Page 127 of Fractured
“Nilah, listen to me.” A bloody hand on my cheek. Runewas in front of me, his eyes wide open, the circles under them like bruises.
I shook my head. “He wants to banish you. We have to go, Rune—now!”And I stepped backward, just as Vair moved,jumpedright out of my arms and on all fours within the second.
“He must die!”
“Vair, no?—”
“ENOUGH!”
The entire room froze for a second, not with magic, but with the strength of the voice that we all heard. The sheer intensity of the order.
The Midnight King was standing in front of the first stair to his dais, the circle full of shadows he’d drawn in front of his feet.
The six soldiers who remained standing, who’d been fighting Raja, stopped and stepped back, their weapons lowered. Raja breathed heavily, her hair all over the place, blood on her face and the rest of her body, a silver sword in one hand, and a dagger in the other. Her eyes were on the king, and by the time I’d turned, Rune had already stepped in front of me.
“Enough with this madness,” the king said, shaking his head, looking at Rune now—and I could barely see his face over Rune’s shoulder.
Rune reached back his free hand for me and I grabbed it in both of mine. Raja came closer, too, still standing tall, her chin high even though she had a cut on her face from her temple down to her jaw, still bleeding. She didn’t even flinch.
And Vair continued to move closer slowly, head lowered and teeth showing…
Vair, no,I thought but couldn’t even say it before the king continued.
“You come to me with demands, seeking a truth you arenotready to hear, as if you think you have any right.” My stomach twisted and turned. “You remove the seal I put on you, and you dare to come here and commandmyshadows, bastard.Step. Aside!”
The guy was mad.Reallymad, and he really didn’t sound like Rune at all.
I confirmed it once more when Rune said, “No.”
That one word weighed tons.
“You were always a coward, Helem. Always,” Raja said, and she sounded…disappointed. Not even a little bit afraid.
“The dead shouldn’t be able to speak,” the king said, and I went closer, rose on my tiptoes to see his face better, to see the smile I knew would be there—and it was almost identical to Rune’s. Just one corner of his lips turned up.
It made mesick. This was the man who’d marked his own son and banished him when he was six. To a land where theyatepeople, hoping he’d die—and now he wanted to do it again?
“I’ll keep that in mind when I spit on your dead body,” Raja hissed, raising her sword.
I squeezed Rune’s hand tightly. “Rune, please…”
We had to get the hell out of here. We had to go—and if those soldiers remained motionless there by the bodies still, Vair could keep the shadows of the king off us until we made it to the doors.
And if we couldn’t, we could jump. Right there in that round opening—we could jump, and we’d probably break a lot of bones when we fell on those rocks, but we could heal. Bones could mend.
God, please, please, please let us survive this…
“You have one choice, bastard son of mine,” said the Midnight King, ignoring Raja completely. “You either leave and keep your life, or you fight me and you die as you should have when you were a boy.”
Bile rose up my throat. The anger moved me together with the magic in my veins, and I stepped to the side, let go of his hand.
And Rune said, “You owe me my life. You can’t give me back all the years you’ve stolen, but youcangive me back my memories. They aremine.You never had a right to them.”
“I owe you nothing, boy,” the king spit, so full of hatred it was impossible that he knew Rune was his son. To look at your own child like that—my God, how could he live with himself? How couldanyone?
“Walk away—alone.The mortal stays.”
My stomach turned a million times.
