Grave Destiny (Alex Craft, #6) - Kalayna Price Page 0,67

black with just a touch of silver throughout. Something constricted deep in my chest, sending painful stabs down to my stomach, as I watched them walk up the path to the dais.

Falin, for his part, stared straight ahead. I had no doubt he was aware of everything around him; he was the queen’s knight, after all, and would be expected to spot and react to any threats against her, but he never seemed to look anywhere but straight ahead. Or maybe he simply didn’t look at me.

I’m not sure what expression I wore, but when the queen saw me, she smiled. It was a private smile, beautiful and terrifying. Then she moved her hand slightly, laying it more firmly possessive on Falin’s arm as they walked. The stabs in my gut turned hot, angry, though I couldn’t have said if I was more angry at her for being a royal bitch, or myself for reacting. I tore my gaze away, not giving her the satisfaction of watching me watch her.

She daintily lifted the edge of her skirts and mounted the dais, Falin still at her side. The glimmering cloak of snow she wore glowed in the last few rays of sunset. That was no metaphor; the cloak was all magic and freshly fallen snow. As she had walked up to the dais, it had immediately obscured her and Falin’s footprints with a blanket of snow as it trailed behind her. Now that she’d mounted the carved ice, it seemed content to cease leaving snow in its wake.

Magic. So very much magic filled the air. Like the large snowflakes that fell all around, keeping the blanket of snow covering the field looking untouched, and yet not a single flake had landed on me, and I would have noticed as my shoulders were completely bare.

“Knight, you will be on my right tonight,” the queen said, gesturing. Then she half turned, opening her mouth as if she would address someone else. Someone who wasn’t there.

Ryese. The queen’s nephew had traditionally been on her left, but now that his treachery had been revealed, the spot was vacant. Had he been more patient, Ryese likely would have been the Winter Prince one day. Now he was exiled, and judging by the condition he’d been in when I’d last seen him, quite possibly dead.

The queen snapped her mouth closed, her lips thinning in her forced smile. It was only a momentary hesitation, but if I’d caught it, I knew others had as well. I didn’t like the queen. Fear her? Yeah. But actually respect her? Not so much. But this small slip would be viewed as a potential weakness by those who wished to seize more power for themselves. I cared only because anyone who wanted to challenge the queen had to go through Falin first. He was good, but how many duels could he fight without eventually losing?

The queen climbed to her throne and sat, gazing out over her gathered courtiers. I fidgeted with the purse holding my dagger. Everyone seemed riveted to the last few rays of light sinking over the tree line. The anticipation in the air was almost tangible.

As the glow of light dimmed in the horizon, something in the air changed. A new type of energy filled the field and a collective gasp rushed through the courtiers present. The frost fae who’d helped me dress held out her arms, as if embracing some unseen force, and a pale fox-eared woman tilted her head back, breathing in deeply.

“What’s going on?” I mouthed to the frost fae closest to me.

“The doors have shifted,” she said with a smile, fluttering her wings to lift herself higher in the air. “All mortal belief in the world is now rushing into winter. Can’t you feel it?”

I frowned. I supposed I felt something. Definitely an energy shift. But the fae around me were acting like the change was a form of nourishment, or maybe ecstasy. I definitely wasn’t feeling anything like that. Even the queen seemed to relax into her throne, at least as much as her corset would allow, and take a moment to relish whatever it was she felt pouring into her court. Falin still stood alert and wary behind her, but there was a certain softness to the edge of his eyes, a small tilt to his lips, that told me he was experiencing what everyone else was. Apparently I was the only one left out. I wasn’t sure if that was because everyone