Page 20 of Fated to the Frost King

“My name,” she said in a stronger voice. “It’s Nevara.”

Her tone was a contradiction. Stilted, like the words had cost her something, but pleading, too. Like she wanted me to call her by her name, and not the title she had never asked for.

“Are we going to be friends then?” I asked the question lightly, mostly to break up the silence that had crept in unexpectedly.

I didn’t have friends outside of Wynnie. It had been too much of a risk, even without the added threat of that person being the king’s seer.

Her features darkened.

“I don’t know yet. I don’tSeemy own future.” There was something in her tone, like she had been close to adding abut.

“But youSeemine?” I prodded, furrowing my brow at her abrupt bout of somberness.

She took in a breath, turning to leave. I thought she would go without answering me like she had this morning, but she hesitated.

“Sometimes.” The quiet word echoed off the towering walls.

She was gone before I could ask her if she meant she only got visions sometimes…or that I didn’t always have a future to see.

Chapter 8

Everly

Idined in my rooms that night, and for the next several nights thereafter, and I continued to sleep in my chair.

Though sleep was a strong word. The nightmares only got worse. Sometimes I heard screaming, saw monsters worse than my imagination could conjure in the waking hours.

Then every night, I was awakened by the same ominous scraping against the window, and a shadow flitting through the moonlight.

When I pressed my face against the glass, all I could see was drifting snow flurries against a wintry sky. I squinted to see further, past the walls to the forest resting at the base of the mountains.

My blood ran cold.

Enormous shapes moved through the trees. Dark shadows with claws and glistening silver teeth. Guards shouted warnings from the walls, their voices carrying in the still night air, audible even through the solid glass.

Shimmering shields of mana snapped into place just before flashes of light rained down like arrows onto one of the shadows.I could almost make out the sound of a scream, then the shadow stopped moving.

The palace was supposed to be safer, heavily patrolled and guarded at every level, even to the outer village. How had a monster gotten so close?

Every day here yielded more questions, but never anything resembling an answer.

In the meantime, Mirelda continued her reign of passive-aggression. She brought breakfast like it was a personal affront, each tray a new insult to flavor itself, from plain eggs to unsweetened porridge and something that might once have been a vegetable before it gave up on life.

She continued to bring my gowns without question, though, readying me without forcing me to rely on my own mana. Whether she thought I was spoiled or just too ignorant, I wasn’t going to question her assistance, only hope that it held up.

I would have prayed to the Shard Mother, but the goddess that had cursed me twice over was hardly likely to help me now.

So I wished, and I pretended and I hoped that it would be enough, though I was no closer at all to finding a way out.

Then there were my royal responsibilities, which were mostly ornamental. Each morning, a soft knock announced the arrival of the Visionary, silvery and spectral as ever.

She didn’t offer any more cryptic warnings or hints or whatever they had been. In fact, she rarely spoke at all. When I worked up the nerve to ask questions, she deflected them with practiced ease, all the while regarding me with something between curiosity and wariness.

Fortunately, I was still being spared the full force of court appearances. No throne room summons. No politics. Just the occasional courtier in a hallway doing a very poor job of pretending not to whisper words like bastard or poor the moment I passed.

Then they would bow, which was even worse. They had no great love of the Visionary either, but at least they feared her.

The king had yet to return.

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