Page 9 of Hearts Lost

ITHRONEL

WHAT WOULD YOU GIVE?

That was, without a doubt, the most exciting dinner the palace had seen since I’d been dragged here to serve His Highness King Grathgore. I’d been stationed near the door of the dining hall, so I’d missed most of the action, but the guards had stayed up late gossiping about it in the barracks. By the time I finally dragged myself into the women’s dormitory, I felt like I’d been there myself.

The stranger from the Lands Below had been seated near the high table, where he’d watched the entire evening with a strange sort of frown. Some of the guards insisted he hadn’t eaten a thing. Personally, that’s the version of the story that made sense to me; I wouldn’t eat a crumb from King Grathgore either. But others insisted he’d sampled everything but the wine.

Either way, the family Damoira had been invited to sit opposite the stranger. The merchant Damoira and his wife were some of the only wealthy nobles Grathgore had managed to keep in the Kingdom of the Summer, and they were practically features of the royal court, beautiful and cruel and cold, just like they’d been carved from crystal. Their perfect daughter Arryn was one of the favorites to marry Prince Folwynn and good riddance to both of them.

But their perfect daughter Arryn hadn’t been at the dinner. Apparently, Lady Arryn Damoira had been missing since the prince disappeared, a fact the Damoira family had managed to completely brush under the rug. The pale stranger from the Lands Below caused quite a commotion over dinner when he repeated his assertion that Lady Arryn was the one who’d negotiated Prince Folwynn’s release from the Kingdom of the Fall. Apparently, Lady Damoira had almost swooned into her dinner plate.

Then King Grathgore had upped the drama by offering to marry Princess Elanerill to the Damoira family’s son in recompense for their lost daughter. The guards said Lady Damoira seemed quite pleased with this arrangement, despite the fact that their son was very openly already married to a man in the Silver City, where he ran pretty much every aspect of the Damoira family’s business.

And then Princess Elanerill herself had come to her feet and announced that she was already betrothed. To the prince of the Kingdom of the Fall in the Lands Below.

After that, all of the guards’ various recollections became quite colorful, as they’d had to dive into the fray to break up half a dozen fights and screaming matches. The king had apparently left the feast at that point, although it wasn’t clear if he’d left before or after the fighting. Elanerill remained, dining calmly as the kingdom erupted at her feet. Prince Folwynn might have gotten his nose broken a second time; that bit was particularly murky.

Either way, the palace was in a total uproar, and I was delighted. I’d kept watch for my sister during the feast, but none of the magicians had made an appearance, and I’d assumed they were probably all trying to close the portal in the crystal chamber. It was too late now to wander the halls of the palace unaccompanied. I’d have to find her tomorrow, to whisper the crazy, traitorous thought that had flared inside my chest just after the princess awoke.

It’s a way out. That portal, while it’s open, is a way out of King Grathgore’s palace. Out of this entire miserable, dying kingdom.

But all of that will have to wait until tomorrow. I kick out of my boots, yawn, and tug off my Royal Guard tunic. There’s a knock on the door. I freeze. There are a handful of other women in the Royal Guard, some of them already asleep and some still laughing uproariously at the description of Prince Folwynn launching himself into the dinnertime fray like some sort of inept, blond battering ram. But none of them would knock on the door.

I wait, and the sound comes again, less of a knock and more of a subtle tap. The door creaks open. A thin ribbon of orange light falls across the floorboards. I pull my shirt back on just as a tall, silent human servant enters the dormitory, his gaze firmly on the floor.

“Ithronel,” he whispers. “With me.”

I’m suddenly colder than the wind blowing out of the portal to the Lands Below. No human servants are allowed to wander the halls of the palace at night. No one at all is allowed to wander at night.

Save at the direct bequest of King Grathgore.

My heart lurches forward, and I stumble trying to pull my boots back on. My hands shake as I knot the laces. What in the stars’ many names would the king want with me? The day flies through my mind as I follow the human servant back into the darkened hallway. I was in the crystal chamber when the princess awoke. Does the king want to question me? Do his magicians want to question me? Or—

My sister’s face floods my memories. Tear-stained, holding my hands so tight my knuckles ached, whispering frantically beneath the spindly trees in the Spirit Wood. No one can know, she’d said, and I’d agreed. We had time, she’d said. We’d figure something out.

Fear sits like a stone in my chest. Our footsteps reverberate through the empty hallways, dull thuds like the echoes of a ghost march. The servant holds a small lantern, and the light it casts darts so wildly past the columns and wall hangings and closed doors that the palace where I’ve spent my entire adult life transforms into somewhere foreign and confusing. When the man finally stops, it takes me a moment to recognize where he’s taken me.

The king’s private chambers. Of course. One of many forbidden areas of the inner palace, a door I’ve walked past thousands of times but never once entered. My heart flutters against my dry throat, and something deep inside me urges me to run. To run as fast as possible and never look back.

The human servant waves his hand at the open door.

“Enter,” he says.

My feet feel like they’re trapped in stone. There’s a light flickering inside that door, something that looks almost like a fire on a grate, although it’s far too hot for fires this time of year. There are also shadows. Many, many shadows.

The human makes a sound low in his throat, a sort of impatient hum, and I jolt out of my daze. There are worse things than fear, after all. There’s pain.

I walk into the room slowly, taking small steps and keeping my eyes on the thick, red carpet beneath my feet. An enormous black desk squats in the middle of the room. There is a fire on the grate; I can feel the waves of uncomfortable heat rising from the far corner of the room. For some reason it makes me think of the silk tapestry in the crystal chamber, of the spurt of scarlet flame shooting from the dragon Rensivar’s mouth as he trapped the Kingdom of the Fall in the Lands Below.

The door closes with a boom. I jump. My eyes flicker from the floor to the fire. To the man standing beside the fire, the cruel tips of his jagged crown winking in the light.

“Y-Your Highness,” I stammer, bending into a curtsey so low my knees ache.

When I stand back up, King Grathgore is looking straight through me. I drop my eyes back to the plush, crimson carpet. It’s almost the exact shade of freshly spilled blood. That’s unfortunate.

“Ithronel Liavaris,” the king says, drawing my name out slowly like he’s taking a long sip of exquisite wine. “Daughter of the horse trader.”

“Y-Yes, Sire.”