Page 25 of Fractured
“Ihaven’t been heard of before, either.” Whichwas a cosmic fucking joke for real, just like everything else about my life right now.
“Are you sleeping?” Rune asked after a moment, and I hadn’t even realized that I’d closed my eyes at all. But it was so peaceful out there with the sky and the sea reflecting the light, glowing here and there, my bird sleeping while it sat at the edge of a rock above us.
“No,” I said because though my eyes were tired, my mind was still awake. “I keep thinking about what Helid said.” Those words seemed to have been stuck on repeat in my mind any time I was calm enough to be aware of what I was thinking.
“Me, too. The curse he spoke about—Merenith has no idea what it is.”
“So,whodoes?”
“The seer, maybe.” My stomach turned and regret made its way through my veins all over again.
I should have agreed to see that woman again. I should have pushed her to give me answers yesterday.
“We still have the vial. We’ll figure it out soon,” Rune said. “Tomorrow.”
I raised my head and kissed his jaw. “Tomorrow.”
But tomorrow did not looklike either of us thought.
eight
We wentto sleep on the same mattress as before. Rune carried me and lay me down, and I thought I saw the silhouette of the people watching in the distance, but nobody said a word and my eyes were already closed.
By the time Rune climbed on the mattress behind me and wrapped me in his arms, I was asleep.
Then came the barking.
To me, it felt like I’djustfallen asleep, like I’d just felt Rune’s arms around my body. But we must have lain down longer than that because my eyes barely opened and my mind needed a moment to wake up all the way. To hear those barks more clearly—and to hear the screams. To see Rune standing by the foot of the mattress with his hands up and his shadows slipping out of his fingers in a rush, creating a black screen in front of me.
Cold exploded in my chest, sending shards of ice through my veins.
I was on my feet behind him before I’d fully understood where we were and what was happening.
They’d found us.
Lyallhad found us hiding under a mountain in the Mercove.
“Wildcat, I need you to stand back,” Rune said when he turned to me and grabbed my face in his hands.
“No,” I said becauseno fucking way in hell.
“Listen to me—there’s a lot of them, and chances are he isn’t here personally,” he said, his eyes so dark they didn’t even reflect the floating light of the shapeless fae lights that were floating over our heads.
“No,Rune. I will not stay behind.” I would say it as many times as I needed to—I’d had enough of letting other people do the fighting while I stood back.
“There’s nothing you can do against them. They’re?—”
“I have magic. I can use it,” I said, and someone screamed beyond that veil of darkness he’d pulled up around us like an extension of the rock that shielded us from the rest of the cave.
I could have sworn it was Hessa, and my heart jumped. With it, more of that ice-cold sensation spread all about me, making me think it might freeze my limbs in place, but it didn’t. I could still move just fine.
“These are trained soldiers, damn it,” he said, and he sounded panicked now as he looked back at the darkness.
“Thenmove!”I pushed him back with all my strength, knowing he wouldn’t get going otherwise.
“We run,” he said, breathing heavily, his left hand raised at nothing a second before a black ball of shadows appeared and began to expand—the shadow pocket where he hid his weapons. “At the first chance we get, we run away from here. We cannot win against them. We have to run.”
“We run,” I said, and more screams and more barks filled my ears. “Rune, just move?—”
