Page 59 of Fractured (Royal Sins #3)

thirty-six

The floor was ice-cold against my hands. I was breathing, drawing in air in shallow gulps, but I still felt like I was dying. No hand around my neck, yet it felt like there was something there, something blocking the air I was trying to fill my lungs with, squeezing them empty.

But it was just the fear. It was just my survival instincts that demanded I breath deeper, faster, now before there was no more air left in the world. Because I could see just fine. I was aware of being on all fours, surrounded by shadows, magic lighting up my hands.

And ahead was Rune and Raja fighting, together with Vair.

But Vair looked behind him for a second, and in the next he ran—toward the other side of the room, toward the tall dais, in front of which was the Midnight King.

I had no idea how he’d gotten there so fast, or even how much time had passed since he’d let go of me, but he was in front of the dais now.

He was moving in circles with his hands out, and the ribbons of shadows spinning around him followed.

They lay on the floor at his command, and they didn’t move again.

He was drawing with them.

When Vair was close enough to jump him, he tried—and slammed face first into a thick shadow that seem to have come out of nowhere and fell back against the floor.

I screamed—which made me realize that I wasn’t struggling for air anymore. My mind was no longer convinced that I couldn’t breathe. My lungs were full and my limbs functional, and I was on my feet, running toward the soldiers and the shadows that stood between Rune and me.

Bodies sprawled all over the floor. Shadows danced everywhere I looked, and Rune’s eyes locked on mine.

“Nilah, run! ”

His shout filled my ears. He raised a hand and those shadows that had looked like stairs layered on the floor reacted. They rose from one side, and with the movement of his arm, they crashed onto the soldiers in front of him like a fucking wave, swallowing them completely for a moment.

My legs moved. If only we could get to those doors—they were not far. If only we could all make it to them and run, we never had to look back. Fuck the truth—I could live without knowing. I would live a happy fucking life without the truth.

But it wasn’t meant to be. Because the moment I reached the shadows, the same ones that had crashed against the soldiers, a hand wrapped around my ankle and I tripped.

The hand of a soldier who was struggling to make his way out of the shadows like it was quicksand.

I fell face first against the floor, but I didn’t even realize what had happened before something moved to my side.

The sound of metal cutting flesh filled my ears, followed by a scream of raw pain.

The hand was no longer around my ankle, but someone grabbed me by the arm and pulled me to the side next.

Raja.

“Get to the doors and get out!”

She pushed me back and I nearly lost my balance again—but before I could tell her that I wasn’t going anywhere without them, she’d already turned to the soldiers who were coming out of the darkness like it was a fucking portal to another world.

My hands were still lit up from within and the frostfire was gaining intensity. Fuck, it hurt as it moved down my arms, and the more aware I was of my surroundings, the more the fear took a step back.

We were here now, no matter how we’d gotten to this point. We’d tried to find the truth and it hadn’t worked. That’s okay .

But we were getting out of here tonight one way or the other, and I was going to freeze this room, this entire fucking court just like I did the forest in the Mercove if I had to, to make sure of it.

And Rune knew it.

There had been a lot of soldiers in this room because even though many were dead on the ground, there were at least another dozen fighting Rune and Raja, blocking Rune’s way to the king and to Vair, who had yet to get past the shadows that were protecting the king as he spun and drew on the floor.

Rune knew—and that’s why he saved his breath when he looked at me, didn’t tell me to run again.

Then a soldier’s sword came at him, and he had to duck, get out of my sight—and Vair hit the floor on his back for the third time.

The king.

I ran to the other side of the railing in the middle of the room, and I caught a glimpse of what was underneath, what that opening looked out at—the side of a mountain. Black rocks, and water pouring down, ending with a rocky shore possibly over fifty feet below.

I didn’t even have a second to be terrified because Vair was right there, growling at the king still—and he’d slowed down his movements.

My God, the closer I got, the more I realized that he actually had drawn something on the floor—with shadows.

They’d set themselves on the marble into a wide circle with more circles and squares and all kinds of symbols inside it.

“Vair,” I said, falling on one knee next to him, about to haul him over my shoulder and take him to Rune and Raja so he could do that glass wall projection thing he did before, and we could get the hell out of here. In my mind it was a solid plan.

