Page 60 of Moonmarked

There.Like that, I looked a lot more like myself with only lip gloss and a little mascara on. Not that it mattered what I looked like, obviously, but it served as a distraction to pass the time, and I was thankful for it.

Because it was already dark outside, the sun disappeared, the night stretched far and wide, and it wouldn’t be long now until I could walk out of here and search for Rune. Maybe the soldiers would take me to him themselves if I just asked.

And if they didn’t, I’d find my own way.

I went closer to the bookshelves—because what better way to pass the time than to get lost in a good story?—but I never got the chance to even pick a book up before another knock sounded on the door.

This time, I didn’t feel half as strange as before when I said,“Come in.”

I thought it would be the chambermaids again, and for a moment I panicked because I’d taken off most of the makeup I’d told them to put on me. But when the door pulled open, it revealed one of the guards with the armor and the helmet on.

“My lady, Prince Lyall would like to invite you to dinner.”

As if on cue, my stomach growled with hunger. I put my hands over it and said, “Thank you, but I’m not hungry.”

The guard looked at me. I saw the gold of his eyes through the opening on his helmet. “The prince insists.”

In other words, I didn’t really have a choice. It wasn’t an invitation at all—it was an order.

I wanted to be angry. I wanted to be so mad I exploded in fucking fireworks, but what good would that do me? I was hungry, I was dressed, and I had to see more of this place so I knew my way around when I went searching for Rune, didn’t I?

With that thought in my mind, I raised my chin and swallowed hard, suffocated the heat that had grown inside me. “In that case, lead the way,” I told the guard and followed him outside.

Had somebody told me a month ago that I’d be in a palace in the fae realm, wearing a dress that possibly cost more than a car back home, and shoes that made me think I might be going barefoot, laced with what could have been real gold—I’d have laughed in their faces. I’d have probablypunchedtheir faces, too, because I’d have felt they were trying to mock me.

Thinking back now, I’d takeneverythingas an attempt-mockery toward me, and it had been awful. Even though I’d nearly died a hundred times in this place, the distance had done me good. It had disconnected me from my life long enough that I saw things so much more clearly.

That still didn’t change the fact that I might just be a prisoner in this fancy palace, no matter what it looked like, and no matter what I wore, and no matter how many chambermaids Lyall sent for me. When he wanted me to eat dinner with him, I would, apparently. And that didn’t sit well with me at all, but as the soldiers took me down hallways and wide sets of stairs, I reminded myself that it was temporary.

All of this was just temporary until I found Rune, until I made sure that he was okay, until I spoke to him and he told me more exactly how much shit I was really in.Because I would refuse to believe any of these people. I would wait—for days and weeks if I had to—to see Rune.

Funny how the universe works when you least expect something, though.

Because big fancy golden doors opened at the end of the hallway the soldiers took me to, and Rune was right there.

I froze in place instantly, my limbs turned to fucking stone, my mind wiped clean, my heart about to break through my ribcage. Even my eyes refused to blink, afraid something about the view in front of me would change, and somehow a single blink would steal him away from me again.

For a moment, it was like the palace, the whole world disappeared, and I couldn’t see or hear or smell anything that wasn’t him. Those wide indigo eyes with silver maps in them, drawn just for me. His mauve-colored lips and that dark hair falling over his eye, half hiding the pointy tips of his ears. His wide shoulders and his clothes, no velvet and no gold or silver threads, so different from everyone else here. So…him.

Rune is here.

“Nilah, you made it.”

Lyall was there, too.

Finally, I blinked. Finally, my senses were open to the rest of the world, too, and I could see more than just Rune’s face, hear more than my own heartbeat pounding in my chest.

Lyall was standing to Rune’s side, his hand on Rune’s shoulder, both their eyes on me.

My knees shook as my body unfroze little by little. God, I was going to run right this second, and I was going to jump in his arms, hug him and kiss him until we both risked dying from lack of air.

I was going to—and then Rune’s eyes widened.

Just slightly, but they moved, and then his head moved curtly to the sides, too, ever so slightly—no.

He was sayingno.

Rune had always had this uncanny ability to know exactly what I was thinking, so much so that I’d considered he could read my mind when we first met, but no. He could just read my eyes like an open book, and it would be easy to guess that I’d want to be in his arms the moment I saw him again after everything that had happened.

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