I’m almost asleep when the thought that had been bothering me since I’d made wolves appear in the forest of the Lands Below finally catches up to me.
He was scared. Orryen is the Captain of the Royal Guard in this freezing, terrifying world, and he was scared. Not of the wolves; those beautiful illusions just made him laugh. But before the wolves, when my illusions had been nothing but sounds and shadows, Orryen had pulled his sword and told me to get down.
Why? If there are no wolves down here, then what was he afraid of?
I blink my eyes open as a bolt of fear hums through my body. The fire is dancing before me, throwing off heat and shifting, ever-changing shadows. Snow sizzles in a ring around the fire’s base. And my head is resting on—
Oh, stars. I’m leaning against Orryen’s chest. I jerk upright and pull away, but I forget my hands are bound, and I end up flopping awkwardly against the Captain of the Royal Guard’s shoulder.
“You okay?” Orryen asks.
I glance up. Orryen’s blinking in a way that makes me think he was almost asleep as well. His arm is draped over my shoulder. His cloak is wrapped around us both, my legs are layered on top of his, and my bound arms are practically curled up in his lap.
“Fine,” I stammer as heat floods my cheeks. “Sorry.”
Stars, I haven’t been this close to a man in ages. I’d had a few flings years ago, when I came of age, but none of them had truly captured my interest. Besides, it was hard to shake the lingering suspicion that those handsome, charming men were only interested in the Princess of the Kingdom of the Summer, and not at all in Elanerill.
Studying was easier, I eventually realized. And my people needed an answer to their problems. They needed someone who could help with the harvest and stop the dust storms and save the Spirit Wood, not someone who got entangled in messy romantic situations.
I scramble away from Orryen, or at least as far away as his cloak allows, as my heart beats like a drum throughout my entire body. I’d forgotten what it feels like to be this close to someone like Orryen, someone who can hijack my body with one casual, sleepy twist of his lips. But he’s not smiling anymore.
“What woke you?” he asks.
There’s an intensity in his voice that makes me think yes, he is indeed the Captain of the Royal Guard. I shake my head.
“Nothing,” I say.
And then we both hear it. The soft, almost delicate crunch of snow in the woods behind us.
Orryen’s on his feet so fast I can almost believe he’s a shapeshifter. I fall hard on my elbows on the snow, still tangled in the cloak he’s just left behind, as Orryen turns to face the forest. His sword leaves its sheath so smoothly it looks like the shimmering blade is an extension of his body. I follow his movements with my eyes, staring at the forest.
Firelight licks the snow as it stretches out toward the darkness beneath the dead trees. There’s nothing out there, nothing but shadows and the thick bars of tree trunks.
And then the shadows move.
First I see one leg, and then another, as thick as the tree trunks and blacker than ink. It seems like the firelight isn’t blocked by the shadows so much as demolished by them, absorbed into the much larger darkness. My eyes reluctantly trace the shadows up and up.
Whatever it is, it’s bigger than a wolf. It’s bigger than a horse. It’s so dark it makes the rest of this freezing, subterranean world look almost sunlit in comparison.
“Elanerill,” a voice whispers in my ear.
I turn slightly and realize I’m trembling. Orryen is on his knees beside me, his sword in one hand, a neat little dagger in the other. He glances at the monster beneath the trees, then brings the dagger to the rope binding my hands together.
The rope falls to the snow. Orryen sheaths his dagger and presses something hard and cold into my palms, and the part of me that was trained for years and years by Master Almer recognizes the hilt of my own sword. Then Orryen’s hand wraps around my elbow, and he pulls me to my feet.
“Don’t let it touch you,” he whispers.
I blink as if that’s going to help, as if this is a nightmare and I can wish the monster away.
The beast jumps.
Orryen leaps forward to meet it, his sword gleaming in the firelight. There’s a metallic clast, then a horrible sort of ripping sound, and Orryen spins away from the fire, panting.
The shadow surges forward, moving more like waves on the ocean than like an animal, and now I can no longer see Orryen. The monster rolls toward me. The world slows. I notice the way the firelight flickers dimly against the snow. The way the monster’s leg crushes Orryen’s cloak and thin tendrils of gray smoke rise to wreath its body.
For the glory of the Kingdom of the Summer, I think, reciting the mantra Almer taught me. For the glory—
The monster lunges forward. There’s a glint of something sharp, the suggestion of ragged, tattered edges, a looming mouth.
I move without thinking. My sword rises to meet the darkness. There’s a clash, and the shock of impact travels the length of my blade and makes my arms shake. I spin back and raise my blade again. This time it makes a sound like sandpaper rasping against metal as I press my sword into the darkness. A second sound rises in the frozen air, a low, horrible hiss. I step back. The shadows roil before me. And then they scream.
The monster spins, whirling like sand in a dust storm, and I see Orryen with both hands on the hilt of his sword. His blade is buried in shadow. I lift my sword and plunge it into the darkness.
The scream grows louder. The shadow flails, thrashing and churning on the snow. Pain howls across my abdomen. I’m knocked back, and I hit the snow hard enough to force air out of my lungs.
Above me, the monster falls apart. Shadows spread like smoke from a bonfire, there and then suddenly gone.
Orryen collapses to his knees with a grunt. Smoke rises from the blade of his sword. No, from the dark, melted mess that’s left of his blade. I push myself up, then gasp as pain lances through my body. Orryen drops his smoldering sword and turns to me.
“Elanerill,” he says, making my name sound like another gasp for breath. “Are you hurt?”
