Chapter 2

Frostmoor was bitterly cold, rich in soldiers and horses, and desperately short of both grain and medicine.

Under the identity of a mute Hawkridge servant presented to the Frostmoor king, I was thrown into Ronan Blackwood's war tent.

Ronan had only recently crushed an internal rebellion. Blood seemed to follow him everywhere, and even his smile felt like a knife against the throat.

The system gave me a simple assignment.

"Acquire Frostmoor's military-supply ledgers and open a grain-for-horses trade route with Hawkridge."

I immediately identified the important part.

"And how am I supposed to acquire them?"

The system answered with four words.

"Use your own judgment."

Using my own judgment resulted in six months of pretending I could not speak.

When Ronan met with his commanders, I knelt nearby tending the brazier.

When Ronan inspected troops, I stood in the snow holding a lantern.

His officers mocked me as useless tribute from Hawkridge, so I lowered my head and memorized every grain depot, guard rotation, and weakness in the horse camps they mentioned.

The noblewomen attached to Frostmoor's rear court despised me.

They had servants lock me inside an ice cellar and ordered me to copy three books of court conduct before I froze.

When my fingers went numb, the system screamed inside my head.

"Life value falling! Host, if you do not call for help, you will die!"

I wanted to call for help too.

But I couldn't break character.

With the last strength in my hand, I wrote a single word across the frost.

Grain.

When Ronan kicked open the ice-cellar door, that was what he saw.

He carried me out wrapped tightly in his cloak, his expression terrifyingly dark.

"You're freezing to death and you're still thinking about grain?"

I couldn't answer, so I only stared at him with frost-reddened eyes.

When the Skyveil reached this scene, Frostmoor's live comments fell silent for a moment.

Then they flooded the screen.

[Wasn't she trying to win the king's favor back then?]

[I remember that year. After the trade route opened, Frostmoor got the medicine that saved us.]

[But then she ran off with His Majesty's queen-consort sigil. How does that excuse anything?]

It didn't.

I really did run.

Six months later, once the trade corridor was operating, I returned to Hawkridge with Frostmoor's approved grain-and-horse routes, its military shortages, and one queen-consort treaty sigil.

Before leaving, I staged my death on the snowfields.

A carriage plunged through river ice.

Inside were my fur cloak, bloodstained clothing, and a broken hairpin.

There was no body.

Ronan searched the frozen river for seven days.

On the eighth, he personally cut down every tree along the bank that blocked his path.

The Skyveil slowed the scene cruelly.

Snow screamed across the river while the blood-covered king stood there, his voice too hoarse to sound human.

"Mara.

"If you're alive, turn around and look at me once."

Standing in Elias's study, I watched those iron-hard eyes slowly turn red, and something tightened painfully in my chest.

Elias glanced sideways at me.

"So that's where the Frostmoor trade road came from."

I nodded.

His gaze dropped to my sleeve.

"Where is the queen-consort sigil?"

I pressed my sleeve tighter.

"With me."

Elias's eyes went colder still.

"Excellent. Keep watching."

Act Two was Rivermark.

If Frostmoor could kill you with a blade, Rivermark could bury you beneath money.

King Sebastian Redfield had taken the throne young and controlled the richest river transport network and banking houses in the known world.

There were two things he hated more than anything.

First, people who owed him money and refused to repay it.

Second, people who cheated him out of money.

Unfortunately, I had done both.

When I entered Rivermark, my assigned identity was the blind daughter of a ruined merchant family.

The system covered my eyes with white silk and handed me a plotline so melodramatic I wanted to scream.

"Save the Rivermark king while he travels incognito, enter the royal merchant household as his bride, and obtain the River Transit Seal."

I nearly flipped the table.

"Can I do this without marrying him?"

The system was merciless.

"Insufficient plot points. Three Hawkridge cities will run out of grain tonight."

I shut my mouth immediately.

Sebastian first met me at Riverglass Wharf.

I stood among dockworkers with a battered counting board, working out the wages an overseer had skimmed from the older boatmen.

I couldn't see a thing, but my fingers flew over the counters.

He said I was interesting.

I said he looked rich.

Later, he brought me into the palace and had me audit accounts.

I uncovered three embezzlement schemes and recovered a fortune stolen by officials.

He was delighted and gave me a small townhouse.

I was delighted too.

Because the cellar beneath that townhouse happened to connect with Rivermark's River Treasury warehouse.

On the Skyveil, I looked unbearably gentle.

When Sebastian worked through government papers at night, I sat by the lamp making tea for him.

He touched the white ribbon over my eyes.

"Lily, if your sight could be restored, what would you want to see first?"

I held the teacup in both hands and answered softly enough to sound almost sincere.

"You, Your Majesty."