Page 37 of Hearts Lost

My gut clenches, and for a heartbeat, I think I might actually lose the contents of my stomach. I stagger to my feet, brace myself against a tree, and try to breathe. Golden lights swim in the distance, flickering hypnotically through the trees.

Wait. The distance?

Fear pulls my muscles tight. I push away from the tree and listen for the river. It’s still there, chattering and laughing, but the sound is faint. Distant. I take a step, then another, pushing pale branches out of the way.

I sat down on the riverbank. But now it takes me five steps through the forest to find the river.

Another shiver dances over my skin. The river looks the same, chattering and dancing over its wide fan of smooth stones, but the golden sparks are fading. And so is the light. I glance back the way I’ve come and see shadows swelling beneath trees that I’d swear weren’t so thick a moment ago.

Because the void shifts, my mind whispers. Everyone knows that. Ithronel discovered that for herself when she walked to the river and then almost lost me on her way back.

I’m suddenly very, very cold. How far has the void shifted? How quickly?

How far away is Ithronel right now?

“Hello?” I call.

My voice echoes strangely over the water, and the emptiness that returns to me holds no response. I’m running again almost before I can recognize what I’m doing, leaping over stones and fallen branches that I would really like to believe were here before.

“Ithronel,” I yell as I run, as though I could move faster than the darkness falling all around me. Faster than my own frantic panic, than the pulse throbbing in my temple and the low, cold fear clenching my gut like an iron vise.

“Ithronel!” I scream.

Something grabs at my ankle. I fall hard, my hands splashing in cold water, the leg I’d banged in the river howling in pain. I push myself up to my knees, my lungs screaming for breath, every muscle in my body aching and sore.

Water laps at my thighs. The woods are almost completely dark now, and the river is a shining band of violet light, reflecting the strange sky. My own breath sounds impossibly loud, harsh and ragged, like each gasping inhale has to be torn from the peace of this world.

I let my head drop, then splash cold water over my face and shoulders. My hands sting; I expect they’re bloodied, just like my leg. Some part of me says I should take the time to treat my injuries, to dress these minor wounds before they can grow into major complications.

I laugh at my own stupid mind, at the absurdity of caring about protocol this deep inside the damned void, and the sound rings out across the water, harsh, bitter, and sharply out of place. I wipe cold water from my eyes and stare out at the river, at the shadow-shrouded forest. This place where I was never intended to be. This forest that has swallowed the woman I—

My throat goes dry. The woman I nothing, of course. The woman who was sent here to kill Orryen’s lover. The woman I ended up trapped in the void with by sheer, brutal accident.

The woman who managed to survive here. The woman who laughs at the void, who can speak to the shadow animals.

The woman I’m falling in love with.

I swallow hard. The truth has sharp edges, as my father likes to say. It stings when it’s spoken. I splash my face with water, then wipe at my eyes as if that will help. The river has gone cold again. Perhaps we’re shifting closer to the Outer Rings. Or perhaps it’s just a reflection of the fact that the entire world has gone cold. Because I’ve run away from Ithronel, abandoning her in the void.

Something snaps in the forest behind me. Fear spikes inside my chest; my heart lifts to the back of my throat. Holding my breath, I turn around very, very slowly.

A shadow moves through the forest. It slides around the trees, swallowing them and then passing through them. Voids below, it’s enormous. I remember waking in this place, turning on my side, and seeing the shadow swelling above Ithronel. Fear fills my mouth with the taste of metal.

And then I remember Ithronel reaching out as the shadow stretched down. I remember the sound of her voice, light and musical, as though she would feel at home absolutely anywhere in absolutely any world.

The shadow moves closer. Something like a leg, thick as a tree trunk and black as ink, sinks into the water between me and the shore. Ripples wink across the surface. I look up. The shadow rises between me and the trees, black against the deep purple of the sky. Something like a head tilts to the side, watching me.

My chest feels like it’s been wrapped in bands of iron. This is how I die, then. This is how my story ends, at the ebony claws of a void beast, just like all my childhood nightmares. A wave of fear pulls my muscles tense, preparing for the claws that will rake my skin, carrying void touch even if they don’t kill me outright. My heart thuds dully into the space between my ribs, and in the absolute stillness of the twilight void, my mind whispers something.

Animal, I think. Not monster.

I blink. The shadow above me trembles. Ripples. Bends closer to me, its leg spreading over the water, sending tiny waves to crash against my thighs. The head is still tilted, like it’s staring at me, but I don’t see teeth. I don’t see the sharp, ragged edges of claws. Inky, thin tendrils rise from its massive body, drifting and tangling like smoke. Like Ithronel’s hair, caught in the wind of the dark shore. That memory stings, and for the first time since I awoke in the void, I realize I’m not quite ready to die. Not yet. I force my mouth to open.

“Hello,” I whisper to the shadow.

The shadow shifts, moving like fog across the water, and there’s a sound like the hiss of wind through the treetops. I hold perfectly still as the animal slips a second leg into the water, and then a third, and then a fourth. The creature passes so close to me that I can smell it, a sort of thick, burnt aroma hovering around its dark body. Water splashes onto my legs as it glides into the river beside me, spreading itself out across the water, its darkness stealing the reflected shine of the sky.

And then it’s gone, cutting through the water like an arrow, leaving a wake of violet-tinted ripples behind. I sigh; my shoulders curl forward as my entire body convulses. I breathe, hold, breathe again. Breathe, hold, breathe again.

By the time I pull myself upright, I’m shaking with cold and exhaustion and the strange elation of survival. I turn toward the forest, toward the shadows that had just pulled themselves together into a void beast that, for whatever reason, did not kill me.

And I see a tiny orange pinprick of firelight.