Chapter 14
fourteen
Nilah Dune
“Nilah.”
My eyes opened. My lungs were empty, my nose and mouth closed.
I was choking.
At first, I thought it was a dream, a nightmare, that the moment my eyes opened I was going to find that I was breathing—but I wasn’t.
For very long seconds that felt like a lifetime to me, I couldn’t draw in air. My entire body was paralyzed, and when I tried to get up, I fell off the bed and onto the floor, holding my neck, breathing in as quickly as possible, and…
Vair.
I’d heard my own voice calling my name, and it had been Vair. I knew how he called me. I knew how he sounded, even when he sounded like me. It was Vair and he had found me.
Then the pain began.
Normally I only felt it when I was sitting in front of the Aetherway trying to get it to let me through, or when I was in that ruined train tunnel, connected to the ley line that flowed underneath.
I felt it then like the shadows that drew on my skin were trying to pull me apart piece by piece, and they stopped when I stopped.
Now they didn’t.
It was like my whole body was on fire, and it wasn’t because of me. My magic was raging, but my body was shaking so badly that I couldn’t even dream of accessing it to try to stop whatever it was that had taken hold of me so completely.
But even though I was on the floor, being cut open by this incredible pain, I didn’t pass out. For whatever fucked up reason, I remained there with my vocal cords torched and my eyes wide open, unable to do anything at all but take it.
Eventually it ended, only to begin again a couple of hours later.
At first, I didn’t understand it, but then I thought I might. I thought it would be Vair, whether alone or with Rune, trying to break my mark so that I could cross over. They knew where I was, and that I had been banished—Vair had known before anybody while the Midnight King was still alive.
They knew, and they were trying.
So, I tried, too.
For two days, the pain came and went almost every two hours on the clock.
For two days, I tried to help with what little I could do when my body became almost completely paralyzed like that.
I managed to stay conscious for the most part, but my own magic was very hard to manipulate when the pain was so intense it felt like it ate away at my arm and shoulder more each time.
Betty was constantly freaked out, and even Arez was starting to get really uncomfortable.
My dad didn’t like the fact that I was out of the house most of the day (and night, which he didn’t know), but he didn’t complain because I hadn’t talked to him about leaving for Verenthia again.
How could I when I was trying with my everything and failing?
Fiona was thriving. People liked her now, and as much as I hated them for treating her the way they did before, I wasn’t complaining.
She enjoyed the attention. She deserved to get to know people and have her own experiences.
She looked happier every day, and she refused to even mention Verenthia, too.
We watched movies every night—Dad said it was a mandatory activity from now on.
It could be anything we wanted, but we had to sit there on the couch, eat popcorn and watch a movie together before bed, or before going out, every single night.
He slept halfway to the end all the time, but that was okay.
We were healing, I thought. And I was getting good at keeping the pain in any time it came, so they didn’t even notice me closing my eyes and focusing on my breathing.
What strange turns my life took. Movies with my family, and then I was holed up in an abandoned train tunnel with a golem and with Betty most nights, trying to access a river of magic, to persuade it to let me through to Verenthia, and managing pain when it came.
“Is it getting less or are you just used to it by now?”
I looked at Arez, who was eating a pop tart with one hand, and typing on her laptop with the other. Those big green eyes moved from me and to her screen every second.
She was talking about the pain, obviously. It just let me go a few minutes before, and I was still tightening and loosening my fist in hope of feeling my fingers.
“Both,” I lied—it hadn’t gotten any less. I’d just become better at enduring, I figured. And I also didn’t want to freak Betty out.
Except… “Liar,” she said from where she was sitting on the floor near the wall, eating chips and looking at her phone. “She’s lying.”
I rolled my eyes at her just for show. “Not a lie.”
“What kind of a boyfriend puts his girlfriend through all that pain is what I’d like to know,” she said, and just like always, when she said that word, all the hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention.
Boyfriend. It was such a…small word for what Rune meant to me, but I also liked it. Kind of.
“Well, if you could tell me who said boyfriend is, maybe I could answer that question for ya,” Arez shot from behind her laptop.
Betty met my eyes. For a second, we both paused, and I could have sworn that her thoughts were written on a page for me to read. I knew exactly what she was thinking.
