Page 33 of Heart’s Rescue

She glares at me. I lean over to the little pile of wood I’d collected and throw another log onto the fire. Then I reach for the teapot, pile it full of snow, and nestle it in the coals. If we’re done sleeping for the night, we might as well make tea.

“You could be taking me out here to kill me,” Arryn finally says.

I raise an eyebrow. “Why? Do I strike you as the kind of guy who’s picky about where he kills monsters?”

She flinches at that, although she tries to hide it.

“My prince isn’t a monster,” she says, in a voice that sounds as brittle as dead wood.

“Yeah?” I stare directly at her. “Tell that to the three people he murdered. Tell that to my fucking brother.”

She meets my gaze, which I didn’t expect. Then again, there’s been a lot of things I didn’t expect from this little monster.

“Did you kill him?” she asks.

Funny. Maybe she thinks I wouldn’t lie if she’s looking me right in the eye. She clearly doesn’t know me.

“I should have,” I answer.

She flinches again, a sudden tightness around her eyes and in her jaw, there and gone. I remember the way her prince moaned on the grass of the Crystal City’s barrier garden when I kicked him, and suddenly this entire conversation is exhausting. I turn to rustle through my pack for the damn tea leaves.

“Where is he now?” she asks, her voice soft.

“Crystal City,” I answer, knowing the words will mean nothing to her.

“To—” There’s that hesitation again, that slight hitch in her voice. “To stand trial?”

And there’s the tea. I pull the box out, nestle our two wooden mugs in the snow where I’d just flipped Arryn onto her back, and then crumble tea leaves into their empty, waiting darkness.

“I need to go to the Crystal City,” Arryn says like she’s just made up her mind and there’s nothing in the screaming voids that will stand in her way.

“No, you fucking don’t,” I reply.

I smack the box of tea leaves into the snow. Beside me, the kettle starts to shriek. I look up at Arryn. She’s got a line between her eyes that makes me think she’s not so used to people saying no to her, and for the first time, it occurs to me to honestly wonder what sort of a world she comes from. A softer one, I’d blithely assumed at first. Now I’m not so sure.

“You go to the Crystal City,” I say, “and you get caught. You get caught, and the king takes your heart for his bullshit magical experiments. The king takes your heart, and then I’ve broken my promise to my brother.”

Her eyes widen slightly; I wonder if I’ve said too much. But, voids, it’s not like she’s going to run off and tell someone.

“Or,” I say, drawing the word out as I latch the teakettle’s handle with tongs and pull it from the fire, “you let me take you to the thin place. You go back home to the Worlds Above. I go back home to the World’s End. Happy endings all around.”

I wrap a piece of leather around the teakettle’s handle, pick it up, and pour hot water into the mugs. Steam and the thick, almost floral scent of strong, black tea rises in the air between us. That smell usually reminds me of my childhood, when the woods were lush and full and tea grew wild in the shade of the whispering pines. But now, the tea-thick steam rising in the shelter reminds me of the way Lady Arryn smells, like a softer, sweeter world.

Huh. Scents can lie. Fancy that.

Arryn looks like she’s thinking. I pick up my tea, blow on the water, and raise it to my lips.

“Don’t try to stab me again,” I say as if I’m talking to my mug.

Arryn raises her eyes just long enough for me to know she heard me.

“I’m serious,” I say, giving her what I dearly hope is a very serious look. “You try to stab me again, and I’m gonna stop making you tea.”

Her lip twitches in what is almost, but not quite, a smile.

I’ll take it as a win.