Page 69 of Fated to the Frost King

The wolves moved closer, their heads low, ears back. Lumen brushed against my leg like a warning.

The path narrowed again as we rounded another spire. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the mountain was watching us. That it was taking note of each footprint, each breath, and carefully biding its time. Waiting for the right moment.

Then I heard it.

The sound was faint, like a whisper caught on frost. It came from the trees to our left. Then again, to the right. Then behind us.

My breath froze in my lungs. I came to a halt, reaching up to push back my hood so I could see on either side of me.

“Don’t,” Draven’s voice was sharp, like steel snapping.

“What—”

“Don’t look,” he said, quieter now. “Keep your eyes forward.”

A shiver rippled down my spine. Even Lumen let out a low whine and moved in closer, his head ducked, gaze pinned to the ground. The other wolves shifted around us, silent but alert, muzzles lowered as if they, too, knew not to look.

“What is it?” I whispered, tugging the hood back in place.

Draven stepped in close behind me, placing one hand on my shoulder to steer me forward. My heartbeat thundered in my ears, but I didn’t press again. We moved in silence for several steps before the whispers began again. They were louder now, closer.

I swallowed the lump in my throat.

“The Voidtouched,” Draven finally answered.

His hand tightened on my shoulder in a signal for me to stop walking. He stepped next to me, pulling me against his side before leading us forward again.

I had read about more monsters than I could count, the ones in Winter and beyond, but I had never heard of the Voidtouched.

“A frostbeast?” I clarified, the words barely audible to my own ears.

“Former Visionaries.” His voice was a low rumble against my hood. “It’s said that the Shard Mother took back their true sight when they tried to use it for themselves. Now they wander, blind, with no visions to guide them, begging others to see them.”

It was more of an answer than he usually gave me. He was trying to distract me, and it was working. Sort of.

My hands trembled at my sides, but the panic wasn’t crushing my lungs quite as much with his steady tone in my ear.

“What happens if you see them?” I asked, picturing the information the way I would have seen it in a compendium, neatly parsed out in each section. What they were. What they did.

Before he could respond, the whispers turned to cries. It was only a few at first, but as they echoed through the mountains, they multiplied. Dozens of wailing voices, hundreds, maybe. The sounds grated against my eardrums and scraped at my mind.

They grew louder and louder until tears stung at the backs of my eyes, and my bones felt hollow.

“If you look at them,” Draven’s voice sounded again, just loud enough to be heard over the cries, anchoring me against the relentless screams, “they take your sight, your eyes, for themselves. So they can see again.”

I swallowed hard.

“So, don’t feed them,” he added, before his arm slid down my back and he scooped me off the ground.

I let out a sharp breath, clutching the folds of his cloak as Batty squeaked in alarm beneath mine. Feeling a bit like a skathryn myself, I clung to his neck as he carried me forward, slow and deliberate.

It shouldn’t have been a comfort, the male whose asinine plan subjected me to these monsters now protecting me from them, but I leaned into him all the same.

The shrieks picked up again, echoing around us, through us.

“Focus on my voice,” he said, his mouth close to my ear. “I know this path. I’ve walked it in worse conditions than this.”

I didn’t answer. Couldn’t even bluster about not needing his help. The cries were even closer. My knees shook, and he wrapped his arms tighter around them to stop the trembling.

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