Page 47 of Fractured (Royal Sins #3)

twenty-eight

Something wet pressed against my cheek. Something soft nudged my chin.

“Nilah,” said my own voice.

And my eyes opened only halfway to find Vair’s face hovering over me. He nudged me with his muzzle and licked my cheek, too.

In my mind I screamed.

“ Rune, ” I choked because the memory of him was right there in front of my eyes. It was right there.

“Breathe, Nilah,” said Vair—but how could I breathe?

“It was Rune, Vair.”

“I saw it,” he whispered—but I wasn’t sure he understood.

“He did it.” The words tasted like bile against my tongue. “He really killed the Ice Queen.”

My Rune. That little boy, underfed, dressed in rags, with those wide eyes and those parted lips, with his hand covered in blood.

Rune had killed the Ice Queen.

“I know,” said Vair. “Can you sit up? ”

I’d fallen, which was no surprise. My body was not my own to command. At least it didn’t feel like it. I was too numb, but even so, I found myself sitting up. My eyes blinked and I could see—Raja sitting on her legs just a few feet away, right where she had been when the seer called me to her.

The seer who’d stepped back, who had her hands folded in front of her as she stood in front of that platform, a smile on her face that could mean a million different things if I cared to try to decipher it.

“You have seen,” she said, her voice crystal clear, filling my ears and forcing order in my mind.

For a moment, my thoughts stopped screaming. “Is it…is it true? Is there any way…” My voice shook. My jaws locked tightly as if my own body was trying to stop me from speaking. My cheeks were wet, too, though I hadn’t been aware I was crying at all.

“It is,” the seer said. “What you saw was what has happened, exactly as it has.”

“But, but…” I shook my head, covered my face with my hands. “It’s impossible. Rune would never—he was just a kid. He was…he was a boy! ”

“The boy who slew the Ice Queen,” the seer said, and suddenly I wanted to scream with all my might. I wanted to get up and shake her and demand that she show me the truth, what had really happened to the Ice Queen—because that wasn’t it. Rune would never.

Hadn’t she seen how small and fragile he’d been?

Hadn’t she seen the knife in his hand and all the blood?

My God, it hurt. It cut deeper than any guilt and any magic and any other truth.

“ Why ?” I said—but then I realized my jaws were too stiff to speak just now, and it was Vair who’d asked the question instead.

I put my hands down and I looked at the seer— why ? Why would a six-year-old boy kill a queen? How would he have killed her, just like that?

“She…s-s-she was a queen,” I finally spit out. “Why didn’t she defend herself?”

“I cannot see beyond what the mirror chose to show you, noxavira,” she said, and that fucking name again.

Anger spiked in my veins and the magic that had been standing back until now nearly froze my arms all at once. The charge of energy moved me, and I jumped to my feet.

“My name is Nilah ,” I told the seer, and my hands were ice-cold.

“It is,” she said— smiling still like she found the look on my face amusing.

“I was never supposed to be here like this—I am a vessel. She made me a vessel, she…”

My God, which were the right words to say right now? So much was on my shoulders, an entire fucking world, and I had no clue which side to even turn to here.

“She had reasons,” the seer said, and laughter burst out of me, wild and bitter.

“She had reasons! ”

“She did. I believe they were good reasons,” the seer said.

It was like she slapped me across the face.

“So, what were they?!” I shouted so much my throat hurt.

My voice echoed in the shadows—and now they were not only moving, but they were vibrating.

Layers upon layers of shadows—which I now saw as clearly as if we were standing in the sun—were shaking as they folded on themselves against the walls.

And my hands were lit up from within. And the frostfire gnawed at my bones as it traveled inside me, prepared itself to unleash.

“Nilah, no,” Vair whispered, but I only had eyes for the seer.

So, I saw when she raised her hand at me. I saw her lips moving when she said, “Calm. ”

Suddenly everything that had been burning and freezing inside me at the same time came to a halt. Faded. Disappeared completely.

My shoulders fell and I breathed deeply like I’d been stretched too tightly just now, and I could finally draw in air.

