Page 45 of Boundless

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I said. “But I will try to use you to find her. Help me in any way you can.”

A growl. Half a bark.

I took it as a yes.

With my eyes closed, I unleashed all the magic that came with being a king onto the circle, and onto the lynx. The shadows swallowed him whole within seconds, and he didn’t move a single inch even when they slipped under his skin.

Once I had a good grip on the magic burning deep inside the lynx, I searched for Nilah through it.

And I finally found her.

To me itfelt like only a few minutes, but when I broke off the magic and it pushed me back, threw me against the marble floor, my entire body was numb like I’d been sitting in the same position for hours.

And the lynx was thrown to the other side, too, the tips of his silvery white fur dark, like he’d been burned.

It wasn’t fire or ashes, though. Only shadows—myshadows still sticking to him.

“It’s her,” I said because I’d felt it, even if only for a second. However long I’d been searching, I felt Nilah’s energy through the lynx—and hefeltlike her, too. The same energy, the same magic. His was faded, but it was the same kind. I could have sworn I heard his voice, too—Nilah.He called her name, and inhervoice. It echoed in my head even now.

“You saw her, too. You saw her,” I said to the lynx as he slowly made his way toward me, toward the ritual circle, the tips of his fur no longer darkened by my shadows.

“She’s there. She’s marked. She’s…” A slice right through my mind like someone cut my brain in half, and I stopped speaking, gritted my teeth. The magic that was on her—all those shadows. The mark, the same one that I’d had on me when I was banished.

My eyes opened to find the lynx sitting in the middle of the circle again, watching me. Waiting.

To try again.

“I can break it,” I whispered, more to myself. “Raja broke mine with those dragon bones. I can break hers without—I’m a king.”

For once since I’d fallen into this trap, I wasgladthat I was king. Because being a fae royal meant having power—more power than anyone else. And more power was exactly what I needed to break that banishment, to reverse it.

Another growl. The lynx stood on all fours in the middle of the circle, those eyes on me like he wanted me to read his mind.

He was ready.

I stood up and stepped into the circle with him, kneeled in front of his paws, pressed both my hands against the marble on his sides. He didn’t move, didn’t complain, didn’t make a single sound.

“Brace yourself,” I whispered, a second before I released all the magic I had from my still shaking hands.

And I didn’t care how long it took or how much energy this required from me—I was going to break that mark Helem put on her or I was going to die trying, the Midnight Court be damned.

fourteen

Nilah Dune

“Nilah.”

My eyes opened. My lungs were empty, my nose and mouth closed.

I was choking.

At first, I thought it was a dream, a nightmare, that the moment my eyes opened I was going to find that I was breathing—but I wasn’t.

For very long seconds that felt like a lifetime to me, I couldn’t draw in air. My entire body was paralyzed, and when I tried to get up, I fell off the bed and onto the floor, holding my neck, breathing in as quickly as possible, and…

Vair.

I’d heard my own voice calling my name, and it had been Vair. I knew how he called me. I knew how he sounded, even when he sounded like me. It was Vair and he had found me.