Page 60 of Bound to the Shadow Queen
Wynnie let out a bitter laugh. “I didn’t just see them. The beasts were hunting us.”
“More than one?” I sat back on my heels, struggling to process the information.
Wyverns weren’t common, not anymore, at least. But especially not in Seelie territory.
I thought of the books and journals that littered my room at my father’s estate. The drawings and notes I’d made in the margins about different monsters and creatures. But especially wyverns. I had obsessed over them.
They were as close as I would ever come to seeing a dragon. And once I left the Wilds, they were the closest thing I had to home, but between hunting parties and frostbeasts, I had never seen one in Winter.
“They hunted us from the moment we left the hideout,” my sister continued. “Nevara was able to evade the first one, but by the time we reached the Frostmere Plains, we realized we were being led into a trap.”
She leaned over the side of the tub and reached into the pocket of her discarded gown. When she straightened, a familiarblack dagger gleamed in her hand, its edge catching the light with a faint, dangerous glow.
“It came in handy,” Wynnie said simply, a grim smile ghosting her lips.
I stared at the blade—my blade—its edge still darkened with blood.
The bath steamed, curling around memories of the first time it was pressed into my palm, of it landing in the hide of the Mirrorbane, and then as it lay in the snow the night my clan came to fetch me home.
Wynnie continued speaking, but her voice faded into the background. The shadows of the lavatory seemed to lean closer, and that prickling along my spine returned.
I dipped a towel into the bath water to wipe the blood off my blade, and wondered, not for the first time, whether either of us would ever be clean again.
Everly
Wynnie stoodin a borrowed nightgown I had wrestled from the closet, working a curl cream into her damp hair. The faint scent of chamomile and birch unfurled through the chamber, grounding me like roots in soil. A carved bone comb glided through her coils, tugging and taming them one by one until each curl settled into place.
Despite the threat of death and ruin pressing in on every side, I tried to will myself to be comforted by the ritual.
Still, something continued to niggle at the back of my mind, a pervasive feeling of something lurking in the shadows, just out of reach. The constant waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Once she finished her hair, my sister explored the suites.
“What’s the point of these fancy rooms if you don’t have your own wine cabinet?” she called from the other room.
“You know I don’t like to drink alone,” I told her, shifting uncomfortably. My wings itched to come out now that they were used to the freedom, but it felt impossibly stupid to risk that here.
Besides, it was just another reminder that I couldn’t actually fly. I was trapped. On that note, I agreed with Wynnie about the wine.
“Thank the shards that I’m here now, then,” she said, right on cue. “Does King Frosty take requests?”
“You can feel free to knock on his door and find out,” I gestured.
She looked like she was actually considering it when a perfunctory knock sounded at the door.
Mirelda swept into the room. She was brisk as ever, a tray balanced in her arms like a general hauling spoils of war. Only the way her gaze swept over me for several heartbeats too long gave evidence that she had been concerned about my absence.
Otherwise, she was all casual efficiency, nodding to me and to Wynnie as she set down a dinner tray laden with enough food for a war council, including a small dish full of berries.
Batty let out a delighted chirp, wings flaring before she landed on the tray and practically inhaled them.
A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth before I could stop it.
“Mirelda, did you take care of her while I was gone?” My voice came out lighter than it should have, almost teasing, though hollow at the edges.
She sniffed, arranging two sets of utensils with a sharp clink. “I didn’t let the creature starve, if that’s what you’re asking. At least, until I was…reassigned. Then I suppose she hunted for berries in the courtyard.”
The moment of pretense was shattered as quickly as it had begun, though a small wry grin still tugged at my lips. There were no berries in the courtyard, unless she had left them there for Batty.
