Chapter 45
forty-five
You know that feeling of impending doom that hangs over your head any time you make big changes and you’re face to face with a brand new unknown?
You’ll be surprised to hear this, but I didn’t have that right now.
I kept waiting for it. I expected to find it every time I was aware of myself, but so far, since yesterday morning, it hadn’t come.
Almost like I wasn’t afraid or anxious about the unknown.
Almost like I was perfectly equipped to handle it, which was ridiculous.
People kept calling me Your Highness and every single time I had to bite my tongue before I told them, please, for the love of God, just use my name. I’m not a damn queen!
Except I was.
Everything that had happened since I came back here and sat on that throne chair indicated that I was, in fact, a queen.
The Ice Palace treated me as such, read my mind and opened doors for me, gave me everything I was thinking about.
It was strange as hell, but I thought some flowers would look nice in that corner, and I turned around, and voila!
A moment later, there were flowers in that very corner.
The people treated me as such, too, after that show Lyall had put on for everyone the morning before, which didn’t sit all that well with me, to be honest. Not that I blamed them, but they’d been ready to choose him right there in front of my eyes, until Rune came and gave me that diamond, the Key of Command of the Frozen army, and brought with him an alliance with the Midnight Court.
The Midnight Queen. Not king because Rune had basically resigned. He had literally given up the throne that belonged to him—for me.
How fucking ludicrous was that?
On the one hand, that’s the only thing that made me feel like I ruled—not just a kingdom, but an entire world. I owned it. I was the luckiest person to have ever existed despite everything that had brought me here.
And on the other, I felt…unworthy. I was terrified that he’d wake up and realize that he’d made a mistake because I wasn’t worth an entire kingdom, was I? I was just me!
Yet every time Rune looked at me, this voice of doubt faded away. It grew weaker every new time it came, too, so I had faith that it would be gone for good in no time.
Because, yes, I was queen.
And Rune was right here with me. In the Ice Palace. To live with me forever. To never leave my side.
So…it wasn’t so bad, was it? And that’s probably why that impending cloud of doom hadn’t showed up over my head yet—figuratively speaking, of course.
That’s why, when I looked at my reflection in the silver mirror that had belonged to the Ice Queen, I smiled. Felt grounded. Felt like me for the first time in forever. And I would definitely have to get fixed, because I intended to keep it with me forever. Just as a reminder.
“Your Highness.”
I blinked and was tempted to look for royalty around me to figure out who the seer was speaking to—it was instinctual at that point. But each time I was remembering that it was me faster, so that was progress.
This time, I didn’t even flinch before I turned around and met her eyes. The sorcerer who’d become a seer right there in the forest. Chosen by the stars. Possibly much more carefully than I had been chosen by the fractured soul of Queen Veyra.
“Yes, seer?” I said with a smile.
We’d hardly had a moment to speak alone, but she claimed there was time.
She said we’d have the chance to sit and chat and build whatever we needed to build to restore order in this kingdom with the guidance of the stars through her—and who was I to doubt it?
After all, seers were respected as very few others in Verenthia. There was a reason for that.
“I know you have to leave soon, but I believe I’m close. If I may have another reading,” she said, and my heart jumped.
There, on the beautiful desk with the entire kingdom made out of metal underneath the glass desktop sat the marble cube that used to be Vair.
I’d tried to bring him back with magic because I knew I could.
I knew he was there—I felt it. But one required a spell for sorcery, and the spells in the old queen’s books were completely lost on me, so I’d asked the seer yesterday to find me the right one.
She hadn’t hesitated, had read from the pages of the Queen Veyra’s grimoire, and she thought she’d found the spell I’d need, but it was ancient, written in a different dialect. She’d promised me that she could crack it if I gave her the time, and I would.
She promised she could teach me all of these spells and all the ways of sorcerers, too, if I wanted.
Maybe I would one day.
“Of course. As long as you need,” I said now, and went to the desk to open the grimoire for her, to the page where the spell for Vair was, according to her. A spell to give life to an inanimate object. Right there, written in a book that was in my possession.
While she read the passages over and over again, I played with the cube, traced the corners and every embossed line, prayed that Vair knew I was coming for him wherever he was.
