Page 51 of Hearts Lost

“Easy to smuggle through the portal,” Orryen replies.

“But they leak magic like nothing I’ve ever seen. The burden of carrying them must have been tremendous,” Lythienne says, turning to me. “Aloserin, how was the woman?”

“Fine,” I answer.

My voice sounds like leather boots scraping against gravel. Lythienne’s frown deepens, and for a moment I’m afraid she’s going to ask another question, but then she closes her mouth.

“There’s a beast nosing around down there,” Rowan says, tipping his head toward the rim of the waterfall.

I’m on my feet before I fully realize what I’m doing. There, whispering through the trees at the base of the waterfall where I’d pulled Ithronel into my arms and kissed her, is an enormous shadow animal. The shifting smoke of its body twists as it rises, stretching toward the sheen of falling water, and I have the horrible, sickening sense that it’s looking for Ithronel. That it’s wondering what happened to the nice lady who could communicate with it.

“Rip it up,” Orryen growls.

He’s got one hand on his sword, and he’s staring at the shadow animal with his lips curled in disgust. There’s a low sort of rumbling in the ground beneath us, and I remember everything I’ve ever heard about Rowan’s vicious magic.

“No!” I scream.

My hand drops to the pommel of my sword. I spin to face Orryen and Rowan. They’re both staring at me with identical expressions of shock. Under vastly different circumstances, that would almost be funny.

“Leave it alone,” I snap. “It won’t hurt us.”

“The void beast won’t hurt us?” Rowan says, his voice dripping with condescension.

I snarl something in response, wordless and inarticulate and rage-filled. Orryen looks at me like he’s about to ask me to report to the infirmary, and I pull in a deep breath, trying to still the way my chest seems to be pulling itself apart.

“It won’t,” I repeat through gritted teeth. “It won’t hurt us. Can we get moving?”

I suddenly want to get as far away from here as I can as quickly as possible.