Page 54 of Boundless
I’d be a liar if I said at least a part of me didn’t hope that the doors remained closed, so I could be away from here and on my way to Rune right now.
With my breath held, I watched Maera walk over to the doors and push with all her strength. They gave easily.
Shivers erupted all over my body. These people, whoever they were, had definitely gathered here for me.
A hand in mine. Maera pulled me toward the doors gently. Not sure what I expected to find beyond them, or if I was even expecting anything at that point, but the corridor was narrow, and there were torches lining the walls in here, too. Smaller, and the light they cast was dimmer, so I still couldn’t see the other end.
Once inside, the doors closed themselves behind us with a loud, screeching sound. My eyes closed and my every muscle tightened, but I didn’t even turn to look—what was the point? I was here now, and there was no going back. I was here now—but I should have run, I should have run, I should have run,said the voices in my head. Never mind that I couldn’t have outrun werewolves, couldn’t have snuck away from them. Never mind that I’d have to betray Maera if I did so.I should have run.
Doors at the end of the corridor, one slightly open.
I thought there would be more light coming from the other side. I thought I’d find a room in there, one where we would sitand talk to these nine werewolves that we were supposed to find, but no.
The room was anything but ordinary. It went down five wide stairs, and the ceiling was taller than it had looked from out there, and the round table behind which sat the nine people went all the way up to the middle of the large walls.
Surreal.No way was this not a scene from a movie.
Fucking hell, I couldn’t breathe, yet somehow when Maera continued forward, down those stairs and toward the middle where the light was, I followed.
The Chamber swallowed me whole. The walls were all bare and colorless, no windows on any side that I could see. On the stone floor was a single ring right in the middle, full of iridescent light shining around itself, a fraction of the light of the ley line that had been on Earth underneath that railway.
When we stopped to look around, I had to remind myself to breathe yet again. I was solowdown here, and the round table loomed above me on all sides like a black altar. The figures that sat behind it all wore black, too, hoods up, their hair concealed, but the light did reach their faces. They all had yellow eyes, but that’s where the similarities ended. They were men and women, young and old, and they were all watching me like I was the most curious thing they’d ever seen.
Silence in the Chamber. All I heard was the beating of my own heart. My head tipped back to meet their gaze, hoping they could see that I was not a threat. Hoping they could see that I meant no harm, because something about this entire setting said that they wereexpectingwhoever stood in the middle of them to do their worst. They were expecting me to go all out.
Or maybe it was just my fear talking. And the fact that I was severely outnumbered here.
But… the ley line was right there, and I felt it. Smaller, but just as powerful as the one Earth.I’ll use it,I told myself. If it came to it, I would use this as a power source.
“Queen Veyra.” A voice, soft but so loud, echoed in the tall ceiling, and to eternity in my skull. “The Council of The Vale salutes you. Welcome.”
Welcome,said all the others in one voice, and every inch of my skin felt like it caught fire.
“I…” The words stuck in my throat when I met the eyes of the woman who’d spoken, the one in the very middle of the table.
She stood up. “The stars have shown us your fate this day. Tell me, how much of your old life do you remember?”
I swallowed hard, shook my head, tried—triedhardnot to seem as clueless and as helpless as I suddenly felt in front of them.
“I am Nilah Dune, not the Ice Queen. I carry a part of her soul with me, her magic, and her face.” I raised my chin even higher. “But I amnot her, and I do not remember anything about her life. All I’m trying to do here is…keep mine.”
A moment of silence, then the woman sat. The whispers began.
A hand over mine, and Maera squeezed me lightly. I looked at her and she smiled. She looked…relieved.
“We’ve seen you in the stars,” said one of the men, and they were so high up that it sounded like the voice was coming from everywhere at once. It took me a moment to pinpoint the location of the guy, and he sat two seats down from the first woman.
“We’ve felt your magic,” he continued.
“You’ve become our own, too—explain this to us, Alpha. How can it be?” Another woman, this one on the other side of the room, and she must have been on the shorter side because she’d reached out and had grabbed the edges of the table in front ofher, and she was pulling herself up as far as she could to see me better.
“She saved my life when my pack sold me to the sorcerers. My wolf scratched her before we knew who she was. The moon magic took, but she did not die,” Maera said, her voice unwavering. “She did not shift, either.”
“Of course, she didn’t shift. The stars never created a wolf soul to bind to hers,” said one of the men, and he looked pissed off when he pushed his hood off, though I wasn’t sure if it was because of me. “She shouldn’t have been touched with moon magic at all. Her path was going to be different.” He wasn’t even pissed off at Maera—he just seemed angry in general.
“Yet here she is.” The woman who’d first spoken pushed down her hood, too.
They did not look as old as I expected. There were elderly people here in The Vale, but most of these people were young, in their thirties or forties, if I had to guess. Though I had no clue how werewolves aged, only that they weren’t immortal.