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“Put your arm around my waist,” Phaedron says. He gives me an expression that’s probably intended to be a smile but is pulled way too tight around the corners.
I swallow hard, trying not to think about the things I’ve seen. The magicians who’d attempted to build something new and ended up being scraped off the walls of King Grathgore’s inner chambers. Because Phaedron is still looking at me with an eyebrow raised and that tight smile across his lips, like he expects something.
And of course he expects something. Isn’t that the entire reason he hurled himself through that disaster of a portal and into my bedroom in the first place? Because he needs me to free his brother.
And that means I need to ride a teleportation hub.
Great.
I press my hands to my stomach, as if that could calm the fluttering in my gut, then crunch across the ice to Phaedron’s side. The standing stones smell like hot metal, and they’re buzzing with a sort of high, irritating hum, like a cloud of insects just waiting to descend.
Great, again.
I turn to Phaedron, give him a smile that’s probably just as tight and unconvincing as the one he just gave me, and then wrap my arm slowly around his waist. He hesitates for just long enough to let me think maybe he’s changed his mind, maybe we’re going to go back to that little cabin with the warm fire and—
Magic seizes me. The icy ground rips away from beneath my feet as magic yanks me forward, pulling me by the guts. The many, many worlds spin around me, giving me a sense of space, of stars, of dazzling blue lights.
And then I hit the ground hard, frozen earth sending a shock of pain through my legs. Beside me, Phaedron makes a noise like he’s been punched in the gut.
Beside me. He’s still here. I gasp, and my arm tightens around the familiar warmth of Phaedron’s body. The world spins; for a heartbeat, I think we’re both going down. But Phaedron steadies me, and slowly, the tumult in my gut settles as the frozen air slices a path down my throat.
“You okay?” Phaedron asks.
I manage a nod as I finally raise my head for a groggy look around where we’ve landed. It’s almost identical to where we were, cold snow and rows upon rows of trees that appear to be dead. Dark, narrow paths thread through the trees, but I don’t see anything moving on them. This world seems entirely devoid of life. Even the strange blue-green light feels weaker here.
“Where are we?” I ask, in a whisper. The barren landscape seems to demand hushed tones.
“Welcome to the World’s End,” Phaedron says, with a smile. “It’s not much, but it’s home.”
I swallow. The air is so cold it feels like a blade sliding through the layers of Phaedron’s heavy cloak. This is his home? I stare at the darkness above the trees, at the foreboding, narrow paths leading nowhere. How can he live here? Stars, how can anyone live here?
And what must he have thought of the Worlds Above? I shiver as Phaedron pulls away. The sun must have blinded him that first morning. I imagine Phaedron in his stolen servant’s uniform, crossing the plains between the Kingdom of the Summer and the Barrier Mountains as the sun rose, setting the world on fire. What did he think of the vastness, the great, open spaces? If he was afraid, he never showed it.
“This way,” Phaedron says, as he steps out of the buzzing circle of the teleportation stones. “My place isn’t far.”
Phaedron’s place, as it turns out, looks like the kind of place my family wouldn’t have found fit for livestock. Maybe grain storage, in a pinch, but certainly not the kind of place you’d trust to house living creatures. It’s made of wood, and the roof sags in the middle, like it’s pulled itself in tight against the cold. Smoke rises from the chimney in a thin, gray line, and warm light pours out from the windows to stretch across the snow. By the time I realize what that signifies, smoke and light, Phaedron is already knocking on the door. And then, without waiting, he pushes it open.
Perhaps I only imagine the warmth of the fire within washing over my face as the door opens. But with the warmth comes a sound, a soft cry, and every muscle in my body freezes. A small figure leaps through the door and throws herself into Phaedron’s arms.
Arryn.
My heart beats against the base of my throat like an animal in a trap.We should get back to Arryn, Phaedron said. He hadn’t said anything else about a woman named Arryn, but why would he? Balmyr had a wife and three children, and he sure as all the nine hells hadn’t said anything about any of them, not until I told him I was pregnant. My mouth tastes bitter, and some low, wicked voice in the back of my mind hisses that I should just turn around, just wander off into the forest, curl up in a snowdrift, and wait for the cold to stop my heart.
There’s another sound, a horrible sort of coughing sob. I take a step closer, curious in spite of myself. Phaedron’s arm is wrapped around the woman’s shoulders, and her dark curls spill across his chest. They seem oddly familiar, those curls, as if they’d come from my world instead of Phaedron’s. Phaedron looks at me, then tilts his head toward the open door.
“Let’s get inside,” he says.
The woman in his arm trembles and the coughing sobs cut off. There’s a sniff, and she rocks back, although both of her hands are still buried in Phaedron’s cloak like she’s going to keep him in the Lands Below by sheer force of will.
And recognition burns through me like a bolt of summer lightning.
Arryn. Lady Arryn Damoira.
Stars above, this woman is from my world. She’s the daughter of the merchant Damoira, the richest man in the Kingdom of the Summer, the man whose fortune was almost single-handedly responsible for keeping King Grathgore afloat. Lady Arryn Damoira was supposed to marry Grathgore’s idiot son Prince Folwynn. When the prince disappeared, Lady Arryn somehow managed to claw her way into the Lands Below and rescue him. She died in the process, Prince Folwynn reported, and he certainly didn’t seem too broken up about it. King Grathgore gave Lady Arryn Damoira a state funeral.
According to the palace rumor machine, the Damoira family was not impressed by that turn of events. With the loss of their daughter, and the loss of their hopes of perhaps one day claiming Grathgore’s throne, the Damoiras are supposedly planning to move their business dealings to the Silver City. Some part of me wonders if there’s anything left of the Silver City now, after the old god escaped from the Towers, and then the woman turns to look at me.
Yes, she is Lady Arryn Damoira. It’s unmistakable. She looks like she hasn’t slept since she came down here, and the stars only know how she ended up in Phaedron’s home, but despite the darkness under her eyes and the official state funeral we held back in the Kingdom of the Summer, she is most certainly not dead.
