Page 11 of Fractured
Yes—it was a cave, a very different cave from that cavern we’d been in the last time we were in the Mercove. There were no pools full of glowing fish and weed here. No pretty crystals and no boxes. Most importantly—no mermaids, only fae.
Seelie and Unseelie, and what I assumed wereIcefae, too, judging by the color of their hair. There were two of them, and they were blonde—anicyblonde, so different from the warmth of the Seelies. Their eyes were as blue as the oceans back home.
As blue asmine.
I tried not to get freaked out by the fact that our colors seemed to match so well—and colors matching were a big deal in the fae realm. They basically classified what type of fae you were.
Except Iwasn’ta fae. I was a mortal from Earth—ahuman being,and I’d say it and think it as many times as I had to, until this whole fucking realm heard.
It wasn’t hard not to freak out, though. It was fairly easy, actually, when I realized that all these people, eighteen of them, seemed to belivinghere. They did have boxes—full of food, not dead fish and glowing crystals. They had mattresses and sheets, and clothes hanging on ropes to dry, and a smoothed-out wall of one side of the giant cave was full of colors—drawings of stars and animals, even fae. The ceiling was high—so high I couldn’t see it at all from the web of fae lights, golden and white, and the torches mounted all around the walls. There was plenty of air to breathe, even if it was full of magic.
Rune was just as surprised as I was, which was why he’d stopped with me at the mouth of that tunnel, and we both took a moment to analyze what was in front of us. Yes, fae most definitely did not live under rocks—quite literally—so the fact that these people were here meant that they were running from something. Hiding from something.
Someone.
Lyall’s face, that awful laughter of his when he thought Rune had actually stabbed me, rang in my ears. I looked at Rune and he looked at me, and I knew he was thinking the same thing. All thatwanting to believethat Lyall was a good man, that there was any kindness left in him, had already vanished into thin air. There was nothing good about the Seelie prince—absolutelynothing.He was a merciless, arrogant monster wearing a man’s face—and God, Maera was right when she warned me against them.
Her words were in my ears, so when Merenith waved for us to follow, and Rune led me by the hand inside the cave, I saw each and every person here in a new light. A different light.
Iexpectedto be betrayed by everyone by sunrise. Exceptfor Rune, every person I’d met in this fucking place had just proved to me why they shouldn’t be trusted.
Rune squeezed my hand like he knew exactly what I was thinking and he wanted to reassure me. That—or I really had no clue how to go about concealing my emotions, stopping them from showing on my face.
All the fae had stopped whatever they were doing and were looking at us—except for Hessa. She’d lain down on one of the makeshift mattresses in the far left corner where barely any of the fae lights reached, and all I could see was that she had both hands over her face, and she wasn’t moving an inch.
Grieving—for Helid.
My heart skipped a beat. I dug my fingernails into Rune’s hand, but he didn’t complain.
“This mountain has natural immunity to tracking magic because of the water that surrounds its other side.”
The woman—Merenith—spoke, waving her hand forward to the walls of the cave across from us that I could only see because of the torches mounted on them. There were plenty of dark spots that I couldn’t see through rocks and shadows, like hidden rooms within the cave, but most were clear. Empty, save for the fae—and four dogs standing near them.
Normallookingdogs—big and with soft-looking, brownish fur, perfectly alert as they took us in, so much like Maera that I’d have doubted my own eyes if I hadn’tfelther shifting, hadn’t spoken to the woman that she was myself.
“We’ve been holed up here for the better part of two summers,” Merenith continued, then stopped walking for a moment, turning to us. “Most of us have faked our deaths to escape the wrath of the queen and her pup before leaving the court.” The corners of her lips turned up,but it wasn’t quite a smile. “It has been a long two years, indeed.”
“Are you…are you the Broken Crown?” I only realized I’d spoken when I heard my own voice echoing in the quiet place.
“We were.” Merenith nodded. “Now…I’m not sure what name we go by, but we are…broken.” Again, that curl of her lips. “Because ofyou, mortal. You, who came all the way from Nerith and ruined allour plans—the very future of the Seelie Court.”
My stomach fell. That wasn’t fucking fair, was it? “I didn’t—”know,I was going to say, but Rune didn’t let me continue.
With my hand still in his, he took half a step forward, and I felt the way his magic rushed to his fingertips against my skin. I felt it, and it was cold, just not…thesamecold as mine.
“If you’ve brought us here for accusations, we’ll show ourselves out.”
His voice echoed more deeply than mine in the cave. Everyone heard, and everyone seemed to hold their breath when he spoke—Rune waspower.The sound of his voice was raw and full, unlike any other time he’d ever spoken before, at least in front of me.
So close to how Maera had sounded when she said that word—bow.
Merenith nodded her head deeply. “Of course not. We’re aware that the Lifebound didn’t know who Prince Lyall truly is—and neither did you, bastard.”
She didn’t say it like the queen did, though. That word—bastard,it became more or less based on the tone of someone’s voice. An insult or simply a name to be called. The Seelie Queen had used it to try to belittle Rune, but thiswoman here didn’t. She said it in the same way she called memortal.
“Funny that you weren’tawareof that fact when you sent those masked men to kill me,” I said and regretted it the next second—but the memory was so very vivid in my mind still. The way those men had cut us off and then had fought Rune, had brought the whole tunnel down on our heads. We’d barely made it out with our lives.
“We were trying to save this court from its misery,” Merenith said, her chin raised, no remorse anywhere on her. “We were not aware of who you were when we sent ours to stop you, mortal.”
