Page 42 of Fractured (Royal Sins #3)

twenty-five

It was far.

The sun rose in the sky, and it would have touched us had we been at the gates—but by sunrise, Vair and I had made our way around buildings and through forests, over rivers and past hills to get closer to the palace, and here there was only darkness.

Shadows. Fae lights every few feet. It was so strange still to look up and actually see a lit-up sky and a dark one side by side.

I’d learned about it from the books in the queen’s bedroom in the Ice Palace, but I still found it hard to believe, even though I’d seen it before in Blackwater.

According to a book on the origins of Verenthia, what Helid had told me once was right—the continent was born between the stars Reme and Emer, one pulling from the future and the other from the past. Though they were mirrors of the same celestial body, they moved in opposite arcs, according to the book.

Basically, like twin reflections circling an invisible axis, and that’s why light in Verenthia wasn’t shaped by time, but by proximity .

All the lands closest to Reme got sunlight regularly, every day, while those nearest Emer fell under a veil of eternal night, like Blackwater and most of the Midnight Court.

But maybe I should have been thankful for the darkness, because even when the fae began to come out of their homes to go about their business, nobody seemed to pay me any attention.

I kept the cloak and the hood on at all times even though I was dripping with sweat everywhere, and the moment the fae couldn’t see my face, they seemed to lose all interest in me when I passed by.

By the time we finally made it close to the palace, I was breathing like I’d been running for days—but of course, Vair didn’t care. Wouldn’t even hear about taking a break or finding a place to sit and drink water, maybe even eat.

After, he insisted, and as much as my body hated me for it, I agreed. I needed to get this over with, find the Seer of Shadows and get my answers so that I could finally be free. With all the story, all the truth—I’d be free to look for Rune.

We followed the shadow of the palace wall, staying low behind overgrown hedges and broken statues that lined the outer edge.

Up close, the wall was worse than I expected—much taller, made of the same dark stone but here it was layered with iron veins like they really wanted to reinforce this thing in every possible way.

The worst part? No cracks. No doors. No openings at all except the main gate, which was guarded by armored fae. These guards would most definitely search us, Vair said, so we didn’t even try.

That’s why we circled farther, searching the perimeter for anything—an archway, a weak point, even a drain or something. Anything at all would do at this point. I was that desperate .

But the palace was sealed tightly, built like it expected people to try to break in. The only path we found was through the front, past those guards and into whatever waited inside.

Vair finally stopped and looked at me, eyes narrowed. “We cannot get through unseen.”

When even he admitted it out loud…

“A distraction,” he said after a moment. “We will need a distraction.”

Distracting Midnight fae in their own territory? “Or, you know—a miracle.” It would definitely do the trick.

Then Vair stopped cold.

We were almost at the edge of the southern wall when his ears flattened, his body low and tense, eyes locked ahead on something I couldn’t see. I slowed behind him, the back of my neck prickling.

My stomach turned and every muscle in my body locked tightly at the same time.

They saw us. My God, somebody found us.

“Vair…” I whispered, but the sound was lost to my own ears from the sudden fear spiking in my veins. The fear—and the cold of the magic that was spreading underneath my skin violently.

The shadows around the wall had thickened. I could have sworn they were just a bit lighter before. Now they were dark, thick like ink, like they were trying to hide something.

Or some one .

The sound of metal sliding free made my heart stand still. That was most definitely a sword being unsheathed.

Vair growled, and I raised my shaking hand.

My skin was glowing a little, and it was frostfire that was coming down my arms right now.

I could tell because it felt like ice shards in my veins, not exactly painful yet, but so damn uncomfortable.

I wasn’t complaining, though. When the guards came at us, I would use whatever I had.

I would throw them away, do whatever I needed to do to get away because I was not going to be taken against my will again. Not now.

“Stay behind me,” I whispered to Vair, and I didn’t even see the figures as they approached—but there must have been a few.

God, it was so dark, the shadows so thick, just like Rune’s that night in the jail cells with the Seelie Queen.

Too late, too late, already too late, chanted a voice in my head, but the palm of my hand was getting brighter, and I told myself I was ready.

My heart was about to break my rib cage so I didn’t exactly believe it, but what other choice did I have?

