up,” he commands through clenched teeth. He needn’t bother, though, because the men are already lined up, yanking the slack from the rope. I join them at the end, knowing my help isn’t needed but desperate to do something.
My hands clasp the rope so tightly, my knuckles turn white. The fibers cut into my already sore skin, but I barely feel it.
Finally, Rhys climbs over the ledge, safely across the Chasm.
I fall on my knees, and silent tears stream down my face.
Rhys swears as he pushes himself to his feet. He winces as he stretches his back, pressing a hand to his upper abdomen.
“That looked painful,” Tryndon jokes, trying to hide his extreme relief. Then, a little more solemnly, he asks, “Did you break any ribs?”
“I have plenty,” Rhys says with a wry, pained laugh. “What difference would a few make?”
The men chuckle, all of them sounding sick.
Rhys’s eyes land on me, and his expression changes. I let out a sob and close my eyes, trying to hide the tears. I just keep seeing him there, hanging from the canyon wall.
What if he’d fallen and the rope not held? What if it wasn’t secured well enough on our side and had come loose?
What if, what if, what if.
Then Rhys is in front of me, pulling me to my feet. He crushes me against his chest, holding me tightly.
“Doesn’t it hurt?” I ask, but I burrow closer, wrapping my hands around his waist.
“I’m fine.” He lowers his chin to my shoulder. “Are you all right?”
I pull back, meeting his eyes. “You scared about ten years off my life.”
“Me?” he laughs incredulously. “What about you? At least fifteen were stolen from me when you lost your balance.”
A watery smile breaks across my face. “I did it, though,” I whisper fiercely. “You saw it, didn’t you? I made it across without help.”
I feel like a child saying it, but if anyone knows what a big step it is for me, it’s Rhys.
His laugh grows, and he holds me closer. This rare show of affection almost makes the ordeal worth it.
“I did—I saw,” he says. “You were amazing, Amalia.”
We laugh together, clinging to each other like something is going to try to rip us apart—and in the Chasm, something might.
Rhys’s men stand around us, but I don’t care. Before he can think to stop me, I stand on my toes and press a kiss to Rhys’s lips. When I pull back, he stares at me, stunned.
I step back, observing several shocked faces, daring them to say a word.
Before they can defy me, a ray of light breaks through the clouds. The fog slowly dissipates, revealing the rocky landscape. Not far away, a cliff rises in the north.
“Draegan,” I whisper, the word alone causing goosebumps to rise on my arms.
Never in my life did I think I would see it.
Looking at the sky, Lewis demands, “What just happened?”
“The clouds lifted,” Rhys says succinctly.
“But…that’s…that’s…” The knight pauses as if he can’t find the words. “I mean, it’s never…”
Rhys steps out of the harness and adjusts the packs on his shoulders. “We shouldn’t linger.”
26
Braith reaches down and grasps the shoulders of my harness, pulling me over the ledge and out of the Chasm. I flop onto the ground face-first, not caring that I’m a princess and shouldn’t present myself so poorly.
I’d like to say I climbed the cliff myself, that the men simply kept the rope taut as I made my way up. But no.
They pulled me like a bucket of water drawn from a well as I half-heartedly attempted to use my exhausted legs and arms to help. I’m so tired, I didn’t even care about the height this time.
At least not as much.
“Hey, princess,” Tryndon says, kneeling by my head. “We need your harness.”
I grunt, struggling to sit. I unbuckle it with shaking hands and then kick it off before falling back to the ground.
I’m still lying here when Rhys reaches the top.
Having caught my breath, I sit up, realizing that I haven’t even taken my first look at Draegan.
And then I wish I hadn’t.
The Chasm was nothing but rocks and boulders and sandy patches of earth, but this…
“The area used to be grassland,” Rhys says, stepping up next to me. “Just like Renove on the other side.”
There’s nothing but dry, cracked earth, scattered boulders of varying sizes, and weeds that look like nettle with flowers blooming in a muted tan. I’m not even sure if they’re alive.
There is nothing to break up the brown