Page 138 of Boundless

The words came at me from nowhere and everywhere at once. A tap on my forehead, right there in the middle, and it was like my skin was torn from my body.

My eyes closed on their own, and I had no choice but to let go. Whatever happened in the world around me, I was gone so fast, so fully.

And then the pain began.

forty-two

Rune Kalygorn

I was alwaysrestless when she wasn’t with me, and this time was no different. I expected it. I knew I would be sitting on needles all the way back to the Midnight Court, but I was still surprised by the weight of the guilt. By the image of my own self in my head that I created whenever I left her side.

Unworthy of her love. Good for nothing. A coward—because there were ways to stand beside her and take on the world. There were ways—there had to be.

But there weren’t—not to make sure that Ineverleft her side again.

So, here I was, showing up with my chin raised and my shoulders back, two soldiers riding behind me, the gates to the kingdom that was somehowminewide open as the people waited for my return.

A lot of them were on the streets, chanting while I pushed my horse to run faster. The sun had yet to rise for another few hours, but every second I spent here and not with Nilah was a second too long. So, I ran, and I tried to ignore the chantings and thecheers of the people who seemed to be genuinely happy to see me, and even now I imagined they were meant for someone else.

I was no king. I was a bastard. I wasn’t worthy.

Yet they continued to cheer, almost every second of the way until I could see the Midnight Palace rising in the darkness ahead. The horse underneath me was getting tired, but I still pushed him to run faster. He could rest when I was there, when I made it through the open gates of the Midnight Palace, the front of it swarming with soldiers wearing their black armors and their emblems with pride.

Fae lights burned everywhere, and I’d gotten so used so quickly to the dim light of the Unseelie Court that I realized now how bright Midnight magic really was. How weakened the Unseelie one had truly become. Howlittleof it remained in that court.

Then, there was Raja, together with a man and two women who stood behind her, with their velvet suits and their dark eyes on me, waiting for me right there by the palace’s doors. It was no surprise that Raja was pissed—she had been even before I left, but when I jumped off the horse and rushed toward her, she looked more furious than I’d ever seen her before.

“Your Highness,” she still said, bowing her head as the people behind her did the same. They must have been from the king’s council, possibly the only three she trusted enough to keep her back turned on them.

“Say it, Raja. I’m all ears,” I said and headed inside straight away. She was going to follow me and tell me exactly what was on her mind no matter where we were, and I’d rather be moving, anyway.

“How nice of you to finally make it back, My King. I’m ashamed to say I was naive enough to think kingdoms weren’t supposed to be waiting for their rulers to come back whenever it suited them—but what do I really know?” Her voice dripped withsarcasm. She walked beside me up the main stairway, and the others followed close behind.

“You learn something new every day, I guess,” I said, a bit hyper now that I was here, and now that the time had come to do exactly what I had planned to do for such a long time now.

Raja wasn’t going to like it, that much was certain, but I could always try to calm her down before she found it.

“Oh, we’re joking now. How nice,” she said through gritted teeth, and we were on the sixth floor now, but when I made to turn toward the hallway that would lead to the throne room, she stepped in front of me, gave me a stern look. “You wear acrownnow, boy—not something you can simply set down when it’s convenient. Your people look up to you, and when you disappear, they feel it. The whole kingdom feels it.”

I never knew how true that really was until I saw the inside of the Unseelie Court.

I sighed. “I understand that, Raja. But I had business to attend to.” Which she knew.

She knew exactlywhat kindof business, too—the kind that was going to ensure that wedid notperish together with the entire realm.

That’s why the look in her eyes softened a little bit. “I know why you left, but that still doesn’t erase your duty here. Things mightlookcalm right now in the middle of the night, Your Highness, but they haven’t been. People have rebelled. Fires have started.”

“And I’m sure you’ve handled them much better than I ever could.” And she knew it, too.

“That isnotthe point,” she hissed, then threw a look at the council members who’d stopped a few stairs below as if they wanted us to think they couldn’t hear us.

“Then what is?”

“Your job is to stay ahead of the next fire before anyone else has even smells the smoke, Your Highness. The putting out of fires isn’t the issue—making sure they don’t happen at all is.”

She did make a lot of sense. For a king, I would wholeheartedly believe that was his duty.

I closed my eyes and paused for a moment because I didn’t want to piss her off any more than she already was. “I had no choice but to leave,” I said—again, something she knew.