Page 63 of Boundless

It had worked. Nilah was no longer banished. She was free.

And the small white figurine in my fist was proof of it.

I opened my fingers, looked down at it, hoped against my better judgment that I’d somehow imagined it. I hadn’t, though. The silvery-white snow lynx was but a cube made of white marble in my hand.

He’d taken the hit of the banishment spell Helem had put on Nilah. I felt it when he did it, when I pulled and when he stepped forward to absorb the shadows, to make sure that they couldn’t reattach themselves to Nilah again.

I felt it when the shadows slipped inside him, when they broke whatever magic had made him.

I felt it when he wasn’t a lynx anymore, only an object smaller than my fist, discarded on the floor. The pet had sacrificed himself for Nilah even though I hadn’t asked him to. I’d been prepared to take the hit. I’d have been wounded, but I’d hoped that I would survive it.

But he hadn’t let me, and now he was gone.

Footsteps outside the throne room door. I thought it was Raja, as she was the only one who came to see me when the sun rose in the sky in the rest of Verenthia. Dawn used to be beautiful in the Seelie Court. A forever changing sky with so much color, so much light.

Here, it was…the same. Always. Every moment of every day.

But it wasn’t Raja who stopped outside the doors of the throne room, though. I kept no soldiers in the hallway outside, and the royal escort was only allowed near the stairway, so there was no announcement. I didn’t quite recognize the energy I could barely feel, as distracted as I had been since midnight.

Then, she said, “It’s Jasewine.”

My half-sister. A woman I had never even known existed, who looked too similar to me for comfort, and who smiled when I pissed off the rest of my half-sisters. Her own siblings.

Open,I thought, and that’s all it took. The throne room was so in tune with my thoughts it alarmed me most times. There was comfort in knowing I was alone in my head, and now that I knew I wasn’t, it felt almost like a violation. Or maybe it would have had I heard the palace whispering back.

I didn’t, though. It was perfectly silent at all times. There to serve, not offer an opinion.

To serve, and to not allow me to walk out no matter how much magic I threw at it.

Then my half-sister walked in, the sound of her high heeled shoes against the marble strangely soothing. I was sitting on the floor still, leaning against the first stair of the dais, barefoot,wearing only a pair of pants. My hair was a mess. I probably looked awful sitting there playing with the cube, trying to gather enough will to stand up. Go to sleep. Dosomethingother than sit here.

Still trying.

Then Jasewine squatted down a couple of feet to my side, folded her hands over her knees, and smiled.

“You look horrible.” She batted her long lashes at me. “How very un-royal of you to receive your sister half naked. Have the sunnies not taught you decency and manners?”

I knew she was joking—or maybe just being sarcastic. But I don’t know why I smiled.

Maybe because the weight over my shoulders had lessened now that I knew Nilah was free to come back…if she chose?

Because I considered it still that she might not want to come back to Verenthia at all. That she might just stay home where she felt she belonged with her family. With her people. Even if my heart insisted she wouldn’t, I did consider it.

And how was I going to follow?

“They tried,” I said to Jasewine, and just when I thought I would stand up and go put my jacket on, I didn’t. I just…remained sitting there, playing with the cube.

Jasmine grinned and sat on the floor with me. “Then tell me this—did you make their lives a living hell at least?”

I met her eyes. A deep blue, so much like my own it took me by surprise all over again. “I tried.”

Laughter erupted out of her and she brought a hand to her mouth to stop it. Not sure why her laughing was suddenly so curious to me.

But when she put her hands on the floor behind her and leaned back comfortably, I was struck by the fact that she was…different. The same as my other half-sisters, but different, too.Even my instincts weren’t on high alert with her. Even my shadows were…calm.

“That’s an ugly throne right there,” she said, looking up at the throne chair made of shadows.

She was right. “It is. I keep meaning to change it.” And maybe now I actually would while I waited.