Page 41 of Fractured (Royal Sins #3)

But Vair was moving left and right, head down, tail swooshing nervously when he said, “They are not people. They are made, not born.” Another growl—which was a big deal because Vair didn’t really growl.

He was always very composed. “They were crafted in the old wars by sorcerers and fae working side by side, mixing magics that should not ever come together. Necromancy at its lowest level. Use of dead and rotten flesh to create anew—such madness. Such horror! ”

I didn’t know whether to be terrified because he was terrified or because of what he said.

“No heart, no mind, no memory—they only know commands. They only know to kill.” Vair stopped. Looked up at me. “The fae royals across all four courts have prohibited the use of these spells. They are illegal. I don’t understand why the Unseelie Court would make them, put them in plain sight. Why ?”

“Maybe to protect them or something? I don’t know—all Rune told me was that they were going through new kings and queens every few years, that their population was declining, and that they were more divided than ever.”

“They don’t protect—they control. The morvekai kill for their master,” Vair said, and his head turned toward the trees, in the direction of the Unseelie Court. I had never seen him more upset than this.

“If they’re guarding the border…it’s because no one’s meant to come out .”

Shivers broke down my back, ice-cold. And the inside of my skin cooled down instantly, too—magic.

Ice magic or frostfire—though I knew the difference when they were intense, I couldn’t tell when I only felt it there, felt the energy’s presence.

I was sure they were made of the same thing, the same source—they only developed in different forms when they gained intensity—but what the hell did I even know when necromancy apparently existed in this place?

“Have there been wars? Because that wall…you saw the wall.” Broken in the middle. Crumbled to the ground.

“Internal, as far as I’ve heard,” Vair said, shaking his head again. “Something’s going on here, Nilah. Something…isn’t right.”

“Yeah, no kidding, Sherlock.” And he knew exactly what that meant because I’d explained it to him when we were stuck in the Ice Palace still.

God, it felt like such a long time ago…

“Let’s keep going. We will have to walk for a little longer, but we can still get to the Midnight Court before sunrise. Be as fast as you can be.” Again, he looked at me, this time his blue eyes dark, almost completely black. “The fae courts are no longer safe.”

He spoke as if they’d ever been for me—they hadn’t. But the dread that had spread all over me intensified as I followed.

What other terrifying thing would I have to come across before this madness was over?

Chapter

Finally, a break.

We walked for a few hours, if I had to guess, and there was nothing to even mark the border of Mysthaven with Blackwater. I wouldn’t have been able to even tell the difference if it wasn’t for the shift in the air. The shift of magic .

I wasn’t sure whether I had felt this change so clearly the last time I crossed over to Blackwater, but now I did. I seemed to have become… sensitive. So much more so to magic ever since Vair had kidnapped me.

What a string of stranger event after stranger event my life was—but I digress.

Nobody had stopped us in Blackwater, and we’d only had to walk an hour or so to get to the border with the Midnight Court.

Vair knew the way. He never spoke and his step never faltered.

He didn’t get tired, never even asked for a break—only I did that every now and again when my muscles screamed in protest—and he never once led me astray.

It made me so much more curious to know what the hell he really was.

Then there was the Midnight Court.

The border of the kingdom didn’t rise like a wall—it sank, carved deep into the land for possibly fifty feet. No water down there—it wasn’t a river from what I could see. Just…a hole. Like an open fucking grave.

The stone archway that went over it was overgrown with black ivy that moved as if it were breathing.

Pillars lined the path made of dark stone, and the gates on the other side were possibly the same size as those of the Seelie Court.

There were no guards here, morvekai or just fae—but there were two big groups waiting just off the edge of the open grave, both standing around two large carriages.

Vair said, “We’ll walk in with them. Nobody will search us.”

My heart pounded, but I didn’t slow down. We were close now—so close to the second group of possibly over fifteen people standing around the carriage. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because they don’t search in the Midnight Court. Keep your hood drawn and do not speak, Nilah. Only listen to me.”

Now I was downright terrified. “They’re gonna notice you, Vair! They will certainly?—”

He stopped. Looked up at me, eyes wide and alarmed. “ Hush!”

My mouth clamped shut. My heart was going to break right out of my ribcage any second now—yet Vair continued ahead toward the group in silence, his step steady.

He was telling me to shut up when he was a talking fucking lynx with fur that glowed in the dark and everybody could see him.

He was bound to catch a guard’s attention.

Fucking hell, he was bound to raise brows and make people ask questions!

Except…he didn’t.

The people ahead turned to look at me, only a few. I kept my hood drawn and my hands fisted, and I knew they couldn’t see my face properly, so I looked back.

They weren’t all fae, it seemed. Some were—with dark hair and pointy ears and those deep dark eyes, but there were others there, too.

