Page 67 of Fractured
I screamed.
The mirror slipped from my hands—I couldn’t help it. Thankfully, I was sitting down so it didn’t fall to the floor. It only fell on my lap.
And it was still showing me my reflection.
My head spun. For a moment there, I’m pretty sure I passed out seated because it felt like Itraveledto a different place mentally, that I wasn’t in the throne room at all. For a moment, it felt like I saw a whole other world—or ratherheardit through a veil of darkness that refused to let me see. I heard voices and music and laughter, felt silk against my skin just like when I had those gloves on, and tastedshockon my tongue all over again as if I’d just swallow a handful of those berries.
I must have passed out because when I blinked and I saw my reflection in that mirror again, the reflection thathadn’t been thereall night, I felt like I just woke up. I felt like I’dfallenon that platform from the ceiling, and I was breathing like I was running, and…
My hands shook so badly when I grabbed the mirror from my lap again.
“Me.” My whisper barely reached my own ears. Suddenly things clicked into place, and so many pieces were still missing, but some were there.
Onewas there, and it was screaming at me together with the pieces of my reflection.
Of course.
Of course,the Ice Queen cheated her fate. “She did it throughme.”
My heart jumped. I stood up, looked up at the ceiling, at the night sky beyond the window, and I said, “It’s me. I am how the queen cheated her fate—me.”
A heartbeat of silence.
Then the walls groaned.
A miracle I didn’t let go of the mirror this time, but maybe it was because my entire body locked down—both from fear and from magic.Icymagic, the kind that froze my insides. Frostfire.
And the dais moved.
Right before my eyes, the large crystal blockcrackedbefore I’d had the chance to draw in my next breath. It cracked violently, like it was an animal, a beast roaring. A sharp, echoing split rang through the room as a seam carved itself clean down the center of the crystal.
Everything went still again for a second.
In the next, the two halves shifted apart just slightly, revealing a narrow vein of—not entirely gold and not entirely silver—light at their core. Something was risingfrom it, and I didn’t breathe until I realized that it was a throne.
A throne chair was fuckinggrowingfrom the crystal dais, its back high, its arms jagged and clear, shaped entirely of crystal that pulsed faintly with silver light.
The throne had emergedlike it really had been hiding inside that dais all this time, and now, somehow, it had let itself out.
“By Reme…”
My own voice saying those words, but I wasn’t even surprised to realize that Vair had found me. He was standing right beside me, and he was looking at the freshly sprouted throne chair, too. It was only a guess because I couldn’t tear my own eyes from it yet, but at least I was breathing. Air was going down my throat. The mirror was still in my fist.
And the silence that followed my voice was deafening.
I was looking at the throne chair made out of fucking crystals that looked like very,veryclear ice, with a dark blue velvet cushion, and three sharp edges rising from the back. I couldn’t believe I was even thinking it, butit fit.From the only image of the Ice Queen I’d seen, both in half the painting, and in the mist the seer had shown me, this throne chair fit that woman perfectly. I could almostseehersitting there.
But before I could make up my mind to utter a single word, something else moved, somethingout there.In the hallway, outside the big door that led to the throne room.
I couldn’t tell you what went through my head in those moments—either it was completely blank or my mind was overwhelmed with too many thoughts and nothing stuck. The mirror was in my hand and the throne chair made of crystal was still there, but I was running.
Out the door and into the hallway, to see that a brand-new doorway—a round one—had opened on the opposite wall, and on the other side was a stairway that led down.
I stopped there by the wall, counting the small lanterns on the walls of the stairway before it curved to the side to where I couldn’t see—but it didn’t matter. Because now I knew what was going on.
“I’m free.”
The palace was finally letting me go.
