Page 43 of Fractured (Royal Sins #3)
“First of all, that’s not how you use the word Sherlock ,” I told him.
“And second…” I looked up at Raja, who was paler than the moon in the sky as she looked at me with parted lips.
“I’m going to give you the short version here, Raja: yes, Vair speaks but apparently only I can hear him.
” I just didn’t mention that he used my voice to do so.
It seemed redundant—and I also didn’t want to freak her out even more.
“He found me in the Mercove and has been helping me try to piece together, erm…” I waved at my face.
Fuck, how the hell was I supposed to explain this part to her?
“ You ,” Raja said. “Maybe the reason why you look like the Ice Queen?”
Damn . “Rune told you.” Which shouldn’t have surprised me.
“He did,” she said with a nod. “And he also sent me here to wait for him—because of you .”
“I—wait, what?” I moved closer. “Rune knows I’m here?”
And Raja came closer, too, those wide eyes dark and full of suspicion and fear when she said, “Yes. He thinks the Midnight King has you.”
I paused. “No, no, that’s wrong. I didn’t…why would he think that?”
“He didn’t say,” Raja said. “But you were not brought here by the Midnight King, were you.” It wasn’t a question. She looked down at Vair, who’d come extra close to my legs as he tried to discreetly sniff her.
“She’s full of Midnight magic. Very powerful. Possibly connected to the royal bloodline,” he told me, but I wasn’t interested in that.
“I’ve never even seen the Midnight King—no, I came here by myself. I had to sneak into the court, and I was trying to sneak in there, too, just now.” I pointed my finger at the palace’s wall.
Raja looked back, then at Vair, then at me.
And he said, “She smells of fish. Not entirely unpleasant. She has sorcery over her, too—protection charm, perhaps. And blood. She’s bleeding from somewhere, slowly, and it isn’t a big wound, but it still hasn’t closed properly.”
A wound .
“Start from the beginning, mortal. I am all ears.” With her hands folded in front of her, Raja raised her chin and managed to look down at me flawlessly, just like always.
I shook my head, thought of the fact that this woman here had given Rune his magic back, had broken half the mark his father had put on him. She’d done that, and I would be forever grateful no matter what she felt about me.
“We’re not safe—” I started, looking around to point out the fact that anybody could spot us out here in the open, when Raja raised her right hand to the side, and darkness slipped out of her fingertips like ink.
It moved, wrapped around the three of us in the blink of an eye, before it faded away into nothing like it had never even existed in the first place—but the magic remained.
I felt it falling like invisible rain on my shoulders.
Whether it was an illusion or not, I had no idea, but it was a lot of magic.
“We are,” Raja said.
I looked at Vair, and he nodded. “We are—for now.”
Taking in a deep breath, I told her the shortest possible version of the story faster than I’d probably ever spoken before.
By the end of it, my jaws literally hurt, and I needed to breathe deeply a few times until my lungs were satisfied.
Raja didn’t need me to try to convince her, or to swear to her that what I was saying was the truth—which, not going to lie, kind of surprised me.
This was Raja, after all. But I told her about Vair and the Ice Palace, and I showed her the mirror and told her about the Chronicler, and the woman was speechless.
For a good moment, Raja was speechless, which felt a lot like an accomplishment, though I knew it wasn’t. It definitely felt like it to have those wide eyes on me, lips parted, body locked in place.
“We don’t have all day,” Vair said, and of course, she couldn’t hear him.
So, I repeated, “We don’t have all day, Raja.
We need to leave now, figure out how to find the Seer of Shadows.
” I went a little closer but refrained from touching her.
“Will you send a message to Rune to tell him to wait for me? Can you tell him that I’m here, that I will meet him outside as soon as I’m done?
Make sure he knows not to come in here, but to wait. ”
Raja shook her head over and over, looked at Vair and at me at least a dozen times before she spoke.
“I can’t send messages from so close to the palace. Its protection spells wouldn’t allow me,” said Raja. “But Rune was still on his way.”
“Outside, then,” I said. “When you leave, you can?—”
She didn’t even let me finish. “Don’t be silly, mortal. Or…” Those eyes. The look in them—fuck, she was terrified, but she didn’t finish that sentence. I was secretly relieved. “You could never find your way to the Seer of Shadows alone.” She raised her chin. “I will be taking you.”
“You know where the seer is?”
“I lived in this palace for decades. Of course, I know where the seer is,” she said through gritted teeth, and looked down at Vair again.
She did seem really… spooked by him. Wary.
Like she expected him to jump her at any second.
I hadn’t told her what Vair really was, though, because he’d told me not to himself.
I’d only described him as the Ice Queen’s pet.
Vair would surely tell me why when we were alone, but for now, it didn’t much matter.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? Didn’t you fake your own death?” I asked, just to make sure she knew what she was saying, but Raja nodded.
“Stay behind me and do not make a sound.” Again, her eyes fell on Vair. “And make sure nobody sees him , either.”
Then the magic in the air released with a hiss that could have very well been only my imagination, and Raja turned around and went back toward the shadows she came from.