Page 45 of Fractured (Royal Sins #3)

twenty-seven

No torches or fae lights burned in the room that had walls—not made out of concrete or marble, but out of shadows.

Even so, the entire space glowed dimly because of the threads of light that hung from the ceiling like strands of a spider’s web, gently swaying to the sides though there was no wind.

They reminded me so much of that thread of Lyall’s seer, the one she’d called forth when she did the unbinding ceremony, except these went on forever.

The room wasn’t big…or maybe it was vast and the shadows hid it away from us on purpose. In the center sat a round platform of polished grey stone. Everything in the room curved inward, drawing your gaze to that platform—and the woman standing on it.

The Seer of Shadows was barefoot, draped in a gown that shimmered between gray, black, and violet depending on how it caught the light from those threads.

Her face was wrinkled, her hair grey but long, thick, darker than that of the only other seer I had ever seen.

Her eyes were wide open, a blue so deep I could see it clearly from outside the door .

“Welcome, Nilah Dune,” she said, barely moving her thin lips, and it was like she pressed Play on my body again, on the whole world.

I breathed and my legs moved without my even telling them to, and I was walking—into the room, closer to the platform. I was willingly walking into a room with shadow walls that promised you that you might not ever make it out.

At least Raja was behind me, and I caught Vair’s furry head just through the corner of my eye as he walked beside me—because I didn’t dare look away from that woman at all.

She reminded me so much of the Seelie seer. Her crepey skin, her wide eyes, her grey hair. They could have passed for sisters, I thought—and then this seer smiled at me.

Her teeth were half in size of what they should have been, the edges thick and dull like they’d been filed by time and use.

“I’ve been expecting your arrival,” she said, and her voice was soft, light, perfectly clear.

“I…” My hand shook as I reached for the pocket of my cloak. “I—I was told by the Chronicler to come see you.”

“Yes,” she said with a nod, and her eyes then moved to Vair standing beside me and to Raja on the other side. “You brought company.”

“Yes, well…” I licked my lips. So fucking dry. “I’m not from here.” Which I was sure made no difference to her, but I had no clue what else to say. “I-I have the mirror.” I raised my hand and showed her. “And the Chronicler said that?—”

“I know what the Chronicler says.” The seer raised her hand. My mouth clamped shut when she took a step forward, then another.

Even though my instincts were screaming for me to run still, I didn’t move a single inch when she stepped off the platform and came closer.

God, she moved with such grace.

She moved with such ease that it made no sense to me because of how old she looked. At least a hundred, yet she moved like a young woman, and her dress moved about her like there was wind blowing here that only applied to her and those threads over our heads.

When she stopped in front of me, her eyes were on the mirror, and she raised both her hands toward it, but she never touched it. She outlined the shape of it with her fingertips, but she never once touched it.

“ Queen Veyra, I salute you ,” she whispered, and every inch of my flesh rose in goose bumps. The magic inside me came alive—frostfire. Definitely frostfire because it was trying to tear me apart as it traveled from my chest to my arms.

“You knew her,” I said, the words almost an accusation.

“I did.” The seer lowered her hands to her sides again, but her eyes remained on the mirror. Her eyes full of tears that would spill down her cheeks if she only blinked.

“You prophesied her death.” And that was most definitely an accusation, too.

Because if she hadn’t…would the Ice Queen really be dead?

“I have prophesied many things—but that is not why you’re here, Nilah Dune.”

The fact that I wasn’t even surprised that she knew my name was a pretty good indicator that I’d already started to get used to the ways of Verenthia, right?

“I’m here for the truth,” I whispered, looking down at Vair, who was looking at me. He came closer until his fur touched the edge of my cloak, and he sat on his hind legs, eyes locked on mine as if he was trying to give me courage.

“Go on,” he told me—and for whatever reason, it worked.

“I’m here because I want to know, once and for all, why I exist.” The words weighed heavy on my shoulders.

“I was never meant to be… this .” Because look at me —a human being with magic to use and a face that belonged to a queen, wearing her clothes and holding her mirror.

“I was never meant to be this person, and I don’t know why I am her, and I-I-I need to know who killed the Ice Queen. ”

Tears slipped from the corners of my eyes, both from pain and anger, though I hadn’t meant to cry.

