Page 40 of Boundless

A pause.

Arez, who’d had her head down and her shoulders hunched over sat straight again, perfectly alert. “What, you mean like a Horcrux?”

“Oh, my God—yes! You get it!” Finally, someone did.

“Of course, I get it. But wait, why the hell would a fae queen do that to herself? They’re not that generous withanything, let alone their souls. They’re fae.” At least her eyes were dry again, and she looked like the questions were popping in her head as she spoke.

“No idea. That’s why I have to go back. To find out why and how I can reverse it and what this actually makes me because I honestly don’t know. I have no clue what I am.” And wasn’t that just fuckingsad? Most people my age were worried about what they were going to become, what career paths they were going to choose—and then there wasme.

A hand on my knee, four fingers covered in grey skin that I no longer even found strange in the least. “We’ll find a way through, Nilah,” Arez said in the sweetest voice I’d ever heard out of her.

“Will we, though?” Because it was obvious to me that we weren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

“We will,” Arez said with a nod. “We just have to hold onto hope until we get there. It’s the most important thing.”

Hope.That’s how she’d carried on all these years all by herself—because of fucking hope.

It was a liar. It could be deadly, and it could crush you under worse than anything else.

But even knowing that with certainty, and even when I thought I had none left in me, my heart remained full of it every single time I tried to access the ley line and failed.

twelve

Rune Kalygorn

My shadows had never before been morepowerful—and more useless.

Losing control made it worse, so I had to keep my focus on the rage simmering just underneath the surface, too, to keep it from slipping.

It had. In the past seven days, it had slipped more than a few times, and the only thing it had managed to do was set me back hours—and I did not have hours.

Nilahmight not have hours.

If only I could see her. If only I couldfeelher, feel the magic that burned so brightly inside her. If only I could find those shadows that the old Midnight King had marked her with and destroy them.

Instead, I was left in here once more, in this empty throne room, trying. Failing. Raging. Trying again.

The Midnight Palace still refused to let me go, even though I’d accepted the crown. Had worn it. Had accepted my duty asking.

I’d done it all and it still refused to allow me outside—or even away from this wing at all when I even considered trying to find a way out. It knew. It always knew.

To try to bend it to my will those first days had been foolish of me because all that had done was exhaust me and make the palace respond to me with less…enthusiasmin the following days. Not that I’d have minded had I been out there searching for Nilah.

But I was stuck here, whether I liked it or not. I was stuck here, and I still couldn’t find her.

When I let go of the shadows, seconds before I passed out, I sat there, defeated, and looked at what remained of that ritual drawing on the marble floor. He’d drawn it right before our eyes, and I couldn’t stop him. He’d drawn it and had taken her from me with his last breath because he was a fucking coward. Always had been.

Helem Teneris was a coward with two kingdoms under his thumb, and the more my memories unlocked, the more I despised everything he had been. Because he hadn’t just banishedmewhen I killed the Ice Queen, but he’d killed seven of his male children on the very day they were born.

Seven of my brothers, five born from his queen, two others from the help—just like my mother.

It was why Queen Nata, his wife, had chosen the Iyandra shortly after Raja left. It was why his very people, advisors and those who’d had the good of this kingdom at heart had either staged their own deaths or had spoken out against him and had died at his hand.

A coward.A weak man with blood on his hands.

And this was what he’d left me with.

I raised my head and looked at the shadows that settled on the floor in front of the dais. This was the only place where I could still feel like my shadows went farther, searched deeper inthe realm and out for Nilah. I’d tried in the bedroom, too—it had been worse. The remains of the ritual drawing helped even if I wanted to burn the entire floor to ashes.