Page 49 of Fractured (Royal Sins #3)

thirty

Eventually, I was able to stop crying. My cheeks dried and this pressure I’d had over my shoulders released, and I was even able to remember where we were and to look around, to make sure my memory wasn’t lying to me.

A cave underneath a sea at the edge of Verenthia. We were sitting on the lip of the world—and this wasn’t even the most senseless thing to have happened that day.

I was half sitting on Rune’s lap, and he was breathing evenly, eyes closed, head resting behind him on a piece of dark grey stone. Asleep—and he had stubble on his cheeks. I’d never seen Rune with facial hair before. It almost made him look like a different person.

Slowly, I raised my hand to touch him but decided against it. He was asleep. Maybe he needed the rest. I could stay here for a while longer. I could stay sitting next to him forever, if need be.

Vair was there, too.

I was surprised to find him with his glowing silvery white fur lying down on the rocks very near the edge, chin resting on his paws. He was looking at the water pouring down into the nothingness—or maybe his eyes were closed. I couldn’t really see his face.

I thought, a flat world. Verenthia was indeed flat, and I realized I hadn’t actually believed it until now. Not because I thought someone was lying to me, but because I literally didn’t know how to even imagine an entire flat world.

Until now.

The water kept on pouring, in some parts more heavily, in some lighter. The sound of it was soothing, and it helped in keeping the thoughts in my head drowned, but not for long.

The entrance was but a dark hole in the stone surface just a little to my left, and on the other side of it sat Raja with a book in her hand, her sword unsheathed and by her side, her breathing even. Calm.

And I was calm, too, for now. Vair and Rune—we were all calm.

Unfortunately, it felt like the calm before the storm.

“Are you up?”

Rune’s voice made my heart skip a beat. I moved my head up a little to see his eyes half open—he was awake.

“Yes. I thought you were sleeping.”

His hand closed over my cheek and he brought his lips to mine for a kiss.

Just like that, I was a little less broken.

“Finally, you’re both awake—good.”

Raja’s voice made us move back and look at her. She’d stood up, her book gone, only her sword in her hand. Vair was no longer looking out there, either, but lazily making it to his feet, stretching his neck.

“Because we need to talk,” Raja said.

I almost laughed—that was an understatement. We really needed to figure out a shitload of things here today. Or tonight?

I had no idea how much time had passed but beyond that water falling was only darkness.

Vair came and sat near my legs, bright blue eyes focused on the small bird made out of light that had been resting on the edge of a rock over us. Now, he was slowly beating his wings and coming closer, and I thought he was looking at Vair, too.

It was Rune who moved him, I knew that, but when the little bird stopped right in front of Vair, who looked up at him curiously, his nose almost touching the bird’s beak, I could have sworn that the bird had a consciousness, too, even if it was just Rune’s magic.

And to see them like that, sharing a moment together face to face, it filled me with warmth.

Vair really did sometimes feel to me like the little bird. Like a friend.

The bird flew away again, up over our heads, and Vair watched him for a moment longer. Then he looked at Rune, analyzed him in silence, and finally turned to me.

“He hasn’t changed much,” Vair told me—but he didn’t sound pissed off, only curious.

“I’m actually glad you saw that, too.” Because, eventually, I’d have been tempted to distrust my own memory. It had happened before.

“I did see. Through your eyes,” Vair said, and I turned to find Rune staring at me with lips slightly parted.

“She can hear him speaking. We can’t. Can we begin?” Raja said before I could make a single sound, and she sat down on a smoother part of the stone floor in front of us, cross-legged.

She was still pale, and she no longer wore her cloak, just her dress, but she looked the same as always. Not a hair out of place from her bun, and her eyes were wide open and awake.

“Can we not have a moment?” Rune asked, his voice low, dry, and I got that he was in shock. I was, too, but…

“Yes—after we are done here,” Raja said, and I definitely agreed. As much as I wanted to just disappear with him from everything and everyone, we couldn’t, not now. Too many things going on.

And Rune said, “That bad?”

“Worse,” Vair said, but of course, he didn’t hear it.

So, I repeated, “Worse.”

And I began to tell him everything that had happened since I’d exploded into frostfire in the forest in the Mercove.

