Page 81 of Fated to the Frost King

Above it all, suspended from the ceiling like a constellation frozen mid-breath, hung a floating orb of starlight. It hummed faintly with power I didn’t understand.

I continued to scan the room, the hairs on the back of my neck standing at attention, my entire being tense and on alert. Lumen shuffled closer again, his head coming up beneath my arm to force me to wrap it over him.

It helped a little, grounded me, even. Before I could help myself, my fingers were sliding through his fur, and my heartbeat slowed to something less frantic.

It was a welcome reprieve from the constant state of panic I’d been living in, even if it evaporated a second later when a throat cleared behind us.

I turned slowly to find the Archmage watching us from the doorway.

He didn’t look like a monster, but sadists rarely did.

He was tall, composed, elegant in a way that didn’t feel forced. Like most fae, he had an ageless quality that placed him close to thirty. His dark skin gleamed with violet undertones, contrasting sharply with the burnished gold of his eyes. Gold robes fell to the floor, belted with black silk and embroidered with silver.

I couldn’t place his court, but he wasn’t borne of Winter.

“Your Majesties,” he said smoothly, taking a shallow bow. “It is a pleasure to have you here, though next time, do send word ahead if you plan to ascend the mountain. I prefer to be in residence when royalty is dropping bodies in my halls.”

Draven’s voice was flat. “I assumed word would travel faster if you understood the stakes.”

What?I glanced between the two males. Was it my exhaustion clouding my mind with confusion? Or had I missed something?

The Archmage made a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat before he stepped closer.

He studied my expression for a long moment, and I had the distinct feeling he was looking through me, seeing each thought unfold inside my head somehow.

I shifted uncomfortably, and Lumen pressed his head against my side a little more firmly.

“Apologies, My Queen,” he said after a moment. “I am Master Isren Vaelryn, Archmage here at the Veilreach Sanctum.”

He offered me a smile that I didn’t return. He pursed his lips, and nodded as if he’d been expecting as much.

“And what is this about the bodies dropping in your halls?” I asked when it became clear that no one was going to bother to explain that.

“Ah yes. Imagine my surprise when I returned to discover one of my Elder Mages rather gruesomely executed in a room that has been outlawed for decades.” He nodded warmly, like it was a grand joke.

“You killed him?” I asked Draven.

He nodded like I had asked if he wanted milk with his tea, not whether he had taken a life. Not that I mourned the mage. Stranger still was that the Archmage didn’t seem to mourn him either.

“Though, I am surprised you found him so quickly,” Draven said darkly. “I must not have sealed the threshold with enough ice.”

“Yes, well, curiosity tends to get the better of people,” Isren said evenly. “And once it’s piqued, there’s no telling how far someone will go to find their answers.”

I would think about Draven’s execution of the vile male later when I could piece together his motives. I might have thought he was only punishing the male for his ineptitude but for the crucial part about the room in which he was killed.

A room that had been outlawed, apparently. It wasn’t hard to guess what it was.

I turned my attention away from my enigma of a husband, back to the Archmage.

“Outlawed?” I clarified. “Before, you said the rooms were outlawed… For how long?”

His expression turned somber. “The Shard Mother does not condone the torture of children, your Majesty, however slow her followers may be to understand that.”

“And you?” I pressed.

“I am the one who outlawed it,” he said simply. “So you can rest assured, you will not receive that treatment from me. Pain does not create power. It only creates monsters.”

I bristled. “Is that what I am, then?”

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