Page 82 of Fated to the Frost King

He shook his head kindly. “Forgive me, My Queen. I meant out of those who would choose to inflict it.”

I nodded, unsure if I believed him, unsure if he was forgiven, but eager to get the rest of the conversation underway regardless.

“Now.” He brought his hands together, tapping his fingertips against one another. “We come to the matter of your mana.”

“I have no mana.” At least now Draven would be forced to admit that as well.

“Indeed.” Isren managed to make the word sound less like an agreement and more like a gentle rebuttal.

I let out a sigh, tired of fighting to confirm my own inadequacy. The Archmage gave exactly no sign that he had heard me.

“Interesting thing, mana.” He gestured to the endless mountains. “More sentient than people realize.” He swept his gaze around the room, pausing briefly on the skathryn clinging to my neck. “Tied to the land and many of its creatures, yes, but also to emotions.” Finally, he honed in on Draven, voice turning grave. “And it can be an exacting master. When you take from it, it tends to take back.”

A muscle worked in my husband’s jaw. “Your point?”

“Winter’s mana is increasingly unstable,” he said like it was an answer.

My lips parted, but Draven nodded impatiently. That wasn’t news to him.

“So you see, then, why our visit is a matter of some urgency?” His tone was clipped, just this side of respectful.

I sucked in an irritable breath. “Pain might not create power, but neither does urgency. He can’t just make me not a Hollow because the kingdom demands it.”

“No,” the Archmage agreed. “But I am quite inclined to agree with His Majesty’s assessment. The Shard Mother seeks to assist in the unbalance, not to further it.”

He wasn’t quite as pretentious as the Elder Mage had been about it, but his assertion had my hackles raising all the same.

“Forgive me, Master Isren, but I’m afraid your devoutness is clouding your judgment. The Shard Mother has never had any love for me, and she must feel similarly about His Majesty.” I shot a sarcastic smile to the majesty in question.

Instead of glaring as I expected him to, I could have sworn his lips twitched in something close to a smirk. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who had theorized on the Shard Mother’s general disfavor of us.

Batty gave a small, disapproving squeak. For my commentary on the Shard Mother? Or the fraction of solidarity I’d just shared with the king? When she nestled her head a littlecloser, wedging herself more obviously against my neck, I went ahead and assumed the latter.

The Archmage only raised his eyebrows. “I can see you are unconvinced, and I must say that I am not overly surprised to find it so.”

He took a step away from the door and leaned against one of his large disheveled bookshelves. “Allow me to take a different approach, then, as I firmly believe in one’s right to make informed decisions, and soon I will ask your permission to perform a test of my own.”

A muscle worked in my jaw, but I refrained from telling him that I would decline. He was the first person who had implied I had a choice, so I would hear him out.

And then I would tell him no.

“Fine,” I allowed.

He smiled like he knew what I was thinking, but nodded graciously all the same.

“I have had the pleasure of officiating a royal marriage once or twice in my day, long before your time.”

I blinked. The male was ancient. The royals before Draven’s parents had ruled for a thousand years.

“I find the marriage ceremony to be quite fascinating. An ordinary marriage bond involves some scant bit of mana from the officiant, but the binding is entirely external, a marking not unlike a piece of jewelry,” he said gesturing toward a ring on his left hand.

“The royal ceremony, as I’m sure you noted, is somewhat different, in that it binds themanaof the couple together,” he gestured now toward our hands. Our rings. The ones made from our very blood.

“That’s…not possible. I felt the mana it used, it wasn’t from inside me. It was from the land.”

Isren’s brow furrowed. “How do you know that?”

“Because I don’t have any, obviously, and it felt different than Draven’s.”

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