounded toward them. Too fast. It was too fast. Wynnie fell to the ground, dropping the child to lay next to Yorrick. She gestured for the Tharnok feasting on him to take her next.

My lips parted, but no sound came out. I clawed at the ground, my nails turning to blades as they hacked at the ice. The child was still crying. I could still save them. I could still?—

I woke up gasping for air.

The nightmare still clung to me, sinking its phantom claws into my chest as I jerked upright in bed. Everything hurt. Frommy head all the way down to my toes. I took a slow breath in, trying to calm myself from the nightmare, but even that was painful.

My back was damp with sweat that felt too much like the blood I had scrubbed from my skin. My heart pounded behind my ribs, like it was desperate to break free.

The room was still dark, quiet but for the steady rhythm of my sister’s breathing.Alive. She was alive.

I swallowed and pressed a hand over my chest, trying to slow the frantic rhythm.Just a dream.

Slowly, I untangled my legs from the sheets, and the pain in my head only worsened with the movement. The tonics had bled from my system, leaving blinding agony in their wake.

I took a moment to orient myself, searching the dark room for any signs of Wynnie’s vials, but there were none. They were all downstairs in the kitchen.

I glanced up at the door, nausea rolling through me as I imagined stepping back into a blood-soaked hallway, but another searing agony lanced through my head.

So, instead, I slipped my feet into the fuzzy slippers and threw a blanket over my shoulders to venture back to the kitchen.

Moonlight glinted off my dagger, and even though I knew Draven had activated the ward stones and knew he’d secured the manor, there was still a part of me that couldn’t face the blood and memories on the other side of this door without it.

Gripping it in my fist, I twisted the handle and headed back out into the hallway.

I kept my eyes up, away from the stained floors, and ignored the soft squish of untold substances that stuck to my slippers all the way to the kitchen.

When I reached the kitchen, I went straight for the apothecary. The door opened with a creaking of hinges that sounded too similar to the cry in my dreams.

A shiver raced down my spine as I pulled out two vials from the pain tonic shelf. I stepped closer to the window, using the moonlight to confirm it was the red liquid, not yellow, just as the cry sounded again.

I nearly dropped the vial.

My pulse picked up speed as I strained to listen over the pounding in my head, but there was nothing. No one.

Was it the maid again? Had she awoken to her own nightmares as well?

Uncorking the vial, I drained the tonic in a single gulp, choking down the taste of wyrmroot sap, before I heard it again.

A cry.

Not the maid. But a voice that belonged to someone so much smaller, so much more vulnerable… It was coming from outside.

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