Page 1 of A Throne of Blood and Ice

PROLOGUE

If only the Mystrian Queen would slacken her self-imposed leash, she could occupy the perfect body, the most exquisite of forms.

Or so thought the parasite as, with a sly grin, she examined the queen sitting in the carriage across from her.

The parasite was familiar with this type of female—the type who fancied herself a hero.

Fae were such blind creatures, unable to behold their true reflections, even if their souls were rendered upon a canvas with the blackest and most concentrated of inks.

The female with hair so light it was almost white could have been the model after which the parasite had crafted Cinderella’s body, were the queen not so haunted by her restrictive moral code, the one that kept her spine rigid, her cheeks constantly sucked in, and her jaw set.

Even so, the parasite could not complain that the queen refused to use her beauty to her advantage; she preferred to be the only beauty worth noting in whatever room she occupied.

If the queen possessed the assets capable of turning heads and refused to utilize them appropriately—covering up not only her bosom, but the length of her neck with that hideous white collar of hers, as if she were concerned for the fate of her throat—the parasite was not about to steer her in the opposite direction.

The female queen was so austere, her chin practically jutted. She was a rather harsh-looking thing, despite her beauty. It didn’t help that the inside of her carriage was covered in black velvet. Black velvet cushions, black velvet lining, even black steel handles for the cab doors.

It made the queen stand out like the moon on the blackest of nights.

At least the parasite could respect the queen’s presence, if not her looks.

“I assume you intend to tell me why you’ve swept me away from my home,” the parasite stated more than asked, reveling in the timbre of her sultry voice as she exercised its freedom. She hadn’t spoken in a mooncycle, being trapped within Blaise’s body, and she always relished the shiver that snaked down her spine at the sound of her own voice.

Of Cinderella’s voice, she supposed.

The queen sitting across from her might have huffed, if she had been the sort to allow any such expression to escape the cool veneer of her face. “You act as though I stole you from a riverside summer home and not that pitiful excuse for a dungeon where I found you.”

Cinderella didn’t bother bristling. She’d been less than thrilled when she’d heard—from a cramped corner of Blaise’s mind—that Evander intended to lock her up until he found a way to extract the parasite from her host. But the parasite had surmounted greater obstacles than prison cells before.

And look, she hadn’t even ended up having to break herself out.

The Queen of Mystral had glided in and done that for her.

“How might I service you, my queen?” the parasite asked in a tone that rather lacked the submissiveness her words might have otherwise implied.

The Queen of Mystral folded her hands together in her lap, interlocking her fingers. “It’s not as much about what you can do for me, as what we might do for one another.”

Cinderella raised what she was sure was a perfectly arched eyebrow—thick enough so as not to look like a bald rat with her moonlight hair, sharp and precise enough to still be mistaken as dainty. “And what is it you propose?”

“Power. That is what you crave, is it not?” the queen asked, looking upon the parasite not with disdain, but understanding. “Is that not why you attempted to seduce the Prince of Dwellen, to gain a place by his side?”

The parasite supposed the queen’s assumption was about as accurate as claiming that a male wanted a wife for the specific way she seasoned fish—certainly a benefit of the deal, but not by any means the whole of it.

The parasite craved power, of course; she wasn’t aware of a being in this realm who didn’t. However, that was far from the whole truth of the matter.

Power for the sake of power seemed rather vain, rather fleeting in the eyes of the parasite.

The draw lay in whatelsepower could obtain.

For the parasite, that was freedom.

Sliding her way into Evander’s bed, then his crown, finding a way to end his father, would have opened up a host of opportunities. The entirety of Dwellen’s resources would have been at her carefully manicured fingertips. For centuries, the parasite had been cursed. For centuries, she’d been shoved like a used, crumpled piece of parchment into the backs of her hosts’ minds, only free to move about as she wished during the hours between when the full moon crested the horizon and apexed in the sky.

The parasite could have had an entire kingdom on the search for a cure to her predicament.

Ellie Payne had ruined her plan, of course.

Still, the parasite wasn’t keen on anyone knowing the truth behind her intentions, so she let the Queen of Mystral keep talking.Let her reveal her heart, she thought,that I may exploit it as she’s attempting to exploit me.

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