Page 135 of Boundless

I wasn’t sure how long we rode the horses for, but the outer walls of the Frozen Court began possibly less than a mile away from the Unseelie, and they were separated only by a few rows of trees. Maera said these lands between courts belonged to all fae and to none, and that if we were to walk ahead we’d eventually reach the shore on the other side of the faelands.

Maybe someday, I’d want to do just that.

Right now, we were walking among twenty Midnight soldiers, big, muscular fae men and women wearing armor, with silver swords and weapons strapped to their persons, helmets covering most of their heads. Five of them were ahead, and the rest had wrapped around us in a half circle. I could have sworn that even when their horses stepped forward, they did so at the exact same time, like they’d been walking together since forever. A truearmy,just like the soldiers of the Seelie Court.

Maera was a little nervous, and she kept casting glances at them on all sides, but she never said anything. She trusted Rune,and I did, too. He’d have never sent these soldiers with us if he had any doubts that we wouldn’t be safe.

But even so, the entire time that it took us to get to the main gates of the Frozen Court, it really did feel like a dream. Not reality—no way—even though I knew it was.

Then there were the gates.

Vair and I had left the court through a side-door somewhere, and I’d never actually seen the front gates. The outer wall of the kingdom wall was made of a crystal that almost looked like plastic, same as those large shards that wrapped around the Ice Palace. It was covered in something black here and there that smelled awful—rotbecause of the lack of magic. The lack of a ruler.

This kingdom, too, was on the verge of falling apart, just like the Unseelie had.

Now, though, it would not, if everything went right. If I somehow managed to…become queen.

What a ridiculous, absurd idea.

Yet the horse took me forward, and the soldiers spread out farther apart, and all their hands were on the handles of their weapons. Then the five who’d been ahead of us dismounted their horses and they went toward the wide pathway that led to the large wooden gates, which were about halfway into the crystal walls.

They opened—again, all of it could have been a figment of my imagination, and I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Rune was gone, hours ago. Maera still refused to say a single word. And I couldn’t even hold onto Vair’s cube because I had to keep the reins in my fists, or I’d fall. Too distracted.

Too…empty.

Soldiers wearing silver armor came forward to meet those wearing black. Heads were bowed. Words were exchanged as we waited farther back. I looked at the night sky hoping to find amoon looking down at me, but the clouds were too thick. So little light made it through the darkness, and if it wasn’t for the small fae lights the Midnight soldiers made to float over their heads here and there, we’d have seen nothing at all.

Then the gates opened all the way. The five soldiers who’d spoken to the others got back on their horses, and those of the Frozen Court stepped to the sides.

I instinctively pulled up the brown hood of the cloak I wore. It was big and it hid my hair and my face all the way, just like I liked—though I couldn’t really tell you why. I wasn’t trying to hide, was I? I wasn’t trying to pretend I was here for something else.

Together with Maera and the rest of the Midnight soldiers, we followed the first five straight through the large gates and into the Frozen Court. The crystal wall was indeed at least three feet wide—and the magic in the air on the other side of it was so familiar it shocked me.

White-haired fae. Small buildings and lights in the air, not silver, but not exactly golden either. I let go of the reins with one hand and reached for the cube in my pocket. I wished nothing more than for Vair to be there right now, to lead the way, invisible to the rest of the world—butIwould see him. I would hear him. I would know that I wasn’t alone.

It wasn’t fair to Maera because she was a friend, but she didn’t understand. Rune wouldn’t have, either. Vair did. Vairwasme. At least a version of me, of that I was sure now. But he was stuck in my pocket and I was stuck upon that horse, and we walked ahead without stop as we followed the soldiers.

Tears slipped from my eyes in silence. We passed houses and buildings and so many fae, which meant it wasn’t that late in the night if all were awake still. Children, too, stepping to the sides, watching us go, some afraid, some curious, some in awe.I doubted any could see my face, but they still looked at the shadows underneath the hood. They still tried.

And they gathered.

I noticed Maera turning back every few feet sometime later, but I thought she was looking at the Midnight soldiers who were following us. Instead, the people, the Ice fae who’d come out of their homes to see us passing, were coming after us. Were walking behind the horses.

“Do they…do they know?” I wondered.

“I don’t know,” Maera said, and I knew her long enough to understand that she was concerned now, too. And the Midnight soldiers were slowly but surely moving closer and closer to us on all sides. They didn’t know what to expect, either.

We didn’t stop.

I wasn’t sure how long we rode through the towns of the Frozen Court, but it sure felt much longer than when I’d come out of it with Vair—and I’d been walking then. Now, sometimes I wondered if the horse was deliberately slowing its pace, ifitknew something I didn’t, if Rune was really going to come find me sometime this year, at least.

Would he?

What exactly did a king do?

I guessed I would be finding that out myself soon, too.

The Ice Palace loomed ahead, surrounded by a wall made of shards that still looked like the teeth of a giant monster that lived underground peeking through as he prepared to swallow the entire building whole.