Page 40 of Fractured (Royal Sins #3)

twenty-four

Vair insisted we go through Mysthaven again to get to the Unseelie Court and cross into the Midnight Court from there. I had nothing to say because what the hell did I know about safer alternatives? He promised me that Mysthaven would be safe—again—and I had no reason not to believe him.

I also didn’t have the patience to even try to argue about it because I knew he would win. Vair knew what he was doing, not just because he said so, but because he’d proved it already.

It was daylight still when we left the dead woods that was so wrongfully called the Quiet . It wasn’t quiet . It was a trap—dead land stuck beneath a black cloud that let only a tiny amount of sunlight through.

But the more we walked in the dead woods, and the more leaves grew on the trees around us, the lighter the sky became, until I confirmed that it was indeed daylight.

“It’s like the land is rotten, and the rot has spread,” I said, more to myself than to Vair when we left the last of the trees with no leaves on them—dead, and clearly so when compared to the living trees of Mysthaven among them.

“It is,” he said.

“Really?”

“It was never like this before,” said the lynx, and I could have sworn for a second there that he sounded afraid. “The magic is rotten, and it is spreading.”

Well, damn. “So, why aren’t the sorcerers stopping it?

” Virlorn seemed to be in their territory, wasn’t it?

We’d found it through here, and we’d come out in Mysthaven now, too.

I recognized the trees—but more than that, I recognized the shift in magical energy.

Sorcerer magic, different from fae. So much different from the dead forest.

“I don’t think they can,” Vair said, but he didn’t sound very certain. And before I could ask him again, he continued to walk ahead.

I decided it was a talk for another time.

That night I climbed a tree to sleep in, and Vair got himself comfortable by the trunk.

A strong sense of deja-vu hit me when I sat down and prepared to close my eyes, the cloak wrapped around me tightly, keeping me warm.

I’d been here before, in this very position—only with a werewolf sleeping on the ground, not a lynx.

And when I’d woken up from sleep then, we had already been found by Maera’s pack mates.

Maybe someone would find us here, too, when the sun came up in the sky again.

It still didn’t scare me. I was too tired, too hungry, too thirsty—too fed up to care, to be honest. Those words of the Chronicler spun around in my head together with the memory of Maera. I prayed for her again, that she’d made it back to her pack, that she was where she belonged .

I also wondered if I was ever going to see her again. And with those yellow eyes in my mind, I slept.

In the morning, Vair and I were still alone.

We hadn’t been found. There was nobody around us somehow, no sorcerer and no house and none of those creepy altars hidden between trees. Vair said he’d made sure to avoid them and that the sorcerers would make sure to avoid him, too.

And, yes—I asked him why, but he didn’t answer the first fifty times. The fifty-first, he said, I don’t know.

We came across a narrow stream just as I thought I was going to collapse from thirst. Vair said it was safe to drink, that the water was clean and pure, and I didn’t even hesitate. Animals knew, didn’t they? Maera’s wolf had, too. Much better than I ever would, anyway.

The water didn’t kill me, but I was still hungry as a horse. Vair still didn’t let me stop for longer than ten minutes to rest every now and again until nightfall.

More than a full day without eating, but he wasn’t concerned. I barely managed to climb a tree halfway before I collapsed against a branch and slept.

Day two .

Vair had found me fruit and nuts to eat when I woke up with the sun miraculously on my face—what a nice feeling.

Having spent so long among trees and in the shades, I was thankful for it.

I basked in its warmth until Vair called for me to get down and eat—he had figs that didn’t quite look like figs, walnuts, berries that didn’t look like berries, either, though not the same as the ones in the Ice Palace—and some kind of a brown colored vine that looked like it was made of plastic .

“What the hell are these?” I asked, though my stomach was growling and I’d have eaten even without an answer. My God, I was starving, but Vair answered anyway.

“I’ve been going around to pick these for you since dawn. Blushed figs, and those are moon berries, and that is glowroot—the most nutritious root in these forests. Eat—it’s all safe.”

By the time he finished, though, a whole fig was in my mouth, and holy shit, blushed figs were fucking delicious.

Sweeter and juicier than any other fig I’d ever tried back home, and then the moon berries were the perfect amount of sour and sweet, and the glowroot didn’t really have a taste, but the inside of it was thick, like a gummy.

