Becoming the Heirless Dragon King's Fated Mate novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: Perpetua

Perpetua Wrenfield found her in the library at noon.

Linnea had spent the morning refusing a bath, a nap and every offer of tea.

She sat at a long oak table with her hands flat on the wood, willing them to stop shaking.

"You will be wearing a hole in that table," said a dry voice.

An old woman stood in the doorway with ink on her fingers and a grey shawl over a bent back.

She was small and sharp-eyed, with white hair in a bun, and she carried a ring of keys.

"I am the rune-keeper of the Hold," she said. "The duke asked me to look at your wrist."

"I'm all right."

"You are not. You are a girl who stopped a poison with a rune you do not know, and you have not slept."

Linnea pushed her sleeve back.

The silver mark gleamed under the lamp.

Perpetua's breath caught.

She came forward, took the wrist in both hands and turned it to the window.

"Hold still."

Her thumb traced the curve of the rune.

"This is not just the bond mark," she said. "It is wound through with older script. See the second line?"

"I only see a pattern."

"It is a ward. A ward of cold, to turn a thing to ice." Perpetua looked up sharply. "Where did you learn the shape?"

"I didn't."

"Do you carve?"

"Small things." Linnea hesitated. "Charms. My mother carved them. I used to copy her marks in bone when I was little. I never knew they meant anything."

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