Page 138 of Moonmarked

“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.”

“And?What do you suppose you can do about it? You’ve already decided to go against Lyall, the man who saved you and kept you alive.” She pushed herself to her feet and came in front of me, her dark eyes sofull—of fear and suspicionand disappointment. “How do you suppose you’ll keep your father away?”

All my thoughts came to a halt. “My father?”

“Yes, Rune. Your father. Because if she really looks anything like the Ice Queen, and your father finds out, hewillbe coming for her.”

Every drop of blood in my veins turned to stone.

I moved back, nearly lost my balance, then sat on the floor again before I fell. My knees had never been weaker, not even when I first arrived here.

“The prophecy is fulfilled,” I said, though I knew it didn’t mean much.

“Yes, it is. But thatpignever managed to truly control the power left on him by the Ice Queen. The Frozen Court is in pieces, though he pretends.” I looked up at her in question. She raised a brow. “I have my ways. It’s smart to keep informed in times like these.”

“Raja, I killed the Ice Queen, and if Nilah now looks like her…”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. Magic is a sneaky thing. It can appear to mean something when it means nothing at all. I’d be more worried about that pig of a king than a mortal’s resemblance to a dead queen.” Except she didn’t quite sound like she believed her own self when she said this.

“A mortal who can do fae magic. A mortal who is moonmarked but doesn’t shift.”

She looked up at me. “Maybe she did. I don’t trust her quite as much as you seem to.”

“She didn’t, Raja.”

She flinched. “Your father. If he finds out and if he comes for you—Rune, hewillkill you first. When he putthat seal on you and took you to that place, he did it because he was certain you would die. Don’t you understand how many of your brothers he’s killed? He was going to kill you, too, and hehatesthat you survived. He will take any excuse at all to try to end you again.” Slowly, she shook her head. “Nobody could put a stop to him other than Lyall and his mother. And now you’ve turned againstthemas well.”

An impossible situation.

My mind worked.

What Raja said was true. When the seer of the Frozen Court first prophesied that the Ice Queen would die at the hand of the Midnight King’s son, my father took advantage of the opportunity and went to make her a proposition: if she gave him control over her army and resources, basically her entire court, he would kill every male born child he ever fathered.

According to Raja, he killed seven of my brothers—that she knew of. That was why my mother kept her pregnancy and my birth a secret.

But one could never really escape a prophecy, so I somehow ended up killing the Ice Queen despite all that was done to prevent it.

My father truly was a monster. That, I would never argue with. But he had the Frozen Court in his hands now. The prophecy was fulfilled. There was no more need for him to want to go after Nilah regardless what she looked like…was there?

“Think about this, Rune. Be smart. It would be a shame to die now when you’ve made it this far,” Raja said, her voice a hushed whisper.

I couldn’t find a single thingto say to that.

There wasthis memory I had that I sometimes felt like it wasn’t mine at all. Maybe because it wasn’t a complete memory, only a flash.

Cold stone beneath my knees. Blood slick and fresh around me. A silhouette crumpled just feet away. The faintest scent of winter roses in my nostrils.

I always thought that that was the memory of when I killed the Ice Queen. It wasproof,even if my full memory was locked. I never considered that Ididn’tkill the Ice Queen—until Nilah. Until she looked me dead in the eye and told me with a hundred percent certainty that I hadn’t.

Doubt clouded my mind now.

The air smelled like burnt steel and storm-wet stone by the time Raja finished laying her powders and herbs on the rotten floor. She worked fast, her fingers trembling just enough for me to notice but not enough for her to stop. That was the thing about her—she’d do the impossible before she admitted fear. Even when the impossible could kill her.

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