It got stuck in my teeth the same way, too, and by the time I ate the handful of walnuts, I could see so much better.

Could hear the sound of Vair’s footsteps as he impatiently paced in a circle in front of me.

Could hear my own heartbeat, and my hands were no longer shaking.

“Thank you, Vair,” I said, standing up to find that my legs felt well rested and strong, too. Even though I’d been here before, I somehow always forgot what a big difference food made.

“Can we go now?” the lynx said.

I rolled my eyes. “A you’re welcome would be nice.”

Like he cared. “You’re welcome. Now, move.” And he started ahead.

I wasn’t even mad as I followed. “So, you’re telling me I could have found these fruits and berries and glowroot in the forest before, too?”

“If you knew where to look, yes.”

“Damn.” And I’d almost starved myself to death the last time I was running about Mysthaven. “Show me, then. Show me how to find food in this place.” Because if I was ever stuck in this place again, I didn’t want to have to go anywhere near the house of a sorcerer.

Plus, it beat the silence, his voice— my voice—kept me distracted until we found another stream to drink from.

Now that I was fed and rested, I could move faster, and Vair had no trouble talking, telling me about the trees, about the magic that helped them grow, the leaves and the animals who used to inhabit these woods before the sorcerers.

He knew the way, never once steered us off course, and before the sun had even begun to set beyond the horizon, we had arrived at the edge of Mysthaven.

I was excited at first. I’d been to the Seelie Court and the Frozen Court, and I thought I had a good understanding of fae courts already, so I was less afraid. The devil you know and all that.

Then, we reached the last row of trees that marked Mysthaven, and we saw the border with the Unseelie Court.

Both Vair and I stopped walking.

This was most definitely not what we’d expected.

“Fuck.” Pretty sure I said this.

The mist rolled low and heavy across the valley below, and I could’ve sworn it was green in some places. The sun was still up so we could see it pretty clearly.

What I’d expected to be an actual border was nothing but blackened earth, jagged fence posts twisted with what looked like dead vines, and beyond them, the broken remains of what must’ve once been a gigantic wall—the same kind that was around the Seelie Court.

I’d seen that one with my own eyes, too.

It was supposed to be the court’s first defense from the outside world, that wall, but this one?

It was shattered down the middle like it had lost a war with its own rage.

Through the crumbled stone, we could only see flickers of what lay beyond—dark towers choked in ivy, spires half-collapsed, and there were fae going about in the distance, I thought.

They were too far away to make out clearly, but I’d seen Unseelie fae before—on the way to the Seelie Court with Rune, and in Lorei’s orgy in the Enclave.

Gorgeous faces, auburn hair, fiery eyes.

That’s how I knew that the creatures who seemed to be guarding the border weren’t fae.

I wouldn’t call them soldiers exactly. They stood too still, and they were so different from the soldiers of the Seelie Court.

There were only six of them here—figures wrapped in armor made of some kind of dark metal.

Their skins looked gray and glassy, almost like they were made of plastic, and they looked ahead without blinking at all. Without moving.

Come to think of it, I couldn’t even tell if they were alive or just statues. Remains.

Then one of them turned its head, and those dead eyes looked our way.

My heart all but burst right out of my chest. I stopped breathing altogether.

Vair let out a low, warning growl beside me, something I’d never heard before. He didn’t move, either.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” I whispered, and the dead eyes of that… soldier were still turned toward us. “Because I am not going in there, Vair.” Whatever the hell had happened to this place—I was not about to be face to face with those creatures.

“We go through Blackwater,” Vair said, and I didn’t need to be told twice. I moved backward, eyes on the creatures still—and was it just me or were they bigger, maybe twice the size of a fae man ?

I didn’t take my eyes off them until Vair and I were deeper into the woods again, and the trees blocked them from our view.

“Fucking hell, Vair!” I said, my hands on my knees as I breathed deeply, still not fully convinced that we weren’t being chased.

“Morvekai,” Vair whispered. “They’ve made morvekai.”

“What the hell’s a morvekai ?” Pretty sure I hadn’t heard that name before.

“They are bound to death,” Vair said. “Their name translated from Veren means grave-bound.”

Every inch of my skin rose in goose bumps. “Holy shit, that sounds…bad.” And very fitting for those creatures. “What kind of people are they?”