Page 83 of Heart’s Rescue

Arryn

They Sent You to Rescue Me?

“Arryn?”

Shock jolts through my chest. I know that voice. I know it and, for some reason, it makes me want to run and hide.

“Arryn?”

This time it’s not just the voice. Someone is touching me, touching my face. Slapping my cheeks. I force my eyes to open, fighting through cobwebbed layers of sleep. My body feels heavy, like I’m wrapped under layers and layers of blankets.

A face swims into murky focus just in front of me. Dark eyes. Golden hair. Full lips frowning into an expression that suggests the man staring at me doesn’t quite know what to make of me. I freeze like a rabbit under a hawk’s shadow.

“They sent you to rescue me?” Prince Folwynn asks.

I can’t breathe. I try to pull back, to get away from him, but my body refuses to move. I gasp, shake. Gasp.

“Why you?” Folwynn says. He’s still frowning like I’m a puzzle he’s trying to decipher.

“G-Get away,” I stammer.

Folwynn sighs and comes to his feet. His right arm is in a sling. There’s a pale bandage across the bridge of his nose, and his cheeks are flushed like he’s been exerting himself. Or like he’s been drinking. We’re in some sort of luxuriously appointed room surrounded by velvet curtains and a smattering of overstuffed chairs.

“Oh, I wish I could get away,” Folwynn says, with a dramatic sigh. “I’m sure that’s what you were expecting, that I’d have some brilliant way out of here. Well, I’m sorry. They’ve got me locked up in here like a monster!”

He collapses into a chair opposite me, all tousled golden hair and dark, brooding eyes. He’s wearing elegant clothes, a dark silk blouse, a heavy brocade vest with golden accents, and green velvet trousers. Someone must have dressed him, I think absently. I glance down. I’m still in Rowan's dark blue sweater.

“It’s been awful,” Folwynn continues, with a heavy sigh. He reaches for a bottle on the table next to him and pours a thin stream of red liquid into a goblet. The scent of wine drifts through the little room. “You can’t imagine what it’s like for someone like me to be caged like this. And the healers they sent me!”

Folwynn lets out a bitter little laugh, then drains the goblet. His cheeks are glowing now, something that always sets me on edge. Prince Folwynn can be cruel when he’s drunk. Crueler.

“They’re deliberately incompetent,” he announces. “They sent me the worst healers they could find. Can you believe this?” Folwynn scowls down at the sling on his arm like it’s just slapped him. “Could you imagine me having to wear something like this at home?”

I try to move my foot. It twitches against the carpet.

“So, who else did they send to rescue me?” Folwynn asks. He’s looking at the goblet in his hand as he speaks, and not at me. “They couldn’t have just sent you. They must have sent someone competent.”

“You killed people,” I say. My voice is hardly more than a whisper.

Folwynn laughs.

“Oh, yeah.” His face brightens considerably as he waves his goblet grandly in the air. “You should’ve seen it. Very heroic, you would’ve loved it.”

Folwynn has no idea what I love. The realization comes like a flash of summer lightning, leaving me temporarily blinded.

“Those sons of bitches will think twice before messing with the Prince of Summer,” Folwynn finishes, taking another swig of his wine.

I brace my foot against the floor and push myself up to sitting. The room spins for a heartbeat, then settles.

“Why?” I manage to ask.

Folwynn frowns at me like I’m an idiot.

“Because I killed them,” he says. “Even you know that. That’s why they won’t dare mess with me.”

I close my eyes until blood stops pounding painfully behind my temples.

“No,” I say, forcing my eyes to open again. The room swims into fuzzy focus. “Why did you come down here? Why try to rescue your sister’s heart alone?”