Page 82 of Heart’s Rescue

“What—” My voice pinches and cuts off. I cough. Try again. “What are you going to do with her?”

“She offered her heart,” Aloserin replies. “In exchange for… the prisoner.”

His mouth twists as if he finds something about all this amusing. Or maybe he can hear the way my chest is shattering from inside.

I close my eyes; it’s too much effort to keep them open. Aloserin’s boots tap, tap, tap across the floor. His words ring in the space between us, and I have the horrible sense they’re going to echo through my skull for the rest of my miserable life.

She offered her heart. In exchange for the prisoner.

Arryn’s face floats through my memory, her beautiful dark eyes and wild, unruly hair, her secret little smile. The way she’d glared at me the night she’d held the knife to my neck. I need to go to the Crystal City, she’d said after I’d told her where I’d taken the first monster. Her prince.

And now here we are, in the Crystal City. And here she is. With her prince.

Voids. Something deep inside me feels like it’s ripping apart. She was playing the long con, all right. Playing me all along.

Some part of me insists that’s not right, that doesn’t make any sense, but it’s quickly drowned out by the throbbing agony emanating from the many, many broken places in my chest.

“Rowan?”

I open my eyes and, oh hey, there’s my pal Aloserin standing over the bed watching me have the worst day of my entire life.

“Why were you taking a monster into the inner towers?” he asks.

I swallow hard. “She’s hurt,” I manage to say. “Void-touched. Her left arm.”

Aloserin sighs. “Okay. Good. Thank you, Rowan.”

I can’t think of anything to say to that, so I close my eyes again. Maybe I’ll get lucky and he’ll knock me out with his magic again. Then I’ll be just like Orryen, unconscious for the rest of time. Because I lost my heart to a monster from the Worlds Above.

“I’m sending you home,” says Aloserin, crushing that particular dream with swift, brutal efficiency. “Take care of your brother, Rowan. Pull yourself together.”

I open my mouth to tell him to go fuck himself.

“You got it,” I rasp.