Page 5 of Fractured (Royal Sins #3)

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Merenith of the Yuves and the people who took Hessa by the arms were not the only ones in this cave.

Yes—it was a cave, a very different cave from that cavern we’d been in the last time we were in the Mercove. There were no pools full of glowing fish and weed here. No pretty crystals and no boxes. Most importantly—no mermaids, only fae.

Seelie and Unseelie, and what I assumed were Ice fae, too, judging by the color of their hair. There were two of them, and they were blonde—an icy blonde, so different from the warmth of the Seelies. Their eyes were as blue as the oceans back home.

As blue as mine.

I tried not to get freaked out by the fact that our colors seemed to match so well—and colors matching were a big deal in the fae realm. They basically classified what type of fae you were.

Except I wasn’t a fae. I was a mortal from Earth—a human being, and I’d say it and think it as many times as I had to, until this whole fucking realm heard .

It wasn’t hard not to freak out, though.

It was fairly easy, actually, when I realized that all these people, eighteen of them, seemed to be living here.

They did have boxes—full of food, not dead fish and glowing crystals.

They had mattresses and sheets, and clothes hanging on ropes to dry, and a smoothed-out wall of one side of the giant cave was full of colors—drawings of stars and animals, even fae.

The ceiling was high—so high I couldn’t see it at all from the web of fae lights, golden and white, and the torches mounted all around the walls.

There was plenty of air to breathe, even if it was full of magic.

Rune was just as surprised as I was, which was why he’d stopped with me at the mouth of that tunnel, and we both took a moment to analyze what was in front of us.

Yes, fae most definitely did not live under rocks—quite literally—so the fact that these people were here meant that they were running from something. Hiding from something.

Some one .

Lyall’s face, that awful laughter of his when he thought Rune had actually stabbed me, rang in my ears.

I looked at Rune and he looked at me, and I knew he was thinking the same thing.

All that wanting to believe that Lyall was a good man, that there was any kindness left in him, had already vanished into thin air.

There was nothing good about the Seelie prince—absolutely nothing.

He was a merciless, arrogant monster wearing a man’s face—and God, Maera was right when she warned me against them.

Her words were in my ears, so when Merenith waved for us to follow, and Rune led me by the hand inside the cave, I saw each and every person here in a new light. A different light.

I expected to be betrayed by everyone by sunrise. Except for Rune, every person I’d met in this fucking place had just proved to me why they shouldn’t be trusted.

Rune squeezed my hand like he knew exactly what I was thinking and he wanted to reassure me. That—or I really had no clue how to go about concealing my emotions, stopping them from showing on my face.

All the fae had stopped whatever they were doing and were looking at us—except for Hessa.

She’d lain down on one of the makeshift mattresses in the far left corner where barely any of the fae lights reached, and all I could see was that she had both hands over her face, and she wasn’t moving an inch.

Grieving —for Helid.

My heart skipped a beat. I dug my fingernails into Rune’s hand, but he didn’t complain.

“This mountain has natural immunity to tracking magic because of the water that surrounds its other side.”

The woman—Merenith—spoke, waving her hand forward to the walls of the cave across from us that I could only see because of the torches mounted on them.

There were plenty of dark spots that I couldn’t see through rocks and shadows, like hidden rooms within the cave, but most were clear.

Empty, save for the fae—and four dogs standing near them.

Normal looking dogs—big and with soft-looking, brownish fur, perfectly alert as they took us in, so much like Maera that I’d have doubted my own eyes if I hadn’t felt her shifting, hadn’t spoken to the woman that she was myself.

“We’ve been holed up here for the better part of two summers,” Merenith continued, then stopped walking for a moment, turning to us.

“Most of us have faked our deaths to escape the wrath of the queen and her pup before leaving the court.” The corners of her lips turned up, but it wasn’t quite a smile. “It has been a long two years, indeed.”

“Are you…are you the Broken Crown?” I only realized I’d spoken when I heard my own voice echoing in the quiet place.

