Page 74 of Heart’s Rescue

Rowan

Unpleasant

Well, that was a fucking disaster.

No, no. Correction. This is still a fucking disaster. This is a long, drawn-out, continuing fucking disaster. I drag my mittened hand across my face and stare at the little cabin like it’s going to bite me. I’ve been stomping around out here for what feels like a very long time, trying to stay far enough away that I can’t hear the sad little noises coming from inside that cabin that can’t possibly be crying.

Anyway. The lady hasn’t come out. And I’m not going back in.

Stalemate.

“Fuck,” I whisper to exactly no one.

What would Phaedron do here? I drag a hand around my neck and sink my fingers into my skin until it hurts.

Well, probably easier to start with all the things he wouldn’t have done. He wouldn’t have gotten totally absorbed in obsessively sorting through the things in the pack while the beans burned. And, even if he had burned the beans, he wouldn’t have then gotten all pissy about it. He wouldn’t have stalked around the cabin and watched the lady sleep like a total creep, and he certainly wouldn’t have started to dwell on all the myriad impossible things he would never get to do with her because she literally belongs to another world and she’s going to marry someone named Hesling.

Hesling. My lips curl into a snarl. The next time I build a training dummy for Phaedron to smack the hell out of, I’m going to name it Hesling.

Something cold winds its way through my ribs. Not that Phaedron is going to need any more training dummies, because he no longer has a right arm, thanks to the monster from the Worlds Above that Lady Arryn was trying to rescue. Until I interrupted her. With my cock.

I growl and kick at a snowbank. It shatters in a deeply satisfying way. I wind up my leg and kick another one, then another one. Ice crystals flutter in the air, winking in the dim light filtering through the cabin’s windows. Fuck it, fine. I’ll just stay out here forever, breaking things with my boots.

Because why would she even say that? My hands clench into fists; my magic is snaking along the surface of the snow, hissing with malevolence, ready to destroy something. Something big. Too bad the void beast that was nosing around earlier today has already fled.

I squeeze my eyes shut and press the heels of my palms against them. No, I’m not going to lose it out here. I’m not going to use my magic to destroy the remains of Fringe, as satisfying as it would be. I’m not even going to think about why the lady said what she did, suggested something that would never, ever happen.

Something I want so bad it burns.

But I couldn’t. Phaedron wouldn’t leave the World’s End, and I couldn’t leave him, and what reason do I have to think Lady Arryn wouldn’t change her mind the split second the light of the Worlds Above hit my ugly face? My lip curls, and I spit onto the snow.

No reason. No reason at all.

It’s just like Phaedron and Shenarah, damn it. Arryn might invite me into the Worlds Above to join her fancy life with the tutors and the dancing. But if the time came to choose, if Arryn’s high-born world with its dresses and titles and royal court rejected two low-born orphans from the Lands Below, well, then where would we be? Phaedron and I wouldn’t even be able to drag our sorry selves back to the World’s End. We’d be trapped in a place we didn’t know. Trapped in a place where no one wanted us.

Voids. Better to stay here and face the beasts and the cold. At least I know how to handle those. At least there’s a sort of numbing familiarity to our boring lives here, our sentry duty in the dead woods, my constantly rejected letters to Acting Captain Aloserin requesting a position for Phaedron in the Royal Guard.

A door creaks open behind me. My body runs too hot and too cold all at the same time; my magic simmers unsteadily across the surface of the snow.

Voids help me, this was so much easier when she’d had her knife to my throat.

A pool of golden light spills across the snow from the open doorway. I don’t want to turn around. I don’t want to see Arryn standing in the door, silhouetted in that golden glow, looking like she holds all the blessings from the Worlds Above, all the things that were taken from the Kingdom of the Fall when they locked us away down here to die.

The light fades, narrowing until it’s gone. The door closes. I turn slowly. She’ll be back in the cabin. She’s thrown something outside, maybe, although I didn’t hear anything hit the snow. Maybe she just wanted to see if I was still out here or if I’d abandoned her to the void beasts.

Lady Arryn is standing outside the cabin. Her hood is pulled up, and her hands are tucked into the cloak that really is no longer mine. She’s standing very still and looking around somewhat unsteadily.

Of course. Because she can’t see in the dark. The glowsoft orbs have been off for hours and, with the cabin door closed, there’s precious little light left in this world. I clear my throat to let her know I haven’t run off. Her back stiffens.

“I’m ready,” she says.

Oh. Okay. Great. I swallow hard, then walk up to her. She looks like she’s just scrubbed the hells out of her face with cold water; she turns away as I approach.

“Good,” I say. My voice sounds rough, and that doesn’t bother me one bit. “Take my arm.”

She hesitates, and I’m about to explain that she can’t see in the dark and it’s a walk to the teleportation hub when she reaches for me. Her mittened hand brushes against my arm very lightly, and I almost feel like she’s trying not to touch me at all.

Which is fine. We probably should have kept it at no touching this entire time. I take a deep breath and lead her toward Fringe’s teleportation hub.