The blow cracks across my cheek and rocks my head back so fiercely my neck aches. Blood swells between my teeth and across my tongue, but the pain is dull and distant, as though the roar of physical violence is drowning in the empty agony of my chest.
I bring my fingers to my cheek, then to my abdomen, where I half expect to find my ribcage split apart. But no, I’m still in one piece. I’m even still wearing the simple tunic I pulled over my head a lifetime ago as I crept from the palace at night to bring down the barrier.
“Sire?” one of the king’s magicians says.
She’s a woman, and a young woman at that. Some distant part of me wonders how she’s found her way to the king’s inner circle.
Grathgore turns away, the ferocity of his rage focused elsewhere for the moment. The king wipes the hand he just used to slap me on a neat white handkerchief. I turn and stare at the empty place where, just a heartbeat ago, Orryen fell through a crack between our worlds. With my grandfather’s sword in his guts. Anger flickers inside me, but it’s a dim, distant flutter. I feel like all the color has drained from the world, leaving only ash.
“It seems they were attempting to do h-heart magic,” the young magician stammers. “But the spell is incomplete. Your granddaughter is, uh—”
“Yes?” the king hisses.
“She’s bleeding magic from her heart. Losing that much magic will kill her, and soon.” The woman hesitates. “She’s dying, Sire.”
Dying. I try to feel something about this, anything, but my chest is as empty as the void between the stars. The king rocks back on his heels and cups his chin with his fingers. He’s staring at me as though I were a mildly offensive gift from someone he hardly knows.
“Hmmm,” the king says. “My only heir, killed by the Lands Below.”
“Very sad, Sire,” another one of his magicians adds.
“Can she be saved?” the king asks.
His voice makes it sound like the possibility of saving my life is an intellectual exercise with no particular urgency. The young woman frowns, then narrows her eyes at me as though I were a complicated mathematical equation.
“It’s possible, Sire,” she says. “We could at least put her to sleep. That should stop the loss of magic.”
A bright bolt of pain sears through my rib cage like lightning, and I gasp. The king and his magicians frown at me. I turn away, holding both hands to my broken, empty chest.
Orryen. The pain came from Orryen, all the way in the Lands Below. He’s in pain, in agony, but he’s still alive.
There’s still hope.
I turn back to King Grathgore, although moving my body and raising my chin feels like fighting through wet sand.
“If I’m dead, the people will want vengeance,” I say. “They’ll want the barrier opened to start another war.”
The young magician pales. The king’s eyes widen. We’re in no shape for war, and we all know it. Our army is the smallest it’s ever been, and attempting to press citizens into service will only hasten the utter collapse of our entire population. Opening the barrier for war would be a gamble too risky for any sane monarch to accept. The king narrows his eyes at me, and then his thin lips curl into a tight smile.
“But, asleep?” the king says. “Asleep, you are the perfect princess. Silent. Obedient. We’ll say the Kingdom of the Fall has stolen your heart. You’ll be a rallying cry, a reminder of the treachery of those the barrier keeps in place.”
I gasp as Orryen’s agony subsides to a dull, pulsating throb, then rub my fingers across my chest. It’s good pain. It tells me he’s alive. I force myself to meet the king’s gaze, something I have been told a thousand times to never do.
“I won’t sleep forever,” I growl.
“Sure you won’t,” the king replies with a sardonic smile. “Who has sleep magic?”
There’s a rustling behind the king as the magicians he’s locked behind this veil shift and mutter. I don’t dare take my eyes off my grandfather. I want his last memory to be that Elanerill does not fear him.
An old woman with skin the color of rich earth comes forward slowly, one hand raised toward me. The king breaks our eye contact and turns back toward his magicians.
“I’ll need another heir,” he says, as though I were already gone. “A boy this time, I believe. One of the women in the gardens is expecting, is she not?”
The magician who said my death would be very sad makes a murmur of agreement as the old woman reaches for me. Fear crawls up the back of my neck on icy legs, and for a heartbeat, I want to turn and run. But instead, I focus on that stab of pain, the raw emotion flowing from Orryen’s heart.
He lives. Somewhere in the Lands Below, Orryen lives.
“If it’s a son, take him,” the king says. “Send the queen away long enough that it will be believable. And name him Folwynn.”
The woman takes my hand in hers. Darkness closes in, moving fast from the edges of my vision, drawing a veil over everything until the only spot of light left is in my chest. Orryen’s pain, the bright star of suffering that lets me know the man I love is still alive.
And I will find him.
* * *
The war between the Lands Below and the Worlds Above continues in the Fallen Hearts series of standalone romantic fantasy adventures!