Page 12 of Boundless

“Royals,” Raja whispered. “The thrones need true royals to exist.”

I nodded. “And the Ice Queen had no offspring. No family. All she had to make sure that the realm didn’t fall apart was her soul.”

Eyes closed, Raja moved back and fell into one of the recliners. She breathed slowly, steadily, deeply for a moment.

“By the stars, Rune,” she said in a shaky whisper.

“She asked me to kill her.” The fear was in my chest now as it had been then. Again, my eyes closed and I saw her face—so much like Nilah, but so different—those eyes when she leaned and took my hand in hers and said,

“You have to be brave, Rune. You have to kill me—tonight, and with this very knife.” When she took her hands back, she’d put in mine a knife that was bigger than my head. I hardly felt it against my palm, though. Hardly looked at it.

“Only together do we save our home. We must make sure that every fae throne has its rightful master. We must ensure that the Seelie prince takes his place, and thatyouor your sisters take that of your father.”

I’d been too stunned to speak then.

I was too stunned to speak now, to tell Raja all of it, word per word.

“He has to die for the balance to be restored. All the old kings and queens must die, and a new era must begin. You must kill me tonight, Rune…”

Those had been her words that now seemed to be etched everywhere under my skin.

Naturally, I’d tried to refuse. I told her that I couldn’t, that Iwouldn’t, that they would never let me.

She promised me that they would. She promised me that nobody would see me until I was there.

And nobody had.

Image after image flashed in my head, and suddenly I felt I was being dragged, sat down. Raja was pushing back my shoulders, reminding me to breathe. My body had let go of me.

But the images didn’t stop assaulting me. Of the Ice Queen when she turned to look at me as I entered through a hidden door on the wall in the feast hall. There were a lot of fae there, celebrating, all Midnight, except for her. I had been shaking so badly that I nearly dropped the knife from my hand a dozen times, but nobody turned to look at me except her. Nobody saw me, except her. Her illusion magic kept me perfectly shielded.

And then she stood up, smiled at me, eyes glistening with tears.

“Be brave,”she said and touched my cheek.

Those two words echoed in my head for what felt like an eternity.

The next thing I knew, I’d stabbed her in the chest, and she was bleeding. Smiling. Whispering, “Thank you.”

And then everybody saw me and screamed.

“Rune.”

A slap on my cheek.

I focused on Raja’s face in front of mine, in the present.

“Stay with me,” she said. “We still need to talk.”

And we did.

I forced the thoughts in my head to calm down. I sat up straighter in the recliner and said, “I’m going to Nerith.” As soon as I had food in my system and a bottle of water with me, I was going to the Neutral Lands to cross to Nerith.

Then Raja said, “You are not going anywhere.”

That’s when I first heard the muffled sound coming from the doors that were as black as the walls. I’d almost missed them entirely, on the other side of the oval-shaped room.

Someone was out there, it seemed.