Chapter 27
twenty-seven
Rune loved to spoil me—something I always knew, but it still caught me by surprise to witness it again.
He was so in tune with the palace that the lights moved when he did, and the bird was always following us, and the doors opened and closed for the staff to bring in food without him even having to leave my side, or even look away from me for a single second.
It would have probably freaked me out had I not spent that week in the Ice Palace myself. The thought that I would have to return there haunted me already—but I didn’t need to think about it just yet.
Instead, I lay down in Rune’s bed, naked, and watched him feed me his favorite foods while he searched for my reaction and mentally catalogued where everything should be placed.
I loved the light in his eyes while he did this, the care with which he offered me every single bite, the way he waited to see my reaction with his breath held and his eyes unblinking.
Fuck, I wanted to eat him instead.
But we’d had our fun in the tub, and as he fed me, I told him all about what had happened to me since the day I got banished.
I told him about home, about my family and about Arez, about the wolves and the story and everything I could think of.
It was so relieving to unleash all that was in my head in front of him like this without holding anything back—all except one thing.
That throne.
“Talk to me,” Rune said, like he knew. Like he could really read my mind. Like he saw inside my head without even trying.
And as much as I wanted to run from this on all fours and never talk about it again, I didn’t.
“It happened.” Two words—and they were so fucking heavy.
“What happened?”
“The thing with the throne.” I closed my eyes and sat up straighter, and Rune pushed the plate full of cherries to the side to get closer to me. “The thing where the throne sort of sprung out of the dais for you when you killed Helem?”
He didn’t even flinch. “Yes?”
“The crystal dais in the Ice Palace did the same for me. It just…it broke. It opened, and up came a throne chair.” My voice shook. “I didn’t understand what it meant then, but when I saw it here in the Midnight Palace…”
Rune wrapped his hand on the back of my head and pulled me in to kiss my forehead.
“It’s okay,” he told me. “I would expect nothing less. The Ice Queen knew what she was doing, Wildcat. This is the reason why she did what she did.”
I jumped off the bed, terrified that he wasn’t shocked by this as he should have been, but Rune followed right behind. He stood up with me, as if he couldn’t bear to sit on the bed without me.
“She was…she was a monster, Rune. And-and-and I have a part of her…” My voice trailed off again and I touched my chest—it felt like my whole heart was freezing. Like it was made of fucking ice.
Rune put his arm around my shoulders from behind and pulled me to him for a moment.
“Let’s get one thing clear here.” Slowly, he spun me around until we were face to face, and the bird flew closer so he could see my eyes better.
My glossy eyes full of tears. “You are not her.” His hand closed around my chin.
“Wildcat, I’ve met her. And I know you. You are not the Ice Queen. ”
The tears slipped. I didn’t want to ruin the moment, and I didn’t want to be weak now when I’d gone through all of the story already without hesitation, but fuck it. It wasn’t in my control anymore, anyway.
I was weak, but I came together again between his arms in no time. While he held me tightly, I cried in silence until the tears ran all out, and my chest was a million times lighter within minutes.
“She made a deal with your father,” I eventually said. I knew Rune knew this, but I needed to talk about the ugliest parts of this, too.
He moved back a bit, raised my head and kissed my wet cheeks. “She did. He killed seven of his male children at birth to stop the prophecy—but he didn’t do it for her. He did it for himself.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Fuck—he’s a monster, too!”
“It’s fae royals,” Rune said. “They hunger for power. Most will do anything to keep it, even when they know they ought to step back. That was my father. He tried to keep his power for as long as possible, and having control over two fae armies gave him a lot more than he ever had before. But the Ice Queen didn’t do her part for the same reason. ”
I closed my eyes. “Yes. She did it because she didn’t have an heir.”
“Exactly. She knew of the curse. Told everyone who would listen—but only my father did. That’s how he convinced her, trapped her, basically manipulated her into taking that deal. She told me about it herself, Wildcat. I remember all of it.”
My gut twisted a million times. “You remember her face?” Which, of course he did, but still.
“Yes.” He smiled like he knew what I was going to say next.
“Do I really look like her?” Because I’d asked everyone I could ask, but it was different when Rune said something.