I shake my head, my first impulse always to deny, and then I press my hand against my side. My fingers come back bloody. I try to think of something to say, something clever or funny to dismiss what’s just happened, but before I can open my mouth, Orryen is on his knees beside me, pressing his hands against my stomach and frowning in a way that makes me think perhaps the monster has just disemboweled me.
“Elanerill,” he whispers.
I sink my teeth into my lower lip. “Let me see,” I say.
Orryen raises his hands. I pull myself up to sitting, wincing and gasping, and then look down. My clothes are a ragged, bloody mess. Slowly, I lift my leather jerkin and then peel back the cotton tunic underneath.
“Oh, thank the stars,” I sigh.
Two parallel gashes streak across my navel. Blood seeps out of them and trickles down the curve of my stomach, but the cuts look clean and they don’t appear to be particularly deep. Stars, the way Orryen was frowning at me, I’d thought maybe the monster had severed an artery.
“It’s okay,” I say, turning back to Orryen. “It’s shallow. It’s clean.”
But Orryen is looking at me in a way that makes me feel cold.
“I need to heal this,” he says. “Now.”
I shake my head. “It’s fine. It’s shallow.”
“No.”
I meet Orryen’s dark eyes, and a shiver traces a path down the back of my neck.
“That’s a void beast wound,” he says. “It might be touched.”
“What?”
“Void touched,” he says. “If it is, there’s only a narrow window to heal it before—”
His voice trails off. I feel cold. It’s only too easy to imagine all the gruesome ways that particular sentence might have ended. Orryen’s face softens.
“Please,” he says. “Please, Princess Elanerill. Let me heal you.”
“Fine,” I huff. “Stars, no need to get so formal, Captain Orryen.”
One corner of Orryen’s mouth twitches in the faintest acknowledgement of a smile, but his eyes remain grim. I lie back on the snow, pull up my shirt, and grit my teeth. I’ve only been healed twice in my life, both times after I’d failed one of Master Almer’s tests. The sessions were short and extraordinarily painful.
Orryen takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. He places his hands delicately on my exposed skin, one cupping my ribcage and the second just above the curve of my hip. The tug of arousal tightens between my legs, heat blossoms in my cheeks, and I’m suddenly very grateful Captain Orryen has his eyes closed.
Golden light swells from the places where our bodies touch. It washes over Orryen’s face, and for a moment it looks almost like he’s standing in the sun of the Worlds Above. My breath catches in my throat as I watch him, waiting for it to hurt. Waiting for his magic to burn me.
But the pain doesn’t come. Instead, warmth spreads from his hands and sinks into my body until I feel almost like I’m floating, like my head is spinning, like I’ve had just enough wine to dance the night away. My eyes flutter closed; my breath comes out in a moan. Heat pours over my body, heat and light and the irresistible, magnetic tug of Orryen, of his dark eyes and full lips, of his little secret smile, the way his body felt against mine when I awoke—
“Elanerill?” he whispers.
It’s agony to force my eyes open, to leave this sweet darkness, but I know he’s waiting for me on the other side. I push through the languid, thick warmth, and there he is. Captain Orryen. Looking down at me like I’m the most precious thing in the Lands Below.
“It’s done,” he says. His voice sounds deeper, somehow, and thicker. “How do you feel?”
I raise my hand and cup his cheek. His closely trimmed beard rasps against my palm.
“Orryen,” I whisper. “It didn’t hurt.”
Orryen’s pale cheeks look darker, or maybe it’s just a trick of the light.
“Every healer’s different,” he says. He sounds almost apologetic.
Apologetic. For saving my life.
I pull myself up just enough to press my mouth to his.
His body stiffens for a heartbeat, like a bolt of summer lightning, and then his lips soften against mine. I open for him, drawing him in, offering him all that I have, and he follows me down, his mouth parting for me, our tongues flirting across the barrier of our lips. My hands thread their way through his hair, down the back of his neck, and he kisses me like he’s hungry, like he’s been starving. I moan into his mouth; my hips turn and press against him, seeking more.
Orryen yanks back. I blink into the empty space that had just been so gloriously filled with him. My vision still feels fuzzy, my actions slow and stupid, like I’m moving underwater.
“I—I’m sorry,” Orryen stammers.
He looks stunned. His dark eyes are so wide I can see the whites, and his cream-colored face is flushed with pink. He looks almost like he’s just been pulled from one world and dropped into another.
“It’s the healing,” he says, unsteadily. “It’s left you… disoriented.”
“No,” I say.
I reach for him and drag my fingers along his arm. Even through the tightly-woven wool of his shirt, I feel him shiver in response to my touch. The muscles in his jaw clench. He glances up, into the darkness pressing down all around us, and he then pulls away, out of my reach.
“I can’t,” he says. “Not now. Not in this state. That would be taking advantage of you.”
I turn on the snow, raise my arms over my head, and arch my back. Heat pours through my body like molten gold, like the world’s best frost wine, and it pools in a tight coil between my legs.
“Captain Orryen,” I say, speaking slowly, savoring the taste of his name on my lips. “I want you.”
Orryen clenches his fists, bites his lip, and mutters something that sounds suspiciously like fuck. Then he clambers to his feet and turns away, but not before I see the sizable bulge in his pants and, oh stars, this fire burning inside me is going to carry me away.
“Try to sleep,” Orryen says. His voice is as rough as his beard against my palm.
I watch him stomp toward the woods and feel like my heart is falling apart, just like the monster, turning into smoke and fading into the darkness.