Finding Her Magical King novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: The Cold Crown

Sorrel's POV

"Do you know whose crown that is?" I said.

Thrale tilted his head, and the knife stayed where it was.

"It's the crown of Hallowmere," he said. "It's mine."

"It's my mother's," I said.

A flicker went over his face.

"She cursed it in the yard, with the rope waiting," I said.

"She said the king would freeze from the heart out."

"She said the king."

"Not a Beauclerk. Not a bloodline. The king."

I let that sit.

Thrale gave a short dry laugh.

"Child, I put it on myself last night, and I am perfectly warm."

"Yes," I said. "I wasn't angry at you last night."

I looked at him.

I thought of my father's handwriting, copied by a man who ate at our table.

I thought of my mother laughing, and the orange peel on the cell floor.

I thought of eight years of scraping my window with a spoon, and blaming the wrong family.

The hate came up in me clean and cold and exact, and I did not hold it back.

I pointed it.

The air went white around the dais.

Frost bloomed on the crown first, in a hard bright rime that crawled out along the gold.

Then it touched his silver hair.

"What is that?" said Thrale.

The knife wavered at my throat.

I stepped out of it, and no one stopped me.

The frost ran down his forehead and over his eyebrows and into his collar, white and quick.

He dropped the knife.

It rang on the marble, and the sound went through the silent hall.

"Take it off," he said. His breath smoked. "Take it off me."

He clawed at the crown with both hands.

It wouldn't come.

The gold had gone bitterly cold, and it stuck to his skin.

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