Page 8 of Hearts on Fire

Letting go of my head, he staggered on his feet, then grabbed onto the wall by the window to steady himself.

“The magic of Dakath,” he explained in a raspy voice. “It takes its toll when one uses it. But it is powerful.” He shut his eyes tightly then opened them again. “It made me dizzy this time.” He focused on me, the corners of his mouth lifting in a smile again. “Gods, you’re so beautiful, Amber. Both with and without the hair.”

His gaze darted to my mouth. The glow in his eyes heated dangerously. He leaned closer, parting his lips for a kiss. “I missed you.”

But he wouldn’t spare me even a smile of recognition in the company of the king and his fine lords. Instead, he met me here, in this cold deserted stairwell where there was no risk for the handsome prince to be spotted with someone like me.

My skin tingled either from the magic he’d used on me or from some new spell he was weaving. I trembled from head to toe. As if on its own, my body swayed his way, ready for him to catch me.

“I couldn’t wait to see you again, little spark,” he whispered against my lips.

Yet hehadwaited.

For over two weeks, he’d been here in the luxury of the castle, embraced by the king. While I’d been hiding in the Sanctuary, helplessly watching my friends suffer and die.

Elex and I finally met again, but not because he flew to me. I had trudged through sludge, snow, and ice, climbing this damn mountain to get to him.

I tugged at the hair on my head. Did he think this was all it took to “fix” everything?

If only it were that easy.

The setting sun tinged the sky with blood-red in the window behind Elex. If I stepped into his arms and met him in a kiss, the sun would set, and I would be trapped in Elex’s embrace, his lips pressed to mine.

The prospect of spending the night in his arms didn’t scare me nearly as much as the burning desire to let it happen. I wanted to have his hands on me, to feel his lips on my body. I wanted him, against all logic and despite all caution. And I had so little strength to fight it.

“I said no, but you didn’t listen, Elex.” This was a bitter reminder for me as much as for him. “You ripped me out of the only life I knew and brought me here, just to leave me for strangers to find.”

Instead of stepping into his hug, I pressed my hands into his chest and shoved at him with all my might.

He staggered back, more from shock than from the impact, considering his strength. His arms flailing, he lost his balance, and I gave him no chance to regain it. I shoved against his wide chest once more. The back of his knees hit the windowsill, and he tipped backwards, falling out of the window and into the scarlet glow of the sunset.

His cape flew aside and his wings sprung open, as I knew they would. The wings took him down to the castle wall below. He landed in a crouch, the moment the last sliver of the sun melted into the horizon.

His wings surged up, ready to take him off into flight again. But they froze, like two sails in the bitter wind. The sun had set, making his black stone blend with the night.

He was looking up, facing the window with me standing in it. I couldn’t see his expression from here, but I sensed his shock and disappointment. And I cruelly hoped he felt at least a fraction of the pain he’d caused me.

“Good night, Elex,” I said, even though he probably couldn’t hear me over the howling wind. “If you couldn’t leave me alone back in my old world, you most definitely should let me be now.”

Grabbing my head cloth from the floor, I headed down the stairs to the women with whom I belonged.

Four

AMBER

Instead of going to bed, I visited the castle’s kitchen. It wasn’t hard to find. Mother had warned us on the way to the king’s castle that we were expected to do chores as well as help the servants with cooking. We weren’t merely guests here. The room in which they put thesalamandraswas on one of the lowest levels, so I figured the kitchen must be somewhere close.

I padded by the closed door to thesalamandras’bedroom. Making sure there were no sleeping gargoyles in the narrow corridor behind it, I followed it to a short, wide hall that led to an arched entrance into an open space with several fireplaces, stoves, and long, wooden tables in the middle.

There was no one here, either. The fire in the hearths and stoves had been put out, though the scents of cooking lingered in the air.

Huge barrels of water stood next to the tables. The barrels were filled with dirty dishes. Since the king had dinner served so close to sunset, the servants had not had time to clean the dishes, leaving them to soak in the water overnight to deal with them in the morning.

That was the nature of this world. The sun was the great equalizer. Everyone got the same amount of rest, from the king down to the lowest servant. That didn’t mean, of course, that the servants didn’t work twice as hard during the day to keep up with the demands of the king and his courtiers.

Like most windows in the castle, the ones in here were closed with wooden shutters, letting only tiny slivers of moonlight in.

There were more doors in the walls between the fireplaces. But I didn’t go see what was behind them, afraid I may stumble upon the bedrooms of the kitchen staff. Instead, I made my way around the tables and the barrels with dishes and found a knife block then took a long, serrated blade out from it.