Page 141 of Boundless

A single tear slipped from the corner of her eye.

“I can’t…I can’tbean actual queen, brother. Do you understand? I don’t even…I don’t…” Jasewine shook her head, and I found it oddly soothing when she called me that.Brother.A big word after having been called abastardall my life.

“All of this—all of this pretendingand place-holding—this isn’t like being an actual queen!” She moved around me andtoward the throne, suddenly anxious, ignoring the council members who were watching still with their mouths wide open, as they should. Witnesses—that’s what they were. Witnesses, so that when this conversation was over, Raja and Jasewine would have no trouble convincing anyone of the truth.

“Jasewine,” I said, but she was still shaking her head, pacing in a circle.

“I don’t even look like a queen—youlook like a king! That crown was made for you, Rune! You looklike a king!”

Any other day those words would have made me laugh. I looked farther from an actual king than anyone in the history of this realm—but I wasn’t about to try to convince her of that when she thoughtshedidn’t look like a queen.

Because she absolutely did.

“Maybe I do,” I said, taking the jacket off to leave it on the chair. “But I wasn’t born to serve a kingdom, sister—only a woman.” And she was alone right now, waiting for me.

A pause, and Jasewine had stopped pacing around, too. She looked at me with her eyes wide and her lips parted, like she couldn’t quite believe what I said.

“That…that—” she grabbed her hips, nodded a few times, shook her head—“might be the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

“It’s just the truth.” Romance didn’t interest me right now, just the idea of what my future would look like. Nilah was with me in it or it didn’t exist—there was no third option. “And I’ll always be here, Jasewine. For anything—I’m a shadow message away.”

Again, her mouth opened and closed a few times before she was able to whisper, “Are you suggesting that Ineedyou, Your Highness?”

“Probably not, but if you do…” I grinned. “I’ll be here within hours.”

It was a promise I intended to keep no matter what.

“I assume this has been going through your head since the beginning,” said Raja, her voice low,calm—which was worse than if she’d chosen to scream at me.

Still, I held myself. “It has.” Since the first time I talked to Jasewine in private, I knew. I’d just needed to see what the palace would make of it, if it would allow her to take my place—twice—and if the kingdom would fall apart when I left.

“So, there is nothing I can say to change your mind,” Raja concluded with a nod.

“No.”

She closed her eyes.

“Raja, it’s the right call.”

“If you say so, Your Highness.”

This, too, was worse than if she’d spit on me.

“Raja,” I said, but she raised a hand.

“I will come to terms with it. If you really do not accept your true duty of taking care of your people, then you are right. You are not fit to be king.”

Her words weighed on me, but I’d carry them. I had known she wouldn’t be easy to convince right away, but I had faith. This woman was my family. I would never give up on trying even if it took me a thousand years. I’d get through to her soon enough. I believed it.

“But she is,” I said with a nod, and both our eyes fell on Jasewine standing at our side.

“Are you seriously just going togive methis kingdom, Rune?” she asked with half a heart, both terrified and excited at the same time, so much so that her cheeks had turned a bright pink.

“I am,” I said without hesitation.

Her eyes squinted. “People don’t just do that, you know.”

“Well aware.”