Page 130 of Boundless

There would be ceremonies, he said—to formally crown Hil and to declare the royal bloodline restored. Hil would also need to choose all members of his assembly anew, decide whom to keep, whom to exile, whom to imprison—and that waswithouteven touching on bigger issues, like the harvests that had been failing regularly for years now, the people who were almost starving, the infrastructure of the kingdom that was basically in pieces, and the lawlessness that had spread through its every corner.

Then there was the issue of foreign relations, too. Which Rune thought would be easy enough between Midnight, Unseelie, and Frozen. He didn’t say it out loud before he left, of course, but he counted onmetaking over the Frozen Court, too.

Now that we were so close, now that we’d put Hil on the throne—holy fuck, we’d actually put Hil on the throne!—it had all become so very real for me. Pieces I didn’t think we’d evenfind had fallen into place in this mess of a puzzle, and it would be my turn soon. Very soon.

What the hell did I know about foreign relations and kingdom infrastructure and commanding armies? How could I possibly hope to take all of this on, just like that—andalone?

Too much. It was all too much, and my head was constantly threatening to fucking explode. That’s why midnight found me in front of an open window in the room the help had taken me to, crying in silence.

The room was clean, as big as others I’d been to in the fae palaces before, except the furniture, the walls, the paintings all seemed…dull.They lacked the life that had been so prominent in the Seelie Court, less so in the two others. It was almost like time itself had forgotten this place completely.

But the faucet worked and the water was warm, and I took my time cleaning myself up when Rune left, tried to scrub the weight of that life I tookall by myselfthis time, with soap. It didn’t work, of course, but I thought I was getting used to it. Soon, I might forget it was even a part of me, hopefully.

I was dressed in clean, pressed clothes, too—a pair of brown pants and a pale-yellow shirt underneath the velvet jacket that the help had been so kind to bring to me when I returned the dress they first suggested. They didn’t look at me weird, which was a surprise. They looked old and worn out and concerned, yes, but they were also curious when they came to the doors of the room I stayed in.

Maera had collapsed from exhaustion in the room next to this one before Rune even left to meet with Hil, and I was pretty sure she hadn’t woken up yet or she’d have come knocking. It was best if she slept until morning, and it was best ifIdid, too, but the bed was too big. Too cold. Too dark. It felt like I might lie in a coffin if I lay on one of those pillows alone.

Alone.

As I would be soon. As I would be always.

The marble cube that was once Vair kept me company. I whispered to it now and again as if I hoped to hear my own voice speaking back at me each time, though I knew I wouldn’t. But I still asked it questions as I looked out at what remained of the Unseelie Court, the dim lights and the fires burning atop torches, the people that I could barely see in the night in the distance. I asked it what the hell I was going to do now when my entire heart had been ripped to pieces, too many to count. I asked it if there was any way out—anyway at all to escape this dreaded fate, of having to be like this. Alone.

No Rune.

Without him, I wasn’t me. I wasn’t living. I was merely…surviving whatever came until I could live again in his arms.

Now I’d besurvivingforever, I guessed.

Eventually I sat on the floor with the cube in my hands, my back against the wall, the window right over my head. I looked at the door on the other side of the bed and I imagined opening it and just walking out, and never stopping until I got to the Neutral Lands, so many times. I imagined it in detail.

I never even made an attempt to stand up.

Then the light came.

I knew what it was the moment I felt the energy, slightly cold. Then the blueish glow simplyslippedthrough the wood of the door, and it was already shaped into a bird.Mybird, the little nightingale that Rune had made me since we first met. My friend that kept me company.

It flew all the way to me and sat on my raised knee, never making a single sound, the light of it so bright, so perfectly balanced. I reached out a finger as if to touch it, and I did feel the heat of the magic that made it. I smiled at it, too, because I knew exactly what it meant.

Rune was close. He was coming.

I wanted to get up and go to the doors, open one and wait for him—I really did. But the best I could do was wipe my face in case I still had tears on my cheeks and wait. A few minutes later, the handle moved and the door opened, and Rune came inside with a plate in one hand, and a bottle in the other.

I let go of a long breath as my lips stretched into a small smile.

I was going to be okay, after all. At least for tonight.

“Everything okay?”I asked as Rune came to me, walking like he was on a damn runway.

God, he was perfect. It wasn’t even fair because he was clueless to it, too.

“It will be,” he said and came to sit next to me against the wall, putting down the plate and the bottle of honey-colored liquid in front of us on the floor.

I didn’t need to move at all. He wrapped me up in his arms and pulled me onto his lap with such ease and held me like I was the most precious thing he’d ever touched.

The noises in my head quieted down within the second.

Rune fed me and had me drink straight from the bottle. It was juice, he said, made from a specific kind of honey that only bees in the Unseelie Court made. Hil had gifted him the bottle, he said, though it was possibly much older than the both of us, but he’d found it in an old cellar, and he’d wanted me to try it, too.