Page 10 of Heart’s Rescue

“Voids curse it, Rowan,” he groans. “I take it back.”

“Take what back?”

He lowers his hand and stares at me. “The thank you I was about to give you. For saving my life.”

“Hey, my pleasure,” I reply, with a shrug. “You really want to thank me, you can pay off my tab at the World’s End pub.”

Phaedron doesn’t even smile. We both fall silent. The fire crackles at my feet, and the faint musical ping of ice hitting the glass threads through the room like a cold wind. For just a moment, I remember what it was like when I was a kid, before the snows came, when we left those windows open all the time.

“Charay told me what happened,” Phaedron says. His voice is low, and he’s staring at the fire. “She said she saw—”

His voice fades, but I know what he’s thinking. She saw my freak magic, my horrible, void-touched powers. She saw my eyes burn. She saw the ink-black snakes of my magic tightening around Phaedron’s unconscious body.

She saw what I’d sworn to Phaedron over and over again I would never show to anyone.

“Rowan—” Phaedron begins, but then he stops, because really, what is there to say?

I rub my hand along the ragged edges of my frost-bitten ear and then across the back of my neck.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say.

Phaedron doesn’t even argue with me. I guess that means he’s either drugged within a hair’s breadth of his life, or he’s given up on me. Or both, really. I look at him and see he’s still staring at the fire.

“Look, they all know anyway. The king, his court. I mean, that’s why Captain Orryen came—”

I snap my mouth shut. That was the first time our world changed, the day Captain Orryen came to the World’s End pub to order me to join the king’s magicians in their noble efforts to take down the barrier. Too bad for him, I don’t take orders. From anyone.

Besides, I’d thought he’d come for Phaedron. I’d assumed my brother’s entire lifetime of exemplary service had finally gotten those pricks in the Royal Guard to overlook our garbage bloodline. When I’d given the good Captain Orryen the same offer in person that I’d given him so many times before in writing, that I’d join the king’s magicians when Phaedron got his spot on the Royal Guard, Orryen’d had the nerve to act affronted. As if he hadn’t expected me to try to press whatever advantage I had to get what I’d so clearly said I wanted.

Well, apparently the Captain hadn’t spent much time in the Outer Ring. And when he’d left the pub and immediately found that monster from the Worlds Above, that woman who’d eventually stolen his heart, there was a part of me that wished she’d killed him instead of just slicing him up a bit.

Not that Orryen’s death would have stopped the world from changing. Nothing could stop the world from changing, and now Captain Orryen, the king’s favorite, was tucked away in the Crystal Palace in some sort of magical coma after his heart had been stolen and spirited away to the Worlds Above.

Eh, good riddance. I let my hand rest on Phaedron’s. We’re still here, still watching out for each other. Phaedron looks up, blinking heavily.

“This… monster,” he says slowly. “This changes everything.”

“I know,” I say, with a sigh.

Phaedron’s head falls back into the pillows, and his eyes close. I stay beside him, my hand on his, watching the fire dance.

“More of them are going to come,” Phaedron whispers, almost to himself.

“I know,” I say.

My eyes trace the outline of my heavy blue cloak by the door and, beside it, Phaedron’s enormous broadsword. Skyfire.

“We’ll be ready,” I say.

It’s not just words. It’s a promise.