The seer smiled at me, eyes as silver as the threads of the white dress I wore. That’s why I’d gotten to calling her the Silver Seer in my head.
“Your Highness, a word if I may,” she said.
“Yes?” I certainly wanted to hear anything she had to say. She literally saw things a world away.
“Everything will work out the way it’s supposed to.”
Warm words, but my heart seemed to be covered with ice just now. “Did you see that in a vision?” Because that would make it much easier to believe.
“No, but I saw you.”
I smiled. “Thank you, Seer. And the Curse?” Because ultimately, that was the thing that mattered most. The Curse of Rot that the Seelie Queen had put in motion, and the other royals had helped spread across Verenthia. The reason why I was here in the first place, and why Lyall was still alive.
The stars required balance between the courts, and we’d made it happen. Hopefully, that would be enough.
“It has come to a halt, but it will take its time. I feel it will be stubborn,” she told me.
I held back a sigh of relief. “That’s okay.” I was very stubborn, too. “As long as it doesn’t spread.”
“It won’t. Not anymore,” the seer said, just as someone knocked on the door. “Your Highness…” She moved before I could, went to open it and disappeared outside before I could even say bye.
Then I saw him standing there in front of the open door, smiling at me.
Rune wore a black suit with a silver shirt underneath. The same silver as the fabric of my dress.
Rune wore a fucking suit, and if I died now, I would have no complaints whatsoever. I’d forever be happy.
I didn’t die, though. Instead, he smiled and he came closer, put his fingers under my chin and raised my head until my lips met his, just a ghost of a touch.
I sighed.
This guy could make me bring down armies and worlds without even trying.
“Your Highness,” he whispered, and my knees were so weak, but his arm was already round my waist, so I was safe. “Your dress makes me jealous.”
“Mhmm…” I closed my eyes, let go of all my weight and he handled it perfectly. “Feel free to take it off any time you please, Your Highness.”
I felt it when his lips stretched all the way.
“I’m not a king anymore,” he said, and I leaned back a bit.
“But you will be, right? I mean, when we get married, and because I’m queen, that means…”
Realization hit me far too late. Oh, shit. My eyes closed, squeezed shut.
My mind twisted and turned and became dark, then really bright—what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck, Nilah!?
“Not that…um, you know, not that we will get married or anything. That’s not…I-I-I just meant, you know…” Great. I am a fucking moron.
A chuckle. A hand on my cheek. Impossible to keep my eyes closed.
“You blush the same color as winter roses,” Rune said.
“I didn’t mean to imply that you—” But he didn’t let me speak at all.
“And, yes, Wildcat, we will get married. We’ll get married every winter if you’d like.”
My cheeks probably resembled tomatoes now.
All that mess in my head turned even messier because now I was trying to hold it together while picturing actually marrying Rune.
This guy—marrying this guy.
“It’s fine. Just once will do,” I muttered, and his kisses all over my face while he chuckled that sweet sound gave me a much-needed moment to get myself together.
“Once it is,” he said. “Are you ready for the feast? All your guests are here.”
Goose bumps broke over my arms, and he felt them—the dress was sleeveless.
It didn’t belong to Queen Veyra, though.
It was made for me, and it fit me exactly right.
A gorgeous piece made out of silk and lace, the color an icy white, with silver threads and a deep cut in the front, so long it touched the floor but somehow light enough that it moved, flowed up with every step I took that I never had to even pull the fabric up to make sure I didn’t trip and fall.
Whatever kind of magic had made it was incredibly beautiful, and it went perfectly with the tie they’d made for my hair—silver with a transparent piece that covered the back of my head and fell all the way down to my back.
It wasn’t like a wedding dress veil, though—more like magic threaded together, and it shimmered beautifully under lights, too.
Of course, I hadn’t stayed in front of the mirror long, and I hadn’t let the women who’d come to my room to bring me my dress to also do my makeup or hair.
It still felt so strange—they were so strange to me because of how we looked, how our colors matched, and I kept checking that my ears hadn’t grown points on them every time I saw an Ice fae.
Safe to say I was going to need time to adjust.