Page 1 of Throne of Ice and Blood
CHAPTER ONE
Ice bites into my skin. It presses against my throat and saps my strength, making me feel like I haven’t slept in weeks. For one brief moment, I consider just rolling over in bed and going back to sleep. But Goddess above, I need to get that strange ice away from my throat.
While trying to pry my eyes open, I groggily reach towards my neck. Light stabs at my eyes, and I have to squint against the brightness.
My fingers brush against something cold and hard that circles my throat.
A memory flashes through my mind.
I frown.
Then the whole storm of memories crashes down over me like a merciless cold wave.
The Atonement Trials. The Ice Palace. The winner’s ceremony.
And Draven Ryat snapping an iron collar shut around my throat.
I gasp awake. All lingering grogginess evaporates like mist in the sun as I sit bolt upright in bed while my heart pounds against my ribs. Blinking furiously, I whip my head from side to side.
Pale walls made of white ice meet me. And a bed with dark gray sheets, which I’m currently occupying. As opposed to the other parts of the Ice Palace that I’ve seen, this bedroom has wooden floorboards that cover the ice floor. I stare at a patch of sunlight that shines in from the window somewhere to my left and paints those dark wooden boards in lighter colors. My mind churns.
I have no recollection of how I got here.
The last thing I remember is kneeling in front of Draven’s feet in that throne room and silently vowing to kill him. Then a wave of exhaustion crashed over me, making me sway so much that I had to brace myself on the floor. After that, everything is black.
Panic clangs inside my skull and my heart slams against my ribs.
Yanking up my hand, I desperately run my fingers over the iron collar around my throat, trying to find the clasp. That intense panic inside me surges when I can’t find one. I suck in short shallow breaths as I slide my fingers down into the small gap between the collar and my neck and try to yank it off instead.
It doesn’t work.
That icy feeling of the cold iron bites into my hand as I grip the collar.
I frantically search for the clasp again.
“It won’t work.”
A gasp rips from my throat, and I whip my head towards the sound of the voice.
Draven Ryat is seated in an armchair in the corner of the room. The light from the window only partially hits his sharp cheekbones, leaving the rest of his face in shadow. He is only wearing a pair of black pants, and his black hair is slightly damp, making it look as if he has just stepped out of the bath. My gaze flits across his body.
He is lounging in that dark gray armchair as if it were a throne. Leaned back with his legs spread and his arms draped along the armrests, he exudes power and authority. His sharp abs and muscular chest are painted with both light and shadows from the partial sunlight that filters in through the window and hits the otherwise dark corner of the room.
A small ray hits his golden eyes, making them glint, when he nods towards the collar around my throat. “You won’t be able to find a clasp. Only a dragon shifter can take off a collar like that.”
I stubbornly yank against the collar again. But when it doesn’t come off, I’m forced to admit that he might be telling the truth. Rage burns through my chest as I let my hand drop back down.
But then a jolt shoots through me instead when my hand meets cool silk fabric. I snap my gaze down to my body, and another wave of panic washes over me.
When I passed out in the throne room, I was wearing an elaborate silver dress. Now, I’m dressed in a simple short nightgown made of black silk. Which means that someone changed my clothes while I was unconscious.
“You changed my clothes,” I blurt out.
After everything that has happened, I know that there are a million other things that I should probably have said to Draven at this particular moment. But my mind is still struggling to come to terms with the sheer magnitude of the situation that I’m in right now, so I need to focus on something smaller. Something more manageable. Something like this.
Draven cocks his head. “Yes.”
There is an entirely unreadable mask on his face as he watches me. I grip the sheets harder, trying to resist the urge to pull them up to cover more of my body. Instead, I shift my position so that I’m sitting at an angle where I can face him head on without needing to twist my body to the side. Focusing on myanger, I try to push back the panic that is still clanging inside my skull.
