Page 38 of Beyond the Winter Kingdom (Faeted Seasons #2)

“It’s possible that’s why you haven’t been able to sync up when you’re dreaming,” Damon said a few minutes later.

“We know the realm was trying to separate you from him, and it’s also very likely to be interfering with whatever magic lets you share dreams. If you’re on radically different timelines, one person would be dreaming for the equivalent of minutes to the other person’s hours. ”

“That’s better than the alternative I suppose.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “I suppose it is.”

While I had been able to tell overall time well enough, I couldn’t measure the minutes.

The hours. They just dragged on. Sometimes Damon and I talked.

Sometimes we remained silent. I complained about my feet, and we thankfully found softer ground, but it didn’t stop the overall ache that throbbed in my body.

Damon, scratching his head. “A bath would be great right about now.”

“Ugh, don’t say the ‘B’ word. I’d kill for a proper soak.”

“And a mattress with a feather pillow.”

“And some of that stew I had in the castle. With fresh baked bread.” I began daydreaming about being ‘kidnapped’ by Vareck again. I’d be a fricken liar if I said I hadn’t dreamed of it a dozen or more times these past few weeks.

He hummed. “The one with root vegetables and thyme? That’s my favorite too.”

Damon stopped, drinking from the canteen and handing it to me.

I glanced at a bush, checking for the direction of the flowers.

A large, lavender tree stood next to it.

After I took a drink, I knelt down to tie the lace on my boot that had come loose.

When I finished, I stood up, looking at the bush again.

Only this time, the blue flowers weren’t facing the same tree.

“Did you see that?” I whispered, feeling a creeping chill crawl up my spine.

Damon was oblivious, but he was instantly on guard when he heard the fear in my voice. “See what?” He looked around, assessing the trees and waiting to see if we were being watched.

“The flowers. I swear it changed direction.”

He surveyed the blue flowers, gesturing for me to follow him. I did, slowly, while looking for any other thing out of the ordinary, but nothing stood out.

“Are you sure? Corvo said the flowers always face north.”

My lips parted, and I took a breath but stopped before I spoke. “Maybe I was wrong...” I began to question myself. Was I seeing things? This was a hell realm, and even though I was in it and living it, I needed to remind myself. I had to be careful, and I knew it was going to play tricks on me.

“I hope so,” Damon murmured. I cast him a curious glance, and he sighed.

“If you’re right, then the realm is taking us fuck knows where.

That’s worrisome, especially after it made a point to separate you and Vareck.

” With a grimace, he added, “I know we’ve given each other space to go to the bathroom, but, um .

.. we’re going to need to stay closer to each other.

We can’t risk it. We’ve been unprovoked and have not come across any creatures, but we’ve let our guard down because of it. That stops now.”

Now I had to go to the bathroom in front of Damon?

This was the worst. I knew it wasn’t, but losing that privacy kind of felt like it at the moment.

I wouldn’t argue, though, because I knew he was right.

We hadn’t been attacked, and we’d been alert while we trekked through the trees, but we had accepted this false sense of security.

“Why do you think it wanted to separate us?” I asked quietly. Internally I’d asked myself this every few hours since we’d been separated. Externally, I’d been too scared to address it. Maybe bringing up the elephant in the jungle would help.

Or I’d come away more afraid. It was a toss-up.

Without missing a beat, he answered, and I could not have prepared myself for it. “My guess is that it has something to do with the Nameless.”

I reared back, blinking rapidly. “What?”

“You said one of them spoke. Like calls to like. I’ve been thinking about it since the moment the land shift happened, and I feel like it’s related.”

I stumbled over a rock, nearly face-planting into the rough bark of a tree when Damon grabbed me. He helped me get my footing back before pointing to a large flat rock. “Sit. Drink. You’re exhausted.”

I tilted my head back and let out a slightly manic laugh. “No shit. We both are.”

Damon inclined his head and gave me a look that was so much like Vareck that my heart squeezed. Would I ever see him again? I had to hope so. If not ... I couldn’t afford to think about it.

“What’s that look for?”

“You know.”

“Do I?” I shot back, taking a seat regardless.

“We don’t know how far away the Fold is or isn’t.

We’ve gotten lucky so far that we haven’t run into anything on the way.

You need to rest more, because on the off chance we do run into something, we’ll have to fight or run.

