Page 58 of Boundless

“You’ve returned to Verenthia. In times like these, we do not much care about the use of ley lines without permission. We’re glad you did,” she said, and now I couldn’t even breathe properly. “The last Ice Queen split her soul so that Verenthia may survive. She made you heir to her throne without being a royal. The stars have spoken. The throne has accepted you. Youarethe new Ice Queen, Nilah Dune.”

My knees shook. My stomach twisted. All my lights turned off at the same time.

seventeen

Somehow,I was standing still.

I came to, certain that I’d passed out for minutes, maybe hours, but I was still right where I had been standing, in the Chamber of the Council, and Maera was beside me, holding me up by the arm. Holding most of my weight with ease. Her eyes wide, as terrified as I was.

“You’re okay,” she told me, though her voice was weak, just a whisper. “You’re okay, Nilah. Breathe.”

I would have laughed if I could.Breathe,she said.

But I did.

I did exactly that—I breathed while the members of the Council sitting at least five feet over our heads whispered among one another. Maera let me go and I stood on my own. Somehow my legs held me.

There’s your truth, Nilah. There’s your fucking truth,the ugly voices in my head kept repeating, just like before.

And Maera said, “But the Unseelie Court. They slaughtered the king and queen, all of their children.”

Slaughtered—what a horrible word. What a horrible image it conjured in my mind, of people slaughtered for real. Blood and body pieces and screams.

Just like in that throne room in the Midnight Court.

“There is still hope,” said the Council members, one or the other. My eyes were stuck on the ley line, the light that moved in circles near our feet. “The stars have whispered to us of a descendent of the royal bloodline who is worthy of the Unseelie throne. Who will be accepted as its legitimate ruler.”

Pause.

Impossible not to look up at Udah, her pointy chin raised and her yellow eyes never blinking.

“It is up toyouto find them and give them back their throne.”

“I’m sorry—what?!” Because she couldn’t have possibly meantme,but…

“You.” Udah raised her voice. “All of you who’ve inherited thrones—it is up to you to find the Unseelie heir and bring them to the Unseelie throne. Only then will we be safe, and the curse reversed.” She leaned forward, hands against her tabletop that I couldn’t even see from down here. “Now—before we’re doomed for real.”

I shook my head at least a hundred times, and I still wasn’t able to think clearly.

“I-I-I was by the Unseelie border a couple of weeks ago. They…they have these things—morevkaiall around their walls.” These people had to know what those were. They had to know that Icouldn’tjust waltz up to their kingdom and tell them the legitimate hair needed to take the throne for us all to be saved. Who would even believe me?

“The people have forgotten treaties of the old. We’ve felt the magic. It can be undone,” said the man sitting at Udah’s right. “You alone couldn’t do it, but the three of you who remain.”

The three of us.Lyall, Rune—and me.

“No. No, no, you can’t be serious. Lyall cannot be trusted—you don’t know what he’s like.” He’d ordered Rune to stab me right there in front of everyone, and helaughedabout it. “He-he plans to rule all four kingdoms by himself!”

“Then he must not be allowed,” said one or the other. “He must be stopped if he is a threat.”

“He is! And he can’t just bestopped—we’d have to kill him to stop him.” They really didn’t know Lyall if they thought a conversation was going to cut it with him.

“No!” said Udah, so quickly, so loudly, I had to take a step back. Even Maera grabbed my hand again and squeezed, as if she needed the reassurance herself. “No death. There is no other heir to the Seelie throne except for the new king. He must remain alive—do you understand?”

Fuck me sideways.

“And the Unseelie heir? Where are they?Whoare they?” Maera asked, as if she really thought this was normal. As if she really thought this wasdoable.

Silence.