Page 131 of Fractured
That’s when I thought to look down, to find my arms glowing like there was a moon hiding underneath my skin.
To find that I was kneeling right over the circle of shadows Helem had drawn on the marble floor in front of the dais.
Instinct took over. Rune was running down the stairs, and Vair and Raja were running toward me from the side, and I was on my feet, ready to run, too.
One step, then two.
My foot sank into the marble. Into the shadow.
I knew it was too late, though I still tried. I knew there was no way out. Whatever that man had been whispering, his shadows were still alive even if he was already dead. His shadows were wrapping themselves around my legs so fast I couldn’t even manage to call out Rune’s name before they spread up to my neck and cut off my vocal cords.
The last thing I remembered was Rune jumpingoff the stairs of the dais with his hands reaching out, shadows leaking from his fingertips.
Then the floor caved, and I fell.
thirty-seven
I wasn’t falling exactly.More like the shadows were sucking me under, pulling me with a strength that was impossible to resist if I tried.
And I did try.
Magic at my fingertips, cold and hard and vicious, and it slipped out of me, searching for something to cling to or something to break—anythingat all that would make these shadows let go.
Except whatever these were made of, they werenot stopping.
An entire forest had stopped. The Midnight King himself, crown-less and arrogant enough to think he’d already won, had been frozen by this magic that lived underneath my skin. Rune had killed him—he wasdead, dead, dead.He would never again hurt Rune.
He should have never hurtme,either.
Except these shadows were stitched to my name. As I struggled against them, I realized that circle he’d drawn on the floor was never meant for Rune.
It was meant forme.
And every tendril of darkness that froze and broke under my frostfire was replaced by a new one, stronger, thicker, forever tied to me.
I screamed as I was being banished from the Midnight Palace. I screamed because once more, the universe was intent on keeping me from Rune.
Then the shadows stopped.
Until that moment, I hadn’t realized just how fast I was moving, wrapped up in shadows, traveling like a fucking bullet through God only knew where. And when they stopped, my stomach nearly came right out of my mouth, together with all my insides.
I felt it for a split second only—the shift in the air, the hiss of magic, the warmth. I recognized it because I’d felt it before, the heat, the sensation that I was walking through water that was not entirely liquid.
Then the shadows spit me out.
I hit something hard with the side of my head, and my mind shut down.
Birds chirping.
Must have been a memory because it had been a long time since I’d heard a song so beautiful. A very long time, it felt like to me—since the day I stepped into the fae realm. Birdsongs were different there in the few woods I’d passed where birds actually flew free.
But on Earth, their song was sweeter. Infinitely more beautiful—or maybe it was just me. Maybe I was just used to the way the melody raised my spirits, especially in summer when I was sitting in the backyard with my eyes closed, just listening.
Then came the scream.
My eyes opened. The pain in my head intensified and shot down the rest of my body lightning fast. The birdsong no longer reached me, and the marble floor underneath my hands wasn’t as…cold.
That’s because it wasn’t marble. It was soft soil covered in grass.
