Dae didn't think. Pure, frantic adrenaline moved his body for him. He lunged upward, throwing his arms around her waist with a desperate, iron grip. Instantly, Elara pulled him flush against her, throwing the remaining shreds of her cloak over his shoulders to shield his back from the razor-sharp magical pressure tearing at the edges of the rift.

  The sudden momentum slammed them together. Dae's face crashed squarely into her chest. Even through the deafening roar of collapsing dimensions and his own blind terror, his brain misfired.

  He was met with a sudden, yielding softness, and his next desperate gasp for air flooded his lungs with the unmistakable, clean scent of fresh rain and wild honey.

  Wait. What?

  Before the absurd reality of the situation could fully register, the place shattered like glass.

  The sickening sensation of freefall vanished, replaced instantly by the brutal, crushing weight of true gravity.

  Wood splintered violently. Thick leaves lashed against them as they plummeted through a dense forest canopy. They hit the ground hard, tumbling together through a mess of damp earth, snapping branches, and tangled cloaks.

  When their violent momentum finally ground to a halt, the forest fell completely silent, save for the ringing in Dae's ears and his own ragged, desperate breathing.

  He was alive. He was on solid ground.

  And he was currently pinned squarely on top of Elara.

  Pure survival instinct kept his arms locked in an absolute death grip around her waist. His face was still buried deeply against her collarbone and chest. As the ringing in his ears began to fade, the sheer adrenaline-fueled terror was quickly replaced by an intense, overwhelming physical awareness.

  She was incredibly warm. And despite the cold, rigid noble act she put on, the unmistakable, generous softness pressed directly against his face was entirely distracting. Every time he took a frantic gasp of air to steady his violently racing heart, his lungs filled with her scent—that clean, maddeningly natural blend of fresh rain and wild honey .

  His brain, completely fried from the near-death experience and the sudden sensory overload, stalled out. He just lay there, completely frozen, his fingers still clutching her tightly as he felt the rapid rise and fall of her chest against his cheek.

  For a few long seconds, neither of them moved.

  Then, a voice sliced through the quiet forest. It was icy, measured, and colder than the spatial void they had just fallen through.

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  "If you have held me quite long enough, Your Highness," Elara said, her tone dropping to absolute zero, "can you please get up?"

  Dae's blood ran cold, even as his face instantly flushed with heat.

  His eyes snapped open. The reality of exactly where his face was planted, and exactly what his arms were squeezing so tightly, made him want to die in shame.

  "Right," he choked out, his voice cracking slightly.

  He scrambled backward so fast he nearly tripped over the shredded remains of her travel cloak. He practically launched himself off of her, stumbling to his feet and aggressively dusting off his dark coat in a desperate, frantic attempt to resurrect his arrogant, bored prince persona.

  He refused to look her in the eye, his gaze fixed firmly on a random tree trunk as his heart hammered in his chest. "I was... just shocked," he lied smoothly, though his deeply flushed neck completely betrayed him. "You're welcome, by the way."

  Elara slowly pushed herself up from the forest floor. Her heavy cloak was in ruins, and dead leaves were caught in her long dark hair. She didn't look angry, nor did she look flustered. She just brushed the dirt from her clothes, her elegant, pointed ears twitching slightly.

  Dae cleared his throat, aggressively fixing the collar of his coat. He kept his eyes locked on a particularly uninteresting patch of bark on a nearby tree.

  "Right," he said, forcing his voice back into the lazy, arrogant drawl he had been practicing for three days. It wavered slightly, but he pushed through. "So. What exactly is the plan now?"

  Elara finished brushing the damp earth from her ruined cloak. Her elegant, pointed ears twitched as she scanned the dense, towering tree line.

  "The spatial pathway destabilized," she explained, her voice returning to its calm, analytical baseline. "A massive anomaly—likely the growing rift my father warned us about—intersected with our slipstream. We were separated from the vanguard and forced into a premature exit."

  "English—or, well, whatever language we're speaking," Dae muttered. "Where are we?"

  "We are in the border woods. We shouldn't be very far from the original destination. Given the trajectory, I estimate General Kael and the surviving riders will be able to locate us in a few days. Perhaps a few weeks, depending on the terrain."

  She said "a few weeks" with the casual indifference of someone discussing the weather. She glanced at him, her blueish eyes unreadable. "With the sole prince of the kingdom missing, I imagine they will not rest until every leaf in this forest is overturned."

  Dae blinked at her. "Weeks? Are you kidding me? We don't even have a tent." He gestured toward her, waving his hand vaguely in the air as if stating the most obvious thing in the world. "You're a Bealor. The Masters of Space or whatever. Can't you just teleport us to them?"

  Elara went perfectly still.

  Slowly, she turned her head to look at him. The sheer, unadulterated danger in her gaze made Dae instinctively take a half-step back. The temperature in the small clearing seemed to drop ten degrees.

  "Did I not just say the space in this region is incredibly unstable?" she asked, her voice dropping to a terrifyingly quiet whisper. "Furthermore, opening even a localized gate requires immense preparation and power. Power that I completely depleted dragging your heavy, useless body out of a collapsing spatial void so you wouldn't be crushed."

  Dae opened his mouth to fire back a petty, prince-like retort, but the words died in his throat.

  Elara took a step toward him, but her foot faltered. The fierce, angry light in her eyes suddenly completely short-circuited. All the color drained from her already pale skin, turning it the color of ash.

  Her eyes rolled back slightly, and her knees simply gave out.

  She pitched forward, collapsing toward the forest floor.

  "Whoa—hey!" Dae yelled.