Page 21 of Fated to the Frost King

Not that I wanted him to, but the marriage bond didn’t seem to appreciate his absence nearly as much as I did. Sometimes there was a humming along my skin, light and anxious. Other times, my ring would prod at me, like a thousand needles of ice. For not sealing the bond? For the distance?

I didn’t know, and I still didn’t have any books to check.

With any luck, that would have been the extent to which I had to deal with the king. But of course, luck was a tool of Fate, and I already knew Fate despised me. So I wasn’t surprised when the week ended and Mirelda announced it was time to dine with the court.

And that myhusbandwould escort me.

At least I had fewer tedious tasks to see to today.

After I sat for my portrait, the Visionary declared me free to prepare for the evening, leaving me with only a slightly ominous comment about the court. She had said nothing at all about the king, and I had tried very hard not to spiral into panic at the implications of his return.

I took my rare moment alone to collect myself since Mirelda rarely gave me more than twenty seconds alone.

I was warming myself by the faintly flickering fire when I heard it: a scratch, followed by a thump.

I froze, eyes darting to the frosted window where a shadow flickered just beyond the ice-slicked pane. The sun hadn’t yet set, and monsters couldn’t roam in the daytime, but the sound was too persistent to be an accident.

Another scratch sounded, and I let out a slow huff of air. This was getting out of hand. If something else wanted to kill me, it could damned well get in line. And if it was just an innocent creature or a phoenix delivering a letter, I could send it on its merry way.

Either way, I was tired of letting this entire shards-forsaken palace get the better of me.

I surged to my feet and stormed to the window, reaching under my skirts and yanking my dagger from its sheath just in case.

The cold bit into my skin like a thousand shards of glass when I wrenched open the window, but I barely felt it over the pounding of my heart. My grip tightened on the dagger as the shadow lunged?—

And tumbled. Right into my chest.

I stumbled back with a muffled curse, my dagger clattering to the floor as a soft, shivering weight landed against my sternum before plopping gracelessly onto the fur rug.

I knelt down cautiously to examine the miniscule white figure that all but blended in with the colorless rug.

It was…askathryn. A small bat-like-creature, with fur as white as snow, ears too big for its minute head, and wings tipped with shimmering silver. Just what I needed. A venomous flying rodent invading my space, especially one known for its aggression.

Shards damn my curiosity. Why couldn’t I have just left the mystery alone?

It let out a pitiful squeak when its dark eyes landed on my dagger, pulling its wings around its face, like that would make it harder for me to see it. I followed its gaze, having all but forgotten about my weapon.

I should have been ready to use it, at the very least to fling the thing back out the window, but it was hard to consider killing something that already looked so defeated.

I pulled my lip between my teeth uncertainly. “You…are kind of pathetic, little bat.”

It shivered with another small squeak, which only confirmed my words. I let out a sigh.

Could skathryns even get cold?

They weren’t rare, exactly, but they were uncommon, at least in the countryside, so my knowledge on them was limited to what I had read in books.

The creature hardly seemed bright enough to trick me, though. I reluctantly sheathed my dagger before I moved slowly to pick it up, cautious of the icy venom in its fangs. Their poison was slow moving, and the palace healers were hardly likely to let me die, but frostbite in my veins was still an unappealing prospect.

The skathryn didn’t move, save for a soft trill as it flopped into the warmth of my hands. I cradled it instinctively, tilting my head as I studied the small, quivering form. It didn’t look injured—just pitiful, like the weight of the world had finally proven too much for something so small.

Closer now, I could see the tiny, half-formed fangs peeking past its lips, and the faint pink sheen woven through its diaphanous wings. Not just small. A baby. And a female, judging by the sharp, spiked edges of her wings—still soft at the tips, not yet hardened.

I sighed again. “Where’s the rest of your colony?”

Skathryns didn’t travel alone. Especially not the young. But this one…

She blinked up at me with wide, impossibly dark eyes, mesmerizing pools of onyx threaded with glints of starlight, as if the night sky itself had been tucked behind her pupils.

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