Page 78 of Fated to the Frost King

“I have never pretended to be the hero of anyone’s story.” The words were low. Honest. Disappointing all the same.

I climbed into bed without another word, pulling the covers up to my chin.

The window was cracked. Batty would come in when she was ready, and everything else here could take care of itself.

“I’ll call for dinner,” he said behind me, tone clipped and unreadable. “You need to eat.”

“No,” I bit back. “I need sleep. After all, more tests tomorrow, right?”

My voice was quiet, but it cut just the same.

Several seconds passed where I wasn’t sure if he moved or breathed. But a moment later, his voice reached me, lower now, closer, rough around the edges.

“There will never be another test like that.”

I didn’t answer, even as I heard the echo of his promise resonate in my soul.

I have never lied to you.

Maybe not yet. But no one ever lied until they had a reason.

Chapter 27

Draven

Icouldn’t get the image out of my mind.

Scars. Carved into her back like someone had tried to map suffering onto skin.

So many marks—old, raised, jagged. Not from a single strike, either. No, they had wanted to draw it out. Wanted to let her begin to heal before ripping open her skin again and again. They were layered and deliberate.

It shouldn’t have affected me the way it had.

I was no stranger to injuries, had caused plenty myself, but even I wasn’t given to torture. And I sure as hells wasn’t prepared to see the evidence of it branded into my wife’s fair skin.

I had meant what I said. Whatever else she was, she was stillmine.

The halls of Veilreach tilted around me as I stalked through them, frost bleeding from my body in silent waves. I’d left Lumen and Vega to keep watch over Everly and took the other three wolves with me as I stormed down to the main level. They kept pace easily, hackles raised, growls rumbling low in their throats.

They didn’t need to be told this wasn’t a walk. That it was a hunt.

The air thickened with cold, curling around windows and creeping over the stones. The torches hissed as my ice snuffed out each flame, leaving Veilreach in more and more darkness.

Mages stepped out of my path, robes rustling as they bowed, too slow to be anything but irritating.

“Send for the Archmage,” I barked at one of them. “Tell him the Frostgrave King demands his presence, now.”

The apprentice nodded and stumbled as he raced to do as I demanded. The Archmage may not answer to one kingdom alone, but everyone answered to power.

I turned down another hall until I made my way to the open staircase carved into the floor. For a moment, I did nothing but stare into the darkness and wonder how in the hells I hadn’t noticed before.

It was so clear now—the way her voice always tightened around the wordmagelike it tasted rotten on her tongue. The way she had stood in that cursed crystal chamber, braced like a defiant lamb poised for the slaughter. The way she had clenched her fists so hard that blood had splashed onto the stones below.

I took the stairs two at a time, practically sprinting to get to the bottom.

If I was familiar with one thing in this life, it was pain. I recognized it in her now, and I couldn’t look away.

A memory slammed into me like ice cracking underfoot. My father’s voice, thick with drink and rage. The snap of a belt. My mother, stepping in—always stepping in. Her arms around me, her voice calm while her cheek bled.

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