Page 49 of Heart’s Rescue

Arryn

He Believed Me

Igasp, trembling as I drag myself out of the tangled wreckage of my dreams. I’d been dreaming of holding my knife to Rowan's throat again, cold iron against warm, pale flesh, but this time I’d been naked, and he’d been naked, and the firelight had sparked orange and red between us. But when I’d lowered myself onto him, Rowan had become Prince Folwynn, and I’d pulled back, trying to get away. The prince had thrown me down, towering above me, his cock almost as long as his body. And when I’d tried to crawl backward to get away from him, the ground beneath me had turned to ice, cracked, and shattered, plunging me back into the brutal darkness of the river.

I woke with a scream in the back of my throat, my heart hammering, and a taste like blood in my mouth. The shelter is filled with shadows and silent as a tomb. Blinking and gulping down air like a fish flopping in a market stand, I try to slow the frantic thudding of my heart. Prince Folwynn isn’t here. I close my eyes, breathe, open them again. He isn’t here. He can’t hurt me.

Slowly, I turn my head on the furs. There, across the dim, winking embers of the dying fire, is Rowan. He’s turned away from me, his cloak pulled tight over his body. Even from here, he looks cold.

I turn away as guilt tugs uneasily at the spaces between my ribs. He’d be sleeping in furs if I hadn’t lost my pack when I fell through the ice, and it’s pretty clear that missing pack is going to be a serious problem. My eyes trace the ropes above me as I try to remember if I knew what was in that stupid pack. Clothing. My sleeping roll. Food.

Sinking my teeth into my bottom lip, I turn back to Rowan. I can just make out the soft whisper of his breathing. He hasn’t said one word about me losing the pack. Or about me falling through the ice like an idiot. Mother would have—

No. I stop myself right there. Mother isn’t here. She’ll never be here. On the heels of that thought comes a strange sensation, a feeling of lightness, like I might float away. Like there’s nothing tying me to this world.

But of course, I’m not tied to this world. This is the Lands Below. This strange, dangerous, freezing wilderness isn’t my world. I knot my fingers together over my chest and take a deep breath. I’m going back to my world. Back to Mother and Father and Petya. Back, without Prince Folwynn.

Mother’s face rises in my mind, her sharp silhouette in the golden light pouring into the breakfast room. “There’s Duke Wessyl,” she’d said, speaking briskly as though she were discussing which shipping routes could bear the highest fares. “And if that doesn’t pan out, there’s that widower Hesling.”

Even wrapped tight in Rowan's sleeping roll, a shiver creeps across my skin on prickly, icy little feet. The widower Hesling is older than Father. I’ve only ever seen him wear one expression, a look that suggests perpetual boredom. Stars, Hesling is even older than the king, and the king is Folwynn’s grandfather.

My stomach shifts uneasily around the remains of the stew we had for dinner, and my eyes drift back to the shadows pooled around Rowan. I’d wanted to kiss him yesterday, wanted it with a sort of sharp, aching need that was equally beguiling and terrifying. Even now, even just thinking about the way Rowan had looked at me when I’d opened my eyes and found myself in his arms, my breath catches and something deep inside of me cries out for him like an animal in pain.

I press my lips together, turn away from Rowan, and stare determinedly at the shadowy tangle of ropes and drying clothes above me. I don’t know what’s waiting for me when I get back home. I don’t know if Folwynn will find his own way back, or maybe he’ll negotiate with the king somehow—

No. My eyes sting as I shake my head in the furs. Petya was right; Folwynn couldn’t negotiate his way out of a cloth sack. I’ll come back from the Lands Below, and Folwynn wouldn’t. Which means it will only be a matter of time until Mother makes another suitable match, and I’ll be in bed with the widower Hesling, whom I very much doubt has ever looked at anyone the way Rowan looks at me.

“Damn,” I whisper, tasting the forbidden curse as it slips from my lips.

There’s a moan from across the fire, almost as though Rowan is responding to my unladylike behavior. My back stiffens and I freeze, but the sound fades, replaced by the gentle susurrus of Rowan's breath.

