Page 76 of Fractured
A fight—such a waste of time. I could be on my way to Blackwater, though Raja would have sent word if Nilah had made it back to her—but I could have been on my way.
To my surprise, Lyall didn’t attack me. He didn’t even push me back, only looked down at his chest covered by the shadows that had spread up to my forearms now—impossible to hold them back. I was too angry, too desperate.
Too afraid.
“You ordered me tokillher,” I spit.
“But you were powerful enough to disobey the Veil of Obedience,” he spit.
“Which you didn’t know,” I reminded him, a bitter smile on my lips. “You didn’t know that I could when you gave me that order.”
“True—but I knew you’d find a way.”
This was the moment in which I had to decide whether tobreakhim from the inside with the shadows that wrapped around him like a cloak while he wasn’t trying to stop me—or to step back.
And I wanted to choose the first, I really did, but the way he looked. The fact that he was here. That he was daring to speak her name…
He might know where Nilah actually was.
So, I stopped myself, pulled back my shadows, met his eyes.
“C’mon, Rune. I didn’treallywant you to kill her—I was just…I was pissed off, which I’m sure you’ll find understandable. You stabbed me in the back?—”
“Youdo that, Lyall. When I stab you, it will be in the neck from the front.” I couldn’t help the words coming out of my mouth. “You wanted me to kill her—and you thought you would killmeright after. Label me a traitor—it doesn’t matter. But you wanted us both to die because you couldn’t handle that she chosemeover you.”
Which still astounded me to this day that a woman like Nilah could choose a man like me—but it didn’t matter now. She had—and I was selfish enough to take it.
His smile was bitter.
“Can you blame me? I’m way more handsome—and an actual prince with a throne,” he said.
“Speak,” I spit, no longer interested in continuing this nonsense. “If you know something about Nilah, tell me now.”
“I do, actually,” he said with a flinch. “And trust me when I tell you this isn’t easy for me, Rune.” His jaws cracked so hard for a moment that the entire forest heard them. “But I do care about her, believe it or not.”
A step forward but I didn’t dare go closer for fear I’d grab him again. “Lyall, if you know where?—”
“He has her.”
My mouth clamped shut. Even my heart skipped a long beat as we looked at one another, almost as if I knew.
I already fucking knew.
“Who?” I asked because I still hoped.
“The Midnight King,” Lyall told me. “Your father.”
The ground could have broken from underneath me just like it did in the Hollow, except I wasn’t standing on a giant’s back right now. I was standing on my own two feet.
That strange sensation of being pulled out of your body then shoved into your skin again violently overwhelmed me for a moment. Lyall was still talking, but I couldn’t bring myself to focus. All I could see in my mind was that face, that dark beard, those words he’d said to me when he marked me and banished me.
The Midnight King, whom Raja herself had warned me about.
“Are you even listening to me?” Lyall’s face was right in front of mine.
Everything suddenly came to a halt and the noise in my ears disappeared.
It was Lyall.Hesaid that—Lyall. The man I knew I could never trust for anything.
