38
Pity the girl from Graystones
who loved a heartless prince.
For the only way to save him
was at her own expense.
39
Darkness wasn’t cold.
It was warm and comforting. Beautiful in its simplicity.
I didn’t mind the dark. It was the light that hurt.
Light burned and scalded, ripping away my darkness, forcing me to move, forcing me to breathe. Boiling oil poured down my throat, surging through my veins like liquid fire.
My peaceful nothing became a pair of blue eyes. My weightlessness became strong hands holding me down.
You’re back.
I heard the words but didn’t recognize the voice.
“Aveen?Can you hear me?” The question swam in my mind.
I could hear but couldn’t respond or move my head or my hands or legs—
“It’s all right. I’m here. I’m here.”
The backs of my eyes burned, but there were no tears. A broken whimper came from somewhere.
“I know it hurts. I know it does. Breathe through the pain.”
I opened my lungs, accepting the fire with a choked sob.
Rían held me in his arms, his dark, wet hair plastered to his head. Soft sunlight trickled through yellowed lace curtains, casting a floral shadow over Rían’s pale face. I recognized the tiny bedroom in my cottage. So far from Tearmann. So far from him and the castle and my sister. “Why are we here?” I managed, the words sounding garbled and heavy. My mouth tasted awful, like fish and seaweed. Sure enough, a chunk of dark seagrass was stuck between the buttons at the front of my wet blue dress.
“I had to bring you somewhere safe. If she found your body . . .” His Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed.
If the Queen had gotten my body, she would’ve had access to my heart.
“When I came back and saw you fall from that cliff . . .” Rían whispered, gathering my gritty hair from my face, moving it behind my shoulder, “I thought you were gone forever.”
I thought I’d be gone forever as well.
Although the ten-second fall to my death had been peaceful, filled with memories of the two people I loved. My sister and my prince. The impact had been swift. The darkness that waited on the other side had been welcoming.
“What happened?” he asked, lifting my chin with frigid fingers so I could see into his watery eyes. Flecks of sand stuck to his cheeks.
“It doesn’t matter.”
All that mattered was that we were both here.
Together.
Alive.