Page 77 of Boundless

The sorceress was dying.

What the fuck-what the fuck-what the fuck did I do?!

I was on my knees before I knew it, hands on her face, trying to somehow suck in the silvery white magic that was slipping inside her mouth—and my God, it was in her eyes, too. The thin tendrils of magic were touching her fucking eyeballs while I watched, and I couldn’t stop it. The magic didn’t respond to me at all—it wasconsumingher, and she was choking, and I couldn’t take it back.

Hands on my shoulders. A scream got stuck in my throat when I was pulled back with too much strength. Even though my entire body felt numb, my legs still held me somehow, even when Maera let me go.

And I was going to tell her to get away from me, that I had to help this sorcerer before she fucking died for real—but before I screamed the words at the top of my lungs again, I realized that none of the sorcerers around that woman were screaming. None of the sorcerers around her looked afraid or pissed off—on the contrary. They were all smiling, and they’d all raised their hands to the sky, and they were all looking up at the canopy too.

All of them, together. The entire fucking forest full of sorcerers with their heads back and their hands up.

I paused. Looked back at Lyall, and he looked just as confused as me. Just as clueless.

Until the sorceress spoke.

“Where the moon’s eye watches and the bridge stands alone, the lost crown awaits in the court with no throne.”

Every word, every letter wrote itself in my mind, imprinted itself in my brain in big bright letters, and there it would remain for the rest of my life.

Just like the words of the Chronicler in Virlorn.

Just like the words of the Seer of Shadows in the Midnight Palace.

A reading.

Somebody screamed. Somebody laughed.

The sorceress who’d been about to choke on my magic suddenly breathed in like she’d just come out of water, and all the magic that had been covering her body movedinsideher open mouth, disappeared down her throat right in front of our eyes.

Two sorcerers were beside her, holding her arms so she didn’t fall when she lowered her head, blinked, breathed, and looked at me.

I couldn’t move now if I tried.

The next moment, the woman passed out.

She passed out and fell against the sorceress to her side, who then slowly, gently, lowered her all the way to the ground. They all looked at me. They allsmiledat me—they wouldn’t fucking stop.

“Nilah,” Maera whispered, her ice-cold fingers wrapping around my wrist.

“What the fuck,” I said breathlessly because I had no better words in mind, but she was looking behind us.

She was looking at Lyall.

He’d stepped back, eyes on me, his face pale, his eyes nearly empty.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” I said through gritted teeth, though I was terrified. The hole in the ground between us was still there, the silvery white magic now almost completely faded.

“That was a reading,” Lyall said.

My God,it was.

“Don’t try to run, Lyall,” I said and stepped closer. Maera let go of my wrist. “Don’t?—”

“How did you do it?” Lyall cut me off, angry now, his voice shaking. “How would you or any sorcerer know about a lost heir?!”

The lost heir.The Unseelie royal.

Fucking hell, that sorceress was talking about the Unseelie royal.