Page 34 of Fractured
When it was still ten feet away from me, it sat on its hind legs, thick fluffy tail at its side. It watched me with a curious expression, anintelligentexpression—like it was a person, not an animal. So far away from the dogs in that cave, though I’d thought they were intelligent creatures, too.
This was different.
I waited with my heart in my throat for it to speak again, and it wouldn’t. It just sat there now, as if to prove to me that I had indeed made the whole thing up, and it watched me, blinking once for every ten times I did.
Noise in my head.
“What are you going to do to me?”
Yes, I was aware that I was speaking to what looked like an animal here, and I’d spoken to Maera when I thought she was a dog, too, but this was a whole other level. Damn it, I’dheardthis creature speaking with my own ears!
“Depends.”
A word.Depends.
Its jaws moved and it spoke with my own voice, though I sounded a bit breathless just then. When I spoke throughits jaws.
God, what the hell is happening to me?!
“On what?”
“On who you are. On whatyou’regoing to do to you,” it said because it was impossible for a single person or thing or creature in this fucking place to give me one straight answer for once in my life.
Fuck, I was fuming from the ears—but it served me, the anger. I was no longer as afraid as I sat up straighter against the wall.
“Where are we?” And Ireallydidn’t expect an answer to that, either, but…
“In the Ice Palace.”
Goose bumps all over my arms. “And where is the Ice Palace?” I asked, even though something told me I already knew the answer.
“In the Frozen Court of Verenthia.”
Bingo.
Trying not to panic and start bawling like a damn baby right now was difficult, but I managed.
“Okay,” I breathed, and I sounded like a fucking joke to my own ears. “Okay, okay, cool. We’re in the Frozen Court. Right.”
My train of thoughts crashed about two hundred times within a minute.
“Um…you wouldn’t happen to knowwhyI’m in the Frozen Court of Verenthia?” I finally said.
A second of silence.
The creature finally lowered its head a little, took those icy eyes off me.
“That, I do not know yet.”
“But you brought me here.” I remembered how he’d dragged me by the ankle—I remembered it.
“I did.”
“So why did you?”
The creature raised its head again, looked me straight in the eye. “Because this is where you have to be.”
Somehow, I didn’t laugh at the sheer absurdity of this whole thing. Instead, I made it to my feet, and I didn’t even need to use the wall for support.