This woman here was a stranger, and not only that but she worked for the Midnight King.

The mad fucking king who banished his own son and left him to die.

Imagine what he would do to me if he found me sneaking around here. If she told him I was here.

“I see,” the seer said, folding her hands in front of her, and the look in her eyes was soft just now. Like she was actually feeling sorry for me. “You’ve come a long way, Nilah Dune. Nerith is far from us—and with very good reason.”

Her words made me pause. “Wait, what? What does that mean?” Very good reason?

“That is not for me to say, nor is this the time to say it. I feel your fear, young one. You may release it. It makes my shadows uneasy.” And she raised a hand toward the walls like I was meant to see her uneasy shadows.

And…I did.

Holy shit, I looked and the shadows were moving, just like Rune’s. Thick tendrils slithering up and down, faster like they really were uneasy, and it was stranger than flying pieces of paper any day of the week.

“I feel fear because of you,” I said, and I might kick myself in the face for this later, but she gave me the impression that she would only accept a no-bullshit approach to things. “I fear because you work for the Midnight King, and I?—”

“I do not work for the Midnight King,” said the seer, turning her head to the side as if she were curious to see my reaction at her words. I didn’t give her one. “I serve no one but Verenthia. You are safe here tonight.”

Just like that, she said the words and I believed them.

Did seers lie? Because I was willing to bet a limb that she didn’t. Just the way she spoke and carried herself and looked.

I am safe here— at least for tonight.

I let go of a deep breath, and with it, I tried to release as much of this tension keeping my chest tight as I could. Whether it worked to the seer’s liking or not, I wasn’t sure, but I tried.

And then she said, “I cannot tell you who killed the Ice Queen of the Frozen Court, Nilah.”

It was like she pulled the ground from under my feet, and suddenly I was falling. “What?”

The seer moved again, came closer, wrapped her fingers around my wrist while I watched, then pulled up my hand that held the mirror.

“But with this, I can show you.”

There went my mind again, turning completely blank within a second.

“If I may,” the seer said, opening her hand now, asking me for the mirror.

I put it in her palm without actually thinking—and she gasped when it touched her skin.

She gasped, and because she was right in front of me, I saw her pupils dilate all the way before she closed her eyes.

I even saw goose bumps rise on the flesh of her arm.

I moved back on instinct, looked down at Vair, terrified that I’d made a mistake by giving her that mirror.

Because what if she was full of shit? What if she never meant to help me?

What if the Midnight King was hiding in those shadows, waiting for the right moment to come out? What if, what if, what if …

“Wait,” Vair whispered, as if he could tell that I was about to move farther back, toward the doors—the doors that were gone.

My God, the doors through which we’d come were not only closed, but they were gone, covered in these dancing tendrils of shadows, and I knew for a fact that I’d never be able to find them if I tried.

I’d never be able to get out of here on my own.

Fuck!

I looked at Raja, too, and she was indeed terrified, her face pale, her eyes wide as she looked at the seer—but she didn’t look alarmed in a way that said she wanted to run.

Then the whispering began.

It was in Veren so I had no idea what the hell she was saying, but the seer had begun to whisper with her eyes closed, the mirror’s handle tightly in her fist, her other hand open in front of the broken glass.

Her eyes were half closed, and I was terrified to look at her face because her pupils kept disappearing as she chanted, and fuck if I wasn’t going have nightmares about this for years to come— if I survived whatever the hell this was.

I expected the worst. I expected her to explode or push me back or for those shadows to crawl across the marble floor and wrap around me like fucking ropes.

Yet somehow my magic remained contained.

Somehow, the ice didn’t spread in my veins, and my hands weren’t cold at all.

It was almost like it had been… deactivated.

And the shadows did move.

I watched with my mouth wide open as they tore themselves from the walls, only a handful of tendrils from the sides.

They did crawl like living beings across the floor.

This time, Vair and Raja moved back with me, but the shadows didn’t care about us.

They moved toward the seer, stopped just below where she held the mirror, then spiraled around one another like fucking ribbons and rose up and up until they touched her hand, and covered the mirror completely.