“We were.” Merenith nodded. “Now…I’m not sure what name we go by, but we are… broken .” Again, that curl of her lips. “Because of you , mortal. You, who came all the way from Nerith and ruined all our plans—the very future of the Seelie Court.”

My stomach fell. That wasn’t fucking fair, was it? “I didn’t—” know, I was going to say, but Rune didn’t let me continue.

With my hand still in his, he took half a step forward, and I felt the way his magic rushed to his fingertips against my skin. I felt it, and it was cold, just not…the same cold as mine.

“If you’ve brought us here for accusations, we’ll show ourselves out.”

His voice echoed more deeply than mine in the cave. Everyone heard, and everyone seemed to hold their breath when he spoke—Rune was power. The sound of his voice was raw and full, unlike any other time he’d ever spoken before, at least in front of me.

So close to how Maera had sounded when she said that word— bow.

Merenith nodded her head deeply. “Of course not. We’re aware that the Lifebound didn’t know who Prince Lyall truly is—and neither did you, bastard.”

She didn’t say it like the queen did, though. That word— bastard, it became more or less based on the tone of someone’s voice. An insult or simply a name to be called. The Seelie Queen had used it to try to belittle Rune, but this woman here didn’t. She said it in the same way she called me mortal.

“Funny that you weren’t aware of that fact when you sent those masked men to kill me,” I said and regretted it the next second—but the memory was so very vivid in my mind still.

The way those men had cut us off and then had fought Rune, had brought the whole tunnel down on our heads. We’d barely made it out with our lives.

“We were trying to save this court from its misery,” Merenith said, her chin raised, no remorse anywhere on her. “We were not aware of who you were when we sent ours to stop you, mortal.”

Every inch of my skin rose in goose bumps.

“Just out of curiosity,” said Rune, his voice easy now, soft, almost like he might be smiling, though he wasn’t. “Are you saying that you now are aware of who Nilah is?”

Merenith looked at him without blinking for a good moment. “Not exactly,” she finally said. “But Hessa has seen.”

The memory of that night in the Gallery of Time came back in front of my eyes in an instant. The red mask, the curved blade of that knife…

The half-ruined portrait of the Ice Queen that looked almost completely identical to me.

“Seen what, exactly?” Rune again, but he knew. I’d told him all about it.

“Her face, Rune.”

This from Hessa.

She’d stood up and she was coming toward us, the imprints of the heels of her hands where she’d pressed them to her face visible.

Her eyes were bloodshot, too, not glossy, and her hair was all over the place.

She was tall and slender, but suddenly she looked lethal as she strode closer.

Two of the dogs who’d been standing by a Seelie guy slowly made their way to her sides.

She touched the tops of their heads with her fingertips as she came forward.

“You know well what I saw—she told you about it. Didn’t you, Nilah,” Hessa said, and it wasn’t a question.

“She did tell me about half a portrait in the Gallery of the Cursed that isn’t there anymore,” Rune said, though he shouldn’t have bothered.

“Well, I saw it with these eyes. She looks exactly like the Ice Queen.” Hessa’s voice didn’t falter. When she looked at me, she was both curious and cautious—and a little mad, if I wasn’t mistaken.

“That could mean anything,” I muttered, and I wasn’t even sure why. But the pressure was rising because the fae who’d kept their distance until now were coming closer, and even the dogs seemed to want to bite my head off as they looked at me with their tails down and their sharp teeth on display.

“True,” Merenith said. “It could. And we want to find out what .”

“The Broken Crown was created to stop Lyall from claiming the throne that is rightfully his,” Rune said. “You almost succeeded—and then you failed.” Yeah, he definitely wasn’t one to sugarcoat things.

I squeezed his hand to get his attention—Hessa really did look mad, and I understood. He hadn’t seen her with Helid. She deserved a break—we all did.

“We failed because of your mortal, bastard.”

“And we failed because of you, too,” Hessa said, her voice much more bitter. “You killed Regon in that cave, sent us that message.”

“And I stand by it,” Rune said with a nod, perfectly calm still .

