Page 27 of Fated to the Frost King

Whatever he said made the king’s jaw tighten. King Draven turned back to the male at his side.

“Lord General.” He tilted his head toward the door in a clear command.

The male ran a hand over his face, emphasizing the roadmap of scars that marred his symmetrical features. With a quick dip of his chin, he stood from the table. The king did as well, leading the Lord General from the room without a word.

My stomach twisted tighter, dread coiling in my ribs.

I thought about the frostbeasts outside the palace walls, the hunt they had just returned from today. Did something else happen?

No one else at the table so much as blinked. Did that mean they weren’t worried?

That I shouldn’t be?

I barely had time to parse through the answers about literal frostbeasts before the monsters in front of me bared their teeth, emboldened by the absence of their exacting ruler.

“She’s so quiet,” came a syrupy voice from down the table.

I tracked it to a female with ashen hair and violet eyes. Her circlet was just this side of looking like a crown, a shining beacon of her own self importance.

“I assumed the king had locked her in the tower to hibernate,” she commented in what might have been an undertone, had she not pitched it just loud enough to carry throughout the room.

“I thought she was still being taught which fork to use,” another chimed in with a laugh like shattered glass. “After all, she grew up a peasant, did she not?”

“So, the vultures descend again,” I muttered.

I had meant for the thought to stay internal… a plan that had failed superbly.

Scandalized expressions lit up the table, some of them excited that I was playing along, others appearing surprised I could speak at all. All of them leaned closer.

“No, no. Surely you’ve heard.” This time it was a male who spoke, lips tilted up in a cruel smirk.

He sat next to a female who had to be his twin. Something in her violet eyes and the tilt of her narrow chin was niggling at my memory, but I couldn’t place it before her brother spoke again.

“She’s the Elarion bastard.”

The word was like a gauntlet thrown in the middle of the table, echoing through the dining hall with all of the force that was intended.

Bastard.

“Whenever her father climbs off his most recent whore to visit court, he tells us of the strange little bastard child that stalks the halls of his estate,” he continued, relishing the attention his story was gaining him from the rest of the room.

I forced a smile, even if it did feel closer to feral than placating. He was creative, I would give him that, but he was wrong on two counts.

My father never climbed off his whores if he could help it, let alone to come to court, and he certainly would never acknowledge my existence.

I lifted my goblet again, considering how many ways I could destroy the male with one well-placed phrase, and whether or not the social repercussions would be worth it when the court already despised me.

Before I could decide, the male I assumed was the Autumn emissary spoke again, this time louder.

“In the Autumn Court, we don’t cling to such quaint notions as bastardry,” he said easily. “Blood is blood, and strength is strength, no matter how it’s borne. A refreshing change, don’t you think, from the usual inbred snobbery?”

A few courtiers gasped, and his answering grin was a wicked, wicked thing.

I choked on a laugh. He reminded me of Wynnie, and while that didn’t make me trust him, it made it hard not to like him a little.

He winked at me, not lewd so much as strategic, declaring an alliance made in a moment of shared mockery.

I almost smiled back. Almost.

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