Page 41 of Beyond the Winter Kingdom (Faeted Seasons #2)

Vareck

The body hit the sand with a wet thud, its limbs twitching once before finally going still.

The sound was swallowed by the canyon’s walls.

The air hung heavy with the stench of rotten blood, cloying yet foul, and just thick enough to taste.

Flies were already circling; their buzzing just audible under the slow wail of wind between the cliffs.

I dragged both blades across my pants, the black smear vanishing into layers of older stains, marks from the countless fights, before sliding the swords home. The motion was muscle memory now.

Sadie rested one axe against her shoulder, the other hanging loose at her side. Her breath came in steady bursts, though her face glistened with sweat. “That’s the last of them?”

“For now.” My gaze tracked along the jagged walls, searching for the flicker of movement in the cracks. The Nameless had a habit of coming back when you thought you’d won. But this time only the wind answered, low and constant, carrying with it the faint scent of salt and minerals.

We started forward, boots grinding the grit and sand underfoot. Shadows stretched long in the dying light, reaching ahead of us toward the darker parts of the canyon. This was quite literally the edge of a world and the only place on Eversus that shadows existed.

The air shifted, cooler now, the breeze picking up a foreign yet familiar scent.

“There’s something you should know before we get there.” My voice carried low in the narrowing space. “The Fold—it isn’t just a doorway, and it’s more than a converging of the ley lines. It sits directly on a ley line. A big one. one of the few stable crossings between worlds.”

Sadie tilted her head, flicking ichor from her axe with a sharp twist. “And?”

“And the ley line doesn’t open for free,” I said. “To step through, you have to give it something it can feed on. Something that matters to you.”

Her brows drew together. “Feed on?”

“It’s alive,” I said, my tone flat. “In its own way, of course. Like everything else in the twin hells.” My hand brushed against the canyon wall as we walked, feeling the subtle pulse beneath the stone. “The ley line takes a piece of you in exchange for passage.”

Sadie’s mouth twisted into a humorless smile. “When you say a piece of you ...?”

I didn’t smile back. “It’s not always the same. And what it asks of you may be different from what it asks of me.”

The canyon bent sharply, and the space ahead widened.

The walls drew back, revealing a jagged gap in the stone—a black seam cutting deep into the earth.

Even from here, it seemed to breathe, the shadows shifting in rhythm like the slow inhale and exhale of some buried god.

The air spilling from it was cooler still, with an edge of damp that smelled faintly of rain on stone.

We both slowed.

“What kind of stuff does it ask for?” she asked quietly.

“Blood. Secrets. Sacrifice,” I said. “Sometimes memories. Sometimes worse. The severity depends on the mood of the ley lines.”

She blinked several times, processing. “You’re shitting me.”

“I wish I was.”

“Do Meera and Damon know about this? I mean, I feel like this is really important information that you’ve kept to yourself until now.”

I trailed my fingertips along the stone as we moved closer. The wall was cold now, and beneath my palm I felt it: a faint tremor, as though the stone was listening.

We were nearly there.

“It wasn’t worth mentioning yet. It was only important that we made it here. And yes, Damon is aware of what will happen. Corvo made sure to tell him. Whether or not he told Meera, I don’t know.” I hoped it wouldn’t matter. I hoped that whatever Sadie and I could give would be generous enough.

“Right. So your way of thinking was this was a ‘future us’ problem?”

“Correct. And now it’s not.”

The path pinched tight until the canyon walls pressed in like closing jaws, swallowing what little light remained. Every step forward dimmed the world until we passed under a natural arch of stone and into a darkness so deep it felt older than time.

Then, without warning, the space opened around us.

We had stepped into a cavern so vast the ceiling was lost in shadow, the walls stretching away into black. The air here was cool—unnaturally so—pressing against my skin like damp fingers. It carried the faint scent of wet stone and something metallic, sharp enough to sting the back of my throat.

