Page 55 of Boundless

“Wearing the face of a queen, no less.”

“The same queen who lives inside her…”

“Only her magic, Jor. Not the actual Veyra.”

“Ah, but a faeisher magic. We all know this…”

They spoke one after the other, often before the last had finished the sentence, and I kept my mouth shut despite the urge to tell them again that I wasme,that I was always going to beme,that I didn’t fucking ask to be part of whatever the hell this was. None of this was my choice. I’d been forced into this dance and now I was stuck. I’d been home with my family, and my only concern had been how to get back here because Verenthia had me now.

Not because of a queen, but because of a king.

If Rune was in the Midnight Kingdom still. If nothing had happened. As far as Maera knew, nothing had, but I was never going to allow myself to trust fae again, no matter what.

“Nilah, breathe,” she whispered from my side, as if she heard the chaos in my head.

But before I could tell her that air wasn’t going to help solve my problems right now, I realized that the Council members had all fallen silent. They had all sat down, too, had pulled off their hoods as they watched me. All those eyes, so fucking intense and yellow and alert on me that I was sweating before I realized it.

Say something,I urged myself because the silence, the weight of their judgment weighed heavy on my shoulders.

“I was banished by the old Midnight King, taken from the Midnight Palace back to my home on Earth,” I said, my voice small and shaking, but it was the words that counted, I told myself. “I couldn’t get through the Aetherway because of the mark King Helem put on me when he banished me. I couldn’t use the Aetherway as a source of power to help myself to come back, but I could the ley lines. So, I did.”And I have no regrets,I thought but didn’t say. “My mark is gone now. I am no longer banished. So, punish me as you see fit.”I will not be staying here to see it through.This, too, I didn’t say.

The Council members looked at one another for a moment.

One of the men to my right said, “Punish?”

“The stars have no desire to punish the Ice Queen,” said the woman—that first one who’d spoken, who looked more confused now than in the beginning.

And my stomach turned.

“I’m n?—”

A hand around my wrist, squeezing tightly. I looked down at it, then at Maera’s wide eyes. All that she was thinking was written in the color of them clearly for me to read.

Claim your title. Claim your throne.That’s what she’d told me before we came in here.

I swallowed hard, the wordsI’m not the Ice Queendying on my tongue.

“If anything, we’re glad that you made it back as soon as you did. The curse has consumed so much of the land already. Our days are numbered as it is,” the woman said.

I looked up at her, certain that I’d heard her wrong.

“Excuse me?” I asked before I could help myself. “I…I’m afraid I don’t understand.” And a look at Maera said she didn’t, either.

Silence in the Chamber.

The council members looked at one another.

“Do you really not rememberanything?” they said. Not sure which as my thoughts were rioting in my head just now, and I couldn’t bring myself to focus properly.

“No, I don’t. I told you, I’m Nilah Dune, and I have my memories ofmylife—nothing else. I don’t remember anything I haven’t lived.” That I even had to say this was so fucking absurd to me, yet these people weremoreconfused by it. Like what I was saying made no sense to them at all.

“Do you know whythe soul of the Ice Queen has merged with yours?”

My heart didn’t beat. I didn’t breathe, didn’t blink, didn’t think. In the second that followed those words, I could swear that I did not exist at all.

“I don’t,” I then said, and somehow the words came out of me. “I…I met the Chronicler. I met the Seer of Shadows who foresaw the Ice Queen’s end. The reason why was locked in the man who killed her, by his father.”

“Rune Kalygorn, the new Midnight King.” My heart shook when the woman said his name. I looked up at her—he’s okay. He’s still king.These people would have known if he’d beenoverthrown or if something had happened to him. These people would have known.