Page 98 of Fated to the Frost King

The Visionary gave a wry twist of her lips. “Yes, well, she also showed me that there will be extra tongue clucking if we don’t get there soon.”

I slipped behind the dressing screen to change into the warmer gown Mirelda had laid out for me, more a habit than out of modesty since Nevara wouldn’t have been able to see me.

The dress was the warmest one yet, deep blue velvet edged in rich white furs that settled around my shoulders with a comforting weight. I got the feeling I would need it. The court was sure to have armed themselves with gossip in my absence.

Mirelda swept in with tea and winterberry scones, like she had sensed that I was preparing to braid my own hair. Perhaps that was in her own mana. She gestured for me to sit in the chair opposite Nevara, setting the scones down next to my uneaten breakfast with a pointed glance.

I sat down and dutifully picked from the plate, another faint pulse of mana washing over my skin.

“Do you know if Draven is still here?” I asked as Mirelda combed through my hair.

It was Nevara who answered. “No, they left before first light.”

I stared into the flames, taking a sip from my cup. “I wasn’t sure. I can still feel him… sort of.”

Her expression turned thoughtful for a moment, then she nodded.

“That is likely the ward stones,” she said. “He took measures before he left, to keep the palace safe.”

Of course he had. He was an endless contradiction, the way he protected and punished in turn with the same ruthless efficiency.

I had read about ward stones, but they were only ever mentioned in passing.

“And he made them with his mana?” I asked.

“No one can make ward stones anymore. Few people can even power them. They’re from the old mana. Before Seelie and Unseelie. Before the Courts and the Crowns. More like, he infused them.”

“If you can just infuse existing ward stones, why doesn’t everyone have them?” I couldn’t help but ask.

It would save so many lives, entire villages.

Mirelda responded this time.

“Most of them are lost, and few existing bloodlines even remember the art of using the stones. Even if they did, few but his Majesty have enough mana to power them,” she tacked on proudly, tugging another braid into place. “Let alone to make them so strong.”

Nevara nodded her agreement.

“How can you tell?” I asked. “How strong they are, I mean?”

“The shimmer,” she said simply.

I glanced out the window, narrowing my eyes to see past the falling snow. Sure enough, there was a faint glimmer rising in a dome shape toward the palace.

I blinked, something curiously close to concern edging along my spine.

Draven was out fighting monsters while using some of his mana—a significant amount, by the sounds of it—to power the wards?

It was hard to think of the king as mortal when he walked around like the living embodiment of mana and winter’s wrath, but everyone had limits.

“I’d like to know more,” I said, resting my cup back on the tray. “About that and…” My marriage bond. My mana. “Other things. Could one of you help me call for some books?”

A genuine smile crept onto Nevara’s lips for the first time since she entered the room. “I can do better than that.”

When Mirelda first explained that I would have to call my books with mana, I’d nearly given up hope of having anything to read ever again. I hadn’t considered the possibility of areallibrary. Atangible place. One I could actually walk through, with rows of shelves I could touch and stories I could claim for myself.

Let alone that it would take up the Southern Wing of the palace, or for nearly every wall to be filled with books that climbed several stories high. For the shelves floating in midair, orbiting the room at varying speeds, some slow and graceful, others zipping by like shooting stars.

My mouth hung open, my eyes greedily taking in every square inch of the space. This was well worth my long morning of portrait sitting. My mind swam with questions, urgent ones, like: How had I been here for weeks and never known this existed?

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