Page 2 of Fractured
The boy was mesmerized by it as he nodded and did not look away until the queen took her fae light shaped like a songbird underneath her skin again. She enjoyed his fascination, but there was only so much time at her disposal before she needed to be in the presence of others.
They still had a lot to talk about, she and the little boy.
“I’m glad you decided to follow it,” she said and straightened up again, reached for the handle of the door to her right—an empty room where they could talk in peace, away from prying ears.
“Am I in trouble?” the boy asked, and the queen smiled again—she hadn’t smiled so often in such a short time for a while now.
“Absolutely not. I merely want to talk to you,” she said, her voice soft, sweet. Her own ears had missed the nuance.
“About what?” the boy asked, and the fear was all gone now—he believed the queen when she told him he wasn’t in trouble. He believed her right away.
“Tell me something, Rune. Do you know who you are?” she asked. “Do you know who your father is?”
Eyes wide and suddenly dark. Lips parted. Small hands fisted tightly.
The boy tried to speak, and when he couldn’t, he only shook his head.
The Ice Queen pushed the door of the empty storage room open. “Come, Rune. Let’s sit down. I have a very important story to tell you.”
Together, the Ice Queen and the Midnight boy walked into the room, closed the door and sealed it shut.
They remained in there for a long time.
When they came out, neither of them was ever going to be the same.
one
Trust me.
The words echoed in my head, filled my ears just as the color red filled my vision.
Blood. So much blood—and it was coming out ofme.
The golden blade of the dagger in Rune’s hand was no longer visible to me because it was buried in my chest. It was inside my heart. The white dress I wore had turned red with all that blood, and Rune’s hand was slick with it, too, and his eyes were wide as he looked at me. As he held the dagger’s handle tightly in his fist and just looked at me.
Trust me,he’d said, and I did. Not that I’d had another choice, considering the Seelie Prince himself had given me the order to sit nice and still as I waited to be stabbed, but Rune had asked me to trust him, and I did.
Then he’d gone and stabbed me right in the chest.
Those big, wide eyes. So dark I saw my reflection in them, my pale face, my bright blue eyes, my mouth opened, prepared to scream—but no voice was going to come out of me.
No, I was going to die in silence. I was going to die at the hands of Rune.
Such a silly, impossible idea, yet here I was.
Somebody screamed in the room—the hall where the prince had been holding a feast to announce to his court that he wasnot dead.That he’d only pretended to be dead so that he could catch and kill the people who’d tried to kill him, he said—and to announce that the Seelie Queen would step down from her throne soon, and Lyall would be crowned king.
Aking—and his first act after “coming back to life” had been to trick me and Rune with that water in the bowl, to force us to do his bidding. His first act as the future king of the Seelie Court had been to kill the woman who’d come to this realm to save his life.
Not to mention Rune, whom he’d called afriend.Whom he’d tried to get rid of. Whom he’d made to stab me in the heart.
Rune stabbed me in the heart.
People were moving, yet I couldn’t look away from him at all. People were running and screaming, some laughing—Lyall—but all I could think about was the golden dagger and my blood pouring over Rune’s fist, and my heart that was no longer beating?—
Wait.
Suddenly, the outside world disappeared. A beat echoed in my mind.
