Page 86 of Bound to the Shadow Queen
“Sometimes when my father is…traveling,” she drew out the word carefully, “for too long, the servants go home to visit their families.”
I blinked slowly.
“And this is something they often did? Even while you were in residence?”
She nodded and gestured for me to follow her up the moonlit path.
Fury raced through my veins in an icy wave. Frost laced out from my steps, coating the snow-laden hedges and the unlit torches in brittle ice.
The thought of her here alone, powerless, left to fend for herself in a house stripped of protective wards and without an ounce of mana…
I tried to bury the anger, but it only intensified, and soon the entire estate was a glacial tomb.
Everly crouched near the front door, shifting stones to search for something in the dirt. A key, most likely.
Her navy travelling cloak pooled onto the ground, dirt and debris collecting on its hem.
My mana surged, splitting the door into several satisfying pieces.
She glanced from the shards of wood at her boots up to my carefully neutral expression, then sighed. “Tell me, does the mighty Winter King break through all doors, or just the ones with perfectly good keys?”
“I’ll send someone to fix it, if you’d like,” I said coldly.
By the time I reined my mana back in, Everly was already climbing the stairs, barreling ahead without hesitation. I followed, frost trailing in my wake, until she pushed open the groaning door to what had once been her room.
It was small. Modest. And yet, unexpectedly full.
Moth-eaten cushions lay scattered across the floor, soft blankets folded in an explosion of mismatched colors, trinkets perched precariously on ledges and windowsills.
The shelves were overburdened, sagging under the weight of too many books covered in a thick layer of dust.
I didn’t know what I expected.
Something barren, perhaps? Or hidden, and wild like the Unseelie portal? But not this. Not a room so…normal. So lived in.
She went straight for the shelves, pulling volumes down, flipping through them, and tossing them aside with increasing impatience.
I silently watched her from the corner of my eye.
This had been her world once. Four close walls, paper and cushions to soften the isolation. Even a few dead plants sat in the corner, starved of water and light, that had likely once made the space even cozier.
The bastard daughter of a fae lord, tucked away while her sister lived halfway across the kingdom. I thought of her father, of how easily he had sent her here to vanish from sight. How the servants must have looked through her, until even they abandoned her.
How alone she must have felt.
And now?
Was it better, in the palace, where the walls gleamed brighter but pressed tighter still? Her suite was larger, yes. Filled with gowns and guarded by wolves. But still hidden away.
The answers echoed through the silence, pressing in tight enough to suffocate, not that my wife seemed to notice.
Her attention was glued to the book in her hands, her fingers hurriedly tracing the text faster than any fae should be able to read.
I stepped closer, peering over her shoulder at the book she’d dragged down. Curved handwriting lined the margins, small, looping notes that sometimes broke into sketches or little flourishes that softened the rigid script of the text itself.
The subtle, yet unrelenting scent of frostlilies and moonshade berries clung to her. It curled through my lungs, setting my pulse uneven.
I took a breath, steadying my pulse and the constant hunger that seemed to live beneath the surface of my skin. I despised it for its persistence, an ache that belonged to more than the bond alone.
