Page 122 of Fractured
I’d lie if I said I wasn’t scared, but Vair stood beside me with every step I took. It gave me strength to know I wasn’t alone just now.
Hegave me strength all along.
I didn’t look down at the bodies I walked over, either—couldn’t if I tried. The Midnight King was standing right there, and he’d opened the doors for us, and those soldiers who’d been running with swords in their hands had stopped. They wouldn’t have stopped if he hadn’t told them to in whatever way they communicated.
Hewantedus to go to him—and that alone rang all the alarms in my head, but it was already done.
The three of us were inside, and the king raised his hand just slightly.
The doors behind us swung closed, and the sound thatechoed in the room was so…final. A promise that they werenevergoing to open for me again.
So be it,said my voice in my head, and I was the first to be surprised at the fact that all my fear had already faded. I was here. It was done. Now, I found Rune, wherever he was, and we tried to make it back out.
That’s all there was to this.
“It’s him,” said my voice outside—Vair.
And… “It’syou,” said the Midnight King himself.
The memory replayed itself in my mind. It washim,indeed—the same guy with the thick black beard who’d screamed when six-year-old Rune stabbed the Ice Queen.
Except in real life—or better yet, in the present—his presence washuge. Even the crown of black metal and dark diamonds on his head looked menacing. Even his shadow cast on the marble floor was darker than anything else’s somehow, and his eyes stole the light from around them. I almost couldn’t see the shape of them at all. Or maybe he was doing it on purpose?
I had no idea, but I was moving. Raja was moving. Vair was moving—and we weren’t following one another anymore, but each of us wanted to get closer to him for a different reason. I was curious, and Vair seemed in disbelief, and Raja looked about ready to burn the whole realm to the ground, but she wanted to start withhim.
My eyes were locked on those of the Midnight King that I could barely even see, and I kept going as if I was being pulled by a fucking magnet—until Vair growled and Raja gasped, and I had no choice but to look around and see where I was.
The Midnight throne room.
It was unlike anything I had ever seen before—and I didn’t just mean throne rooms. I meant the entire realm.
It was bigger than any other room I’d ever been in, and the floor was full of stairs that went up and down a couple inches only—like the whole thing was made in layers. In the middle was a round opening like a misplaced balcony, with railings made of black metal that almost looked like actual plants. I had no idea what was underneath the room or what that opening looked down at, but behind it was a large table with over twenty velvet-cushioned, high-backed chairs around it. To its other side, half the wall didn’t exist, and you could see the Eternal Water stretching beyond. At the edge where the glassless windows ended, a waterfall poured down toward it constantly. Not half as loud or as big as the ones in the mining site, but it was a waterfall, nonetheless. Was it possible that this entire palace was built inside a mountain? Because it looked like it—or maybe on the side, at the very least, because those were large grey rocks the water was sliding down from.
But even that wasn’t the strangest part of the room.
The design of the glass wall at the back of the throne room was spectacular. It was decorated with either real plants or black metal shaped into vines and leaves and blossoms, and I didn’t understand how there was silver light coming from the other side if the waterfall was to its right, possibly not thirty feet away. An illusion was my best guess, but the throne itself wasn’t. It was in the middle of a platform that rose higher than the rest of the room by five wide stairs, the space around ittiny,and no other chairs were near the throne. It had three sharp points atop its high back, and it was completelyblack,but not with colors, no. With shadows. There was no texture I could identify, not wood or metal or velvet—only shadows, thick as ink.
And then there was Rune.
Two things happened before I could blink.
I saw Rune who’d been hidden away by the railing of that opening in the middle of the room, and he was kneeling on the floor, on the lowest level between those stairs. His arms were stretched to his sides and they were being held by shadows.
Shadows so deep and dark you couldn’t see through them had wrapped around his wrists and circled all the way up his arms. His shirt was torn, his hair was all over the place, and his eyes were half closed, too, but he was breathing.
Rune was here.
And Raja charged forward.
With a shout that tore from her very soul, she charged forward with her sword and her hand raised, and shadows exploded everywhere at once.
Not only from her fingertips but from thefloor,too.
My God, those weren’t stairs at all. They were literallylayersof shadows on the marble floor, and they tore themselves off and wrapped around Raja, stopping her when she was still five feet away from the Midnight King.
He hadn’t looked away from me at all.
My eyes darted from his to Rune, my body still so fuckingconfused,my mind a mess, my insides completely frozen over.
