Page 95 of Hearts Lost

“You?” I stammer. “For what? I know you didn’t put me in that dungeon. You weren’t the one to make a deal with Rensivar.”

His smile looks like it hurts.

“But I never gave you a chance to explain,” he says. “I should never have used my magic on you to begin with. I was so quick to react with anger and fear when I should have reached out. I should have talked to you. Voids, I treated you like—”

He shakes his head.

“I was scared,” Aloserin admits. “All my life, I’ve expected the worst. And I guess, when you go looking for the worst, that’s all you find.”

He turns to stare at the floorboards. I reach forward and run my fingertips along the dark rasp of his beard.

“I know,” I say. “That’s how I felt too. I thought I was going to die down here, in the Lands Below. Instead, I found you.”

His face tilts towards mine, and our lips meet in the space between us. This kiss is deeper, harder, tugging on something hidden inside of me that I’d feared had gone silent forever after I awoke in the Kingdom of the Fall and did not find Aloserin waiting for me. My lips part, ready for him, welcoming all of him, everything that he is, all his fear and his loneliness, his sense of humor as sharp as his dagger, his betrayal and pain and the love that’s all tangled up in it, the love that runs as deep as the void.

“It’s okay,” I whisper into our kiss. “I forgive you.”

His hands trace the back of my neck and tangle in my hair.

“I forgive you too,” he whispers.

I answer with another kiss, deeper and more insistent, our lips and tongues dancing, the heat between us rolling like smoke from a fire, spiraling up to twirl with the stars. I want to answer, to tell him that I’ve never felt like this for anyone before, never dared to mix friendship and sex or to let the wild animal of my heart out of its corral, but my mouth is too tangled with his to form words.

The door slams open, bringing a gust of freezing cold air into the rising heat between our bodies. I jump, but Aloserin moves away slowly, releasing me from our kiss as though he had all the time in the world. As though he isn’t at all ashamed to be seen with me, embracing the woman who’d followed King Grathgore’s commands all the way into the void. His hand traces my cheek, his eyes soft, his lips still parted in the aftermath of our kiss.

“You found her, then?” a woman says from the doorway.

Aloserin and I turn together as King Galan’s Head Magician Lythienne pulls the door shut behind her. She’s bundled up in a thick, dark cloak. Aloserin comes to his feet and takes the cloak from her shoulders as she shuffles toward the fire, her hands outstretched.

“Did anyone see you leave the palace?” Aloserin asks.

Lythienne laughs.

“I am a magician,” she replies, raising an eyebrow at Aloserin. “I can move without being seen, you know.”

Aloserin’s lips twist into a smile.

“Just checking,” he replies.

Lythienne moves from the fire to the battered little table shoved against the far wall of the cabin. She lights a candle, pulls a bag from her pocket, and unties it very carefully, as if the contents may bite. The thick leather falls away. My body goes cold. Two silver spheres shimmer dully from the folds of leather; King Grathgore’s magical weapons to destroy any portal through the barrier.

“Yes,” Lythienne says, her sharp eyes watching me. “I don’t like them any more than you do, but without the other magicians, I’ll need these. Fuel, you see?”

I don’t understand, but my head nods anyway. I clear my throat to ask what I need to do, and the door slams open again. The candle gutters and dies as a second blast of cold air swirls through the little room.

Lady Arryn stands in the doorway. I know it’s Lady Arryn, it has to be her, but the scowling woman with a sword on her hip and frost covering her cloak doesn’t much resemble the aloof and demure Lady Arryn of the family Damoira that I knew from King Grathgore’s court. Of course, I think as I glance down at the ruins of the red velvet dress I’m wearing, I suppose I don’t look much like a member of Grathgore’s Royal Guard anymore.

An enormous, terrifying man stands behind Lady Arryn with his arms crossed over his chest, and it takes me a moment to remember that Aloserin said Rowan’s brother would be joining us. The man pulls the door closed behind him and shakes off his cloak. He doesn’t look much like Rowan; his hair is golden where Rowan’s is almost white, he’s taller and more muscular, and he’s so brutally attractive that I wonder if he’s wearing some sort of vanity illusion. The only thing he seems to have in common with Rowan are his bright blue eyes. A moment later the door creaks open again, and Orryen and Elanerill squeeze into the room.

“Good,” Lythienne announces, after relighting the candle on the table. “That’s everyone. Let’s begin.”