Page 137 of Boundless

One step, and ten, and a hundred. Stairs, I thought, but I wouldn’t swear on it. Blinking wasn’t working—everything was still so blurry. And whatever filter my ears had put on themselves, it felt like every little sound was coming to me through a long tunnel.

But that all changed when I felt it.

I was no longer walking, though a hand in mine had been guiding me, and it wanted me to continue. I didn’t because it was there.Itwas there.

The magic. The part of the Ice Palace that knew me. The part of the Ice Palace that had trapped me in its walls, had fed me, hadhelpedme figure out what the hell I was and why I was here.

This time, when I blinked, the view cleared.

This time, when I breathed, I felt the air moving down my throat, filling my lungs.

The round door to the throne room was right in front of me, exactly as it had been the last time I was here with Vair, so wide it could have been two sets of doors together. It was made of wood, reinforced with silver-colored metal every few inches, and it had a hoop almost as big as my head for a handle. It was half open, too, just like the first time the Ice Palace had let me into its throne room.

I let go of Maera’s hand and I moved forward, both desperate to see behind it, to answer whatever strange call I seem to befeeling deep inside my bones—and to get it over with. Be done with it. Finish it.

Because it was too much.

My God, this whole thing was entirely too much for my mind. I couldn’t grasp it, and if I tried, I would collapse. So, I had to get this over with sooner rather than later because I didn’t want to have to wake up and do it all again. I would rather leave this part behind me once and for all.

Voices, shouts, calls. Footsteps behind me and to the sides. I had the cube in my hand when I slipped inside the door. I held it to my chest when I took in the darkness that greeted me, a darkness I knew well.

A lump in my throat. “Light,” I whispered with barely any voice.

Light sprang to existence everywhere at once. The two large chandeliers on the ceiling brightened up with fae lights. The lanterns on the walls were suddenly brighter than flashlights, dotting the pale grey, nearly white walls. Windows took up most of the right wall of the room, and there was still no glass in them. What looked like snow but was only magic gathered in the corners, thick and soft looking,buzzingwith energy I hadn’t felt before. Seven pillars wider than my shoulders held up the ceiling that was a dome of frozen glass, which cast spectral colors across the room—pale blues, silvers, hints of violet. Nobody was there, but the room still watched me. I felt how aware it was of every one of my movements. As aware as I wasof it.

The crystal platform still reflected the light like a gigantic gemstone, and the throne chair that had sprung from the very middle the last time was still there—made of crystals that looked like ice, a dark blue velvet cushion, and three sharp edges rising from the back.

Once more, everything came to a halt, though there was movement around me. There were people calling. There wasmagic, silver and warm, being thrown into the air. Yet even when Maera said my name and wrapped her fingers around my arm, I couldn’t look away from that chair.

I was supposed to sit on it, I knew that now. I hadn’t then, when I first saw it coming right out of that dais.

Even so, there was still a voice in my head that wanted me to turn and run or try to jump right out of those windows again, though I knew I wouldn’t be going anywhere.

I didn’t get close to the windows, though. It felt I wasn’t even in charge of my own body when I stopped in front of the crystal dais, and when I stepped on it, pushing myself up with all my strength. It was almost three stairs high, the dais, but I managed.

The chair waited. Whispered. Glimmered under the many lights from the chandeliers and the walls. Spoke to me, sang to me, offered itself to me as the noise in the room grew and grew.

In one movement, without really thinking through what I was doing, I turned.

I sat on the Ice throne with my breath held and my eyes wide open.

The silence that followed was immediate, but it didn’t last. A blink, and the lights began to burn brighter to my eyes. A single footstep, and it was like I was being grabbed by the shoulders, shaken in place, even though I wasn’t moving.

No, I was sitting down. I was sitting on a throne.

The pain began right there under my ribcage, like a vortex suddenly opened inside me, or like it had been there, dormant since the day I was born. Now, it was coming alive just like those animal statues had done to protect Hil.

People around me, soldiers dressed in black and silver, some with velvets, some with armor, some with uniforms—all looking at me, speaking, screaming, whispering. Then Maera’s wolf, fully shifted somehow, jumped on the crystal dais and turned herback to me, bared her teeth at them while the Midnight soldiers tried to hold them back.

All except one.

The sorceress was coming from the side of the room somewhere, like maybe she’d materialized out of thin air. She wasn’t old, not even close to the other two seers I’d met in my time in Verenthia. Still, when she grabbed her dress, held it up, and stepped onto the dais, I thought for sure she would fall, but I couldn’t move at all. The chair itself seemed to be holding me down with invisible hands, and my eyes went back to the crowd of people yelling at me behind the Midnight soldiers trying to push them back.

Swords were drawn.

Magic shot in the air, silver and gold, aimed at me, before a dark shadow swallowed it whole.

“Close your eyes, Nilah Dune. Let go.”