“You do, but you are not identical. If I’d have seen the two of you together, I’d have thought she was your big sister.” His smile only widened. “There’s something about your eyes that she lacked, wilding. Your soul. It’s different. Wilder. So much more intense.”
“Maybe because she put parts of her in me,” I muttered, looking down between us, suddenly self-conscious about my eyes.
But Rune shook his head. “No part of her is visible where I’m looking.” And he was looking right in my eyes like he could see all the way into my heart.
Did I ever mention how much I loved this man?
“She was still awful,” I muttered, but I’d lie if I said I didn’t feel better already.
“She was. And she hated herself for it, believe it or not,” Rune said.
Taking his hand in mine, I pulled him to sit with me on the edge of the bed. “Tell me everything you remember.”
He did. He told me all about the Ice Queen, the room where she’d sat with him, how she had told him who his father was and everything that had happened. How she’d begged him to kill her, told him the fate of the entire world was in his hands. That if he didn’t kill her, everyone was going to die.
I hated her all the more for it, even though she might have actually been right. She knew who Helem was perfectly—she knew.
But still, to think that she’d put that burden on a six-year-old boy like that, made him kill her with a knife to the chest—it was awful. As much as it finally made sense, it was awful.
“I can’t believe she made the bird first,” I said after a moment of silence, looking up at the black wood of the bed’s headboard where the bird sat and watched in silence, bathed us in its blue light.
“When you asked me for a bird when we were on that horse, a part of me must have remembered seeing it, because they’re almost identical,” Rune said, shaking his head in wonder. “I knew without knowing.”
“And apparently, I did, too. I always felt that bird more than any other kind of magic in Verenthia.” It had been a friend to me, that little light, and I never even knew why.
“You’re not her, Wildcat, but she was a good queen before. It killed her having made that deal with Helem. It killed her long before I stabbed her in the chest.”
My eyes squeezed shut and I kissed his lips. “That was fucking unfair.”
“But necessary,” he said, and he was still smiling. He looked…okay.
“She could have had a child.” Which was what all the other royals had done.
“I know. I think she regretted that, too. At least a little.”
“Fuck, Rune.” I lowered my head. “What happens now? I’ve got to get back to the Ice Palace. I’ve got to talk to Vair because I don’t know. I don’t…”
The memory was like a slap to my face.
Vair was here with us, right on the bedside table—a square piece of white marble, not a snow lynx anymore.
Without thinking, I reached for it and took it in my shaking hands, analyzed the shape of those eyes, the ears, the tail.
“How about we get some sleep first?” Rune whispered, and he didn’t wait for an answer. He put his arms under me and pulled me up on the bed, all the way to the pillows. He put the covers over us and lay with me, never once removing his hands from my body.
There was no more energy in me to cry or hurt or do anything at all but hold that marble cube against my chest and close my eyes.
The Seer of Shadows had come up to the throne room at Rune’s request. Raja was there, too, and so was Jasewine, Maera and her pack mates.
There were no soldiers in here, only us sitting at the table near the glassless windows that overlooked the side of the mountain, and the gorgeous waterfall that could hypnotize you if you looked at it for too long.
None of us did, though. We still had a lot to figure out.
That’s why the Seer of Shadows was sitting on the other side of the table with her hands over the polished top, looking at me and at Rune and at Jasewine who sat on her left, then Raja on her right.
A chair down was Maera and the werewolves, who seemed to be especially restless sitting here at this table, constantly looking out at the darkness, and the muted waterfall beyond the windows.
Silence in the throne room for a long moment, following the story Rune finished telling the seer about everything the Council of The Vale had told us. His hand remained on mine underneath the table. He never once let go, and I didn’t let go of the marble cube in my other hand, either.
“That is everything we currently have,” Rune added when the silence became too much.
“I see,” said the seer with a slow nod. “I have tried to make readings, but the stars haven’t spoken to me on the matter, almost at all. It makes sense that the Council was gathered.”
“The stars have spoken plenty, it seems to me. We know very well what is happening, and what needs to happen in the near future.” Raja looked right at me when she said this. “All thrones must be claimed by their legitimate heirs, and everything else comes second.”