Page 5 of Heart’s Rescue

Rowan

Special Delivery

The last teleport jolts even me. I kick the monster I’m dragging with the frost-covered toe of my boot, making sure the stupid thing’s still alive. He flops over like a pile of garbage, and his right hand falls open on the lush green grass of the Crystal City’s barrier gardens. I think of Phaedron, of the right hand he’ll never open again, and the flames in my eyes flare brighter. Damn me, I want to drive my fists through this monster’s skull until there’s nothing left. I want to use Phaedron’s sword to cut this miserable excuse for a monster into bits so small, not even the mice will want them.

No. I close my eyes, take a breath. The king will want him alive. I crouch down and tug back the monster’s hood. I’ve messed up his face pretty good, but still, it’s obvious this monster was once beautiful. Golden hair, dark skin. Just like the first one, even though I only saw her once, as she was being led away from the World’s End with her wrists roped together. But is he breathing?

I hold my finger under the monster’s busted-up nose until I feel warmth. Okay, good. Breathing. Not quite dead yet. I stand, and something catches my eye under the monster’s hood, some shimmery flash of light. I pull the fabric of his cloak further back, and oh, that’s cute. That’s real cute.

The monster is wearing some sort of a crown. It’s a thick circlet of serrated silver embedded with shiny rocks. I sink my hand into the monster’s blood-clotted hair and jerk the crown off his head. There’s a soft, almost inaudible, moan, and I just barely manage to stop myself from driving my fists into the ribs I think I’ve already broken at least once.

His crown is heavy, solid. It seems to reek of authority. I grin at the stupid, bloody thing. Did this monster think we would be impressed by a crown? Did he think wearing a crown would help him in a fight? I spin the crown on my wrist, then tuck it into my cloak. It’ll look good on Phaedron. Maybe I’ll declare him the King of the Outer Ring. Hey, who would argue with me?

I suck in a breath, feeling strangely lighter now that I’ve stolen something from the monster as well as beaten the ever-loving voids out of him, and then I raise my eyes to the Crystal City. King Galan’s castle sparkles on its hill, as always, the glowsoft orbs still strong here in the center of everything. What I’d like to do is teleport right to the steps of the castle and kick this monster through the front doors, maybe while screaming special delivery! But there aren’t any teleportation hubs in the city itself, and I really don’t want to drag this breathing pile of garbage any farther. So I stick my fingers in my mouth and whistle. Unlike the far fringes of the Outer Ring, I’m pretty sure sentry duty here is a big damned deal.

And, yup, I’m right again. A moment later not one, not two, but three fully armed guards come trotting over to me, their bright, swinging lanterns utterly unnecessary under the light of this many glowsoft orbs. The first one to reach me raises his lantern and shines it in my face anyway.

“Rowan?” he asks.

Ah, hell. My heart sinks, and I grin even wider. “Brought you a present,” I reply.

Aloserin, Acting Captain of the Royal Guard and a royal pain in my ass, narrows his eyes at me. “Present?” he asks.

One of the other guards makes a noise that sounds almost like a scream. Aloserin spins around, and then they’re all staring at the monster splayed out on the grass. Aloserin mumbles something under his breath that sounds almost like a prayer.

That’s no good, I want to say. No gods can hear prayers this far down.

The guard who screamed looks up at me with wide eyes. “Another one got through?” he asks, totally unnecessarily.

Aloserin spins back to me. “What happened?”

My gut shifts like the ground beneath me just vanished. Now that it’s all over, I don’t want to fucking talk about it. All I want is to teleport back home, pour myself a dozen or so stiff drinks, and sleep for about a week.

“Three dead,” I say. “And then this piece of shit cut off my brother’s arm.”

No one speaks. I take advantage of the silence to kick the monster again, this time in the leg. The little whimpering sound he makes is delicious.

“T-Three?” the guard who screamed asks.

Aloserin reaches for my shoulder, and I’m so exhausted I don’t even pull away. He looks me in the eyes with what I like to think of as his I really mean this face.

“I’m sorry,” Aloserin says, and damned if my eyes don’t start to sting.

He turns away. I hate how much I suddenly appreciate him.

“Lift him up, boys,” Aloserin tells the guards.

A swirl of pale blue magic begins to build around the monster’s motionless body.

“Gently!” Aloserin adds. “We need his heart!”

The guards move through the barrier gardens as though they’re moving underwater, and the monster floats between them. Idly, I wonder which one of them has levitation magic; useful trick, that. Aloserin stands beside me, his hand on the hilt of his sword. The two of us have only met a handful of times, but all of a sudden I feel like we go way back. Of course, don’t we all? It’s a small underworld, and it’s only getting smaller.

“And he’s alive,” Aloserin mutters under his breath. “I don’t know if I would have had your restraint, Rowan.”

That’s an odd compliment, but I’ll take it. Aloserin turns to face me.

“This changes everything,” he says.