Chained by Hades, the Underworld King novel · Chapter 23 of 24
Chapter 23: The Frost Breaks
The ice melted all the way to the shore.
It went under a spring sun, in sheets and trickles, with sharp bright cracks along the surface.
Water ran off the roofs of the Winterhall.
Icicles dropped from the eaves and burst on the stones.
For the first time in ten winters, a bird sang on the wall.
A hundred Frostland lords stood in the mud, staring at the sky.
The lord in the gray cloak was the first to move.
He walked across the wet shingle, and he went down on one knee in front of Ingrith.
"Queen of the dead," he said hoarsely. "The north has no lord."
"It has you," she said. "It has all of you."
"We are not worthy."
"No," she said. "You aren't. You stood on that shore and watched a girl be walked to the knife."
His head sank lower.
Behind him another lord knelt, then ten, then all of them, in a rolling wave of furs and mud.
"I want three things," Ingrith said.
Her voice was steady.
It surprised her.
"One. The Rite ends. No daughter of any house gives blood to this lake again."
"Yes, Queen."
"Two. The treaty book is brought out."
A boy ran into the hall and returned with a heavy black book bound in iron.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of Chained by Hades, the Underworld King are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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