Page 92 of Fractured
By the time we finally made it close to the palace, I was breathing like I’d been running for days—but of course, Vair didn’t care. Wouldn’t even hear about taking a break or finding a place to sit and drink water, maybe even eat.
After,he insisted, and as much as my body hated me for it, I agreed. I needed to get this over with, find the Seer of Shadows and get my answers so that I could finally be free. Withallthe story, all the truth—I’d be free to look for Rune.
We followed the shadow of the palace wall, staying low behind overgrown hedges and broken statues that lined the outer edge. Up close, the wall was worse than I expected—much taller, made of the same dark stone but here it was layered with iron veins like theyreallywanted to reinforce this thing in every possible way.
The worst part? No cracks. No doors. No openings at all except the main gate, which was guarded by armored fae. These guardswouldmost definitely search us, Vair said, so we didn’t even try.
That’s why we circled farther, searching the perimeter for anything—an archway, a weak point, even a drain or something. Anything at all would do at this point. I was that desperate.
But the palace was sealed tightly, built like it expected people to try to break in. The only path we found was through the front, past those guards and into whatever waited inside.
Vair finally stopped and looked at me, eyes narrowed. “We cannot get through unseen.”
When evenheadmitted it out loud…
“A distraction,” he said after a moment. “We will need a distraction.”
Distracting Midnight fae in their own territory? “Or, you know—a miracle.” It would definitely do the trick.
Then Vair stopped cold.
We were almost at the edge of the southern wall when his ears flattened, his body low and tense, eyes locked ahead on something I couldn’t see. I slowed behind him, the back of my neck prickling.
My stomach turned and every muscle in my body locked tightly at the same time.
They saw us.My God, somebody found us.
“Vair…” I whispered, but the sound was lost to my own ears from the sudden fear spiking in my veins. The fear—and the cold of the magic that was spreading underneath my skin violently.
The shadows around the wall had thickened. I could have sworn they were just a bit lighter before. Now they were dark, thick like ink, like they were trying to hide something.
Or someone.
The sound of metal sliding free made my heart stand still. That was most definitely a sword being unsheathed.
Vair growled, and I raised my shaking hand. My skin was glowing a little, and it wasfrostfirethat was coming down my arms right now. I could tell because it felt likeice shards in my veins, not exactly painful yet, but so damn uncomfortable. I wasn’t complaining, though. When the guards came at us, I would use whatever I had. I would throw them away, do whatever I needed to do to get away because I wasnotgoing to be taken against my will again. Not now.
“Stay behind me,” I whispered to Vair, and I didn’t even see the figures as they approached—but there must have been a few. God, it was so dark, the shadows so thick, just like Rune’s that night in the jail cells with the Seelie Queen.Too late, too late, already too late,chanted a voice in my head, but the palm of my hand was getting brighter, and I told myself I was ready. My heart was about to break my rib cage so I didn’t exactlybelieveit, but what other choice did I have?
Another growl from Vair, and he hadn’t moved from in front of me at all.
“I said, get be?—”
“Just who exactly are you talking to, if I may ask?”
The whole world came to a halt. The darkness in front of us near the palace walls began to lighten up, becomea shadowagain.
No way in hell,said my own mind because I knew that voice. I knew it, had heard it before, andthere was no way in hell that she was here…
A heartbeat later, the shadows seemed topartto let her through, and she started forward with her chin up and a gleaming in her eyes that I knew well.
“Raja.”
It wasRajastanding there in the shadows with a silver sword in her hand.
Raja, not Midnight guards.
“Easy now with that thing,” she said, and she was looking at my hand. My still glowing hand.
