Page 82 of The Ruins of the Heartless Fae

“What? And what about helping the others? Revna knows more about this place than we do.”

“We’ll find a way now that you know how to use runes—”

“No, it’s better if we learn the proper way. And besides, I made a promise! How can I just abandon that?”

“Easy. You just walk away.” He said it as if it was the easiest thing in the world. “Not everyone needs to be rescued, you know.”

“That’s not comforting coming from a military black rank,” she huffed as the cool night air tickled her down to her bones. “Aren’t you supposed to save people?”

“No, that’s the Royal Guards’ job. My job is to obliterate whatever they tell me to.” He sat upright, the moonlight glinting off his hair. “But anyway, why can’t you focus?”

“Maybe it’s you.” She waggled her finger at him. “You’re distracting me.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m just making sure you don’t get roasted by the dreki when the time comes. So keep working and ignore me. I know that may be difficult.”

“Ha, ha.” She concentrated her mana on a rune.Revna, the liar, shall never break free. Kolfinna brushed a finger over theliar. Why would it say such a thing?

“Is it difficult?”

“Hm?” She burst her mana over the rune.

“The runes,” he said. “Is it hard breaking them?”

The rune shifted to dust in her hand and she spread her fingers to the next one. “Not really. Revna said these runes are weak since time has worn them out and the people who put them here have long died. I’m sure it’ll be harder once we get out of here.”

Blár rubbed off the sand stuck to his elbows. “That’s a bummer. Do you think we’ll have trouble with the rest of the castle?”

“I’m not sure … Let’s hope not.” Her mind wandered to the others again and her chest tightened with the weight of their lives resting in her hands. “Do you …” Her voice softened and she tried to hide the tremble in her words. “Do you think they’re still alive?”

Blár rubbed a hand over his mouth, as if thinking of what to say. “I hope they are. I trust their abilities, but what if they’re in a place where their magic doesn’t work? This place”—he paused and he peered at the three moons—“doesn’t care for our rules or our abilities. It favors the fae. So I don’t know. I hope they are, but I really have no clue.”

“If I … if I were better at reading runes”—her voice cracked—“maybe there would be fewer deaths—”

“Don’t talk like that.” His voice snapped like the crackle of a whip. “Once you start feeling guilty, there’s no going back. You’re the only one not trained to be here, do you understand?” His voice lowered. “The burden of everyone’s safety isnotyours to bear.”

Kolfinna dug her feet into the sand to keep from looking at him as her throat constricted; she hadn’t realized how much she needed to hear that.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you.” He cleared his throat and averted his gaze, instead choosing to examine the star-speckled night sky. “Your … um, leg … Does it still bother you?”

Kolfinna wriggled her toes subconsciously, the movement causing no usual discomfort. The scars were still there—she had checked—but there was no pain. No awkward movement. No limping. “It’s back to how it used to be,” she said quietly, “but with scarring.”

He grimaced and picked at the dried blood on the cuff of his sleeve. “You know, under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t apologize, because I don’t necessarily think I did anything wrong, but these aren’t exactlynormalcircumstances.” He rose to his feet and dusted off the sand on his pants. The moonlight bathed his face in silver. “And honestly, seeing you hobble around and just look outright in pain, made me uncomfortable. And yes, I was just doing my job and for all I knew, you were a crazy murderer fae and … I kind of figured I’d let someone else catch you since I wasn’t in the mood, but looking at it in hindsight, it was a pretty shitty thing to do. And … Well, what I’m trying to say is—I’m sorry. I really shouldn’t have done that to you.”

The cold desert wind blew against her face and sent her hair fluttering over her face wildly. The cold contrasted with the budding warmth in the pit of her stomach. She had never thought he would apologize for injuring her. Though the apology sounded a bit awkward, he still owned up to his mistake. Sort of.

“Are you trying to apologize?” Kolfinna placed a hand on her hip and raised a brow. “Because that’s a weird apology. Especially starting it off that you wouldn’t normally apologize. So do you feel like you did something wrong or not? Because your words are a bit contradictory.”

“You’re making this way more awkward than it should be,” he groaned and kicked the ground, which sent a flurry of sand to carry with the wind. “Yes, I’m sorry. I truly mean it.”

“Then maybe you should reword it.” She curled her fingers over the rough siding of the house, the runes buzzing beneath her fingers. “Like, ‘hey, Kolfinna, I’m terribly sorry for crippling you. I’ll make sure not to do it again.’”

“I apologized.” Blár blew out air, his ice-blue eyes flashing in the moonlight. “Do you want me to be eternally at your mercy?”

The corner of Kolfinna’s mouth lifted into a smirk. “Eternallyat my mercy? Does that mean you plan on sticking to my side for that long?”

“Only if you want me to stay.”

The wind seemed to stop blowing and the moons wilted in her peripheral until all Kolfinna saw was the intense frigid blue of Blár’s eyes. She forgot to breathe and could only stare at him—at the serious expression on his face, at the blue bruise on his cheek, at his pale skin illuminating silver from the moonlight. He couldn’t have meant that seriously, could he? Kolfinna ripped her gaze from his and turned to the golden iridescence of the runes. He was too powerful, too beautiful, and too monstrous to mean it seriously when it came to her.

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