Page 64 of Fractured
I couldn’t find any, and demanding from the palace to let me outthis instantdidn’t work, either, and so I had the brilliant idea of climbing up on the ledge of one of the windows and considered jumping off all the way to the ground.
The problem was, we were veryhigh up—I suspect for this very reason; why else would the palace bring this roomup here when Vair said it used to be on the ground floor—and there was no river going around this palace, it seemed. In fact, Icouldn’t fucking seethe ground from up here, just darkness and a few lights, and I had no clue what the hell waited for me down there if I did convince myself to jump.
I had moon magic in me, didn’t I? That’s why Maera had scratched me before she threw me into that dried riverbed. My bones would heal again if I broke them.
Would my skull, though?
“Nilah, get down from there.”
Vair was behind me. I didn’t look, just held more tightly to the pillar that separated this window from the next. Wrapped both my arms around it.
Fuck, this is high…
“Don’t be silly. Even if you jump, the palace will not let you go.”
The wind blew in my face, ice-cold and whispering in my ear to get back. Get inside.Don’t do anything stupid, Nilah!
Probably my own instincts, not the wind, but still.
“Get down, Nilah. You’re wasting time.”
I laughed. “I’mwasting time?! Are you serious right now?” Because I wasn’t the one holding me hostage here—it was this fucking palace!
“You could be thinking calmly about the next part instead of trying to run, simply becauseyou can’t.”
I looked back at the asshole of a lynx for a second. “Iwilljump.”
“But you will not get out.” He didn’t even blink his eyes when he said this.
And I thought,what the hell.I wasn’t going to stay here any longer, so might as well try it. It was a second’sdecision, wasn’t it? It was acrazydecision, but I had become crazy locked up in this place.
I was batshit fucking crazy.
So, I jumped.
I couldn’t believe my own damn eyes, but I let go of that pillar, and I jumped off the window, into the darkness, fully aware that I was going to break to pieces.
That’s why I wasshockedand couldn’t even scream when my legs hit the ground not a second later.
The ground in themiddleof the fucking throne room.
A moment passed, then another. I blinked and blinked, arms out to keep my balance, my feet against the stone floor, my legs somehow holding me—and I looked. At the window where I just jumped from, the empty dais, and Vair sitting there by the wall watching me passively as if to say,are you done now?
Then I screamed.
Loud and hard and for as long as my lungs could manage it—I screamed like the world had just fallen right over my head.
“You are seriouslydisturbed!” I screamed, at Vair or the palace or the entire fucking realm—who cared?
“And you need to calm down.” The lynx stood up and made his way toward me. “Calm down, Nilah, andthink.”
So fucking frustrating because he was right. My heart was still slamming against my ribcage, and I could barely catch my breath becauseI had jumped.I had really jumped from that fucking window—seriously, Nilah!—and it hadn’t even worked.
And as much as I wanted to continue to scream my guts out at this whole fucking place, I knew that wasn’t going to get me anywhere. No, I needed to stop and I needed tothink. I needed to find the next piece of this fucking puzzle and force this place to let me out.
Tonight, not tomorrow. Tonight.
The broken mirrordidn’t show me my reflection no matter what angle I turned it. It also didn’t actually do anything at all no matter how tightly I held it in my hands or how much magic I gave it.
