Page 33 of Beyond the Winter Kingdom (Faeted Seasons #2)

Vareck

The cold always helped.

At least, that was the lie I told myself as I stormed away from the fire, from the game, from her.

The air was heavy and humid, trickling into my lungs like sap from a tree as the realm’s magic thickened it further.

Each breath weighed me down, and yet it wasn’t enough to distract me from the very real possibility that Meera might reject me. Reject us .

Her voice played on repeat in my head.

“I don’t know.”

Three godsdamned words. That was all it took to unravel something in me I hadn’t even realized was tightly wound. Hope. What a stupid, fragile thing.

I clenched my fists and let out a slow exhale. My muscles twitched as the fury beneath my skin shifted, dangerously close to the surface.

I knew she wasn’t ready. I knew the bond had shaken her, same as it did me. But I’d been ready to try. Ready to reach across the unknown and trust it meant something. That we meant something.

But she wasn’t sure.

That burned more than I could admit.

Footsteps crunched behind me, deliberate but unhurried. I didn’t turn.

“Gonna break a tooth or something if you keep clenching your jaw like that.”

“Go away, Sadie.”

She stepped up beside me, arms crossed. “Look, I’m not here to argue. I just didn’t want you to walk into a monster’s mouth because you were too busy sulking.”

I glared at her sidelong. “I’m not sulking.”

She snorted. “Sure.”

We walked in silence for a few breaths. The trees thinned, the jewel-toned foliage slowly giving way to something darker. Rot clung to the edges of leaves. The moonlight, what little there was, began to bend in strange ways.

Sadie finally sighed. “She’s scared, Vareck. She didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”

“She meant it exactly the way it sounded.” I shoved a low-hanging branch out of the way. “She’s unsure. I get it. But I’ve been patient. I’ve given her space. And all I needed was for her to say she wanted this. That in the end she would choose us. Even if she wasn’t ready to right now.”

Sadie didn’t argue. She knew I wasn’t wrong.

“You need to cut her a little slack,” she said after a pause. “Meera is crazy about you, but this thing you guys have is permanent. It scares her.”

I ground my teeth. “You think I don’t know that?”

“Intellectually? Almost certainly,” Sadie said. “But the way you’re acting doesn’t exactly scream understanding, if you know what I mean.”

“I’ve been understanding,” I snapped.

She raised a brow. “You sure about that?” I opened my mouth to say as much but she held up a hand. “She’s twenty- five, Vareck. In an ideal world she’ll live over five-hundred years. How long have you known each other?”

“That’s irrelevant?—”

Sadie barked a laugh, cutting me off. “It’s entirely relevant. Look, I get it, my sister is pretty fucking awesome. She’s not perfect, though. Give her time to figure it out, please .”

I stopped, turned to face her fully. “You think I’d walk away? You think I’d give up on her?”

“No,” she said without hesitation. “But I think you’re about to do something reckless that may make the decision for you.”

My fists clenched. “She doesn’t understand what she means to me, Sadie. What this bond means. I’ve already chosen her. There’s no going back. But she’s still deciding if I’m worth the risk. That”—I broke off, swallowing past the tightness in my chest. “That hurts.”

Sadie’s expression softened just a little. “You are worth it and I think she knows that. Her heart is yours. I just think her brain needs some time to catch up.”

“What if time isn’t on our side?”

“What do you mean?”

I sighed heavily. “I mean that bonds break down. They decompose just like these trees if left incomplete for too long.”

Sadie stepped in front of me, planting herself firmly in my path. “Then you hold out as long as you can. For her. Because she’s worth it. If you push her now, she’ll run, and not because she doesn’t care, but because she does. That’s the messed-up part.”

I exhaled slowly. “I’m not going to push her. I’m not going to punish her. But gods, I’m allowed to be angry.”

“Then be angry. Just don’t let it cloud your judgment where Meera is concerned. She’ll come around. I really do believe that. But you have to give her time.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said nothing at all. I just nodded in agreement. When she pointed behind me, I accepted her quiet, yet firm, instruction to return to our camp.

Silence stretched between us as we walked back, and I noticed for the first time how strange this landscape was compared to what I expected it to be.

I had stormed off so quickly, I wasn’t paying any attention to it.

What should have been lush forests with jewel-toned leaves was steadily turning to jagged ground with scattered trees.

The air warmed ... as if heated by the light of two suns.

I stilled. My pulse quickened.

Sadie stopped, turning in circles, looking for the source. “Do you feel that?”

Everything was wrong .

Beneath us, something thrummed with rhythmic anticipation. Like a second heartbeat underneath the land.

“Is that—” Sadie broke off suddenly when the air around us warped inward, turning hazy like a mirage.

“It’s shifting.” My eyes narrowed. “Eversus is coming.” The name left my mouth like a curse.

Sadie spun around again, eyes scanning the horizon. “We need to run.” I didn’t need to be told twice. I snagged her wrist and took off at a dead sprint in the direction we came from.

In the distance, a flicker of motion caught my eye. Two figures, one embracing the other.

Meera and Damon.

My breath caught as I saw the panic in her features. Her copper hair whipped around her face like fire in the wind. She was calling out something—my name, maybe—but the wind had swallowed her words, and the steady drum of my own heartbeat galloping was the only thing I could hear.

“Meera!”

The land twisted beneath our feet, shifting between realms. The oily hues of the forest stained red. Trees fell away one by one like an earthquake was rolling through and flattening everything.

Meera shouted again. I was close enough to make out the shape of her lips, but the sound was swallowed by the roaring of the wind. My name. She was calling to me.

I put everything I had into reaching her in time. With Sadie at my back, I reached out while closing in on Meera and Damon. Her eyes locked with mine and everything else fell away. The rolling terrain, the reality that our world was tearing itself in two—none of it mattered in that moment.

Only her. Only getting to her.

In a moment of horror, the mirage shimmered harshly, and I realized I was too late.

We were feet from each other.

And then the ground betrayed me.

My boot caught on something jagged—a rock that hadn’t been there a second ago, jutting up like a spear from the cursed soil. Pain tore through my ankle. I tried to right myself, but I was moving too fast.

I fell hard.

The impact knocked the breath from my lungs. My shoulder hit first, then the side of my head cracked against the ground. I tasted blood.

Meera’s scream pierced the chaos.

Darkness surged in like a wave, cold and unrelenting.

I didn’t have time to reach for her.

It was just the echo of her name in my chest.

Then nothing.