Page 27 of Omen of ice
“The secret cannot getout. I would have had tokillthem.”
The emotion in his voice cuts like a blade to my gut. There is so much more to Valen than he lets the world see. He is by far the most powerful being in the Winter Lands—possibly all of Derriga—and he has to keep his power hidden. I understand now that his confines are far worse than simply not being able to shift into his wolf form. He’s essentially a prisoner in his own body.
“And you didn’t want that,” I say.
He lifts his head and meets my gaze. “No. I didn’t want that.” A laugh escapes him. Brutal and sharp, it bounces off the trees and echoes through the woods. “I don’t want you. I don’t want the royal blood in my veins or the magic in my blood. Yet here we are, stuck with these things. Stuck with each other.”
“There are worse things you could be stuck with.” I picture Alainya and how she’d relentlessly pursue Valen if she were here instead of me. “Be happy they assigned me here instead of my cousin.”
“Is she more annoying than you?”
“Some might call it that, yes.”
He sighs and climbs to his feet, dusting the snow from his leathers. “You have working legs. They allow you to move from place to place, to have freedom.”
“Don’t be so dramatic.” I snort. “Your legs work just fine.”
“Yes, but consider how you would feel if you were told you couldn’t use those legs the way nature intended. That you could walk but never run. You could bend but never fully stretch. You would exist—you would breathe and eat and sleep—but you would not use the things nature had gifted you. You would feel a constant itch, unable to scratch it.”
“I won’t lie, Valen. I can’t imagine how complicated things must be for you. And Orbik—”
“Orbik’sprotectionsuffocates me.” The venom in his tone takes me by surprise. “I’ve been forbidden to use magic outside of my time with Buri, forbidden to leave the grounds unescorted. Every move I make is watched and measured by the calculated risk of losing their precious resource.”
That isn’t the first time he’s referred to himself as a resource. Knowing what I know about his uncle, I can only imagine, but this isn’t the time to ask. He’s already been pushed too far today.
I position myself directly in front of him. He’s not looking at me, focused on something over my shoulder, so I grab his face and force his gaze to mine. “You are not alone anymore, Valen.”
“I know,” he says, his expression pained. “That’s the problem.”
…
Life at the estate isn’t what I imagined it would be. The next several weeks pass in a haze. I watch the strained relationship between Valen and his uncle bounce from rocky to indifferent and everything in between, and with each passing day, I’m more and more convinced that the monarch of the Winter Lands is a monster. He’s lazy and uncaring. He’s always snapping at his wife. And the way he treats his people… Just the other day, I watched as one of his guards asked for time away because his wife was dying. Orbik suggested he kill her himself tospeed things along.
How have the druids gotten it so wrong? I’d heard countless stories about the benevolence of the Winter Court, yet walking among them makes it clear those tales were fabricated—or at the very least greatly embellished.
Earlier this evening, Valen was summoned for dinner with Lord Orbik and Lady Liani, and, by extension, I was summoned along with him. I was made to stand in the corner while they ate, their discussion hushed and too low for human ears. By the time he rose from his seat, Valen’s face was flushed and his expression stony. He stormed from the room, and I followed.
“I don’t suppose you want to tell me what has you in such a mood?” I settle on the edge of his bed as he stalks from one end of the room to the other.
“My uncle asked me to check in with one of our villages to the north tomorrow. They’ve been having issues with a small band of rebels stealing supplies.”
“And that’s bad?”
He stops pacing but doesn’t turn to face me. Instead, he pulls open his door and steps aside. “We should get some sleep. It’s a long ride to the village.”
I stand and make my way to the door but pause halfway across the room. Something glints, catching my attention. I look up and over. There’s a weird collection of ice on the ceiling I hadn’t noticed before. “What is that?”
He follows my gaze to the far corner of the room, to a section of the ceiling covered in what looks to be icy vines. “Oh. Yeah. That happens sometimes.”
“It’s so strange…” I walk back and rise onto my toes, running a finger along the bottom edge of the ice that has spread halfway down the wall. “I haven’t seen anything like this anywhere else on the estate. Does it just happen in here?”
“Seems to. I think it has to do with me. Fae magic interacting with the latent druid magic in the ground.”
“And you don’t find that odd?” The sprouting plants and flowering fruit trees are strange enough, but vines made of ice? That can’t be a result of latent magic, can it?
“There are a lot of things you’ll find odd if you’re here long enough, Aphelian.” His demeanor is different tonight. The overconfidence and swagger that normally precede him are darker. The mood is heavier, and I feel it leeching in to affect my own state of mind. A sense of foreboding washes over me, along with the distinct twinge of anger—which I don’t quite understand.
“Now, go get some sleep.” He ushers me toward the door.
