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forty-three

Rune Kalygorn

I stared at the fire dancing on the logs in the blackened fireplace as Raja bound the wound on my side. I couldn’t even remember exactly what the giant had hit me with, just that it had hurt. It still did.

But Raja had put her sorcerer potions on me, and she had cleaned the bleeding wound thoroughly.

It wasn’t going to kill me, anyway. The pain I could handle.

The house she took us to was indeed abandoned a long time ago, the walls and the rooms bare.

But the wooden floor still held, though it sounded like it was in pain from the weight of us, and the walls surrounding us were better than nothing.

Plus, the fireplace still worked, and the fire gave us light and warmth as we sat there on the floor in front of it.

The chain made of dragon bones was piled up between it and us. Raja would know why I brought it. She knew what it was.

“Were you a big enough fool to go after a giant yourself?”

Her voice was sharp, ice-cold. “Raja?—”

“Answer me, boy. Answer me now.”

I knew how she sounded when she meant something, and I knew she wasn’t going to talk to me about anything else until I answered.

“No.”

There were no secrets between Raja and me. At least there hadn’t been before.

“He orchestrated it. Put me in the Hollow for a match of Crown’s Gauntlet.

Pushed me into the grounds just as the game began and the Hollow locked down.

” Even as I said this, I felt…filthy. Like I was betraying Lyall.

Like he wasn’t the person who saved my life.

“The giant had dragon bones around his hips. I saw the opportunity. I made the best out of it.”

Raja paused for a short moment. “You did good.” And she continued to dress my wound.

“Raja,” I started again, my voice strained from holding in pain for so long. It was fading already, though. The potions would work in no time, and they’d already begun.

“Now, after all this time I begged you. Now you want me to try,” she said.

“I have to,” I forced myself to say. “She’s still there and I can’t keep her safe, not like this.”

“It’s not your job to keep her safe, damn it!” she said, her voice louder than I expected. And when she was done with my wound, she jumped to her feet, began to pace in front of the fireplace with a hand around her chin, her long dress swooshing to the side, creating a melody for my ears .

Cold sweat covered my face. I didn’t waste energy to wipe it. Just a little more.

“I’m not asking you because I want to, Raja. I’m asking because I don’t have a choice. I would crawl through fire before I put this weight on you.”

Her head fell back, and she laughed. “But I don’t see you burning, boy!”

I shook my head, smiled. “No, you don’t. I’m burning far from the eye.”

More laughter, bitter, ice-cold. “I’ve been praying for you to become selfish for years, Rune. Now you decide. Now, and for what?! For a mortal?”

I looked up at her. Our eyes locked. “She’s not just a mortal and you know it.” She’d told me herself to keep an eye on Nilah the last time she sent me a shadow message. And Nilah had told me about what Raja told her, too, before the guards found her.

“What is she to you then?” Raja demanded.

“Everything.” The simplest truth I’d ever spoken.

She turned her back to me, eyes squeezed shut, hands fisted in front of her chest, like that was exactly what she’d feared I’d say.

I thought it would take more convincing. I thought I’d have to make my case before she agreed, but Raja turned to me again with an exasperated sigh, her expression a storm barely held together.

“Fine. I’ll break the seal,” she said, voice tight. “And I’m not going to waste breath to tell you that you would be stupid to go after her now. That you have the chance of a lifetime to disappear, start over new. Everyone thinks you’re dead, and with your magic intact you can keep it that way?—”

“Raja,” I warned but she continued .

“I won’t waste breath— fine. You’ve bled enough for people who never deserved you.”

If I could only laugh, I would. “This isn’t about politics or the Seelie court—it’s about Nilah.” She flinched when I spoke her name. “I’m not going anywhere—I couldn’t. I could never live with that. Not ever.” I’d choose death every single time.

“You won’t live at all if you go back!” she snapped, squatting down in front of me.

“You’re already half-dead sitting here.” She looked down at me, shook her head in disappointment.

“You think breaking the seal will magically make you one of them again? It’ll take everything you have just to survive the ritual.

And then what?” she demanded. “You’ll crawl back into that pit with nothing left but a death wish? Is that it?”

Yes, I thought. If that was all I had, then yes. That’s the only thing I’d take with me.

But I looked at Raja and I said, “If it were you in there, I’d do the same thing.”

