Fantasy of Frost (The Tainted Accords Book 1) Read Free Page A

compliments at one of mother’s tragic plays the other day. If he could marry my position without me attached, he would. “Not likely,” I say, but inside I am thinking his worry is well founded. We will both have to marry others of our own race at some stage.
    “Where exactly is this Old Lake? It is either very small or very far away,” he says.
    It takes a moment to understand what he means. I laugh. “The old lake is not really a lake. It used to be, but was-” My eyes widen as I realise where this conversation is going to lead. “Uh…filled in,” I finish. I hurry to think of something to change the subject. Unfortunately, Kedrick is used to saying whatever is on his mind.
    “Why would it be filled in? Surely it would be kept in case of fire. I’ve seen every damn river linked to the Lake Aveni in the last three months,” he says.
    Veni, I curse, searching for an answer to give him which is not an outright lie.
    “The Tatum ordered it.” I keep my answer brief and turn my head away.
    “It doesn’t make sense,” he continues, oblivious to my attempts to deter him. “It took your ancestors so many years to dig the channels between each rotation to contain the fourth fires. Why would you go to the trouble of filling in a natural break?”
    I recheck my veil, a nervous gesture I have had since childhood. I can feel Kedrick’s eyes on me, awaiting my answer. I look up at him, and then away. The subject of my veil had only come up once before, during Kedrick’s third week here. I had run away from him when he asked about it, mortified, and had ignored him for two weeks afterwards. He had not asked since then and he was not asking now. But things between us had changed, barriers had been broken. I could choose to tell him now, if I wished. I could share some of the burden I had been carrying for so long.
    “It was filled in at my birth,” I say with my eyes squeezed shut.
    I crack them open as the silence gets unbearable.
    I look up from his chest to his face. He is stunned, his eyebrows are pulled together above his clear blue eyes. He and the other delegates usually keep their hair short, to help with the heat. But he has not cut it since getting back. A couple of light brown strands fall over his forehead. My eyes run over his handsome features. I get the pleasure of seeing his face daily. Against all odds, he likes me despite never seeing my face. He deserves to know why he will never be able to do so.
    I stop the question on his lips with a raised hand and take a deep breath. “It was filled in so I could not look at myself. The lake in the other royal rotation has also been filled,” I say.
    He still has not spoken.  The silence filling the space between us is so thick I feel like it is creeping into my throat and choking me. “I don’t know why,” I add.
    “”You can’t be saying that you’ve never seen your own face,” he says. My silence is confirmation enough. “Fuck, that’s…why would she do that?” he asks, talking more to himself than me. He takes a step away from me. “Do you choose to wear that veil?” he asks, turning back to me.
    I shake my head and suddenly Kedrick is boiling mad. “Your mother is one sick, twisted bitch.”
    I have no idea what fuck and bitch are, but they don’t sound like nice words.
    “And you’ve honestly never seen your own face? A mirror? The springs?” he asks
    “Never. The springs are too dark and mirrors aren’t allowed in the royal rotations. I’ve felt my face before, but that’s all.”
    He brings his chin to his chest in thought, nodding. “It’s true, I haven’t seen mirrors here. But you could have seen it in other ways. Water in a basin? I don’t know,” he says, jerking a hand in the air.
    I tilt my head back and lean on a Kaur tree behind me. How to get him to understand? I sigh. He’ll have to be told everything.
    “Until I was ten, I was largely confined to the tower above the room I now have. I was let out