Page 2 of Hearts Lost

Lythienne’s nodding, but she’s not smiling. She is very decidedly not smiling. I step backward once, twice, until I feel the cold stone of the palace walls at my back.

“What happened?” I ask.

Lythienne opens her mouth, then hesitates. I feel like I’ve just broken through the thin ice of this world and plunged into the freezing depths beyond.

Lythienne doesn’t hesitate. She never hesitates, about anything. That’s part of the problem, my mind insists on reminding me. That’s why it all went wrong the first time they tried heart magic, why Orryen ended up in a magical coma to keep him alive. My magical coma.

“Orryen?” I ask.

My voice is thin and tight, and I know before his name even falls from my lips that he’s dead. My best and only friend is gone. The heart magic worked, but it hurt Orryen somehow. It ruined the sleep magic spell I’d kept on him for so many years.

That means the throne is empty, something hisses in my brain. Something that sounds suspiciously like my mother.

I stamp that thought down and stare at Lythienne. She’s nodding.

“Orryen is fine,” she says.

I blink, trying to force my brain to process her words.

“He’s weak, of course, after so many years under your sleep magic. But the portal gave us enough of a connection between the two hearts to allow us to finish the magic, so the spell is bound and he’s not in danger anymore. Neither of them are.”

I blink again. Lythienne is speaking quickly, like she does when she’s excited, and as usual, I only recognize about half of the words coming out of her mouth. One of them in particular stands out as problematic.

“Portal?” I ask.

Lythienne’s expression is almost apologetic. “The heart magic worked. We have a portal to the Worlds Above.”

Oh. I brace myself against the wall as the implications of that word ricochet through my consciousness. We have a portal? To the Kingdom of the Summer? The same murderous kingdom that destroyed our armies and then partnered with a voids-damned black dragon to march every single one of our surviving civilians into the Lands Below?

“A portal,” I say again. My voice sounds rough, like I’ve been screaming. “Does it— Does it open on both sides?”

Lythienne frowns. “I’m not sure.”

“You’re not sure,” I parrot, and I suddenly very much want to scream. “You opened a portal to the kingdom that tried to destroy us, and you’re not sure if it opens both ways? You’re not sure if they can send their armies through?”

“Oh, Aloserin,” Lythienne says. She’s using the same tone she used when I was a child and she was trying to teach me something complicated about the world. “You’ll just have to find out.”

I stare at her as my heart thuds very slowly in my chest. Something else occurs to me, something that had been drowned out in that last rush of panic. Orryen is awake. He’s alive.

He’s Captain of the Royal Guard.

I glance down at my cloak, the one embroidered with the royal crest and the captain’s bars. It’s Orryen’s cloak now. My office is Orryen’s office now. For just a moment, I let myself picture the look of horrified disappointment on my parents’ faces when they hear about my demotion. And then something else Lythienne said catches my fragmented attention.

“Wait,” I say. “What?”

Lythienne smiles and reaches forward to pat me on the arm.

“You’re going through,” she says. “The king wants you to take that monster prince back to the Kingdom of the Summer. You’re to escort him so he can stand trial in his own kingdom. As a sign of the mercy of the Kingdom of the Fall.”

Thank the voids I’m leaning against the wall. It would have been humiliating if my legs had collapsed under me. I force myself to smile, and every bit of it hurts.

“Great,” I say.