He’s cold. Of course he’s cold. My shoulders relax into the furs as I realize he wasn’t suddenly pulled from the land of dreams by my whispered, illicit swear word. I shift inside the sleeping roll and try to take stock of the shelter. Rowan had pulled wood in last night, but now all I see are our clothes hanging from the ropes, his pack against the wall, and trampled, muddy slush between us.

Well. That, at least, is a problem I can fix. Trying to move silently, I crawl out of the sleeping roll, pull down the faded red shirt and blue wool sweater, and tug them both over my head. It takes some fumbling to get my boots laced, and my pants are still damp and honestly quite uncomfortable, but I manage to get myself dressed like a reasonable person without inadvertently putting out the remains of the fire or kicking Rowan.

I’m inordinately pleased with myself when I push open the door of the shelter and crawl into the darkness. My first impulse is to look up, searching for the gentle light of sister moon or the silver wash of the stars. But there’s nothing above me here in the Lands Below, just violet-tinged darkness so thick it feels like velvet pressing down on my eyes.

And the cold. My breath burns the inside of my nose; frost clutches at my throat. I hesitate with my hands and feet in the snow, staring up at nothingness, and Rowan's words come back to me. As bad as they’ve ever been, he’d said last night. That bad, but he hadn’t left this frozen place. Because he wouldn’t go without his brother, and his brother wasn’t ready.

I’m shivering as I pull myself to my feet. How much worse is it going to get, then? What would make it bad enough for Rowan to leave? To come—

I blink in the darkness. To come to the Worlds Above, of course. And suddenly I’m picturing something that’s even more impossible than that strange, jittery, floating feeling that came with realizing I’m in a place where the gossip of the King’s court can’t find me, a place where Mother’s punishments can’t reach me. In my mind I’m on the road through the Dragon Pass, heading away from the Kingdom of the Summer, away from the Royal Court and my family’s ancestral home. Headed to the Silver City, perhaps, to seek my fortune, or to Cairncliff or the misty ports beyond. And beside me, his blue eyes dancing beneath his hood, is Rowan, with his brother Phaedron behind him—

“Shit.” The sleep-blurred voice rises from the canvas behind me. “Arryn!” Rowan calls, his panic slicing through the air.

“I’m here,” I answer.

There’s a guilty, frantic note in my voice, almost as though Rowan could see the horribly impossible vision that had just flooded my brain. A scrambling, shifting sound rises from inside the shelter, and a moment later Rowan pushes open the door.

“You okay?” he asks. His face is a pale blur in the shadows.

“Of course,” I answer, as primly as possible. “I’m getting more wood.”

Silence. Then a heavy sigh, possibly relief, possibly resignation.

“S’okay,” Rowan says. “Good.”

The door falls closed, and I’m alone in the cold.

He believed me. I step forward blindly and take a breath; the icy air rips at the inside of my throat. I told him what I was doing, and Rowan believed me. He didn’t question whether or not I was qualified to do such a thing after falling through the ice and losing half of his belongings. He didn’t tease or scoff or tell me ladies don’t fetch firewood.

He just… believed me.

When I light a flame on my palm, my hands are trembling so fiercely that the nascent blaze jumps and spills over the snow. No matter; fire is short-lived with nothing to sustain it, so I light another, and then another, until I reach the first tree. I snap off a limb, shove it in the snow, and call forth the fire within the wood. It leaps forward joyfully, throwing off shadows like a lady casting off a garment that no longer fits.

I feel like screaming my victory to the still, empty air above me. I can do this. I can gather wood and carry a pack. I can travel through this bizarre world where even the air I breathe hurts. I can use my shameful fire magic, my dragon’s curse, to bring comfort. Stars, I can use it to fight monsters.

Dry branches crack under my hands as I pull them from the tree and pile them at my feet. Dead branches brimming with the spirit of fire, yearning to be useful, to share their light and warmth with Rowan. And I’ll be the one to bring them to him, to stack them on top of the embers, to feed my magic into them until they sing.

I smile at the dark, dead forest all around me.

“Damn,” I whisper.