Page 13 of Fractured
For now, we could take a moment to breathe.
I thought we were going to leave the cave, get out there and hide in the forest or something, but Merenith didn’t want to hear about it. She insisted that we stay, at least for now, because the magic of the mountain was the only thing keeping the Seelie soldiers from finding everyone who lived here.
She did have a point—and I didn’t complain when she showed us deeper into the cave, behind this thick rock that half shielded a mattress in this round space on its other side. She said we could lie there, that it was clean, and the most private spot they could spare for us in this cave.
Rune wasn’t concerned. He thanked her, and when we lay down, his shadows slipped from his fingers and spread like a veil from the edges of the rocks on both our sides, locking us in. Even though the darkness faded, the magic remained. Nobody out there was going to hear or see us. We were as alone as we could be right now.
Tears came to my eyes when his arms were wrapped around me—my safe place. I thought I was going to want to talk to him, tell him all that had happened, everything I hadn’t had the chance to tell him yet, but I couldn’t. For a while, I just lay there, head on his arm, and cried in silence while he caressed me, touched me everywhere as if both to convince himself that I was whole, and to reassure me that I was safe.
The memories were there, ready to take over me the moment I let my guard down, so I replayed everything that had happened as if in slow motion. The moment the ground swallowed Rune whole in the Hollow. The desperation I’d felt. The talk with the Seer and the image of thatwoman—thequeenthat Rune was accused of murdering when he was just six years old. The unbinding ceremony and the Seelie Queen, too. Her words that finally made sense—it won’t matter soon.
Because she knew all along that Lyall was planning to kill me. She knew.
My eyes squeezed shut when I remembered the memory of looking down at myself with a knife buried in my chest—an illusion, yes, but it had looked so, so real. My blood on Rune’s hand—it had looked so real that I was having trouble accepting it hadn’t been. It felt like I should have been dead—a blade had gone right through my heart. Yet here I was, and Rune’s hands were clean, no blood on them, and he kissed my head and my face and my own hands, whispering to me that I was okay.
But nothing haunted me as much as Helid’s face.
Ultimately, that’s what stopped the tears and distracted me from the pain and the sadness and the sheer panic and shock I’d constantly been in for what felt like days. Ultimately, the need to talk about Helid was what forced me to take in a deep breath and get myself together.
I’d cried. I’d felt sorry for myself, and Rune had held me through it all. I wasn’t sure whether I’d cried for minutes or hours, but it wasenough.
Now it was time to face the music.
five
“Helid was alive.”
The words barely left my lips. I couldn’t even call it a whisper—more like I mouthed them, but Rune heard.
“I saw him,” he said. “I saw his body.”
“All this time, Rune—he was alive. In the cell right next to mine, and I didn’t see it. Didn’t know.”
“It’s not your fault.” And I wanted to think that, I really did—but why did it feel like it was?
“It was him—hisbody made to appear like Lyall. He stabbed his uncle in the heart the moment I left the room, right when I woke him up!” My voice was getting louder, but I couldn’t control it, not now. “My God, Rune, I woke him up and then he…then he?—”
Soft lips on mine. Rune held me to himself tightly and gave me another moment to get myself together, to breathe, to understand that Iwasn’tabout to burn or freeze, somehow at the same time. That just because it felt like my insides were made of ice didn’t mean they actually were.
“It must have been Helid who poisoned him,” Runewhispered. “It makes sense now—it makes sense. He was the only one who could.”
Wide golden eyes were suddenly in front of me.
“So…” I swallowed hard. “So, that means Helid was never…he was never going to…”
“Bring you to Seelie Court,” Rune finished for me, and there went my heart breaking into a million pieces again. “He orchestrated the grog attack himself. Of course, he did—of course.” His eyes squeezed shut and he crushed me to his chest harder. “Fuck, Wildcat. If I hadn’t come…”
I’d be dead.
If Rune hadn’t followed Helid and the royal guards when they came to Earth to get me, I’d have been dead in that forest, eaten by a monkey monster with red eyes.
So much.
Entirelytoomuch for my mind to handle. I was going to fucking collapse soon.
“Sleep,” Rune whispered, a hand over my cheek when I hid my face under his chin. “Sleep, wildling. We’ll talk more when you wake up.”
Did I even have a choice?
