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“Your breath fucking stinks,” Rowan hisses as we walk. “Since when do you drink in the morning?”
He tilts his head to glare at me, then stops. I hear the crunch of snow from the ambassadors behind us, who are probably wondering if this is an elaborate trick and we’re now going to murder them in the darkness under the mountain.
“Hey,” Rowan whispers, so low that for a moment I think I’m imagining things.
I frown at him, and he twists away from my gaze.
“Do you think you could, uh, fix this?” he says, raising a hand to gesture at his face. “Before Arryn sees? So I look, you know, good?”
“No,” I reply.
Rowan’s smile tightens as he turns to stare at the illusion arm I gave myself this morning. “Hypocrite,” he hisses.
“Idiot,” I whisper back. “Arryn already knows. Heart magic, right? She can feel you. She knew you were being tortured. She probably felt exactly what happened.”
Rowan’s shoulders sag, and what’s left of my heart twists in my chest. I grab Rowan’s arm and tug him forward.
“Look,” I say, keeping my voice low as our boots crunch on the frozen crust of the snow. “What do you want me to do, follow you around for the rest of your life casting a constant illusion? You want to live a lie like that?”
Rowan makes a sad little dismissive noise. I shake my head.
“Besides, you think it’s going to matter?” I ask as we turn toward a golden glow flickering through the rows of dead trees. “Because, no offense, but I don’t think Arryn fell in love with you for your looks.”
Rowan stops. Voices swell through the trees ahead of us. A door slams, the sharp crack of sound echoing off the dead trees. Rowan meets my eyes and shakes his head. The strange, pale light of the glowsoft orbs flickers around the hole in his face that used to hold his left eye, that brilliant ice blue iris I never told him looked so much like our father’s.
“You’re the worst,” he says, with a grin.
“I know,” I reply. “I love you.”
Rowan huffs out a breath. His exhale rises like a cloud in front of his face. Behind us, the ambassadors shift on the snow. At least one of them is shivering so violently that I hear teeth chattering.
“I love you too,” Rowan whispers, under his breath.
Then he squares his shoulders, walks through the dead trees, and enters the circle of light flickering from the windows and open door of the World’s End pub. Almost everyone who lives here is gathered on the snow in front of the pub, staring at us.
No, I realize as I twist to look over my shoulder, not at us. They’re staring at the blinding slit of sunlight that suddenly appeared past the dead trees that used to be the end of our world. They’re staring at Rowan’s portal, at the door between the Lands Below and the Worlds Above that my brother and Alindra just flung wide open.
And there, standing before the step of the new door into another world, in the front of the crowd with her hand wrapped around the hilt of a sword and Rowan’s sentry cloak over her shoulders, is Arryn. I wonder if she knows she’s crying.
“Hey, Lady,” Rowan announces, throwing his arms wide open. “I’m home.”
* * *
The plan wasfor Rowan to escort the shivering cluster of ambassadors to the teleportation hubs, then to the Crystal City, and then all the way into King Galan’s palace, so that he could first explain what in the nine hells he’s just done and then introduce the four strangers who are probably regretting their decision to follow us right about now. But I only have to watch Arryn and Rowan for about two heartbeats to realize that plan isn’t going to work.
For one thing, Rowan hates crying. Or, more accurately, he hates anyone seeing him cry. And since both he and Arryn are sobbing in each other’s arms right now, I’m thinking he’s not going to be in the best mood to drag ambassadors across the Lands Below and introduce them to King Galan.
I clear my throat and try to pull the crowd’s attention away from my brother.
“If you would be so kind as to follow me,” I say to the four ambassadors with a polite little bow. “The teleportation hub is just over here.”
I step back, and the crowd crashes over me. As I walk toward the teleportation hub with the four ambassadors and the entire population of the World’s End, minus Rowan and Arryn, I cover my mouth to try to hide the alcohol on my breath as I answer the same question about a hundred times.
Yes, that light comes from the Worlds Above. Yes, it’s a portal. That’s like a door. No, it doesn’t lead to the Kingdom of the Summer. No, we’re not going to be attacked. Yes, it’s going to stay open. Yes, you can go through it. To the Worlds Above.
You can leave.
You’re free. You’re all free, now.
