Chapter 28
twenty-eight
He made me tell him about Earth on the way back.
Rune walked ahead of us, and Lyall stayed by my side throughout the whole way, but even though we walked a straight line from the mist river, we didn’t find the willows or that tunnel made of trees that we passed on our way in.
It was just a forest, quiet and peaceful and smelling of flowers—and then we were at the gates.
I told Lyall things about back home—very general things as I couldn’t bring myself to tell him anything from my personal life, and I couldn’t even tell you why.
He wasn’t bad by any means, and I’d told Rune pretty much everything about me without hesitation, yet with Lyall it was different.
I didn’t care that he’d claimed victory—it was a silly game and he wanted me to be his date for a ball.
No big deal. It was just that I didn’t know him, and there was something about his smile that was… too genuine, if that makes any sense.
He was entirely too much for me, I figured.
The horses and the guards had waited for us, and when we returned to the palace, both Rune and Lyall walked away, and the guards escorted me back to the bedroom.
Poppy and Pera were there, having prepared a bath for me that smelled both sweet and citrusy, and absolutely delicious.
I didn’t get much time to think as they pampered me, treated my hair and did my nails, plucked my eyebrows and put lotions on my skin.
After that came lunch, and then I convinced myself to pick up a book and start reading because, I suspect, I was subconsciously trying to run away from my own thoughts for as long as I could.
But when night fell and my eyes were half closed, and I slipped under the soft golden sheets of the bed, I thought about the fact that my heart’s biggest desire had somehow become Rune, and I hadn’t once seen my father, my sister, or my best friend in that mist.
I didn’t see Rune again that day, or the next, or the one after that. And I couldn’t even sneak out to go to his house at night because the guards refused to leave my side again. No matter what I said or how much I begged them to give me privacy, they didn’t even reply, and they didn’t stay back.
I took walks during the day, though, close to the field full of those forges that weren’t really any busier when the sun was up, apparently. Probably because Lyall had cut the staff down to only people he trusted, since he was playing dead still.
I saw the smoke coming from beyond the trees on the other side, but no Rune. I went there two days straight and walked slowly. The fae workers all looked at me as I passed, but none spoke to me, and none went to tell Rune I was there so that he could come see me—like it happened in my imagination.
It’s her, it’s the mortal, come quick! And then he would come running out of the woods with only two swords and a pair of pants that hung extra low on his hips . That’s it, that’s all he’d bring with.
Alas, reality was a dull, boring bitch because I did not see his face anywhere, no matter how hard I searched.
I didn’t see Lyall, either, and that surprised me, too.
The way he behaved around me had me thinking that I would have to come up with excuses to get him to not want to hang out with me, but no.
I didn’t see him, didn’t hear from him, and any time I asked the chambermaids who came to my room, they told me he was busy, and they had no idea when he’d be available for me.
At first it had been kind of insulting that Poppy, Pippa and Pera always seemed to be there when I ate or when I got dressed for the day, when I wanted to take a bath, or even put on my pajamas to go to sleep.
But by day two they became an important part of my day because they were the only ones who spoke to me.
The guards never said a single word. The other palace workers never spoke to me, either, only lowered their heads as I walked by, and most rooms were closed for me as well.
I still saw plenty, though. The palace in daylight was a dream.
Light filtered in through arched crystal windows, throwing soft rainbows across the shiny marble floors.
Each hallway was similar but different at the same time.
A domed atrium with soft orbs of lights dancing in the air, flickering in and out of existence, casting reflections on the floor that seemed to be made out of water.
A vaulted room filled entirely with music, but not actual instruments, just sound—notes that shimmered in the air like dust motes.
They looked identical to the ones I learned in music class, and the melodies were coming from nowhere and everywhere, weaving between shelves of books and velvet lounge chairs that looked incredibly comfortable.
Halls with so many paintings in them that every inch of the walls was covered; open rooms without a ceiling in the middle of the palace with flowers of all kinds but no scent at all hanging in the air, and the flowers only opened their petals when the two women tending to them spoke to one another from a distance.
Like the flowers recognized the voices of their caretakers.
The guards never answered me when I asked them what any of it was.
They never answered when I asked them where the queen was, either.
I never saw her anywhere—and Helid must not have been back yet from wherever he had gone because I was sure he’d have come to talk to me by now. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I actually hoped that he would. He was a familiar face at least.
We did pass by the queen’s throne room on the fourth floor, and the doors were open while six fae men swept the floor.
I didn’t even ask to go in—I didn’t care to.
The memories of the last time I’d been brought in front of that dais was still very vivid in my mind.
I would rather not make myself remember.
By the middle of the second day, I was actually losing my mind with boredom.
There were only so many stories I could read.
Rune had been right—Verenthians did tell some really freaky tales about monsters latching onto your back and making you carry and feed them with your life essence your whole life, while their venom basically made you care for them like they were your own, and you would kill anyone who would try to harm or separate you from them.
There were poisonous bees and men who looked exactly like men but were demons of this kind or that, come from another world to conquer the continent or steal Reme, the future star of creation.
So many twisted things, and most stories were short, but they were very intense.
The second night I spent outside in the gazebo, not bothering to even go downstairs to see if I could find someone to talk to, if I could see Rune, or even Lyall so he could explain to me exactly what that ball was going to be like.
The chambermaids refused to say anything, only that the prince would give me all information in due time.
I dragged a reading chair all the way outside, and I sat there near the railing and looked out at the dark sky, at the Eternal Water, and thought of Rune.
Thought of my family back home. Thought of my life the way it had been and how much it had changed in just a few weeks.
Thought of why that mist would show me Rune when I was almost a hundred percent sure that my greatest desire right now was to get out of Verenthia, go back to my family, be safe again like I used to be.
God, I’d always taken my safety back home for granted. It had been so… nice not to have to worry all the damn time, and I never even knew it. So nice to lock the doors and go to sleep without being terrified of what you might find over your head the next morning.
Yet the mist had showed me Rune. Only Rune by himself, worry-free, happy, smitten by me. That’s all the game had found in me, though I was terrified to even think how it had guessed. How it had created such an accurate image .
Of course, the guilt weighed heavily on my shoulders.
I felt like a bad person for wanting Rune more than I wanted to go back home to my family, and I didn’t have the slightest clue how to deal with it just yet.
I didn’t even have the Internet here, a way to connect to others, to ask questions, to find people who’d gone through the same—which then made me wonder how my parents and their parents and their parents had even dealt with their issues before. If they were even aware of them.
It was a whole mess in my mind, and that’s why I stayed out in the gazebo until dawn, wrapped up in a fluffy blanket, looking out at the sky.
And that’s why I slept all the way to noon the next day.
Then the chambermaids woke me up, made me eat, and planned a two-hour bath for me even before I’d opened my eyes properly because…
“Tonight is the night, Miss Nilah. The Whispering Ball awaits!”
Just like that, I was wide awake.