Page 35 of Hearts Lost

ITHRONEL

AND THEN HE’S GONE

Surprise. I feel the ripple of shock and awareness moving through the animals clustered around the river even before light pierces the darkness surrounding me. And then I’m kicking upward, toward the light, as water swells and lifts all around me.

A heartbeat later my shin hits something. Hard. I pull back, and then my knees are scraping stones. My back stiffens, my neck bends like a bow, and my head breaks free of the water. There’s a splash next to me, then a gasp.

I turn, sucking in air as water runs down my face and blurs my vision. Aloserin is next to me, on his knees in a shallow fan of water, looking shocked to be alive. I pull in another breath and scream, sending all the animals around us scattering for refuge. Aloserin blinks at me like he’s trying to understand what just happened.

“We did it!” I yell. “Oh, stars, it worked!”

Wild, irrepressible joy lifts me up and shoves me forward as powerfully as the waterfall just dragged me under, then up, then into another world. I fall against Aloserin’s chest, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and clinging to him.

“We did it!” I scream.

I pull back just enough to meet his dark eyes. The sudden realization that he’s naked, and I’m naked, and we’re embracing in this river with absolutely nothing between us steals the breath from my lungs. For one glittering, frozen moment, I feel like I’m back in the churn of the river’s heart, plunging into the waterfall with only the slightest hope that this won’t kill me.

And then he kisses me.

Oh, stars. His lips meet mine, and I’m opening for him before my mind even has time to register what’s happening. I’m opening for him, welcoming his touch, his taste. His tongue brushes the gate of my lips softly, almost gently, and I wasn’t expecting this sweetness, this tenderness. His body is so warm in my arms, his heartbeat pounding against my chest, and stars, I wasn’t expecting this but I am so, so ready for it. I moan into his open mouth, let my eyes close—

Aloserin yanks back. I slip, falling forward into the space that had just been so gloriously filled with his naked chest, and just barely manage to keep myself from going face-first into the water.

“S-Sorry,” Aloserin gasps.

He’s looking at me like he’s just seen the dead rising from their graves; something very sharp and bitter curls like smoke inside my rib cage. The wild triumph I’d just felt has vanished like one of the void’s animals dissipating into mist. Aloserin stumbles backward, slipping over the slick stones lining the riverbed as he clammers to his feet. Water splashes around his body, and wow, I should not be staring, but that cock would be hard to miss.

He spins away from me, runs, trips, and staggers to the shore. Like I’m something he needs to escape. Anger and shame twist inside my chest, strangling that brief flash of joy, that tiny, burning moment of pleasure from his kiss. Aloserin’s bent over on the shore, showing me what has to be one of the finest backsides in either one of our worlds, and suddenly anger wins.

Fuck this guy.

“You’re welcome!” I scream at his fine, fine ass.

Aloserin freezes. A shiver dances down my spine; I splash the placid surface of the river in frustration as I struggle to my feet. The rocks are horribly slippery beneath my bare feet, and by the time I make it to the shore and the twisted forest of pale tree trunks, Aloserin’s already pulled on his pants. And he still looks like someone’s just run a sword through his guts.

I want to punch him. He turns away as I splash onto the shore, like he doesn’t even want to look at me.

“Stars, I’m so sorry that I just got us out of the void!” I snap.

He’s staring at the river with a blank sort of expression. A muscle in his jaw tightens. Stars, is he trembling?

“We’re still in the void,” he answers.

His voice is flat and level, and his hands are balled into fists. Maybe he’s going to punch me? For just a second, I think that I’d like to see him try. Then he turns and starts walking downstream, following the smooth stones on the side of the river.

“Then I’m so sorry it was such a terrible kiss!” I yell.

His step falters. He freezes, then turns, and everything inside my body runs too hot and too cold at the same time. He drags his gaze toward me, raises a hand, and opens his mouth. Closes it. Spins away.

And then he’s walking away from me again. No, not quite walking.

He’s running. Aloserin is literally running away from me. I’m the one standing naked on the shore of the river, I’m the one who found a way through that strange waterfall thing, I’m the one he just kissed, and there he goes. Running away. Rage pounds at the inside of my temples, as hot and heavy as a blacksmith’s hammer.

“You kissed me,” I scream after him. “Asshole!”

The river curves, and then he’s gone. No parting words, no glance back over his shoulder. Just, gone.

I scowl at the forest that’s just swallowed Aloserin whole as a shiver climbs up my back. It’s not cold, exactly, but it is cooler here than it was on the dark beach. I frown at the ground, where Aloserin has left his neat little bundle. Stars, he even left his sword, jammed into the top of his cloak like the bow on a fancy package. What in the nine hells is his problem?

Something pulls tight in my gut as the obvious answer surfaces in my mind. There’s a reason why he would pull away right after kissing me, after all, and as soon as it dawns on me I want to smack myself across the face for being such an idiot.

He’s married. Of course. He’s married, or he’s engaged, or he’s betrothed, or he has some other sort of official arrangement like pretty much every single member of the nobility in every kingdom under the stars. He hasn’t mentioned it, but why would he? Aloserin seems like the kind of man who keeps his heart locked away as far as it can go, and that thought makes me want to scream.

I exhale slowly and press my palms against my eyes, struggling with the sudden and surprisingly vicious urge to kick Aloserin’s stupid little bundle right into the river. But, no. Destroying his things isn’t going to improve our situation. He’s married, and I’m just going to have to deal with it.

With a sigh, I tug my own bundle off my back, feeling for the hard little lumps of the two remaining silver spheres. They’re still here, of course; it was too much to hope they’d somehow come loose and drift down the river. I pull on my soaking wet dress, then my soaking wet boots, and then rub my knuckles against the ache in my chest as another shiver ripples across my skin.

“Aloserin?” I call into the darkness. “You out there?”

No response. A shadow animal deep in the woods tenses in surprise at the sound of my voice.

“I’m going to light a fire. You can come back now,” I call as another shiver pulls my skin tight. “Or you can fuck off.”

Silence laps beneath the trees and buries my words until all I can hear is the thin trickle of the river.

And even that sounds like it’s far away.