Page 77 of Fractured
“How do you know?”
“My mother—I told you. She heard from the Midnight Court,” said Lyall. “The seer can’t see her at all now that we aren’t bound together, but my mother received word.”
Nilah in the Midnight Court.
How fucking absurd was that idea?
“I never told you this before, but she said he wasobsessedwith the Ice Queen,” Lyall told me. “Mother said everyone knew that your father was in love with her.”
My magic slithered underneath my skin like a living thing, but I didn’t lose control. I only watched Lyall, and he was more than eager to continue.
“She also told me that Nilah looks exactly like the Ice Queen—which I’m sure you already knew. So, it makes sense that when your father found out about that, he sent for her.” He came even closer, and he seemedconcerned. Afraid. “She’s powerful, Rune. You saw it, didn’t you? You felt it. That was frostfire at the purest level. It knocked us all out at once for a long time, and it came fromher.”
“How would he have heard?” I asked Lyall instead.
He shrugged. “Does it matter?”
No, I figured. It really didn’t. “How sure is your mother about this?”
“As sure as she is about everything else that happens in the other courts. The kings and queens have their spies. Word travels,” he said. “Are you going to go after her?”
What an absurd question.
“You didn’t,” I said, just to see his reaction.
Because while the idea of my father capturing Nilah and taking her to the Midnight Court made sense, I did not trust this man, not for a second.
“I’m going to be king in a matter of days,” he said, raising his chin. “And when I am, I can call for a visit to the Midnight Court—but that is all I,personally,can do at thispoint. Nilah is not mine in any way. She made that abundantly clear at the feast. I can’t make claims nor demands.”
The word soothed my soul. It was good that he knew—Nilah was never his and she never would be. She was mine until the universe collapsed, and all of us with it.
“That makes you sound awfully weak,” I said—this just to spite him. I never said I couldn’t be childish, not toward a man who almost cost the life of the woman who was the reason for my existence.
But when he opened his mouth to speak, I didn’t let him. “Whatcanyou do, though?”
He hated me.
He hated me with all his being, and for all the time we’d spent together, for all the time I’d respected him as a friend, as a good man, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
“What I’m doing right now,” he said through gritted teeth. “I followed you across Mysthaven to tell you.”
There were so many things I could say, ways to humiliate him, bruise his ego, but I didn’t. I’d said enough.
“Appreciate it, Your Highness.” And I moved around him toward the horse.
He turned to look at me, stunned for a moment, only watched me untie the horse’s reins from the tree. We’d need to find food and water for him, too, soon. We could do that in Blackwater, hopefully.
“And?” Lyall said when I pulled the horse deeper into the forest. “Are you going to go after her?!”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, I’ll think about it.”
The look on his face. “He’ll probably kill her.”
The audacity of this guy, though I wasn’t sure why I was still surprised. “I said I’ll think about it.” Not only because I didn’t trust that he was telling the truth, no. I’d genuinely believed him to be good my whole life because he was amaster manipulator, and you couldn’t tell what he was really thinking or feeling by looking at him. It was a mistake I wasn’t planning to make again—but that wasn’t the only reason why I refused to say more. I didn’t expect him to just be able to lie to my face—I expected him to betray me, too, at the first chance he got.
Laughter.
I turned my back to him and urged the horse to walk faster, but I didn’t mount it yet. This was Lyall—all this could have been a play for him, and I could be surrounded by soldiers. Or he could decide to strike when my back was turned, and I wanted to be ready and on my feet.