Another growl from Vair, and he hadn’t moved from in front of me at all.

“I said, get be?—”

“Just who exactly are you talking to, if I may ask?”

The whole world came to a halt. The darkness in front of us near the palace walls began to lighten up, become a shadow again.

No way in hell, said my own mind because I knew that voice. I knew it, had heard it before, and there was no way in hell that she was here…

A heartbeat later, the shadows seemed to part to let her through, and she started forward with her chin up and a gleaming in her eyes that I knew well.

“Raja.”

It was Raja standing there in the shadows with a silver sword in her hand.

Raja, not Midnight guards .

“Easy now with that thing,” she said, and she was looking at my hand. My still glowing hand.

I put it down, fisted it, hid it behind my back— holy shit, Raja is here!

Her cloak covered her to her ankles. She had the hood down, her eyes as sharp as ever, her lips pressed into a thin line. She hadn’t changed a bit since the last time I saw her—when she basically served me to the Seelie soldiers in her own damn home.

Every instinct in my body came alive again, and my hand turned cooler still behind my back, but…

Rune had told her to give me to the soldiers, hadn’t he? He said he told Raja to deliver me to them because it was safer that way—and it had worked, hadn't it?

It had worked .

“What the hell are you doing here, Raja?” The words barely left my lips, my voice bone-dry.

Slowly, I brought my hand to my side again—and the other began to cool in the center of my palm, too. The magic was right there, and it had my back. No matter what it made me that I had it—it was there for me to use, and I would use it, even against Raja.

“You didn’t answer my question.” She pushed back her cloak all dramatically, and the fabric was so light it basically flew to the side to reveal her dress—lace and leather and black, like always—and the sheath of her sword as she put it back in place. Without looking.

Show-off.

“Who were you telling to get behind you, mortal? There’s nobody here.”

She said this while Vair was standing there between us, looking at her and growling, showing her his teeth .

Well, fuck.

“Vair?” I said because I didn’t know what the hell to even think at this point.

Raja raised a brow.

Vair looked back at me. “Friend or foe?” he asked, and it was a damn difficult question.

“Friend of Rune,” I said because that’s what Raja was to me. She was a friend of Rune—his family, and she did care about him, so…

A gasp.

Raja moved back a step with both hands to her chest—because she’d looked down between us. She’d seen Vair.

How much stranger could this night even get?

“It’s okay, it’s okay—it’s just Vair,” I said, and the magic had retreated, faded away, because now I was afraid of what Raja might do. Scream for guards, attack him, or worse— run.

And I couldn’t let that happen, could I? Because that she was here meant that I could send a message to Rune. They were connected, basically family, and they could communicate through shadows the way Rune could communicate with me once—before Maera scratched me.

But Raja didn’t scream. She didn’t run, either, and when Vair sat down on his back legs and looked up at her calmly, she finally turned her eyes to me.

“Where did you get this?” she asked me, her voice carrying the same urgency as before when I went to her glowing with moon magic.

“ He found me, actually. This is Vair. Vair, meet Raja.” And now I was feeling awkward in my own skin.

Raja shook her head at me. Vair looked up in question, like he expected me to know what the hell to do .

“It reeks of sorcery,” the woman said. “Did you make him?”

I could have laughed. “No, of course not. I told you— he found me. Just don’t scream, okay? I will explain?—”

“Explain what exactly? Are you sure she can be trusted?” Vair cut me off.

I widened my eyes at him—she was right there. Not that I cared if her feelings were hurt, but still. “Like I said, she’s Rune’s friend. I thought she betrayed me once, but Rune said she didn’t, so…”

“And you trust Rune,” the asshole said.

“Yes, you know ? — ”

“Does it speak ?” This from Raja.

“What?”

“Does…does it speak to you?”

Holy fuck. “Took you long enough, Sherlock ,” said Vair. “I told you before—nobody can hear me speaking or moving except you.”

The time I did laugh. It was short and I brought both hands in front of my mouth to stop it, terrified someone had heard—but really, how could I not laugh?

“She can’t hear you?!”

“No, she can’t.” And he brought a paw to his mouth and licked it.