Page 37 of Heart’s Rescue

Rowan

Blood on the Snow

The woman figured it out.

Arryn, I remind myself. Arryn figured it out.

No one has ever, ever figured it out. Even after I showed it to Phaedron, even after I walked him through it, explained every little detail, he still hadn’t gotten it. He’d trusted me, and he’d said he was proud of me, but all my notes and careful calculations might as well have been chicken scratches in the snow for all he could tell. Charay had looked at me like I was insane, and the crowd at the World’s End pub told me I was drunk. I had been drunk, yes, but I’d also been telling the truth.

It wasn’t like I cared what they thought, of course. It wasn’t like it bothered me that they thought I was drunk every time I’d told them I’d traveled in the void. Still, to see the look of comprehension dawn on Arryn’s face. To hear her call it a star chart, as if the void were like the mythical ocean that played such a big role in all of Charay’s fairy stories.

It was… nice. It was nice to be understood. And if the woman, Arryn, had tried to kill me this morning, well, it had been a pretty weak ass attempt. That hardly even counted as an attack.

Magic slithers across my skin, tugging at my attention. A void beast’s been following us all morning. I bat the magic away and bite my lip, trying to concentrate on taking my reading. The monsters know to leave me alone by now.

There! I line up the next landmark, the key, and measure the setting. It’s closer today. I frown; that’s good news, of course. That means it won’t take as long to get to the thin place, to get Lady Arryn back to her side of the barrier. To get rid of her so I can go back to—

Well, whatever it is I’m doing with my life. Drinking at the World’s End pub and giving Phaedron shit, I suppose.

I swing my arm around the next branch and rock backward, lining up the twins for their measurement. They look closer too. Magic skitters against the back of my neck, jittery and nervous. Ignoring it, I dust the frost off my compass and get ready to take the second set of measurements.

“Rowan!”

I whip my head around so quickly I almost drop the delicate silver compass. Arryn is backed up against the edge of the bluff, the wind whipping her hair out behind her like a pennant flying over the void. She’s got her hands up in front of her and, sure enough, there’s Phaedron’s damn kitchen knife in her fist.

And in front of her is the void beast. I freeze; what in the nine hells am I doing? Why did I think the void beast would leave her alone? What kind of a voids-damned asshole leaves a defenseless woman from the Worlds Above—

The thing leaps forward.

Arryn goes down.

Someone screams. I’m halfway down the tree, using the thick tendrils of my magic to slow my fall, by the time I realize I’m the one who’s screaming.

There’s an explosion of orange light. The void beast draws back, spitting and snarling. Arryn’s on her back in the snow. There’s something in her hand that’s on actual fire, bright as a branding iron. She throws it at the beast, then scrambles backward. Whatever it was falls short and sputters in the snow. The beast swings its massive head, growling at Arryn. She’s backed against a tree now with a stick trembling in her hands.

I hit the snow-covered ground hard and fall to my knees. The beast and I both watch as the stick in Arryn’s hands bursts into flame. Arryn levels the firebrand at the massive void beast while I stare at her like an idiot.

Okay, time to revise my earlier assessment. This woman would not have died if I’d left her alone in the woods.

The beast takes a step toward Arryn, flaming brand or not. I can feel the void’s rejection of the Worlds Above rippling off this monster. Anger for the lands we’d claimed so long ago. Hatred and fear.

“Hey, buddy,” I call.

My eyes start to burn as colors bleed from my vision. The beast turns toward me slowly, moving like oil over water. And my magic explodes. Inky tendrils burst through the ground, scattering frozen soil and snow. The dead trees groan as the ground itself ripples with the force of my magic.

The void beast freezes as my magic rises toward the glowsoft orbs like greasy smoke from a dozen bonfires. Fear moves through the animal, rippling like waves on the water. I take a step forward. The beast shrinks backward, toward the bluff.

“How ‘bout you leave us alone?” I say. My voice is almost a whisper.

I take another step forward. The void beast is scraping up against the edge of the bluff. Wind tugs at its body, sending tendrils of black smoke out across the dead forest beneath it. The beast swings its massive head between us, Arryn with her flaming stick and me with blue fire pouring from my eyes.

Then it leaps backward. Its body falls apart in midair, dissipating into ragged tatters of shadow that settle gently over the trees beneath us. I close my eyes and suck in a breath, waiting for the burning in my retinas to transform into the dull throb of a headache.

When I open my eyes, color’s come back into the world. The snow is torn up all around us, and two trees have crashed to the ground behind me. My magic hisses in the back of my mind, angry about the missed opportunity to pull the beast limb from limb. Asshole magic.

Slowly, I turn to Arryn. She’s still pressed against the trunk of the tree, the flaming branch in her hands. Even from here, I can tell she’s shaking all over; her fire is jumping erratically, casting a wild scattering of shadows across the ground I’ve just destroyed. One of her sleeves is ripped, and—

Oh, shit. There’s blood on the snow.