Page 57 of Fractured (Royal Sins #3)

thirty-five

I moved.

Maybe because Raja did. Maybe because she stepped over the bodies of the soldiers she’d killed without even looking. Her head remained up, and her eyes ahead—on that man.

I’d lie if I said I wasn’t scared, but Vair stood beside me with every step I took. It gave me strength to know I wasn’t alone just now.

He gave me strength all along.

I didn’t look down at the bodies I walked over, either—couldn’t if I tried.

The Midnight King was standing right there, and he’d opened the doors for us, and those soldiers who’d been running with swords in their hands had stopped.

They wouldn’t have stopped if he hadn’t told them to in whatever way they communicated.

He wanted us to go to him—and that alone rang all the alarms in my head, but it was already done.

The three of us were inside, and the king raised his hand just slightly.

The doors behind us swung closed, and the sound that echoed in the room was so…final. A promise that they were never going to open for me again.

So be it, said my voice in my head, and I was the first to be surprised at the fact that all my fear had already faded. I was here. It was done. Now, I found Rune, wherever he was, and we tried to make it back out.

That’s all there was to this.

“It’s him,” said my voice outside—Vair.

And… “It’s you, ” said the Midnight King himself.

The memory replayed itself in my mind. It was him, indeed—the same guy with the thick black beard who’d screamed when six-year-old Rune stabbed the Ice Queen.

Except in real life—or better yet, in the present—his presence was huge .

Even the crown of black metal and dark diamonds on his head looked menacing.

Even his shadow cast on the marble floor was darker than anything else’s somehow, and his eyes stole the light from around them.

I almost couldn’t see the shape of them at all. Or maybe he was doing it on purpose?

I had no idea, but I was moving. Raja was moving.

Vair was moving—and we weren’t following one another anymore, but each of us wanted to get closer to him for a different reason.

I was curious, and Vair seemed in disbelief, and Raja looked about ready to burn the whole realm to the ground, but she wanted to start with him.

My eyes were locked on those of the Midnight King that I could barely even see, and I kept going as if I was being pulled by a fucking magnet—until Vair growled and Raja gasped, and I had no choice but to look around and see where I was.

The Midnight throne room.

It was unlike anything I had ever seen before—and I didn’t just mean throne rooms. I meant the entire realm .

It was bigger than any other room I’d ever been in, and the floor was full of stairs that went up and down a couple inches only—like the whole thing was made in layers.

In the middle was a round opening like a misplaced balcony, with railings made of black metal that almost looked like actual plants.

I had no idea what was underneath the room or what that opening looked down at, but behind it was a large table with over twenty velvet-cushioned, high-backed chairs around it.

To its other side, half the wall didn’t exist, and you could see the Eternal Water stretching beyond.

At the edge where the glassless windows ended, a waterfall poured down toward it constantly.

Not half as loud or as big as the ones in the mining site, but it was a waterfall, nonetheless.

Was it possible that this entire palace was built inside a mountain?

Because it looked like it—or maybe on the side, at the very least, because those were large grey rocks the water was sliding down from.

But even that wasn’t the strangest part of the room.

The design of the glass wall at the back of the throne room was spectacular.

It was decorated with either real plants or black metal shaped into vines and leaves and blossoms, and I didn’t understand how there was silver light coming from the other side if the waterfall was to its right, possibly not thirty feet away.

An illusion was my best guess, but the throne itself wasn’t.

It was in the middle of a platform that rose higher than the rest of the room by five wide stairs, the space around it tiny, and no other chairs were near the throne.

It had three sharp points atop its high back, and it was completely black, but not with colors, no.

With shadows. There was no texture I could identify, not wood or metal or velvet—only shadows, thick as ink.

And then there was Rune.

Two things happened before I could blink .

I saw Rune who’d been hidden away by the railing of that opening in the middle of the room, and he was kneeling on the floor, on the lowest level between those stairs. His arms were stretched to his sides and they were being held by shadows.