Except…

“ Banishment ,” Vair spit. “He’s preparing a banishment ritual, Nilah. He mustn’t finish!”

My stomach turned and the frostfire in my veins reacted as if something had jerked it to the sides. The pain made me hiss.

“Rune,” I choked. “He wants to banish Rune again.” Just like he’d done when he was a boy.

“He mustn’t be allowed, Nilah,” Vair said, his eyes wide and so full of fear I could have been looking in a mirror.

“He won’t. Rune’s not going anywhere. Come back with me and get those soldiers off with that shield you did, Vair. We can run—come on!” I stood up and waved for him to follow me, but…

“No, Nilah—the king must die!”

My heart fell all the way to my heels. “What the hell, Vair?!”

“He must die—he must .” And again, he started growling and moving toward the king—not Rune and Raja.

“Why, Vair, why? What are you doing?!”

Except he didn’t listen to me. He didn’t answer.

Instead, he ran again, faster than before, and his fur did glow against the shadows. He jumped, and then one of them came up even faster, materializing out of thin air.

I screamed when he hit the floor for the fourth time, this time face first.

A heart-wrenching howl that I felt to my very soul. It was pain. Not physical, but something deeper. Something I had no idea how to even begin to understand.

But I leaned down and I grabbed Vair in my arms, pulled him up with me and backed away as fast as my legs could carry me.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t fast enough because the Midnight King was done playing with his shadows.

Now, his eyes were wide open, and he was looking at me.

Something about the look in his eyes, that darkness that gathered between his temples. God, he really did look like a monster.

I ran.

With Vair in my arms, I ran to Rune, and he spun around and cut the head clean off a soldier’s neck, then made for me while Raja still fought the remaining six.

“Nilah, listen to me.” A bloody hand on my cheek. Rune was in front of me, his eyes wide open, the circles under them like bruises.

I shook my head. “He wants to banish you. We have to go, Rune— now!” And I stepped backward, just as Vair moved, jumped right out of my arms and on all fours within the second.

“He must die!”

“Vair, no?—”

“ ENOUGH! ”

The entire room froze for a second, not with magic, but with the strength of the voice that we all heard. The sheer intensity of the order.

The Midnight King was standing in front of the first stair to his dais, the circle full of shadows he’d drawn in front of his feet.

The six soldiers who remained standing, who’d been fighting Raja, stopped and stepped back, their weapons lowered.

Raja breathed heavily, her hair all over the place, blood on her face and the rest of her body, a silver sword in one hand, and a dagger in the other.

Her eyes were on the king, and by the time I’d turned, Rune had already stepped in front of me.

“Enough with this madness,” the king said, shaking his head, looking at Rune now—and I could barely see his face over Rune’s shoulder.

Rune reached back his free hand for me and I grabbed it in both of mine. Raja came closer, too, still standing tall, her chin high even though she had a cut on her face from her temple down to her jaw, still bleeding. She didn’t even flinch.

And Vair continued to move closer slowly, head lowered and teeth showing …

Vair, no, I thought but couldn’t even say it before the king continued.

“You come to me with demands, seeking a truth you are not ready to hear, as if you think you have any right.” My stomach twisted and turned. “You remove the seal I put on you, and you dare to come here and command my shadows, bastard. Step. Aside! ”

The guy was mad. Really mad, and he really didn’t sound like Rune at all.

I confirmed it once more when Rune said, “No.”

That one word weighed tons.

“You were always a coward, Helem. Always,” Raja said, and she sounded…disappointed. Not even a little bit afraid.

“The dead shouldn’t be able to speak,” the king said, and I went closer, rose on my tiptoes to see his face better, to see the smile I knew would be there—and it was almost identical to Rune’s. Just one corner of his lips turned up.

It made me sick . This was the man who’d marked his own son and banished him when he was six. To a land where they ate people, hoping he’d die—and now he wanted to do it again?

“I’ll keep that in mind when I spit on your dead body,” Raja hissed, raising her sword.

I squeezed Rune’s hand tightly. “Rune, please…”

We had to get the hell out of here. We had to go—and if those soldiers remained motionless there by the bodies still, Vair could keep the shadows of the king off us until we made it to the doors.

And if we couldn’t, we could jump. Right there in that round opening—we could jump, and we’d probably break a lot of bones when we fell on those rocks, but we could heal. Bones could mend.