Page 29 of Bound to the Shadow Queen
Tension rolled through Nevara’s shoulders as if she were trying to filter herself. She opened her mouth, then closed it again?—
And I threw up a wall of ice between us and my wife’s sister. Noerwyn would be safe enough on the other side. Whatever my Visionary finally had to say, I didn’t want a shards-damned audience.
But Nevara stayed silent.
“You aren’t usually so soft,” I prodded, frustration clipping my words. “Or is it easier to be ruthless when you’re the one deciding who lives and dies?”
She shook her head. “Ruthlessness and cruelty are not one in the same. His death was not necessary.”
“He was a traitor, and an Unseelie, spying in my court.”
She let out a short huff of breath. “And if you had killed him for those reasons alone, I would have had no objection. This wasn’t about your law. This was about her.”
Worse than the censure I expected in her ethereal silver eyes was something far too close to pity. I blinked, seeing an entirely younger version of Nevara, deft fingers traipsing along the raised bruises on my arm. Invisible to prying eyes, but impossible to hide from the girl who used that arm to guide herself every day of her life.
My father hadn’t wanted her to have a staff, to have movements that were outside of his control. Still, he hadn’t been foolish enough to take his anger out on his own Visionary.
He had saved that for his son.
But Nevara had known. She had stared off into space to fake some visions and held onto others to drop with strategic timing, all with the singular goal of distracting the most powerful king in the realm from his son.
I stared at my Visionary, who was the closest thing I had to a friend growing up. The one person who was supposed to be on my side in the running of this shards-damned kingdom, especially when it became glaringly evident that my wife would not be.
“Everything is abouthernow,” I growled. “You made sure of that.”
“I didn’t choose your bride, Draven?—”
“No. You only chose not to disclose that she was one of them.” My hand cut toward the broken wings and scattered limbs covering the floor. “Just as you chose to let her walk into a trap.”
Nevara flinched as though the words were a blow. For a heartbeat her composure cracked; then she straightened, her chin lifted in defiance.
“I don’tSeeeverything,” she said darkly, her shoulders rising and falling with the weight of her anger.
I felt it, then. The fracture widening between us. The air in my lungs burned like it wanted to escape me in a roar.
“No. Not everything.” Frost hissed over the floor, feathering outward from my boots. My rage surged, and the chamber shuddered with it.
“But those things?” I bared my teeth. “Those you Saw.”
Her stony silence was answer enough.
A growl rumbled low in my chest, shaking the icicles growing from the ceiling.
“Where is my wife?” I bit out each word.
Nevara’s expression shuttered, her voice as cold as the chamber around us. “If I tell you, what will you do with the information?”
Another silence fell heavy in the space between us, punctuated by the sound of Noerwyn’s fists pounding against the wall of ice. I ignored them.
“I don’t answer to you,” I snapped. Whatever semblance of patience I possessed was about to break entirely.
Nevara’s silver brows furrowed and she tilted her head thoughtfully. “You don’t know, do you?”
My jaw locked. “We both know I can’t afford to execute her with all that’s at stake.”
I didn’t mention the promise I had already made to Everly’s sister, or the other reasons that were screaming at me through the bond.
Nevara shook her head, her shimmering braid swaying with the motion. “And Shard Mother forbid you allow a single shred of affection to stay your hand.”
