Page 94 of Hearts Lost

ITHRONEL

NOT SOMETHING YOU EARN

Tears swell at the corners of my eyes. I bring my fist to my mouth and bite down on my knuckles, trying to will the tears back down into the center of me, into that screaming hole of loss and pain that feels like it’s going to ache forever. Aloserin just crossed a portal for me. He made a bargain with Rensivar the Wicked to save my life.

And I’ve been lying to him, in one way or another, for the entire time I’ve known him.

My fist trembles as I sink my teeth into it, and my throat feels tight. Enough lies. I owe this man the truth, at least.

“Aloserin,” I begin, and his name catches on my lips. “I— I don’t deserve this.”

A strange expression flickers across his features, and then his forehead folds like he doesn’t understand the words coming out of my mouth. Something deep inside of my chest aches, like the ghost of an old wound.

“I don’t deserve any of this,” I say again, speaking slowly, as if maybe that was the problem.

Aloserin shakes his head. His lip twists in the barest suggestion of a smile.

“That’s— It’s not how this works,” he says. “The way I feel about you, it’s not something you earn. It’s not something you have to deserve.”

The tears that have been waiting in reserve surge forward. I slam my eyes shut to slow their advance, then press my palms against my eyelids. I feel Aloserin’s presence beside me, the warmth of his body like a signal fire, calling me forward. I take a deep breath, then another, before dropping my hands back to my lap and opening my traitorous eyes.

“You don’t understand,” I say. My voice cracks, but I ignore it and push on anyway. “I hate King Grathgore. I hate him more than anything in either of our worlds. Ever since his soldiers took my sister away—”

The tears launch another assault. I close my eyes and breathe while Aloserin sits beside me, waiting.

“I never wanted to serve him,” I say, beginning again. “I used to think I would do anything to escape his horrible kingdom. But then I came down here, and I— I served him. Over and over and over. I served him with those weapons, and with my hate, and with my silence. I finally had my chance to escape him, to escape his entire kingdom, but I served him instead.”

My throat closes around my words, strangling me, and finally, the tears come. I bury my face in my hands and surrender, shame and grief and rage twisting around my insides, pouring through me like falling water. At some point I raise my head, gasping for air, and I realize Aloserin is holding something out to me. Something small and white and neatly pressed.

I almost laugh. Of course, Aloserin has a clean, pressed handkerchief, even out here, even after crossing a portal into a dragon’s den to rescue me, and the sheer, crushing normality of that little gesture, of a gentleman holding out his handkerchief, pulls me back from the dark churn of grief and regret that’s trying to drown me.

When I take his handkerchief and bury my face in it, Aloserin comes to his feet and busies himself setting a kettle over the fire. He’s giving me time. The thought unfurls inside my mind, carrying a slow, spreading warmth to my chest. Once, in the void, I’d thought that I would have liked Aloserin under different circumstances. And perhaps I was right. Perhaps I would have liked him, in another world.

But here, in this world, I love him.

“Aloserin,” I begin again.

He turns toward me, casting his features in shadow, and I remember the first time I saw him in Princess Elanerill’s chamber, his pale skin and dark hair, the hard glint in his eyes that said nothing in either of our worlds could surprise him. I’d thought he looked like a man who was about to die, and there’s something of that expression on his face now too. He looks like he’s expecting the worst. Like he’s expecting to be hurt.

That thought twists inside my chest, and for a moment we’re both frozen in place, staring at each other across the warped, dusty floorboards of this abandoned cabin. I clench my fingers together so hard it hurts.

The truth, I think to myself. For once, let’s have the truth between us.

“It… wasn’t an act,” I say. “None of it was an act. And I— I wouldn’t change anything about what happened in the void.”

Aloserin brings his hand to his mouth like he doesn’t quite trust what might come out of his lips, and I realize my mistake.

“I mean,” I stammer, “I would change one thing. I would tell you everything, right from the start. I wish I had told you everything. I wanted to, I just—”

He crosses the room in two long, graceful strides, and then he’s kneeling in front of me. Before my mind can think of a way to finish that sentence, his lips are on mine. He kisses me softly, gently, almost like he’s afraid I might be a dream. When we pull apart, there are tears in his dark eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

It’s not much to offer after everything I’ve done to ruin his kingdom, after all the times I bit my tongue when I should have let the truth spill out, but it’s all I have to offer. My words and my intentions.

“I know,” he replies. “So am I.”

A strangled little half-laugh slips out of my lips.