People who looked…well, as ordinary as one could look in a realm like Verenthia.

No pointy ears and no fangs and no large noses or clawed fingers—but there were two succubi there with them.

Wrapped up in clothing, hiding even their hair as they looked about—which almost shocked me.

I’d seen succubi before, and they were not shy or trying to hide in the least. Instead, they’d flaunted their incredible looks and had openly tried to seduce you every second—but that was at the Enclave, and before, in the Neutral Lands.

Here, in the Midnight Court, things were different, it seemed. I could still feel their energy and it made me uncomfortable as hell, but they weren’t trying to use it. They weren’t even glancing my way.

More importantly, nobody was looking down at Vair.

“They cannot see me when I don’t want to be seen nor can they hear your voice when I use it.”

I looked down, tongue between my teeth to keep from replying.

“Stop here, and the closer they get to the gates, the closer we get to them,” he told me, and I was fucking dying with a thousand questions about to burst right out of me. Vair must have known this, and luckily, he continued.

“The Midnight fae have magic in place. Their shadows will search us for bad intentions, for weapons and spells and curses that could cause harm. The soldiers will not,” he said, and I breathed a little easier.

They would not search us. Nobody would even know I was here.

“Just keep walking and keep your eyes on the ground. You will be just fine…”

Funny because I only ever believed Rune when he told me that, and this time I believed the lynx, too. My fucking kidnapper .

Stranger things had happened, though.

And just like he promised, when the time came to walk ahead onto the archway, nobody stopped us.

It was dark and the carriages were stopped for another couple of minutes each, like they were giving the shadows time to search them , like Vair said.

No guard touched them or even came near the group, and no alarm sounded in the night.

As we went through the gates, they asked us to move forward two at a time. There was a single guard with a leather binder in his hand, and he asked every person going through a single question: “Reason for visit?”

I heard only two of the people ahead of me in line say pleasure . The rest said business .

Such an ordinary response that it surprised me.

When it was my turn, I was not as afraid as I thought I would be. I walked alongside a man I was pretty sure was a Midnight fae wearing a hood as big as mine, and I answered business with Vair’s advice. The guard didn’t even look at me twice.

That’s how we all went through in less than thirty minutes.

Just like that, I was inside the Midnight Court.

The guards wore armor here, too—made of black metal, with a silver crest of what I thought was a half-moon marking their chest plates. They were all Midnight fae, all with dark hair and dark eyes, but none of them really looked like Rune.

Vair padded beside me, silent as ever. The gates closed behind us with a groan, and then the soldiers stepped back, moved with their large swords attached to their hips, and took their positions along the inside of the wall that extended from either side of the gates.

It still shocked me how nobody even looked at Vair. I couldn’t fathom how he could just be invisible to all these people, but nobody glanced his way, so I had no doubts. I was definitely thankful, but it was still weird as fuck.

The carriages and the people we’d come through with had gone their own separate ways.

There were three wide roads ahead of us, separated by trees and buildings, lined with carriages, and Vair took me to the one on the far left.

It was nighttime still, so I had no idea which part of this kingdom was stuck in never-ending darkness, but the outskirts of this court were no different than in the Seelie Court.

Trees and buildings of all sizes made of wood and dark stones, blueish white fae lights hovering in the air, which I thought was pretty warm.

My forehead was lined with beads of sweat, but it was summertime, so I didn’t even mention it.

Until Vair suddenly said, “It’s never hot in the Midnight Court.”

Considering there was nobody around us right now—the narrow streets we were walking were deserted—I spoke, too, under my breath.

“What does that mean?”

Vair looked at me again, not as afraid as before. “I don’t know.”

Ah, my favoritest answer.

“Well, do you happen to know how we’re going to find the Seer of Shadows then?”

“Of course,” the lynx said, just as we reached the end of the narrow street and turned the corner behind a large four-story building. Vair nodded ahead. “She will be in the Midnight Palace.”

“Holy shit.”

The Midnight Palace rose like a fortress carved from dark stone and weathered metal, its towers uneven and sharp-edged. Whoever built them clearly hadn’t considered aesthetics—they looked monstrous. Or maybe that had been the point?

The walls were ridged and darkly reflective, almost glass-like, catching glints of starlight in strange patterns, making me feel like the building was blinking at me.

As if I weren’t already spooked enough by the sheer size of it, even from such a big distance.

At its peak, a narrow spire reached high into the sky, and light moved all around it, blinking in and out of existence— lighting bolts washing over the walls.

The whole structure radiated power and authority.

“We’re going there ?” I said in half a voice because, fuck, to think that at least a part of that palace was actually sentient and could lock doors and could trap me inside it forever…

“Move, Nilah. We have no time to waste,” was Vair’s answer.

So, with fear on my shoulders again, I had no choice but to follow.