Then he tracked me down, had half his men attack the village to make it look like a raid, while the other half swooped in to save the day. He had his own men killed not long after that. No one was allowed to know who he was or where he came from.
No one was allowed to know about me.
And I followed him. With newly-formed magic and a miserable, terrified heart, I followed him, looking at him like he was my savior. My protector. With his prodding, I learned how to use my magic when he said we’d run out of money. For him, I had to learn how to use it, but more importantly, how to hide it.
When I first got to Second Kingdom, I thought I was lucky.
But it turned out the villagers were right.
I was cursed.
CHAPTER 31
QUEEN MALINA
Perhaps the cold should botherme more than it does, yet I think I have simply grown numb.
Numb when I had to flee my own castle.
Numb when I had to flee my own safe house.
Numb as I flee my own kingdom.
That could be the reason why I don’t truly feel the blizzard as it boils around us like bubbles of frost, an agitated, bulbous cloud steaming out a mist of snow.
Or, it could be the shock.
I’ve lost track of the days since we crossed out of Sixth—since we entered the cursed land of what used to be Seventh Kingdom.
No one comes out here. For one, it’s forbidden, and two, it’s impossible to sustain life. There are no trees and no birds that fly overhead, like there’s something corrupted here in both soil and air.
Or perhaps it’s just too cold.
As a girl, I was taught history lessons about the monarchs who once ruled here. About the great strides they made in seeking the unknown. The kingdom itself was once intriguing as well. Like the great glacier lakes that used to draw so many people to sightsee. Icebergs jutting from the frozen water like the teeth of a giant sea serpent come to bite through the ice.
This used to be a formidable kingdom, and despite the harsher climates, it once had a thriving city too. The heart of the Orean and Annwyn union, the doorway between sister worlds where fae and Oreans alike could pass back and forth.
Now, this place is broken.
If it weren’t for Sir Pruinn, I would’ve turned back the moment I noticed the split and ravaged landscape. I can now say with complete certainty that the lessons I had on the destruction of Seventh Kingdom were not exaggerated. The fae destroyed this place so thoroughly that not a single person survived. Not a single inch of thelandsurvived either, and it still hasn’t recovered. After three hundred years, nothing about this place shows any signs of repair. It’s not just demolished, it’s...unnatural. Sometimes, I think I can feel some of the pulsing, evil magic hovering in the gray mist that clings to the fissures.
All around, there are jagged strips of land like serrated knives, where some of the earth has simply crumbled away. As if some great quake shook the kingdom, shattering it into pieces. All that’s left are broken-off strips on a flattened expanse, a gray and white void that lies bleak and empty.
I keep my face on the horizon as Pruinn drives the cart onward. I made the mistake of looking down into those empty crevices of earth once, seeing them gorged with whorls of mist, and the sight made me dizzy. Because in those huge cracks, there’s nothing—no darkness of shadow that tells me the core of the earth is below. Instead, there’s just the gray emptiness that goes on forever and ever. As if you could fall over and never stop falling, because whatever happened here was born of magic and not of nature, and these cleaves through the ground are an anomaly of destructive power.
And it doesn’t stop. That’s how this entire landscape has been, no matter how long we’ve been traveling. Somehow, Pruinn has used the map to guide us, knowing when to turn past different rifts and when to brave the pinched strips of land. So far, we haven’t ended up stranded, though I almost wish we would. I wish we had no option but to turn around.
But turn around to what?
That’s the question that has been tormenting me. As much as I have absolutely zero faith in Pruinn’s charlatan magic that this map can point me to my heart’s desire, where else do I have to go?
My husband sent an assassin to kill me. My own people rebelled against me. There’s nothing left for me in Sixth Kingdom anymore.
Perhaps that’s why I’m numb.
Who am I if not Malina Colier, Queen of Sixth Kingdom?
So we travel on.
