Page 54 of Fractured
He was so certain when he said this, like he truly believed it.
All my insides twisted. “Help me, Vair,” I suddenly said, taking even myself by surprise. “Please, just help me get out of here—I have to find Rune.”
“I am,” the lynx said. “I’m helping you. Close your eyes and breathe and find the magic. Tell me what it feels like.”
That’s it—that’s all he said. No emotions going through his eyes now, no sadness—he just gave orders and I obeyed.
A tear or two slipped down my cheeks, but I did as he asked, and I spoke when he told me to—the truth. I told him nothing but the truth.
For the next few hours, all I managed to do was exhaust myself and burn through every ounce of energy in my body with pure, raw anger.
sixteen
Trapped.
I was the prisoner of a fucking palace, even if Vair refused to say so. Even if he insisted that the palace was merely making sure that I wasworthy.
The thing was that I didn’t fucking sign up to have my worthiness tested or proved! I was dragged here by this very animal, and somehow, I couldn’t even bring myself to be mad athim.
No, I was just mad at myself.
And I continued to get madder every time Vair said,again,and every time I tried to sit still and control my heartbeat and control my breathing and tried to call for the frostfire inside me—but it refused to come.
“You’re forcing it,” the lynx told me. “Remember what I said. Frostfire does not accept control, only guidance.”
“I’mtrying,” I said through gritted teeth, but Vair didn’t give a shit.
“Try better.”
At that point it was only a matter of time before I lost it for real, and so I wasn’t surprised when five minutes later I found myselfpicking up that stupid glass vase that refused to break and throwing it against the floor again and again until my arms got tired.
Fuck, I was so angry I saw red. How dare this place keep me hostage in a dead queen’s fucking bedroom?!
Vair said nothing, only watched me pick up the vase and throw it against the floor and the walls like a fucking lunatic. And I didn’t plan to stop because it felt good to be moving, to be throwing things, to want to fuckingdestroyeverything in my path.It felt really good, but then I threw the vase against one of those flower designs on the wall near the half-broken vanity table, and it actually broke.
The wallbroke—or so I thought.
I stopped moving. A piece of moonstone bigger than my fists fell off and rolled on the floor, but even before I could start to panic for breaking the fucking wall, the music started.
It only played for a single second, but it was music, a melody—and when what I thought was a piece of stone stopped rolling near the first stair in the middle of the room, I realized it was actually a box colored the same as the moonstone walls.
A fuckingmusicbox with a silver-colored winder on the side.
“Fuck.” The word slipped from my lips and I was pointing at without even realizing. “What the hell is that?!”
I could see that it was a music box, obviously, but why would it be hidden inside a fucking wall?
Vair looked up at me passively. “Help.”
He said that with a straight face.
Even when I laughed, and even when I told him that Ireallydidn’t see how a music box hidden inside a wall was going to do anything for me, he claimed that it was thepalace’s way ofhelping me,and he assured me that it was safe to go closer, that it wasn’t going to explode in my face or anything.
Eventually, I did.
Eventually, I sat on the floor to inspect it as the flames on the torches grew bigger the farther down the horizon the sun slipped. The lid of it was indeed shaped like a rose bloom, just like the roses engraved on the stone walls. Exceptthisone was made of wood painted a silver grey. It was not made of stone—and whether it had always been there hiding in plain sight, or whether the palace had really given it to me right now as help, it didn’t much matter.
The inside was incredibly beautiful. It was a castle made of moonstone, almost entirely white, with five towers and a million tiny windows, and the velvet cushion it stood on inside the box was that same lilac-pink color of winter roses depicted in the paintings. The queen’s favorite flowers, according to Vair.