“Betty…” I warned, and she grinned. Widely. Flipped me off.
Then calmly said, “The new Midnight King.”
I groaned, and it came from the deepest part of me.
The sound of the laptop closing surprised me—Arez never closed that thing no matter what. “I beg your finest pardon?”
I didn’t mind telling her more of the truth.
It had been almost a week, and if Arez had wanted to trap me or ambush me or hurt me in any way, she would have by now.
Still, it made me uneasy to just think about it, and I wanted to talk about it out loud even less, but Betty had absolutely no problem with it.
“The new Midnight King. The bastard son of the old one, who killed him in a duel. Rune Kalygorn. The same guy who killed the Ice Queen of the Frozen Court—am I getting all of this right?”
“Perfectly. By all means, continue. Don’t leave anything out,” I said, and she grinned like she didn’t hear the sarcasm in my voice.
Despite it, a moment later Arez was sitting next to her on the floor and Betty told her the parts of the story I’d specifically asked her to leave out until now.
I always thought I spoke fast, but Betty beat me to it every single time. And when she was done, Arez stood up and began to pace around the small space in circles.
“Whoa, whoa, that’s…that is…” But she couldn’t quite decide on the right word. Me neither.
“Wicked cool, I know,” Betty said. “But anyway—don’t tell anyone or anything.”
“Who am I gonna tell?” Arez waved her off, then turned to me. “So, you’re practically royalty.”
“No, I’m not. I told you about that part. The Horcrux, remember?” Also a vessel.
“Yes, but you didn’t tell me that the throne of the Frozen Court actually opened up to you!” She sounded a bit panicked just now. I flinched and looked away. “This is fucked up. I leave for just two decades, and all hell breaks loose in the realm. Fucking fucked up.”
Betty agreed. I agreed, too. Fucking fucked up summed it up nicely.
Arez asked questions as she thought through everything Betty told her, and I answered as well as I could, before I went to the hole in the ground to try to connect with the ley lines.
It didn’t work.
And it didn’t work the next morning, either.
I went back to the tunnel early and alone because Betty had to help her parents with something, and she didn’t want me to wait. Arez was still asleep when I arrived, and she continued to nap in the first hour I tried to get through, too.
It’s not going to work, said all the voices in my head by the end of the second hour. Blood dripped from my nostrils and my right arm and my hand were completely numb. I hadn’t eaten, but the thought of putting food in my mouth right now made me want to throw up.
Nothing was going to work, and I was losing hope so fast it scared me.
So, I told Arez that I wouldn’t be back until tomorrow to try again because I was sick and tired of the fucking disappointment.
And I planned to go try the Aetherway in the forest again when Dad and Fi went to bed.
Not that that would have a different outcome, but it was just something to do.
To keep my anxiety in control for a little longer.
The day passed by in a blur. Dad was back from work and Fi was back from school, and I’d cooked them what we called golden bake, their favorite dish, which was basically creamy chicken and pasta bake.
Those minutes at the dining table were so much fuller and calmer and smoother now somehow, and before I knew it, I was sitting with them in the living room with a bowl of popcorn on my lap, watching How To Train Your Dragon for possibly the twentieth time. It was one of Fiona’s favorites.
The lights were low, the room warm and cozy.
Dad snored lightly even before half the movie was over, and Fiona lay her head on his shoulder as she watched.
I lay mine on her arm, too, and even though my eyes were on the screen, I didn’t see anything.
The memories in my mind of Rune were far too vivid to allow my attention on anything else.
By the time my eyelids started to get heavy, Fiona was asleep, too. I figured I’d take a short nap with them until the movie ended, and then I could wake them up to go to their rooms, and I could sneak out into the forest to go test the Aetherway again.
But it wasn’t meant to be.
I’d closed my eyes for what felt like mere minutes when I heard my name whispered in my ear with my own voice, as if Vair was standing right behind me.
The fear paralyzed me like always, but this time it was also different. This time my eyes opened, and I saw colors, and I saw darkness. I saw shadows swirling in front of me, and I thought they were coming to wrap around my body and swallow me up—but they didn’t.