Page 75 of Fated to the Frost King

The male’s mouth snapped shut. The Sanctum might have operated somewhat independently of the crown, but the mages were by no means immune to the king’s authority.

“We’re going.” Draven turned to face me, raising his eyebrows expectantly.

I didn’t wait for him to change his mind. I stepped off the platform on legs that felt like melted wax, my jaw so tight it ached. I didn’t look at the mage again, not even to gloat.

All I wanted was to get the hells out of this room.

Besides, this wasn’t quite salvation. The mage was a beast trained to maim, but the Archmage was his master.

Chapter 26

Everly

By the time we reached our room, the silence between us had settled into something heavy. I didn’t have it in me to break it, and he didn’t seem inclined to try.

Lumen waited outside the doors along with Draven’s wolves, guarding against the threat he scarcely acknowledged.

The king’s chambers were anything but humble. Carved from glacial stone veined with silver runes, the walls shimmered with restrained power, every line pulsing faintly beneath the surface like the mountain itself was alive.

Tall windows let in the afternoon light, casting long shadows across a bed draped in dark furs and heavy velvet. A claw-footed bathtub sat in one corner.

It was elegant, beautiful in a way that made my skin crawl, like the room itself had been carved to impress, not to comfort. Then again, maybe that was just my general distaste for this place and everything in it.

I shivered, sucking in a breath through my teeth.

Draven crossed the floor to the tub, wordlessly calling water with a twitch of his fingers. Steam curled through the air,carrying the scent of something herbal and faintly sweet, and I used it to ground myself.

Before I could wonder who the bath was for, Draven stepped past me and gestured to the tub.

“You should bathe,” he said flatly. “I have things to attend to.”

It was as much an order—and potentially an insult—as a kindness, but I didn’t argue. Whatever it was, whatever reason he had for offering, it was a small scrap of mercy. And I didn’t have the strength to waste it.

I nodded mutely, and his mana pulsed with something I was too distracted to name.

I didn’t look at him as he left the room, busying myself with letting Batty out for a fly.

I waited until the door closed behind him before pulling off my boots and then the rest of my clothes with trembling fingers. I was numb all the way down to my bones, like the cold from the Arcane Chamber had followed me upstairs and taken root beneath my skin.

The tub glowed faintly, like the waters at the palace. It shouldn’t have been surprising. This place was steeped in mana as well, connected to the ley lines of the realm.

Just another reason I was out of place. You couldn’t get less connected to the Shard Mother than being restricted from her flow of mana.

I shoved down the thought, slipping into the water and trying not to drown in a younger version of myself that had wondered endlessly why I wasn’t good enough to be blessed by her. Why I had been singled out for torture and abuse while others tapped freely into the power of the land.

The heat eased the aches in my muscles, the tight skin around the mottled scars on my back, even though it burned the open cuts on my palms. But I didn’t care.

I welcomed it. Let it crawl over my body and work its way into the cracks left behind by the Arcane Chamber.

The ache. The fear. The sharp edge of memory that kept cutting, deeper and deeper.

I sank lower, until only my face broke the surface. The rest of me disappeared into the heat and silence.

I didn’t scrub. Didn’t move. I just soaked, letting the water weigh me down until my body felt distant, like it belonged to someone else.

Eventually, the water cooled, and my skin started to prickle with the chill. I dragged myself out of the tub and dried off slowly, limbs weighed down with exhaustion. I padded across the stone to my bags, grabbing Wynnie’s salve to soothe my hands before blindly pulling out a clean set of clothes. The underwear was spun from frostwyrm silk, unnaturally soft and lacking any unnecessary lace frills.

A kindness from Mirelda?

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