Page 105 of Fractured
“She can hear him speaking. We can’t. Can we begin?” Raja said before I could make a single sound, and she sat down on a smoother part of the stone floor in front of us, cross-legged.
She was still pale, and she no longer wore her cloak,just her dress, but she looked the same as always. Not a hair out of place from her bun, and her eyes were wide open and awake.
“Can we not have a moment?” Rune asked, his voice low, dry, and I got that he was in shock. I was, too, but…
“Yes—after we are done here,” Raja said, and I definitely agreed. As much as I wanted to just disappear with him from everything and everyone, we couldn’t, not now. Too many things going on.
And Rune said, “That bad?”
“Worse,” Vair said, but of course, he didn’t hear it.
So, I repeated, “Worse.”
And I began to tell him everything that had happened since I’d exploded into frostfire in the forest in the Mercove.
Raja knew most of the story, and I didn’t dwell on the details too much, not those about the Ice Palace, at least. I just told Rune what I’d discovered and how, and how Vair had taken me to the Chronicler, and how Raja had made it possible for us to find the Seer of Shadows.
They all stayed quiet and listened to every word I spoke, especially at the end when I needed moments at a time to gather myself. When I had to relive what I’d seen in the mirror—in that room.
Rune as a six-year-old boy with a knife in his hand, blood covering his knuckles. That look in his eyes while people screamed.
God, it tore me apart all over again.
To see his face while I told him this, while I spoke about the blood—it fucking broke me to pieces because Rune was horrified. The more I spoke, the paler he became and the hollower his eyes looked.
I thought he’d want to take a minute. I thought he’dget up, go away to be alone or something, and I’d have understood.
But instead, he only squeezed my hand between his, took in a deep breath, and said, “So it’s true.”
“It is,” Raja said because I was fighting back tears again.
“And the truth of why the Ice Queen split her soul in two can only be found throughme,” Rune said, his voice hushed, a little strained.
Suddenly, I wished he’d make a big fuss about it. I wished he’d scream and slam his fists against the stone walls of the cave instead of watching him trying to get himself together, to keep himself under control.
“That could be interpreted in a lot of different ways,” said Raja, but even she didn’t believe it.
“It’s very straightforward, actually.” Rune raised his hand and put it over the side of his neck—where the remainder of his tattoos still peeked through the collar of his black shirt. “I knew why I killed the Ice Queen. I just…can’t remember it.” Because of the traitor’s mark that his father had branded him with.
“To try to unlock it would mean the death of his mind,” Vair said.
“You don’t know that. Raja already removed the seal on his power,” I said.
“But that is not the same. Magic can regenerate—the brain cannot. His father’s magic has marked him physically as well, and to try to forcefully remove it would most likely result in the loss of his mind as he knows it.”
Well, fuck.I closed my eyes, breathed deeply.
“Is he…is he speaking?” Rune asked, and I remembered once more that he couldn’t hear Vair.
“Yes, actually.” And I repeated everything Vair said before he continued.
“However, the magic of these curses only lasts as long as its master.”
My stomach twisted. “Meaning?”
Vair widened his bright blue eyes at me. “I think you know.”
Death.