“So, what are you waiting for then?” Hessa said, stepping closer. “We’re the ones who tried to kill her— I was going to do it myself. Perhaps I even regret not doing it when I could.”

The smile on her face. The look in her eyes.

She was hurt. She was heartbroken, it was so easy to see. To me, at least, because I’d seen her with Helid. And that was the reason why all my anger died a quick death and why I wouldn’t hold her responsible for what she said.

“If you do, say the word and I’ll relieve you of your life, friend. Just say the word,” Rune said, and Hessa burst out laughing, and the dogs growled, and even Merenith looked about ready to make some light with those fisted hands.

Fuck, the tension in the air grew so quickly.

“Stop,” I said, pulling Rune back and stepping forward.

“Stop it, all of you. We’re all here because we were threatened by Lyall, and we’re all butt hurt over one thing or the other—I don’t care.

” The words came out of me before I even thought through what to say, but fuck it, I figured.

“None of us is in a condition to have a civil conversation right now, so how about we get some shut eye and come back when we’ve had the chance to think? ”

Silence in the cave.

My voice wasn’t nearly as strong as that of Rune, but the fae were looking at one another, at him, and then at me again. All of them—including Hessa.

She was the first one to turn around and walk away, right back to that bed, muttering under her breath words I didn’t understand—nor cared to.

Then Merenith said, “Very well. You may rest, and then we’ll speak.”

The tension on my shoulders released a little bit, and Rune squeezed my hand as he looked at me. There wasn’t going to be a fight here right now, after all.

For now, we could take a moment to breathe.

I thought we were going to leave the cave, get out there and hide in the forest or something, but Merenith didn’t want to hear about it.

She insisted that we stay, at least for now, because the magic of the mountain was the only thing keeping the Seelie soldiers from finding everyone who lived here.

She did have a point—and I didn’t complain when she showed us deeper into the cave, behind this thick rock that half shielded a mattress in this round space on its other side. She said we could lie there, that it was clean, and the most private spot they could spare for us in this cave.

Rune wasn’t concerned. He thanked her, and when we lay down, his shadows slipped from his fingers and spread like a veil from the edges of the rocks on both our sides, locking us in.

Even though the darkness faded, the magic remained.

Nobody out there was going to hear or see us.

We were as alone as we could be right now.

Tears came to my eyes when his arms were wrapped around me—my safe place.

I thought I was going to want to talk to him, tell him all that had happened, everything I hadn’t had the chance to tell him yet, but I couldn’t.

For a while, I just lay there, head on his arm, and cried in silence while he caressed me, touched me everywhere as if both to convince himself that I was whole, and to reassure me that I was safe.

The memories were there, ready to take over me the moment I let my guard down, so I replayed everything that had happened as if in slow motion.

The moment the ground swallowed Rune whole in the Hollow.

The desperation I’d felt. The talk with the Seer and the image of that woman—the queen that Rune was accused of murdering when he was just six years old.

The unbinding ceremony and the Seelie Queen, too.

Her words that finally made sense— it won’t matter soon.

Because she knew all along that Lyall was planning to kill me. She knew.

My eyes squeezed shut when I remembered the memory of looking down at myself with a knife buried in my chest—an illusion, yes, but it had looked so, so real.

My blood on Rune’s hand—it had looked so real that I was having trouble accepting it hadn’t been.

It felt like I should have been dead—a blade had gone right through my heart.

Yet here I was, and Rune’s hands were clean, no blood on them, and he kissed my head and my face and my own hands, whispering to me that I was okay.

But nothing haunted me as much as Helid’s face.

Ultimately, that’s what stopped the tears and distracted me from the pain and the sadness and the sheer panic and shock I’d constantly been in for what felt like days. Ultimately, the need to talk about Helid was what forced me to take in a deep breath and get myself together.

I’d cried. I’d felt sorry for myself, and Rune had held me through it all. I wasn’t sure whether I’d cried for minutes or hours, but it was enough.

Now it was time to face the music.