A low hum threaded through the silence. At first it was so faint I thought it was just the ringing in my ears from the earlier battle, but the farther we walked, the stronger it became; vibrating in my teeth, my ribs, the marrow of my bones.

Sadie slowed until she was nearly matching my pace. “Feels like it’s breathing,” she muttered. Her voice carried farther than it should have, bouncing off unseen walls, coming back smaller and more distorted.

She wasn’t wrong. The hum wasn’t steady. It rose and fell, a rhythm that wasn’t quite random. Inhale. Exhale.

The hairs along my arms lifted.

A light shimmered ahead, faint but steady, not the warm flicker of fire or the clear gold of sunlight.

This light was soft and cold, shifting in strange ways as we drew closer.

It pooled at the heart of the cavern, illuminating a pedestal of smooth black stone that rose straight from the ground as if it had grown there.

Atop the pedestal sat an obsidian bowl filled with liquid the color of molten silver. The surface rippled, though no breeze touched it.

The hum deepened, the sound curling into something almost like words—low, resonant, and indiscernible in direction.

“The cursed king returns, once broken, now whole. Ask what you desire, for the ley knows your soul.”

The voice was in my head and all around me, sliding under my skin, brushing against my thoughts like cold hands rifling through drawers, looking for things that weren’t theirs to touch.

Sadie froze mid-step. “Tell me you heard that.”

I nodded once. “Yeah.” My voice came out tight. “I heard it.”

The hum thickened, pressing down on my skull until my vision wavered. The voice came again, heavier now, like stone grinding against stone.

“To walk the Fold ... you will give what is owed.”

Sadie’s grip on her axes shifted, her knuckles pale in the dim light.

She took a slow breath, her eyes scanning the cavern’s edges as if the voice might have a shape.

“It’s not asking,” she said finally, her voice low.

“It’s telling.” She glanced at me. “And my gut says this thing doesn’t let you walk away if you refuse. ”

The hum seemed to pulse at her words, almost like agreement.

I stared at the bowl, my stomach knotting. This wasn’t my first bargain with ley lines and their demands, but I’d never had much to lose before. Now I had everything.

The silver in the bowl rippled, though no breath stirred the air.

“To pass where shadow births the light ... you must pay the price.”

The words slid through me like cold iron, heavy enough to settle in my bones.

Sadie tilted her head slightly, listening, though her jaw was clenched tight. “You hear how it says that? Like it’s already decided what it wants.”

“It probably has,” I said.

The voice returned, each syllable dragging like chains across stone.

“ The road is bought with what you cannot replace ... to walk the Fold and look upon her face.”

“You speak in riddles, old friend. Tell us what you want so that we may be on our way,” I said, attempting to reason with the voice of power. Whatever this was, it was ancient. Perhaps just as old as the Fold and the worlds it bridged.

“The toll is what you hold most dear ... pay it now or remain here.”

I stepped closer to the pedestal, stopping just at the edge of its cold light. “What if we refuse?”

There was no pause.

“ Then you will fade ... lost to the stone, your debt unpaid.”

The air shifted with those words; colder now, as if the cavern was angry and we were feeling its icy wrath.

Sadie’s hand flexed on the haft of her axe. “So much for negotiating a price.”

I glanced at her. “Would you like to take over?”

“Yes, actually.” She turned toward the cavern and spoke to it. “How about a secret instead? I’m sure the king has some pretty juicy ones?—”

“Seriously?”

Sadie shrugged. “Seems safer than whatever you hold most dear.”

“The price is set, the key in your hand ... yet only in loss will you understand.”

Fear prickled my spine. I slowly stepped backward, only once, but it was enough to trigger the ley line.

A screech of stone followed.

“What the fuck?” Sadie asked. “Vareck did you—” She turned and froze, her eyes locked on something over my shoulder. “The door is gone. The cave sealed itself.”

The grinding echo still rolled through the cavern, rattling the air in my lungs. I turned just enough to see it. Where we’d entered was now nothing but seamless rock, the arch we’d passed under was gone as if it had never existed.