Shadows so deep and dark you couldn’t see through them had wrapped around his wrists and circled all the way up his arms. His shirt was torn, his hair was all over the place, and his eyes were half closed, too, but he was breathing.

Rune was here.

And Raja charged forward.

With a shout that tore from her very soul, she charged forward with her sword and her hand raised, and shadows exploded everywhere at once.

Not only from her fingertips but from the floor, too.

My God, those weren’t stairs at all. They were literally layers of shadows on the marble floor, and they tore themselves off and wrapped around Raja, stopping her when she was still five feet away from the Midnight King.

He hadn’t looked away from me at all.

My eyes darted from his to Rune, my body still so fucking confused, my mind a mess, my insides completely frozen over.

This couldn’t be. Rune was on his knees and he had blood on the corner of his mouth, and he didn’t even seem to be conscious.

Meanwhile, I was standing there shaking from head to toe and frozen at the same time, trying to figure out still if this was even real, if the soldiers lining the walls were truly there, if the Midnight King really raised his hand toward me.

He did.

Shadows just as thick and dark came out of his fingers with more ease than Raja could ever make them, or even Rune.

She was there, covered in shadows still, wrapped up in them like in a spider’s threads, and she was trying to move, get out, get those shadows off her, even scream.

But they only ended over her lips and they kept her perfectly silent.

Just like those shadows coming from the Midnight King were going to do to me.

It was too late to act, I knew it. I wouldn’t know what the hell to do, either, even if I did have another moment, because I was too shocked, too enraged, too afraid—and the mix had resulted in my limbs freezing for real.

I couldn’t even run. I couldn’t look away from those shadows coming for me like ribbons of death if I tried.

And then something rose in front of me.

At first, I thought it was just the shadows, that I’d missed their movement and that they’d changed color or something, but no. And it wasn’t light, either—it was…glass. Maybe ice?

It was a thin, shiny surface that just came up in front of me like a damn wall, and it caught the shadows as they came for me and reflected them back like a fucking mirror.

The feel of the magic radiating from it shook me to my core, and finally, I could move. I took half a step back, my blood rushing again, my eyes moving toward the floor, to where Vair stood between me and the Midnight King, and the glass was coming from his fur.

It had spread off his fur like a peacock tail, and you could swear it was nothing but light—a fucking hologram projection—where it rose from the tips of his fur, but then it solidified as it went all the way over my head. It was real.

Darkness on the other side.

“Vair,” I whispered, and a little voice came out of me.

The glass suddenly disappeared, and Vair turned to look at me, those bright blue eyes wide—and in the distance, I could just see the Midnight King trying to make it to his feet because he’d been on the ground. Because he’d fallen, attacked by his own shadows that were meant to attack me .

“How…how…” I was moving, walking forward, my eyes on Rune, still unconscious, and on the king, who was looking about him—looking for his crown that must have fallen off his head.

And his voice—“ Hold!”

It fell over me like a fucking shade under the scorching sun, that voice, and he was talking to the soldiers. The countless soldiers who’d unsheathed weapons and had started to run toward him. Toward me.

They stopped. Walked back. Lowered their hands.

“Tread carefully now, Nilah. I am not a weapon. I was merely meant to be her first shield.”

Vair.

His words spun around in my head, refusing to stick. So little made sense that I couldn’t even begin to understand what was truly happening around me.

All I knew was that Rune had yet to open his eyes. All I knew was that I had to get to him, now .

That must have been why I was running.

Fragments of the memory never recorded in my mind, but I did remember Raja screaming as she finally managed to get some of those shadows off her.

And I remembered Vair calling my name, and the Midnight King raising a hand toward me again, his crown forgotten—but I ran so damn fast that I was on my knees in front of Rune in a blink.

My hands were ice-cold. I grabbed his face and called his name, possibly without stop.

I hardly noticed the shimmer that was leaving my skin and sticking to his.

It didn’t much matter that half his face looked like it was covered in a layer of frost. All that mattered was that he woke up and saw me; otherwise, the magic that had gathered in me was going to tear me apart all over again.

It was going to kill me, slice me in half this time for good.