Page 46 of Boundless

Then the pain began.

Normally I only felt it when I was sitting in front of the Aetherway trying to get it to let me through, or when I was inthat ruined train tunnel, connected to the ley line that flowed underneath. I felt it then like the shadows that drew on my skin were trying to pull me apart piece by piece, and they stopped when I stopped.

Now they didn’t.

It was like my whole body was on fire, and it wasn’t because of me. My magic was raging, but my body was shaking so badly that I couldn’t even dream of accessing it to try to stop whatever it was that had taken hold of me so completely.

But even though I was on the floor, being cut open by this incredible pain, I didn’t pass out. For whatever fucked up reason, I remained there with my vocal cords torched and my eyes wide open, unable to do anything at all but take it.

Eventually it ended, only to begin again a couple of hours later.

At first, I didn’t understand it, but then I thought I might. I thought it would be Vair, whether alone or with Rune, trying to break my mark so that I could cross over. They knew where I was, and that I had been banished—Vair had known before anybody while the Midnight King was still alive.

They knew, and they were trying.

So, I tried, too.

For two days, the pain came and went almost every two hours on the clock. For two days, I tried to help with what little I could do when my body became almost completely paralyzed like that. I managed to stay conscious for the most part, but my own magic was very hard to manipulate when the pain was so intense it felt like it ate away at my arm and shoulder more each time.

Betty was constantly freaked out, and even Arez was starting to get really uncomfortable. My dad didn’t like the fact that I was out of the house most of the day (and night, which he didn’t know), but he didn’t complain because I hadn’t talked tohim about leaving for Verenthia again. How could I when I was trying with my everything and failing?

Fiona wasthriving.People liked her now, and as much as I hated them for treating her the way they did before, I wasn’t complaining. She enjoyed the attention. Shedeservedto get to know people and have her own experiences. She looked happier every day, and she refused to even mention Verenthia, too.

We watched movies every night—Dad said it was a mandatory activity from now on. It could be anything we wanted, but we had to sit there on the couch, eat popcorn and watch a movie together before bed, or before going out, every single night. He slept halfway to the end all the time, but that was okay.

We were healing, I thought. And I was getting good at keeping the pain in any time it came, so they didn’t even notice me closing my eyes and focusing on my breathing.

What strange turns my life took. Movies with my family, and then I was holed up in an abandoned train tunnel with a golem and with Betty most nights, trying to access a river of magic, to persuade it to let me through to Verenthia, and managing pain when it came.

“Is it getting less or are you just used to it by now?”

I looked at Arez, who was eating a pop tart with one hand, and typing on her laptop with the other. Those big green eyes moved from me and to her screen every second.

She was talking about the pain, obviously. It just let me go a few minutes before, and I was still tightening and loosening my fist in hope of feeling my fingers.

“Both,” I lied—it hadn’t gotten any less. I’d just become better at enduring, I figured. And I also didn’t want to freak Betty out.

Except… “Liar,” she said from where she was sitting on the floor near the wall, eating chips and looking at her phone. “She’s lying.”

I rolled my eyes at her just for show. “Not a lie.”

“What kind of a boyfriend puts his girlfriend through all that pain is what I’d like to know,” she said, and just like always, when she said that word, all the hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention.

Boyfriend.It was such a…small word for what Rune meant to me, but I also liked it. Kind of.

“Well, if you could tell mewhosaid boyfriend is, maybe I could answer that question for ya,” Arez shot from behind her laptop.

Betty met my eyes. For a second, we both paused, and I could have sworn that her thoughts were written on a page for me to read. I knew exactly what she was thinking.

“Betty…” I warned, and she grinned. Widely. Flipped me off.

Then calmly said, “The new Midnight King.”

I groaned, and it came from the deepest part of me.

The sound of the laptop closing surprised me—Arezneverclosed that thing no matter what. “I beg your finest pardon?”

I didn’t mind telling her more of the truth. It had been almost a week, and if Arez had wanted to trap me or ambush me or hurt me in any way, she would have by now. Still, it made me uneasy to just think about it, and I wanted to talk about it out loud even less, but Betty had absolutely no problem with it.