The cold deepened. The shadows seemed to inch closer.

Sadie’s voice was a rasp. “Yeah. I’m officially hating this.”

The hum swelled, drumming against the inside of my skull.

“The price is set; the toll must be paid ... or here in the dark your bones will be laid.”

My gaze fell again to the bowl. The silver surface wasn’t just rippling now. It was churning, thick swells rising and falling like the breath of something living beneath.

A faint, almost imperceptible steam lifted from it, catching the cold light and fracturing into pale shards in the air before vanishing. The scent coming off it was sharp, metallic, and wicked.

The hum rolled through the cavern again, deeper this time, vibrating in my ribs.

“Drink, and the Fold shall open. Refuse, and the dark will claim its token.”

I looked around again, searching for another way forward but I already knew there was none. Ley lines were fickle but their demands were clear. If death was the price, then we’d be entombed in this cavern for eternity.

The air pressed down heavier now, like the cavern itself was leaning closer.

Sadie rolled her shoulders, then stepped toward the pedestal. “Fine. I’ll go first.”

“Sadie—”

She whirled on me, speaking in a hushed whisper as though the ley line wasn’t listening to our every word. Feeling and knowing what we were deep inside. “It’s not like we have a lot of options. If we don’t drink, it kills us. If we do drink, it takes something.”

“Something we can’t replace,” I said, my voice rough. It wanted what I held most dear. I couldn’t give that.

The hum deepened once more, final and absolute.

“ The toll must be taken before the gate will turn ... the choice is made, now drink, and learn.”

She cupped her hands and dipped them into the silver liquid, the ripples warping the surface like molten moonlight. No testing. No sniffing. Just one smooth motion—she tipped her head back and drank.

I tensed, waiting.

Nothing happened.

Sadie wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and gave a crooked grin. “I feel fine, but I really thought something crazy was going to happen.”

I didn’t return the smile. “You’re sure? Nothing is off?”

“I think so.” She rolled her shoulders like she expected something to hit her and came up empty. With a few hops, she tested her legs and her body. “Maybe it likes me.”

“Or maybe you just don’t know what it took yet,” I muttered.

She raised a brow, but I wasn’t focusing on her anymore. I was staring at the ley line.

It hummed again, deeper this time.

“ The toll is taken, the way prepared ... one more debt, and you may be spared.”

“The price was paid,” I said quietly.

Sadie shrugged. “Then I got off easy.”

I didn’t say what I was thinking. It would do no good at the moment to tell Sadie nothing in the Fold was easy. And no one was left untouched.

I turned toward the bowl, fury tightening every muscle. “I don’t trust it.”

Sadie snorted. “You don’t have a choice.”

“There has to be another way ...”

“You are the one who told me about this, so you know there’s not. Like it or not our choices are you drink, or we die here.”

I hesitated, the hum in my skull growing louder, insistent, as if the ley line itself was leaning in to listen. My pulse thundered.

“What if it takes something from her?” My voice came low, almost a whisper. “What if it hurts Meera? Or it takes her?”

“Meera is a person, and it’s your sacrifice, not hers. Right? It wouldn’t take a person, would it?” Sadie’s gaze was steady.

“I don’t know.”

“It said it wants us to learn something. I’m not dying here, Vareck. Drink it.”

I hesitated one heartbeat too long, and the shadows stirred, inching closer. Cold pressed into my spine.

I dipped one hand into the bowl, the silver clinging to it like mercury. My reflection warped on the curved surface, dark-eyed and grim.

I raised it to my lips. The liquid was colder than ice, slicing down my throat in a rush of fire and frost all at once. My chest seized. The hum became a roar.

For a second, nothing happened—then a tearing sensation ripped through my chest, clean and merciless.

The bond. The thread that had been there—warm, unshakable—snapped.

I staggered, gasping, reaching for it instinctively, but there was only emptiness.

Meera was gone from me.

The ley line’s voice rang through the hollow it left behind, satisfied.

“ Once whole, now broken ... and the gate opens.”