Page 14 of Fractured
I did sleep,but not for long. Possibly an hour, if that.
When my eyes opened, Rune was still there, his head turned as he looked somewhere behind him.
My heart jumped. “We’ll be right there,” Rune said, and I propped up on one elbow to look at who he was talking to—Merenith. She was already retreating behind the rock.
“What? What is it?”
“Nothing. They’re calling us for tea,” Rune whispered. “And to talk.” His eyes were closed as he breathed deeply,stopped his hand over my chest to feel my heartbeat. “We’re okay.”
“I need a moment,” I whispered, my mind sharper already, though I didn’t really expect it. I thought that chaos was going to follow me forever, but the little sleep I’d gotten had apparently helped. I wasthinking.
“You can have as long as you like,” Rune said.
I leaned in and kissed his lips. “No—I need a moment to tellyouwhat happened when the Hollow swallowed you.”
Rune opened his eyes. At the same moment, shadows slipped from his fingertips and spread around us just like before, locking us in.
I started talking even before the darkness faded all the way.
I told him everything that had happened, the things I couldn’t tell him when he came to my room just the night before. Lyall and the seer, and most importantly the Seelie Queen. Not only the nonsense she spoke to me after the unbinding ceremony was done, but also at the cell room. What Helid said about her.
Rune stopped me there for a moment. “Can you back up for a moment there? Tell me exactly what he said.”
My heart beat like a drum in my ears. “My sister has set the curse in motion,andit’s coming for all of us.” The memory was so clear I could have been living the same moment all over again. “You must find the mirror—that’s what he said.” Those had been Helid’s exact words.
For a moment, Rune was perfectly silent as the wheels in his head turned. Meanwhile, I couldn’t shake the cold that was in my chest for the life of me. My bones were made of—or covered in—a layer of ice, and I had no clue what the hell to do about it.
“What curse?” I whispered without really meaning to asI played with Rune’s fingers over my cheek. It was easier to think out loud sometimes, especially about things as complicated and senseless as this.
“I don’t know,” Rune answered anyway.
“I’m not sure if Hessa heard. Do you think she knows something?”
He opened his eyes slowly. “There’s one way to find out.”
I nodded reluctantly. “Let’s go.” As much as I’d have rather stayed here, we needed to talk to Hessa. Hopefully she’d calmed down a bit, too.
“The vial,” Rune whispered, his hand moving down to my hips, and for a moment my heart all but stopped beating.
Fuck, I’d forgotten the fucking vial that the seer gave me that I’d hidden in my underwear while the fae sisters helped me get dressed for the feast!
I jumped off the uncomfortable mattress and pulled up the dress, my hands shaking as I searched my panties—and it was there.
My God, the vial was somehow still there, stuck to my side, its imprint on my skin, and it had made its place there so well that I hadn’t even noticed it wasn’t a part of my body at all.
I sat down at the edge of the mattress again with a deep sigh. Rune came to sit with me, kissed my shoulder, massaged the back of my neck.
“Hold on to it, and don’t tell anyone about it yet,” he whispered in my ear. “When the sun rises, we’ll leave here together. We’ll find the Quiet soon.”
“TheQuiet?”
“Yes.Virlorn—the Quiet. The land of the forgotten.That’s the only place the seer could have meant,” Rune said. “We can access it on our way to Blackwater.”
My heart jumped. “It’s real?” There was an actual place here wherethe world forgets itself?
“It is,” Rune said. “But we’ll keep that to ourselves, too. At least until we know what these people plan to do.”
On that, we agreed.
