Fallen in Love by Lauren Kate Page B

least one love should be redeemed in this joust with time. For a quarter of an hour, Roland lost himself in thoughts of Rosaline, but the memory was too painful to indulge for long. His eyes refocused on the road when he saw a rider galloping toward him on a coal-black horse.
    Even in the darkness, there was something strange and yet familiar about the knight’s armor. For a moment,Roland wondered whether it was his own former self, but when the knight put up a hand to slow Roland’s ride, his gestures were more urgent than Roland’s would have been.
    They stopped before one another, their horses whickering as they circled, breathing frost.
    “You come from yonder estate?” The knight’s voice boomed across the road as he pointed toward the castle in the distance.
    He must have thought Roland was Alexander. Had this knight been sent to escort Alexander to the front?
    “Y-yes,” Roland stammered. “I am a replacement for—”
    “Roland?”
The soldier’s voice changed from what Roland realized was a hoarse, affected boom into something effervescent and fantastically charming.
    The knight threw off his helmet. Black hair rolled like rapids down the suit of armor, and then, in the moonlight, Roland saw the face he’d known better than any other since the dawn of time.
    “Arriane!”
    They leaped from their horses and into each other’s arms. Roland didn’t know how long it had been since his medieval self had seen this medieval Arriane, but the emotional battle he’d just survived made it feel like centuries had passed since he’d last seen a friend.
    He spun the wiry angel around. Her wings bloomedout of slits in her armor, and Roland envied her their freedom. Of course her clothes would be tailored for wings—all of them had been back then.
    Roland felt caged in his borrowed metal suit, but he didn’t want to complain to Arriane. She did not know yet that he was an Anachronism, and he wanted to keep it that way. He was so glad to see her.
    The moonlight shone like a spotlight on his friend’s white skin. When she turned her head, Roland gasped.
    A horrific burn glistened on the left side of her neck. The skin was marbled, knotted, bleeding, the most gruesome kind of wound. Roland recoiled without meaning to, making Arriane self-conscious.
    She reached up to cover the wound but groaned when her fingers grazed it.
    Roland had seen this scar a thousand times in future encounters with Arriane, but its origin remained a mystery to him. Only one thing could hurt an angel that way, but he’d never known how to ask her about it.
    The wound was fresh now, like a rash of flames across her neck. She must have sustained the injury only recently.
    “Arriane, what happened to you?”
    She looked away, not meaning to give Roland an even clearer view of her ravaged skin. She sniffed. “Love is hell.”
    “But”—Roland closed his eyes, hearing the line repeatingitself in his mind—“an angel’s form cannot be marred, except by …” Arriane looked away in shame, and Roland drew her to him. “Oh, Arriane!” he cried, clasping his arms around her waist, his eyes drawn to and repelled by her neck. He could not embrace her as he wanted to, could not squeeze away the pain. “I ache for you.”
    She nodded. She knew. She had never liked to cry. She said, “I’ve just come from seeing Daniel.”
    “I was on my way to meet him,” Roland said, breathless with the luck of it. “His presence is required at Saint Valentine’s Faire.”
    “He rides to town this evening. He may well be there already. Lucinda will be happy, at least.”
    “Yes,” Roland said, remembering more clearly now. “You were the knight who came to deliver that message to the others in the camp. It wasn’t me. You forged the king’s decree that told the men to take their Valentine’s leave.”
    Arriane crossed her arms over her chest. “How did you know that?”
    “Clairvoyant.” He was surprised to find himself smiling.
    It was