Page 1 of Fated to the Frost King

Chapter 1

Everly

Inever planned to be buried in a wedding dress.

Then again, I was never supposed to live this long at all.

I wasn’t the only one terrified to be here, though. The air was thick with dread, colder than the solid ice walls of the palace we stood in, a sharp contrast to the glittering room around us.

Frost covered the marble pillars that held up the vast, domed ceiling, while icicles dripped from silver chandeliers like waiting daggers, ready to fall and impale the unwary.

This entire palace was danger masquerading as beauty, just like the king it belonged to, if the rumors were true.

I shifted to the right as more ladies were led into the room. There was hardly room to breathe as it was, but somehow they kept coming. Endless rows of female fae, each one wearing a pale blue gown and shivering from more than the chill in the air.

Though not everyone was afraid.

The king’s edict had arrived with just enough time to obey, demanding the presence of every eligible female in the kingdom by the eve of the Starfire Solstice. Even as the bastard daughter of a low-ranking lord, I hadn’t been safe. There had been no time to plan an escape, no time even to plan an easier route to thepalace. So we traveled through the frost-damned forests full of monsters in our haste to reach the worst one of them all.

Because today was the day of the Winter King’s wedding. And he hadn’t yet chosen his bride.

Desperation clung to the females in this room more tightly than the bodices of their gowns. To escape, for those with half a brain. Or to be chosen, for those who were less capable of weighing the risks against the benefits.

Queen of a kingdom, wife of a monster.

It was a trade off only a fool would make, but there were apparently several in attendance. Like the female to my right, who was happily bouncing on her toes for a better glance at the currently empty throne.

I took a deep breath—as deep as I could manage in my own fitted gown. It was borrowed from my sister and hastily stitched for this occasion. I wished, not for the first time, that our families had been allowed inside.

Not my father—I was just as happy to leave him for all the comfort he would have offered. But my older sister would have been whispering irreverent things in my ear, squeezing my hand in hers and distracting me from the fate that could await me with one wrong move.

For the other females here, being chosen as the Winter King’s Bride would be a prison sentence, but for me, it would mean death.

I was a Hollow.

Since mana was a power gifted from the Shard Mother herself, anyone born without it was considered cursed. Or Hollow.

It was the only thing the Seelie and Unseelie fae could agree on, an inescapable doctrine across every kingdom in Aerivelle. It was nice that despite their longstanding history of enmity, theycould bond over feeling that my existence alone was reason to throw me on an execution pyre.

Not that a roaring fire would be entirely unwelcome at the moment, but I would have preferred to reap the benefits of warmth from the outside.

I fought back a shiver, resisting the urge to rub my arms to warm them. It was an obvious sign I didn’t have mana. Those with the power of winter couldn’t freeze.

The excitable fae to my right bounced again, jostling me out of my thoughts. I took another breath, valiantly resisting the urge to shove her back to her side. The tension was making me unusually short-tempered. I tried to talk myself down, reminding myself that I wasn’t in any real danger.

I can’t be chosen. There is no need for panic.

The Shard Mother would choose a bride who could continue his royal line, something a Hollow could never do.

So, I was fine. By this time tomorrow, I would be back in the relative safety of my family’s estate, surrounded by endless shelves of books. Hidden.

Alone,a voice in the back of my head chimed in.

Safe, I countered.

Little by little, the last few females trickled in until the small side door we had come through was shut, closing us in.

Tendrils of dread scraped along my spine, but I willed myself to be calm.

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