Page 3 of Hearts Lost

ITHRONEL

THE ALARM

“Great,” I mutter under my breath.

The door to the sparkling, elegant chamber stands ajar, as always, letting in sunlight and fresh air and a constant stream of solitary guards assigned to the single most boring position in the entire Kingdom of the Summer. Guard duty for Princess Elanerill as she rests, wrapped in her magical, enchanted sleep, waiting for some hero to bring her heart back from the Lands Below.

I stomp heavily on the marble stairs. The guard who’d pulled the short straw the night before appears in the doorway, and relief spreads over his face as dawn paints the wall behind him with radiant gold and crimson. He’s older, probably old enough to have seen the war between the kingdoms, and he moves stiffly toward the stairs.

“Report?” I ask as I pull myself to the top step.

“All quiet,” he replies.

I nod and press my lips together to keep from spitting out a retort. Of course, it was all quiet. This has to be the quietest tower in the entire palace. The old guard eases past me, probably heading for the mess hall and then a long nap. I wait until he’s disappeared down the winding staircase before heaving a sigh and entering the chamber.

At least it’s a pretty room. The ceiling is crystal, enchanted to let in sunlight without trapping the heat, and they say the king spared no expense in decorating for his beloved lost granddaughter. The walls are lined with silk tapestries detailing the Kingdom of the Summer’s varied victories, up to and including a tapestry where the scowling black dragon Rensivar perches atop Mount Victory, flames erupting from his maw as the defeated Kingdom of the Fall marches to their imprisonment in the Lands Below beneath the baleful eyes of an embroidered King Grathgore.

A shiver runs up my arms; I try very hard not to think about King Grathgore. Or his horrible grandson Prince Folwynn, whom I very dearly hope is having his entrails pulled out right now in the Lands Below.

No such luck, my sister had said when I’d offered her that very mental picture. Folwynn’s not smart enough to find his way into the Lands Below, she’d said. And, even if he was, he’s not brave or selfless enough to go after his sister’s heart.

No, she’d assumed the official cover story that our dashing, idiotic heir to the throne had vanished in an attempt to rescue his sister’s heart was just Grathgore’s way of hiding whatever fool thing the prince was currently doing. And if he was a woman, she’d said, then what he was doing would be obvious. She’d run her hands over her own belly then with an expression that twisted my heart inside my chest, and I’d reached forward, caught her hand, and tried to think of something to say. Some promise or offer of help. Some reassurance that we would find a way out of this.

But there is no way out. I huff and spin in a slow circle, taking in the crystal chamber with its beautiful, gruesome tapestries and its elegant, curtained bed holding the Princess Elanerill. We’re all trapped here, stuck as firmly as the princess in her enchanted sleep. My lips twist into a snarl that no one can see as I run my fingers over the dusty bronze alarm bell by the doorway. At least the heartless princess is unconscious for her imprisonment.

My survey of the perimeter complete, I sink into one of the luxurious overstuffed chairs beside the bed and close my eyes. Being able to sit down and practice my magic is literally the only upside to guard duty in the crystal chamber.

My damn magic. I sigh, then close my eyes. The entire family had been so proud when my magic started to make itself known, first in the stables, and then out in the training ring. I’d gone straight from the nursery to my father’s side, in the stables and arenas and fields, soaking up information like a sponge.

Tears sting my eyelids, and I try to suck in another breath, low and steady over my lips. Those memories belong to another life. Horses and hay and the scent of freshly cut grass. Feeling an animal’s fear, their hunger or pain, their desire to please or to destroy. Mirroring that emotion back to them, telling them I understand. That I can make things better.

That was supposed to be my entire life. My destiny.

My eyes flicker open, and my gaze settles on Princess Elanerill’s bed. She’s always looked sad to me, this sleeping, heartless princess. Sad and somehow fierce, like she just might be wearing a dagger beneath one of those delicately embroidered sleeves.

Princess Elanerill’s destiny was to be queen someday, I suppose. And now look at the two of us.

With a long, careful exhale, I let my magic out, sensing the room. The princess’ awareness is like a low, dull humming, but I’ve never been good at connecting to other complex minds. We can hide so much; even the lowest human servants have minds that hiss with complexity like the vibrating layers of a wasp’s nest.

There’s a family of mice living in the floor under Elanerill’s bed. Their awareness flows into mine, some sleeping, some grooming themselves drowsily. One is nibbling on a crust of bread dropped by another guard. Spikes of anxiety burst through their consciousness as a hawk cries outside, and then again when someone drops something several floors down.

A sparrow stops to rest on a rough stone outside the window, its little feathery body humming with contentment and then desire as it spots a fat black fly. It’s gone before I can sense any more, before I could ask anything.

Not that I can really ask much out of sparrows or mice. Or any creature, for that matter. I’d once tried to explain my magic to one of the human servants, a nice girl with wide, brown eyes who’d seemed easily fascinated.

“You can talk to animals?” she’d asked.

But the answer is no, or not exactly. They don’t speak like we do, in words carrying so many different shades of meaning. Their minds are bursts of emotion and memories like a fistful of pebbles scattered on the ground. If I were to ask a sparrow if she’s seen my sister, or that specific combination of scent and shape that I call my sister, the sparrow might remember that combination of scents and sights three years ago, huddled against the snow on a high balcony trying some impossible magical experiment for His Highness King Grathgore. Or the sparrow might tell me she sees my sister right now, beneath us in the gardens, with precious little distinction between the two observations. Sparrows, like most animals, have little use for the concept of time. There is now, and there is not now, and typically there’s no need to draw a solid line between the two.

I push up to my feet, feeling restless. A low current of alarm flows through the mice as my footsteps reverberate through their nest, and I send reassurance that I mean them no harm. The mice are gracious but wary; rodents never fully trust the reassurances of someone larger.

I walk to the nearest open window and lean out, my arms on the wide sill, the early morning breeze tangling through my hair. A falcon is circling high above the palace, and for a heartbeat, my awareness touches his. He’s hunting, his focus sharp as a diamond on the rustling leaves of the Spirit Wood with no time for my harassment. With a sigh, I let him go.

A fresh current of alarm travels through the mice in the floors. My muscles tense as their low, scurrying unrest bleeds over into me. I turn slowly, my mind still tangled with the mice, with the acrid tang of their fear. What is it? The falcon is too far away. I don’t hear anything from the floors below—

And then, suddenly, I do hear it. There’s a low rippling, ripping sound, like something soft and delicate is being sundered. The air in the room feels thick, almost heavy, and suddenly I’m remembering the night the king’s soldiers came to our house. Came to see my little sister, in her sleeping gown and pigtails, rubbing her fists against her chubby cheeks.

“Come on, sweetheart,” the older soldier had said, with a smile that had reminded me of the fox who paced circles around our henhouse. “Show us what you can do.”