I know you were raised by redcaps but I’m getting the distinct impression you’re not exactly a professional badass underneath all this .

” He motioned to me, and I quirked an eyebrow.

“This?”

Damon rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. You. All curves, two left feet, frizzy hair, and good intentions.”

I lifted both my eyebrows. “You think I have good intentions?”

“You have a heart of gold, Meera,” Damon said with a smirk.

“Bounty hunter/thief extraordinaire, you are, but anyone that spends time with you can figure out what kind of person resides beneath that. The fact you are a badass in your own right hasn’t escaped me, but bloodthirsty fighter, not so much. ”

“Gods, you sound so much like my brothers.”

“Well, you’re my uncle’s mate. We’re practically family.”

I snorted. “Just don’t start calling me aunt.”

A wry smile tugged at his mouth as he leaned back against a tree.

“Wouldn’t dream of it. All that aside, you need to take it easier.

Your body isn’t getting a chance to recover while we’re out here, so we need to build in recovery time, and you need to not fight me on it,” he added when I opened my mouth to argue.

Red stained my chest and cheeks. “I don’t want to be the one slowing us down.”

“And I don’t want you to be so exhausted you collapse under a strong breeze. You’ve been pushing yourself to the max since we’ve been separated and if you’re right about the flowers changing direction, there’s no telling how long it’s going to actually take us to reach the Fold.”

“I might have imagined it,” I said. Damon didn’t comment, and he didn’t need to. We both knew I didn’t believe what I’d said. It was real, and we knew what it meant. “Like calls to like,” I repeated. “What does that even mean?”

“I’m not sure,” Damon answered. “I’ve been wondering that myself, but everything I’ve come up with is speculation at best.”

“I don’t understand how the Nameless saying that means anything about me. And they don’t normally speak, right?” He nodded in response. “Vareck said they’re soulless creatures that hunt in packs. I’m not sure what I could possibly have in common with them.”

“Vareck is incredibly biased,” Damon replied. “He blames them for his father becoming the mad king, and because of that, he doesn’t want to see anything other than faceless monsters.”

I pulled my legs up to sit crisscross on the stone. “Why does he blame them?”

“Because they’re the ones that attacked his parents and the reason his mother’s fury accidentally cursed his father.” My lips parted, but I didn’t speak. “He doesn’t know I know that, by the way. So when we see them again, I would appreciate it if you kept it to yourself.”

I nodded. “Of course. I—I appreciate you telling me, but I also don’t know if you should have.”

Damon tilted his head. “I don’t see the point in keeping secrets. Besides, you’ll be queen soon enough.”

“You don’t know that.”

He snorted. “We’ll pretend I dignified that with a response.”

“Damon!”

“Meera,” he said, making me laugh. “You two have your issues you need to work out, there’s no doubt about it. I also don’t doubt that you will. Vareck, for all his faults, is a stubborn bastard. He wouldn’t give up on you so easily.”

I smiled softly. “I hope you’re right.”

“I am,” he replied in complete confidence. He stretched his legs out, shifting into a more comfortable position against the tree.

“You make it sound like the Nameless are more than what Vareck made them out to be.”

Damon sighed, not for the first time in our conversation. “No one knows what the Nameless really are. There are theories, though.”

I waited, the knot in my stomach tightening.

“Lots of people buy into the soulless monster concept, but there’s one in particular that doesn’t.

I’ve always found it interesting. There was a woman scholar that went missing about twenty years ago.

Her name was Jakarta Delarothe. In her recovered journal, she wrote that the Nameless aren’t just monsters,” Damon said.

“They’re trapped. Bound to this realm. And they’re searching for something—or someone—to get them out. ”

My mouth went dry. “Searching how?”

“No one really knows. One theory is that they can sense magic. Others think they follow blood. Or instinct, like animals that know when a storm’s coming. But Delarothe believed the Nameless are looking for a way back to what they lost. Or maybe a way forward.”

I frowned. “Forward to what?”

“That’s the part no one can answer yet. Maybe it’s redemption. Maybe it’s revenge.”

I chewed on that. “So, when one of them spoke to me ...”

Damon nodded. “Maybe it recognized something. Maybe you reminded it of what it used to be, or what it needs to find.”

“That’s not at all comforting.”

“No,” he agreed. “It’s not.”