She knew this. She was my family. I considered her my blood even if we didn’t share it. If it were her trapped with the likes of Lyall and the Seelie queen in that court, I’d march over there with nothing but a death wish, too.

For a long, heavy moment, Raja just stood there, her breathing uneven, her fists clenched so tightly her knuckles went white.

And then, with a slow bitter exhale, she shook her head—not in refusal, but in helpless understanding.

“You’re just like her,” she whispered, almost to herself. “Too damned brave. Too damned stubborn, even if the whole world might bleed for it.”

“I am not brave.” Had I been, the Seelie Court would have been burning by now .

Raja pretended I hadn’t spoken at all. “We’ll do it, Rune. We’ll take off that seal. But don’t ask me to stand there and watch them put you in the ground. I survived losing your mother. I’m not about to lose you, too.”

I closed my eyes like I’d expected nothing less. I didn’t dare say thank you, and she knew it.

She turned away. “You’ve got until noon to rest. When the sun is highest in the sky, we begin. And after that…whatever happens is on your head.”

Raja walked out of the hole in the wall and left me alone.

The fire had burned low, nothing left but embers and the faint scent of smoke curling through the air. Raja sat across from me, her back against the ruined stone, arms crossed as if holding herself together with sheer will.

I still had an hour left to regain my strength, I thought. The sun wasn’t high up in the sky yet.

And even though physically I felt much better, my mind didn’t. It felt… sick with unanswered questions.

“She saw a portrait,” I said quietly, my voice raw still, though the pain had dulled to a throbbing on my side now.

Raja raised her head. “What?”

“Nilah saw a portrait at a Whispering Ball, hidden behind a wall. Half-destroyed.” I rubbed a hand over my face, feeling the weight of what I was about to admit settle like a stone on my chest. “She saw the portrait of the Ice Queen of the Frozen Court.”

Raja waited a heartbeat. “And?”

“She looks exactly like her.”

The words hung in the air, and for a long moment, Raja didn’t move. Didn’t even breathe .

Then she stood up again, slowly, pacing the small space in front of the fireplace as her mind worked.

“That’s impossible,” she finally muttered.

“I need you to tell me if you’ve ever seen her, Raja. The Ice Queen.”

She stopped, turned her head to me. “I haven’t.”

“You were part of the court.”

“And she was the Ice Queen. Nobody ever saw her, not without her veil. I wasn’t permitted in private chambers—you know this, Rune. They didn’t particularly like me in the Midnight Court.”

Silence in the ruined house. Only Raja’s light footsteps rang in my ears, and the crackling of the fire tried to hold my attention.

My side barely hurt—or maybe I was just distracted. I could move better, especially after Raja had given me some of her food.

Her potions, though. Whichever sorcerer she bought from, they were incredibly powerful and fast.

“Are you sure?” Raja asked after a moment.

“Yes.”

“She could have been seeing things.”

“She didn’t.”

“She said she looked exactly like her?”

“She did, yes.” And I remembered how terrified she’d been of the fact, too.

“And you believe her.” This Raja said as an accusation.

I looked up at her. “Yes.” I believed Nilah before I believed myself.

Raja opened her mouth to speak but couldn’t find the words.

“You know she’s no ordinary mortal,” I told her. “You saw her glowing. ”

“With moon magic, no less.” She continued to pace in front of the fireplace again. “Like a true moonmarked—except she didn’t shift. She didn’t die.”

“And she took Lyall’s magic when he bound himself to her, too.”

“Unless…” Raja whispered. “She didn’t.”

My heart took a pause. “Meaning?”

She suddenly sat down near the wall across from me again, eyes on the floor but she didn't really see anything. She was lost inside her head.

“A fae cannot transfer magic to a mortal, Rune. That’s never been heard of before— unless the mortal isn’t really a mortal. Unless the magic was there to begin with.”

This time I was the one who jumped to my feet. I didn’t feel any kind of pain at all. Maybe because Raja had said out loud what I hadn’t dared to let myself acknowledge but had been secretly contemplating since the incident at the Mercove.

All that magic. She’d had so much, so raw. The way it had felt against my skin—not fully warm, now that I thought of it. Not exactly like Seelie magic, though close.

“I don’t see how,” I admitted. “She was born and raised in Nerith.”

“Yet you believe her when she tells you she looks like the Ice Queen.”

“I do. She wouldn’t lie, Raja. I know her.”

“You met her days ago!” she said.

I looked down at her. “Regardless. I know her.”