Page 116 of Boundless
Then Rune pulled off his own jacket and put it over my shoulders while Maera walked down the hill to the east, and the Unseelie heir followed after her, demanding she let him rest for the night because he’d gone through—and I quote “traumatic events, even for a dashing royal like myself.”Of course, Maera ignored him, but they kept going and gave us a moment of silence.
I needed to feel Rune like I could only do when we were alone.
Once he put the jacket over my shoulders I fell against his chest, wrapped my arms round his waist and hugged him. He hugged me, too, held me for a little while there. It was a break from being me, from holding a world on my shoulders. A much-needed break, and I was already breathing a little easier.
I raised my head without ever letting go, kissed his jawline, his cheek. His stubble had grown, and it scratched my lips as I kissed him. I loved the feel of it, but I loved it when he turned his head and let me taste the softness of his lips more.
“Slowly, Rune. Kiss me slowly,” I whispered and licked his bottom lip. “Give me time to feel it. I want to feel it to my very bones.” Because we never knew what came next—not the next hour, not the next day. And his kisses were life.
Rune did exactly as I asked, kissed me like he was serving me his very heart and soul, filled me with brand new energyand squashed all the bad thoughts that ran free in my mind. We couldn’t stay long before Maera called for us, but for that moment, I felt reborn. Whole.
Who knew a kiss could have so much power?
“You remind me how to breathe, wilding,” Rune whispered in my ear before we turned to leave.
I didn’t think about the dragons again for a long time.
thirty-five
The wayback took us another two days. Maera remained in her wolf form almost at all times, even when we stopped to rest in a guesthaven at the edge of Blackwater. She hunted her own food, disappeared for hours at a time, but she always howled to let us know she was near and that she was okay.
Worried—about Lyall. She insisted that his scent was everywhere around us, that he had at least watched us for most of our journey. She was anxious to find him, but Lyall did not attack us. He didn’t make himself known at all, but Maera never rested.
No matter what the future brought, I would forever be thankful for her. My safety mattered to her above all, and she never went longer than an hour without howling to let me know where she was. I knew why she did it, and why it was important that I survived, but I still loved her for it. I just hoped I’d be able to pay her back one day.
On the other hand, Hil Haines, the heir to the Unseelie throne, who may or may not be the bastard child of someone from the royal family, was perfectly comfortable riding with us, and he rarely went more than half an hour without talking. He’dapparently traveled all of Verenthia several times, and I was surprised to find he wasover four decades old—he wouldn’t say the exact number of years—because he looked just out of teen-hood. Even younger than Rune. It was probably the attitude. The way he smiled, the way he was so unbothered.
He told us all about how he’d learned to steal, whom he’d stolen from, and even how he’d managed to sneak into the Fire Palace of the Unseelie Court for one last job before he planned to retire, open a brothel in Cloakwood, the fomorian territory, and never have to steal another dime again.
Of course, the whole thing backfired because he claimed he trusted the wrong people who outed him and his crew. Hil took the fall, apparently, because his magic signature had been detected in the palace, consideringhewas the only one of the Unseelie team who actually had a decent amount of magic to use. He’d been the one to break the protections and the shields cast about the Fire Palace when they went in to steal, and that’s why he’d been sent to Ashfall.
I asked him if he’d consideredwhyhe had enough magic to manipulate those shields when his friends didn’t, but he only shrugged and said he always thought he got lucky.
“Luckhad nothing to do with it, though. Just your bloodline,” I told him while we crossed the border into the Unseelie Court. He and Rune always stayed on either side of me, because Hil still claimed he didn’t believe us when we said we weren’t out to get him, that we weren’t just trying to fool him into giving away the location of where he’d hidden the gold.
“Who would have thought?” he said, shaking his head to himself with that mischievous grin. He looked very unlike Lyall or Rune, but also very much the same, too. I couldn’t exactly pinpoint what it was, but maybe the way he held his shoulders, and the way he looked at the world around him, the way hismotions were so smooth and fluid, like he was always in a dance, even when he was jumping off his horse’s back.
“It’s kind of comforting once you realize the many layers that life has. The fae do, at least,” he said because I’d told him my story. There was no reason whynotto tell him, and it was actually kind of fun to surprise him with all the twists and turns my life had taken since I’d set foot in Verenthia. “It’s the only way we can endure immortality. Life beats down each and every creature living under any star, but the peeling of all those layers keeps us going. Keeps us guessing. Keeps us interested in this…waste of time we calllife.”
Hil laughed.
I turned to look at Rune, who gave him one of his enigmatic looks just for a second, like he was still trying to see under Hil’s skin.
Finally, he said, “It’s time.”
Rune was sure that it would work out. And I was sure Hil wasn’t a bad man, but…what was going to stop him from disappearing like Maera said he would do? LikeIfeared he would, just as soon as he got his hands on that gold he’d stolen? He obviously rememberedwherehe hid it, and we couldn’t be around all the time to force him to stay, especially not when he became king.
But the worrying had to take a step back because we were already inside Unseelie territory, and there was no point in trying to think ahead beyond Hil sitting on the throne now.
We had a plan, a very simple one, and this time we didn’t take back roads, and Rune didn’t try to hide who he was at all. He walked ahead on his horse with his head up, and he didn’t rush because he wanted to be seen. His magic had already fallen on me and Hil who rode behind him, to make us look like servants, to alter our features so that nobody would recognize us even later. Maera was already here, I believed, as she was alwaysahead of us, and so we continued to ride through the Unseelie towns while the sun rose higher and higher in the sky.
It was going to be a long way to the Fire Palace, but we’d slept at the guesthaven last night, we’d eaten, and we were as ready as we were ever going to be. Hil wasn’t worried in the least—on the contrary, he looked very comfortable among his people, and he looked around curiously, taking in every little detail, though the people never once looked at him or me. Their focus was on Rune, who had come to meet with the king and queen of the Unseelie Court—thefakeking and queen, but hopefully not for long.
We traveled for hours, and we only stopped to take short breaks. The horses were weary, our stomachs were almost empty, but at last, in the afternoon, we finally arrived at the Fire Palace.
It was built between two hills, a thick bridge made of stone leading up to the large doorways, and it was the most interesting building I’d seen yet. The way the hills, almost identical in size, hugged the outer walls from the sides halfway up, and the way the middle, right where the gates were, dipped deeper into the ground, to the very base of where those hills possibly used to connect when the palace didn’t exist.
Then the walls went right through them and to the other side where we couldn’t see, and the gates at the end of the bridge opened when we were halfway there, just as Maera’s wolf came to walk between my horse and Hil’s. Rune must have seen her and put her under his magic because the guards who had opened the gates for us didn’t look at her twice, and they didn’t look at the two of us, either. All their eyes were on Rune.