Page 9 of Fractured
“I will.” Rune pulled me toward the narrow door of the carriage, opened it. “Get in, both of you—and do not come out until I say so.”
Even though I wanted nothing more than to stick by his side, to take the reins of the horse together with him, I didn’t argue. This was not the time to insist—only time to get the hell out of here before they caught us. It was a damn miracle we were outside the palace in the first place, so when Hessa got into the tiny carriage, Ifollowed.
But before I climbed in, I grabbed Rune’s face in my hands and gave him a kiss.
“For good luck,” I whispered.
Rune kissed me back. I felt his desperation in the way he held the back of my head for a moment too long. “Go.”
I hopped into the carriage and he closed the door behind me.
A moment later, the horse neighed and took us forward.
Shadows as thick as ink spread all around the wooden walls of the carriage, and some slipped through the cracks—Rune locking us in, possibly an illusion. Then a small ball of silvery blue light slipped in through the wall at his back, and it changed shape as it came to me, turned into my bird.
I bit my tongue so hard I tasted blood just to keep from crying out. That bird was my friend. Myhope.
It was a promise that Rune was close and I was safe.
The reminder that the seal was off him was a relief at first, but then I remembered that he couldn’t access his shadows at all at that feast. I remembered it like it was happening right in front of my eyes. Rune hadn’t been able to use his magic, which meant…
My heart took a pause and I turned to Hessa.
The carriage was small, with nothing but a piece of wood attached to the back wall of it. No windows, and the only light was coming from the little bird that was flying slowly over my head in a circle now.
“It was you.”
Shehad created the illusion of me dying in that hall, hadn’t she? Because Rune couldn’t have. Lyall ordered him, and because of that fucking water we’d stuck our fingers in when we first arrived, Rune couldn’t disobey.
Hessa looked at me passively, her eyes dark,off.
“You created the illusion of me dying. You…you fooled Lyall.” Andeveryoneelse in that room.
Just not the queen.
Hessa said nothing, not a single word. She just turned her head and looked at the empty wall again, elbows over her knees, two knives with curved daggers in her fists.
And she didn’t make a sound until the wheels of the carriage stopped turning.
A mountain wasin front of us. Had it been any smaller, I’d have called it a hill. Smooth grey rocks piled on top of one another as if on purpose. Nothing about it that caught my eye or that seemed dangerous in any way, yet my senses were on high alert and my heart hammered with fear because of the scent. The salty scent in the air that I recognized as if from a dream.
We’d traveled for at least a couple of hours—andfast.Rune hadn’t stopped for a second, and I had no clue how he’d taken us out of the Seelie Court, but right now I didn’t care.
Because we were in the Mercove, and there was a sea near us. A sea crawling with mermaids who loved mortal flesh and who could manipulate water the way Rune manipulated shadows.
Luckily, I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see water anywhere around us, even if I could smell it, couldfeelit in the air against my skin. I didn’t need to ask Rune even if Hessa hadn’t told us to be very quiet when we got off the carriage.
I turned to look at the horse quietly munching on the grass that grew near the tall trees full of colorful leaves. Icouldn’t even hear him moving even though we were barely ten feet apart. My heart beat in my ears, blocking out every other sound, but I still saw Hessa when she moved her lips as she chanted. She’d leaned into a particularly big piece of rock on the side of the mountain, and she’d pressed both hands against the rough surface. They were glowing faintly with golden light as she spoke whatever words she needed to speak—and then the rock moved.
It groaned as it slid to the side, and it was even bigger than I first realized, possibly reaching up to my shoulders. The hole it revealed was dark, darker than Rune’s shadows, but even so, Hessa crouched over and slipped inside without a word of warning.
Rune looked at me, tightened his grip around my hand, and raised his other one. My bird took shape right over his palm, then flew ahead.
I would never believe that this man couldn’t see into my mind and didn’t know exactly what I was thinking at any given time. Healwaysknew.
We followed Hessa into the mountain, the bird casting blueish light on the rocky ground, and a new sense of deja vu hit me again. For a moment, I was back to that night in Blackwater with Raja, just before we entered the tunnel under the old willow tree.
God, if I could turn back time and just stop us from leaving Blackwater altogether. I wished with all my heart that I knew then what I did now. I would tell Rune that we werenevergoing to set foot in the Seelie Court, and we would go back to the Neutral Lands.