“You are upset. It is understandable, but I do not know the reasons of the Ice Queen. The man who took her life is the only one who can tell you that.”

“He can’t. ”

The words were supposed to have left my lips, but Raja beat me to it. She was slowly making it to her feet, pale still, eyes wide and dark.

“He can’t tell anyone anything,” she said as she came closer. “Breaking a part of the traitor’s mark Helem put on him nearly killed me. I cannot undo the rest.”

“I see,” said the seer and she was now looking at Raja’s chest. “A king’s curses are a nuisance. A piece of it still clings to you. You should get that taken care of.”

What the hell…

“Don’t mind me —Rune’s memory was stolen from him. He—” Raja started, and her voice actually shook, which I never thought I’d ever witness. A part of me was glad to hear her stuttering because it proved what I already knew—that she really did care a great deal about Rune.

But the seer cut her off.

“I do mind you,” she told her, and Raja clamped her mouth shut. “I’ve been expecting your return, Raja. The stars have big plans for you.”

Fuck me sideways.

Raja looked in shock. Mouth wide open, eyes unblinking, and she didn’t move an inch, to even to draw in a breath. It was easy to see that she had not seen this coming any more than I had, and that’s why it took her a good moment to say, “What do you know?” Her voice was dry, small, so unlike Raja.

“What you will know when the time comes,” the seer said. “We have almost come full circle.”

I shook my head. “Full circle? What does that mean?” I leaned closer to her, though I was now terrified of the old woman. I would be of anyone who could make the magic inside me retreat like that with a single word. “Explain to me how a six-year-old boy was able to kill a powerful fae queen.”

But the seer didn’t hesitate. “I will do no such thing. I’ve told you all that I can tell you. The truth awaits you in another place.”

“What about Rune?” I asked. “What have the stars planned for him—what about Rune?!”

The seer raised her chin. “Your time here is done, I’m afraid. Don’t forget the mirror. Raja…”

A shape leaned in front of me to pick something up from the floor—the mirror I hadn’t even noticed was there, that had most likely slipped from my hands when I fell. I only saw a flash of the diamonds that decorated it.

A hand on my forearm. Vair nudged my leg. “Let’s go, Nilah.”

And just like that, I was being dragged back toward the shadows—no, not the shadows, but the doors. The doors that had appeared on the wall again, like they’d never disappeared in the first place.

Raja opened one and stepped outside, and Vair waited for me to follow—but it was just wrong. This whole fucking thing was wrong.

That little boy, Rune when he was only six, with that face and with his hand covered in blood— wrong, wrong, wrong!

“The prophecy,” I choked, refusing to follow Raja even when she continued to pull my arm. I jerked it away and turned to the seer again, whom I’d been sure hadn’t moved an inch, yet she was standing in the middle of the platform again, just like when we first arrived.

“Tell me the prophecy—can you do that? The one that foresaw the queen’s death,” I said. “Please , just…just tell me.”

To my surprise, the ice-cold look in the seer’s eyes changed. Suddenly she looked confused.

“Nilah,” Raja warned—calling me by my actual name for the first time since we met.

“ Please, ” I said to the seer because I needed to know.

Something about this whole thing just sat wrong with me—and, yes, I might have been delusional because I simply did not want to believe that Rune was capable of committing cold-blooded murder in that way, but it was a gut feeling, and I’d ignored those my whole life. Never again.

Even though part of me hoped that the seer would actually tell me what I wanted to hear, I was still shocked when she closed her eyes, raised her hands, and began to whisper:

“The Queen of the Frozen shall fall by Midnight’s son,

With mercy cloaked in deep despair .

Not by hate nor vengeful hand,

But by the fate the stars have planned.”

These words, just like those of the Chronicler, etched themselves into my very bones so that I may never again forget them, even if I tried to.

Hands on my shoulders, and I was pulled back hard, and the door closed right in front of my face before I could make a single sound.

The prophecy was real. I felt it all over me, underneath my skin. It was real and it was powerful, and it was always going to come true.

Rune was always going to kill the Ice Queen, simply because the stars had planned it.

And now I had no fucking clue what to do with myself.