Page 27 of Fractured (Royal Sins #3)

eighteen

Berries .

At that point I was already pretty sure that nothing was going to surprise me—until I saw a bowl of berries right by the threshold when I went to see why the palace opened the damned door.

It wasn’t a way out, no. It wasn’t a clue—just fucking berries.

“What the hell are those?” I asked because they did not look like any kind of berry we had back home.

They were colored like raspberries but shaped like blueberries with the skin of strawberries.

The strangest thing I’d seen in a while, and there was a handful of them in a silver-colored bowl right there on the floor.

“Help,” Vair unhelpfully said. “Pick it up. Let’s continue.”

So, I did.

With the bowl in one gloved hand and the blindfold in the other, I went and took my seat on the floor—which, by the way, strangely never felt cold to me, almost like someone was keeping it heated .

“You sure these aren’t poisonous?” I said, just to try to piss Vair off, though I knew it wasn’t going to work. The lynx had nerves of steel. He only ever lost it when he tried to remember something and couldn’t.

“Eat,” said Vair, but I was already bringing a berry to my lips. I sniffed it first—it didn’t really smell like anything.

“If this kills me…” I muttered, then bit into it just a little bit.

Of course, I knew that the berry wasn’t going to kill me, but Holy Mother of God, what the actual fuck?!

It tasted like burnt sugar and cold metal, so sharp it cut every single thought in my head in half.

For a moment, I couldn’t even speak. What I thought was panic simmered down soon, though—and I was just…awake. Shocked . Disconnected from the entire room—the entire realm for that split second.

“Holy shit, holy shit, Vair, what is this?!” I breathed when I could, looking at the berry half between my fingers with a new light.

“The Ice Palace seems to agree with me. We need all of your senses out of the way, Nilah. Frostfire does not react to movement—it is deeply instinctual, but you continue to get in the way of yourself,” the lynx said.

“I don’t mean to,” I said because I’d already told him a thousand times that I did not know how I was doing it, or how not to do it. He continuously assumed, even though he knew that I was not from here, damn it. “Vair, what about a magic spell? What about chanting and—and?—”

“No.”

I clamped my mouth shut.

“Frostfire does not react to words, either. Wind the key, put your blindfold on, Nilah, and eat a whole berry.”

I tried to argue again, tried to tell him how tired I was, how the sun had almost set all the way now, and how I couldn’t have another day go by stuck in this place—I just couldn’t.

But in the end, I caved.

The music filled my ears, and the stupid blindfold locked me in darkness, and then I put a whole berry in my mouth just like he said.

I swear, the taste of it was electric. It shocked my system all the way, and I bit slowly, but every time the juices filled my mouth, I was a step farther from the palace. The entire fucking realm. My own self.

The magic rose inside me.

It was different this time. It was like before—like ice , not water.

It layered over every one of my organs, covered them in what I’d always thought was frost, but it wasn’t.

It was just raw energy, and I felt it humming in my very veins.

It hurt as it spread over my chest and down my arms, but only for a second.

It hurt, and then the ice numbed me over, and I was detached, floating away from my own body, so I saw the whole thing from… outside.

The list of strangest things ever kept growing, but so did the cold.

And then I swallowed the berry.

Icy flames ignited in my stomach. If I’d been aware of my own body, I’d have been terrified because this was exactly what it felt like that day in the forest. It felt like the touch of death wrapped around my neck.

Yet I still saw the whole thing as if I really wasn’t in my own skin. Even though there was only darkness in front of my eyes, I still saw the shimmer clinging to my fingers, just like the light had done.

Then the music stopped.

Suddenly I was sucked into the real world. Suddenly, I heard the footsteps and I felt someone stepping behind me. Grabbing the blindfold. Pulling it down around my neck.

Vair with his teeth.

Vair with his wide blue eyes, surprised, almost smiling as he looked at my hand that I’d raised in front of me.

So, I looked at it, too.

Magic covered the tips of my fingers, different from before. This was what I’d seen in that forest. This was frostfire, and I finally understood exactly what Vair had been trying to explain to me.

It wasn’t a part of me at all—this was like a living being of its own. Or at least an energy that was aware, that was cooperating with me, not under my control. It didn’t obey—it listened, and it chose to do my bidding.

Such a strange, strange thing to acknowledge.

I heard and saw nothing but it, and my own need echoing inside me right where the cold had been. My need to know the one thing I’d been running from since the day I was told that magic and humans could not mix.

Who am I?

“Nilah, look.”

I blinked, and the world came into view again. My hand, gloved, and the bedroom of a dead queen, her beautiful desk—and the energy that shimmered under the dying light of the sun as it traveled toward it. Slowly at first, then all at once.

The sound of a click filled the room when the shimmer fell over the desk, like rain, or snow that disappeared when it touched the glass tabletop.

The drawer near the left corner slid open just a tiny bit.

I breathed for what felt like the first time in hours.

“You did it,” said my own voice coming from Vair, together with the one coming from my thoughts in my head. I did it.

Holy fuck, I did it.

Speaking was out of the question. I stood up on shaking legs, the music box silent, the flames dancing on the torches still dimmed, even though the sun had already disappeared beyond the horizon.

It was like they were watching, too, and had forgotten to turn up the light as they waited.

Like the palace itself was surprised that it had indeed worked.

By God, it had actually worked. The small drawer slid open all the way when I pulled it with a shaking hand.

A book was inside, the dark grey cover thick and decorated with a thousand gemstones. Diamonds, some clear, some like they were infused with ink. Dark diamonds from the Midnight Court.

Shivers broke on every inch of my skin when I pulled the book out.

The mirror was right there.