Page 43 of Heart’s Rescue

I glance at the ice, then back at Arryn. She gives me a weak little smile from the shadows of the cloak I’ve stopped thinking of as mine and started thinking of as hers. She looks like she’s trying to say she’s game for anything.

Okay then. Anything.

I tap the ice gently with the tip of my boot. Nothing; it feels as solid as stone. The edges of the frozen river are layered with old snow, but the center is dark and glossy. I don’t much care for it, those dark spots. River ice is fickle. Some places are probably thick enough to hold the entire Royal Guard, but where the water flows fast, the ice could be thin. Thick, then thin, with precious little warning.

Damn. I glance at the far side, the familiar snowdrifts and bars of dead trees, although the forest is thinner this close to the void. Far above, the blue-green light of the glowsoft orbs mingles with a deeper, richer violet. The void’s own glow.

“So,” Arryn begins, and damned if she doesn’t sound almost chipper. Especially for a woman who’s fallen out of her own world and into this nightmare. “What do we do here?”

Here? Usually, I’d use my magic to lift myself over the water. But Arryn’s probably seen quite enough of my freak magic for her entire life, and the thought of trying to explain that I’m going to touch her with the same force that ripped the forest apart is unappealing, to say the least.

“We walk across,” I say, with a shrug.

Arryn nods. There’s something about the way she trusts me that makes me feel sick to my stomach. Phaedron would give me some pushback, ask how much I really know about rivers, or ice, or this river ice in particular. But Arryn just… nods. Maybe they don’t have ice in the Worlds Above. Maybe she doesn’t know enough to realize how dangerous this could be.

Guilt turns the back of my throat bitter. I take a pull of water from the canteen at my hip, crunching the little ice crystals that have already turned my water to slush. It’ll be warmer in the void, at least. I turn back to Arryn and meet her gaze.

“Follow me,” I say. “Step where I step. Okay?”

“You got it,” she says.

The corners of her mouth look like they’re trying to smile, but I can’t imagine why. Nothing about this situation is particularly amusing. I take a deep breath and bring my boot down on the ice. Snow crunches beneath my foot. There’s a low, deep groan, like the ice is protesting my weight, and then nothing.

Okay. Great. Now just do that two dozen more times and we’re across.

I take another step, then another. The snow fades and the ice evens out beneath my feet until finally, it’s as smooth as glass; the color shifts from milky white to a dull opacity until, finally, it’s almost translucent.

“Oh!” Arryn cries.

I spin around. The ice groans beneath me, and my heart stops. Arryn crouches down on her heels to stare at the black ice beneath her feet.

“I can see the water!” she says. “Look, I can see the rocks at the bottom!”

She turns to me, and the joy in her smile makes my chest pinch. Voids, she’s a beautiful woman.

“Yeah,” I stammer because apparently my mouth has forgotten how to form words. “Yeah. Nice. Come on.”

I hold out my hand to her. She turns back to gaze at the ice beneath her feet. Her eyes follow the river’s sinuous progress almost lovingly, and then she stands up. She takes a step closer to me, her fingers reaching toward mine.

There’s a crack. It’s not loud, just another creak and groan from the living river. Arryn looks up at me. Her eyes widen. There’s a second crack, louder this time, like a teacup hitting a slate floor.

And Arryn falls through the ice.

I scream before I even realize what I’m doing. The ice cracks again as I lunge forward, grasping at thin air. The hood of Arryn’s cloak bobs once in the jagged hole in the ice before it’s sucked underneath, pulled by the current into the void.

I fall to my knees, and the ice gives way beneath me. The water’s so cold it forces air from my lungs. I look up and see a cage of ice above me.

My magic explodes. Ice and river water shoot into the air as my magic wraps around me, dragging me up. My eyes burn and my vision dulls, turning the world into a flat shadowland. Ink-black tendrils of magic churn along the ice, ripping it apart, as every part of me focuses on her, on Arryn, on her sweet scent, her laugh, her voids-damned smile.

All I feel is the bitter, empty cold of the river, the sharp edges of the ice. Mineral-tinged ice-laced water stings my nose and twists in the back of my throat as my magic rips this river apart.

There! Arryn’s just downstream, a bundle of rapidly fading warmth. Magic wraps around her, dragging her through the broken ice and onto the shore as I run downstream. When I reach her, she’s on her side, retching ice water into the snow. Her dark hair’s already frozen into thick, ice-covered bands, and she’s trembling in her wet clothes.

Arryn looks up as I crash down on the snow next to her, and I realize I’m still screaming her name. I’ve been screaming since she went through the ice. And she’s wrapped in my deadly magic, and my vision is still flat and colorless, which means I’ve got blue fire pouring from my eyes.

She should be terrified. I pull back, ready for her shock, her horror.

Arryn throws herself at me. Her arms lock around my back like she’s still trapped under ice, still drowning, and I’m the thing that’s going to save her. Some part of me notices that she’s lost the pack; she must have pulled it off when she was underwater. There goes half our food and supplies, but I can’t bring myself to care. I close my arms around her, pulling her closer to my chest. Voids, she’s so cold!