Page 87 of Boundless

Rune didn’t eat. He sat back, his plate empty, his glass full of dark red liquid—wine, if I had to guess. He drank small sips, his eyes only ever leaving my face once every few minutes, and fuck, he looked miserable. Like he, too, was thinking about how we might not even have a full day before we had to be apart again.

Or maybe he was just thinking about all that I told him before they brought in the food? Because I was thinking about whathetold me, too. The crown and the Midnight Palace that refused to let him leave, until Jasewine took over in his name.

It had shocked me that he’d left the entire kingdom, the crown in her hands, and that’s when I understood the tension at the front doors. Rune hadn’t said it, not in front of Jasewine here, but I was sure that he’d been terrified there for a minute that his sister wouldnotreturn the crown. I wasn’t sure if that was possible, if she could even do that, but Rune had been afraid. He’d suspected it.

Andshehad known it perfectly well, which was why she’d messed with him the way she had. Even now, I caught her stifling smiles when she stole glances at him, like she was proud of herself for having scared him.

I had no idea whether she was trustworthy or not, but I was thankful for her, anyway. If she hadn’t agreed to help Rune, I didn’t want to think about what would have happened in that forest with Lyall.

He would have attacked me. He wouldn’t have stopped. His soldiers and the sorcerers would have fought—and that wasn’t it, damn it. Lyall couldn’t die, and I didn’t want even more blood on my hands.

“I’m ready to hear the reading of the new seer, if you would be so kind, Nilah.”

This from Raja.

I looked up at her as she wiped the corners of her lips with a silver handkerchief, and she hadn’t changed at all. Her dress remained black, and her hair smoothed behind her head, the look in her eyes just as cold and calculating as ever. Hard to imagine that I’d seen her wounded, desperate, had healed her myself at one point.

With Vair.

Stabs at my heart.

“Where the moon’s eye watches and the bridge stands alone, the lost crown awaits in the court with no throne,” said Maera.She must have noticed me opening my mouth and closing it again. The words wouldn’t come.

Silence in the eating hall again. People stared at their plates, lost in thought, and Rune reached out his hand for mine because I wasn’t eating anymore. I’d eaten enough. The rest of me was full of pain, raw and bloody.

His touch helped. Just looking at him and knowing he was in this with me helped.

A king. He was an actual king, and even though I was obviously surprised, it just…fit.It fit perfectly. Hewasvery kingly. Just the vibe and the attitude, the look in his eyes.

Yes, it made sense. Maybe that’s why I was smiling—which seemed to catch him by surprise.

Fuck, I’d even missed the way he looked at my smile.

“It’s fairly obvious, then,” Jasewine said after a while. “If what you say is true, and there is a legitimate heir to the Unseelie throne, he’s there, in the Unseelie Court.”

“How so?” asked Maera.

“Because the reading saidcourt with no throne,didn’t it?”

“But the Frozen Court does not have a throne, either,” said Raja.

It does. I’ve seen it,I thought.

For some reason the words were stuck inside me, and I felt Maera’s eyes on the side of my face. She knew, and luckily, she spoke.

“There is a throne in the Frozen Court,” she said. “From what we know in The Vale, the people who currently rule the Unseelie kingdom do so from outside the throne room. It does not open to them, and they’ve moved on without it.”

Raja and Jasewine flinched, and they looked almost identical as they did it. Easy to see they were family—Raja was the cousin of Jasewine’s mother, once her advisor when she lived here in the palace.

“That is true,” Rune said. “Part of the palace is inaccessible to them, including the throne room, since the death of the royal family.”

“The slaughter,” Jasewine said, licking her spoon. “They say the royal family wasslaughtered. They said they found body pieces all over the palace for days after.”

There it was, that word again, conjuring images in my head.

“The moon’s eye—that’s a settlement in the Unseelie Court,” Raja said. “It’s a moonstone fountain, a gift for the last king from the Ice Queen.” Her eyes locked on mine for a second, and my heart didn’t beat. “It sits in this gorge at the edges of the palace grounds, and only a stone bridge leads to it. They used to hold plays and parties there before. The water in the fountain reflects the moonlight when it is high enough in a perfect circle. That’s where it got its name.”

Shivers rushed down my spine. “And you think that’s the place the sorceress referred to?” I asked.