Page 19 of Frost Bound

The princess.

The envoys.

The king and queen.

Too many opponents.

One too many secrets.

Lia’s heart raced and she began to pant. Dropping to her haunches, Lia put her head between her knees as she tried to calm herself. She began counting to a hundred, attempting to match her breathing with the cadence of her counting. When her pulse no longer pounded in her ears, she lifted her head.

One thing at a time, her mind said.

Protect your brother, her heart pleaded.

Don’t break your promise to your mum, her guilt cried.

Don’t lose yourself, her soul whispered.

Dahlia had a feeling that what she thought or felt didn’t matter.

This was a matter of survival.

Chapter Eight

Dahlia

Basil was moving too slowly.

They only had one more day until the delegation arrived from Loriia, and Cosmos was still in the dungeons. The pompous man assured her it was all taken care of, but she didn’t believe him. Not until she saw her brother with her own eyes and held him in her arms.

Dahlia had managed to bribe a maid to trade dresses, and had the uniform hidden underneath her mattress. She’d even gotten a few of the servants to open up about the palace. She offered them a few treats or spirits, and with a cleverly worded question or two, Lia gathered enough information to create a mental map of the area around her.

The dungeons were surprisingly close to the royal quarters. In her mind, she’d imagined the king and queen would like the criminals to be as far away from them as possible. It seemed that the queen had a taste for blood, and liked to visit the prisoners to exact their punishment.

The wretch.

It also seemed that no one knew what the princess looked like. The Asteran heir only had two servants who attended her, and both were mute due to the queen’s cruelty.

Her cruelty knew no bounds, it seemed.

Lia waited until all the servants left for the night before closing the door to her bedchambers and locking the door. She quickly stripped and dressed in the servant’s garb before creeping over to the far wall, opposite the western windows. It had taken her four hours the day prior, but she’d discovered the secret door the Giver had used to enter her room. She’d even been able to explore it last night. It had been nerve-racking, but worth it.

The secret corridor ended near where she suspected the entrance to the dungeons was. Plus, she only had to make it across one intersection of hallways once she left the relative safety of the hidden hallway. Last night, she didn’t see any guards posted nearby from the peepholes.

Dahlia pressed the slightly raised notch on the molding of the wall and the door swung inward on silent hinges. Nerves danced in her belly. She never did anything without a plan, but Cosmos’ time was up. Lia needed to get him a message before he was spirited from the palace.

She picked up one of the copper trays full of treats from earlier, making sure to balance it on her palm before she entered the dark corridor.

Carefully, Lia shut the door behind her, leaving the shabby hallway lit only from the filtered light of the peepholes. One of the saucers rattled, and she grabbed the other side of the tray to keep it steady. It would ruin everything if she dropped the bloody thing and someone heard it.

In no time, she reached the end of the hallway. She paused at the door and peered out through the crack. No one was in thecurtained alcove. Lia pressed her ear to the door and listened for what felt like an eternity.

Nothing.

It’s now or never.

With her heart in her throat, she adjusted her grip on the tray to one hand and flicked the metal latch with the other. The door swung toward her and she stepped into the alcove, slippers silent on the polished stone.

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