Page 66 of Fractured
With that, he turned around and walked back toward the open door calmly, leaving me all alone in the gigantic throne room without a clue what the hell to do next.
twenty
The bookI’d found in the drawer of the desk wasn’t big, but it was heavy. All those crystals—diamonds that reflected the light like they had magic in them, and the dark ones, too. They were black, almost entirely, like Rune’s shadows were trapped at their very center. I could have sworn that when I ran my fingertips over them, theyhummedwith power, with magic. Frostfire magic.
I could actually tell the difference now when it came. The ice magic, which Vair referred to asonlyice magic—like it was a small, insignificant thing—was fluid. It flowed with ease and didn’t mind me trying tocontrolit. Which, by the way, who would have thought thatmagicwanted to be independent, too? Because frostfire sure did. It wanted to be asked and begged and pleaded with, and when I felt it coming, it was like a layer of ice all over my insides, which was what I’d always felt since Maera scratched me.
If only someone could tell mewhy.
If only this book in my hands could tell me what in the hell the Ice Queen had done, how she’d cheated her fate, so that I could get out of here and gofind Rune.
But no. The book hidden in the desk wasn’t a book of answers. It was a book of spells. Agrimoire, Vair called it, and it had all kinds of spells written in Veren. The pages were crisp white, and the ink didn’t move when I touched it, didn’t translate itself for me. The symbols remained no matter how many times I went through them.
I walked the three rooms that the Ice Palace so generously allowed me to roam, but all I had in front of me were dead ends.
No way out.
Even sleep refused to take me. I lay down on the bed, and then on the furniture, even curled up in an armchair until my back started screaming, hoping for a little escape, at least. But I couldn’t bring myself to keep my eyes closed for longer than a few seconds at a time. The image of that broken mirror remained in the center of my mind.
Something about it.
Something about the energy and theweightof it in my hand. Every time I put it back in the drawer, I picked it back up a few minutes later, and I couldn’t even tell you why. That’s how I ended up hours later sitting at the edge of the crystal dais of the throne room, with the broken mirror on my lap.
Maybe I followed Vair because I didn’t want to be alone. He moved around all the time, but he seemed to like this room better than the rest. Said it was the fresh air, but I thought it was just the memories this place brought him as he stared at where he said the queen used to sit in her throne chair.
Eventually, I lay down on the platform, which, again, wasn’t cold at all. I lay down with the mirror in front of me, eyes half-closed, body tired, mind overcrowded.
I wondered howshe did it, if she used this very mirror. Iwondered how one went aboutsurviving certain deathbecause that was a big deal, apparently, even in a world where magic was part of the ordinary, just like breathing.
Because these things I knew for sure, didn’t I? The Ice Queen was meant to die, but she found a way to cheat that fate. To basically escape the prophecy. She used this mirror to do it—I was certain of that, too. Somehow, she used this mirror and maybe that’s why it was broken.
The mirror that the sorcerer told me to find.
It wasthis, wasn’t it? My eyes opened wide once more as the memory replayed in the center of my mind. Vair moved, too, and at first I thought I’d said something out loud, but he barely glanced my way before he slowly walked to the open door and slipped out of the room.
“Bye to you, too,” I muttered, running my fingertip over the edges of the broken mirror. “Why, though?” I asked it in a whisper. “Why would a guy chained to a piece of rock tell me to find you?”
He said the mirror wasgoneafter the queen’s death, but he was wrong. It had been right there in the drawer of her desk, yet he’d sounded like he was sure someone had taken it.
As if this place would even let anybody in to try. It hadn’t even let in the Midnight King who had control of the entire court, had it? Only Vair.
And…only me.
My eyes closed and I sighed deeply, sitting up on the platform again, my mind spinning. “Why me?” I asked—the mirror or the palace, it didn’t really make a difference. Nobody was going to give me an answer anyway.
“Why now?” I gripped the handle of the mirror tightly anyway and basically screamed at it like a lunatic. “Whyme?!”
A whole palace that could hide doors and make them appear in walls, that could take rooms from one floor and somehow just put them on another, that could make trays full of food appear anywhere and at any time—yet it letmein. It let Vair drag me all the way to that room before it trapped me—why me?
I thought I shouted again, but there was no echo in the tall ceiling. The words had remained inside my head when I closed my eyes and tried not to throw the stupid thing on the floor, break it to pieces for real.
That’s why I felt the energy.
That’s why I heard the almosthummingcoming from right there in front of my face. From between my hands.
From the broken mirror.
My eyes opened, my breath stuck in my throat. The two pieces of the mirror showed me my eyes and my nose, each from a slightly different angle.
