Page 1 of Frost Bound

Chapter One

Dahlia

Beingpoor really was the worst.

Dahlia lifted her chin higher as an aria spilled from her lips, all the while slapping away the oaf’s hand just to her left. The bloody sod wouldn’t stop pawing at her skirt and touching her right ankle. Any touch to her legs made Lia want to claw and kick. Anything to hide her shame.

Keep it together.

She smiled at the drunken crowd in the large, dimly lit tavern, and continued to play her part as the mysterious traveling bard. People were always intrigued by the mysterious. In truth, Lia was just your average young woman trying to keep her family fed.

The last note fell from her lips and the men and women cheered, some slamming the bottom of their tankards against the tables. Lia smiled, her stomach cramping as a serving maid passed by the small stage with two bowls of stew and crusty bread. Gods, when was the last time she’d had a proper meal? Two days? Three?

She reached for the cup of water on a stool to her left and took a sip, praying it would settle her empty stomach. Just a few more songs until she’d finish her set, then the barkeeper had promised some dinner for herself and her brother.

Speaking of her brother…

Dahlia scanned the room, searching for Cosmos’ familiar mop of dark strawberry-blond hair. Her lips thinned when she didn’t find him. Where was the little devil? He was not supposed to leave his chair tonight with so many of the Giver’s Recurrence in attendance—the slum lord’s elite bruisers. The thug’s men usually didn’t leave their little kingdom of Wicked unless on a job. What were they up to tonight?

Mentally, she kicked herself. During her performances, she lost herself to the music, something Cosmos well knew. He sometimes used her distraction to sneak out and spend time with friends … if you could call them that. He’d fallen in with the wrong crowd in the last year, and she couldn’t pry him from them. Lia growled underneath her breath. When she found her brother, she would skin him.

A large palm settled against her ankle once again, meaty fingers encircling the delicate bones.

He’d picked the wrong day to bother Dahlia.

Rotating her hips, Lia glared down at the man grinning up at her and kicked him in the forearm with the left foot of her pointy-toed slipper. She’d had them reenforced with metal for occasions such as these. He dropped her ankle and howled, clutching his arm. She yanked a dagger from the secret pocket in her dress and dropped into a squat, pressing the sharp tip into the man’s belly. His dark eyes widened comically.

“Keep your hands to yourself,” she hissed softly. “Or I will gut you like the pig that you are.” The leather ring woven through the fingers of his right hand caught her eye, and her scowldeepened. Not only a worm but a philanderer. “Maybe I should find your wife and tell her what you’ve been up to.”

He turned paler and leaned away from her blade. “I meant nothing by it. It’s just a little fun.”

“It’s only fun when both of us consent to it. What you were doing was not innocent,” Lia practically growled. “Be gone with you.”

He scrambled from his chair and disappeared.

Good riddance.

Dahlia slowly stood and stowed her blade. He was a degenerate and a bully, to be sure. She hoped he minded his manners from here on out, but that wasn’t likely. At least this was the last night at The Bawdy Bessy for a few weeks, so if he got any ideas about exacting revenge for the slight, she’d be long gone.

Straightening her skirt, she stepped back into the center of the small, raised stage and began clapping her hands and stomping her foot to a slow, rhythmic beat. Soon the whole tavern joined in, and Dahlia opened her mouth and sang.

Only a few more songs and then she could eat.

Hopefully, her stomach wouldn’t devour itself in the process.

By the timeshe’d finished for the night, Dahlia was hot and sweaty. Her heavy fall of reddish-blonde hair stuck to the back of her neck uncomfortably. She waved to her well-wishers and scooped up the meager coins that some of the patrons had tossed into the basket at her feet. It wasn’t much, but they would be able to buy two-day-old loaves of bread. And from her earningstonight, she’d be able to pay off the last of their debt to the Giver.

Lia shivered just thinking about the creature whom they still owed gold.

She coiled her hair up on top of her head and pinned it in place as she wove through the rowdy crowd toward the bar top. It killed her that they’d been desperate enough to seek the Giver’s help in the first place. They hadn’t borrowed much, but the interest had buried them. They’d needed the money for Cosmos’ medicine, which he couldn’t do without or his fits would emerge, leaving him writhing with his eyes rolled back into his head.

She remembered her mother taking Cosmos and herself to the temples as children. That didn’t last long once they’d seen one of her brother’s episodes and had glimpsed the mottled skin of her legs. Dahlia swallowed hard; she could still see the clerics screaming at her mother that she’d birthed the offspring of darkness. Dahlia scrubbed her palms along her biceps to ward off the sudden chill that ran down her spine. Even now, she was terrified of anyone who wore the amaranth robes of a cleric. They’d burned one too many people in the name of light.

Lia caught the eye of the barkeeper and jerked her chin toward him. Viro was a tall, thin, older man who looked like a stiff wind could blow him over. That was part of his power. People underestimated him, but she’d seen him knock out four men double his size and half his age. He was not someone to mess with, which was why she liked performing at The Bawdy Bess. While there were lechers every so often, he kept them in line. It was one of the few taverns in which she felt safe.

Her eyes slanted to the Recurrence sitting at a table in the back.Almostcompletely safe.

Viro placed two bowls of steaming meat and vegetable stew before her with a whole loaf of fresh bread.

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