Raja knew most of the story, and I didn’t dwell on the details too much, not those about the Ice Palace, at least. I just told Rune what I’d discovered and how, and how Vair had taken me to the Chronicler, and how Raja had made it possible for us to find the Seer of Shadows.

They all stayed quiet and listened to every word I spoke, especially at the end when I needed moments at a time to gather myself. When I had to relive what I’d seen in the mirror—in that room.

Rune as a six-year-old boy with a knife in his hand, blood covering his knuckles. That look in his eyes while people screamed.

God, it tore me apart all over again.

To see his face while I told him this, while I spoke about the blood—it fucking broke me to pieces because Rune was horrified. The more I spoke, the paler he became and the hollower his eyes looked.

I thought he’d want to take a minute. I thought he’d get up, go away to be alone or something, and I’d have understood.

But instead, he only squeezed my hand between his, took in a deep breath, and said, “So it’s true.”

“It is,” Raja said because I was fighting back tears again.

“And the truth of why the Ice Queen split her soul in two can only be found through me, ” Rune said, his voice hushed, a little strained.

Suddenly, I wished he’d make a big fuss about it. I wished he’d scream and slam his fists against the stone walls of the cave instead of watching him trying to get himself together, to keep himself under control.

“That could be interpreted in a lot of different ways,” said Raja, but even she didn’t believe it.

“It’s very straightforward, actually.” Rune raised his hand and put it over the side of his neck—where the remainder of his tattoos still peeked through the collar of his black shirt.

“I knew why I killed the Ice Queen. I just…can’t remember it.

” Because of the traitor’s mark that his father had branded him with.

“To try to unlock it would mean the death of his mind,” Vair said.

“You don’t know that. Raja already removed the seal on his power,” I said.

“But that is not the same. Magic can regenerate—the brain cannot. His father’s magic has marked him physically as well, and to try to forcefully remove it would most likely result in the loss of his mind as he knows it.”

Well, fuck. I closed my eyes, breathed deeply.

“Is he…is he speaking?” Rune asked, and I remembered once more that he couldn’t hear Vair.

“Yes, actually.” And I repeated everything Vair said before he continued .

“However, the magic of these curses only lasts as long as its master.”

My stomach twisted. “Meaning?”

Vair widened his bright blue eyes at me. “I think you know.”

Death.

If the Midnight King died, his curse over Rune would be no more.

“What did he say now? Such a nuisance…” Raja said, and I whipped my head to the side, heart beating a mile a minute.

“Nothing, I…” Rune looked at me, eyes wide and dark. Completely irrelevant but that stubble looked really good on him.

“Nothing,” I repeated. “He just says you wouldn’t survive it.” And for now, that was all I was going to say. Because if I told him the truth, who was to say that Rune wouldn’t try to barge into the Midnight Palace and demand his father remove that mark—or worse, try to fight him?

He was a king, and he had soldiers. An entire fucking court to come to his aid. Rune would never make it.

“Tread carefully, Nilah,” Vair whispered, making goose bumps rise all over my skin.

“And you? Where did you hear that she was being held by the pig?” Raja asked Rune, and I was curious to know that part, too.

“Lyall,” he said, and I did a double take.

“Are you serious?!”

“He found me in Mysthaven while I was searching for you and told me that the Midnight King had captured you, that he was holding you here.” He didn’t seem pissed off in the least, but I was .

“ Motherfucker! ” I shouted, much too loudly, and my voice echoed in the cave.

“How would he have heard?” said Raja, and my blood was fucking boiling.

That conniving little prick—how dare he go lie to Rune like that?!

“He said the queen received word from someone in the king’s court,” Rune said, his eyes coming back to my face every now and again, like he was still expecting me to disappear into thin air.

The pieces of my heart continued to break.

And the reminder of his face when he was just a boy… fuck, how is this possible?

I’d been so, so sure…

“Lies. The queen doesn’t receive shit from this court. There are no someones left to aid the king.” Raja squeezed her eyes shut and lowered her head, the sword right there in front of her knees. “This whole place is coming apart. It’s much worse than I thought.”

I shook my head. “What do you mean?”

“The air. The magic. The fae,” Raja said.

“I felt it, too,” said Rune, and my stomach turned.

“Felt what ?” And why was this so fucking alarming to me all of the sudden?