Page 28

Everly

T he cold pierced into my skin the moment we stepped outside.

It was just past first light, but the sky hadn’t yet bothered to shift from shades of sapphire and green to silver. Pale blue shadows clung to the snow-draped path winding up the mountainside.

Batty huddled beneath the hood of my cloak, tucked against my neck like a trembling scarf. Lumen padded beside me, his pale fur dusted in frost, ears twitching at every gust of wind.

Draven was as unaffected as always. Even his cloak scarcely dared to rustle in the wind, the heavy fabric falling gracefully to his feet. He gave a sharp nod to the stablemaster, then turned up the trail without so much as a backward glance.

After last night’s shared nightmare-scape, neither of us had found the words, or the desire, to speak. We had moved through the morning like icebergs drifting across a lake, careful not to touch, careful not to break the silence that had frozen solid between us.

Draven let out a low whistle, and his wolves bounded ahead, melting into the white landscape like shadows made of frost. Lumen lingered, casting a long look in my direction before letting out a soft, imploring whine.

All right, ridiculous mutt.

I sighed, my breath curling in front of me like smoke, and pulled my cloak tighter.

As much as I wanted to drag my feet in protest, this wasn’t the place.

Not up here, far from the protection of walls and firelight.

Not where monsters could pick off stragglers with silent precision and leave nothing behind but a crimson stain in the snow.

I shivered, forcing away images of the Mirrorbane. The mages were a terror in their own right, but my survival instinct won out.

And the safest place on this shards-cursed mountain was behind the most terrifying monster of them all.

I jogged to catch up.

The trail narrowed quickly, becoming less a path and more a suggestion. The wind barreled through the peaks, tearing through my layers and howling in my ears.

I slipped.

My boot lost purchase on a patch of ice, and my balance went with it. My heart lurched as the world tilted sideways, a sheer drop yawning wide to my right.

A strong hand caught the back of my cloak, yanking me upright with enough force to snap the breath from my lungs.

“Are you trying to die?” Draven’s voice was a rasp of fury and frost at my ear, his hand still gripping my hood.

“Denying you the fun of killing me does have its appeal, but no,” I wheezed. “I’m afraid this is rather less intention—” I cut off with a yelp, stumbling forward as another gust of wind whipped through the mountains.

He glared at me like I’d done it just to spite him. “Just get in front of me.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but he stepped around me, blocking my access to the cliff.

“If and when I decide to kill you, Wife, both of those things will be at my command, not because you were too stubborn to avoid falling down a ravine.”

Heat rose up my neck, biting into the frozen skin of my face.

“You cannot command what you don’t own,” I shot back.

He raised a brow. “It is fortunate, then, that you do belong to me, bound by mana and law and the Shard Mother herself. So…” he gestured pointedly to the path in front of him.

It was tempting to stay behind him just out of spite, but then he would only use his mana to drag me in front of him anyway. I had nothing left to cling to but my dubious dignity at this point.

So I muttered a few choice insults under my breath and stomped past him, the snow crunching beneath each step. My legs were already screaming from the incline, my lungs burning with every breath. My gown stuck to my back with sweat, and my gloves had long since stopped keeping my fingers warm.

We continued on like that for what felt like hours but might have only been a few minutes. My irritation grew each time my steps faltered and my husband hovered at my back.

Then, something in the air shifted. The wind quieted, almost as if suddenly deciding to hold its breath. Batty shifted restlessly inside my hood, curling tighter against my neck.

The wolves moved closer, their heads low, ears back. Lumen brushed against my leg like a warning.

The path narrowed again as we rounded another spire. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the mountain was watching us. That it was taking note of each footprint, each breath, and carefully biding its time. Waiting for the right moment.

Then I heard it.

The sound was faint, like a whisper caught on frost. It came from the trees to our left. Then again, to the right. Then behind us.

My breath froze in my lungs. I came to a halt, reaching up to push back my hood so I could see on either side of me.

“Don’t,” Draven’s voice was sharp, like steel snapping.

“What—”

“Don’t look,” he said, quieter now. “Keep your eyes forward.”

A shiver rippled down my spine. Even Lumen let out a low whine and moved in closer, his head ducked, gaze pinned to the ground. The other wolves shifted around us, silent but alert, muzzles lowered as if they, too, knew not to look.

“What is it?” I whispered, tugging the hood back in place.

Draven stepped in close behind me, placing one hand on my shoulder to steer me forward. My heartbeat thundered in my ears, but I didn’t press again. We moved in silence for several steps before the whispers began again. They were louder now, closer.

I swallowed the lump in my throat.

“The Voidtouched,” Draven finally answered.

His hand tightened on my shoulder in a signal for me to stop walking. He stepped next to me, pulling me against his side before leading us forward again.

I had read about more monsters than I could count, the ones in Winter and beyond, but I had never heard of the Voidtouched.

“A frostbeast?” I clarified, the words barely audible to my own ears.

“Former Visionaries.” His voice was a low rumble against my hood. “It’s said that the Shard Mother took back their true sight when they tried to use it for themselves. Now they wander, blind, with no visions to guide them, begging others to see them.”

It was more of an answer than he usually gave me. He was trying to distract me, and it was working. Sort of.

My hands trembled at my sides, but the panic wasn’t crushing my lungs quite as much with his steady tone in my ear.

“What happens if you see them?” I asked, picturing the information the way I would have seen it in a compendium, neatly parsed out in each section. What they were. What they did.

Before he could respond, the whispers turned to cries. It was only a few at first, but as they echoed through the mountains, they multiplied. Dozens of wailing voices, hundreds, maybe. The sounds grated against my eardrums and scraped at my mind.

They grew louder and louder until tears stung at the backs of my eyes, and my bones felt hollow.

“If you look at them,” Draven’s voice sounded again, just loud enough to be heard over the cries, anchoring me against the relentless screams, “they take your sight, your eyes, for themselves. So they can see again.”

I swallowed hard.

“So, don’t feed them,” he added, before his arm slid down my back and he scooped me off the ground.

I let out a sharp breath, clutching the folds of his cloak as Batty squeaked in alarm beneath mine. Feeling a bit like a skathryn myself, I clung to his neck as he carried me forward, slow and deliberate.

It shouldn’t have been a comfort, the male whose asinine plan subjected me to these monsters now protecting me from them, but I leaned into him all the same.

The shrieks picked up again, echoing around us, through us.

“Focus on my voice,” he said, his mouth close to my ear. “I know this path. I’ve walked it in worse conditions than this.”

I didn’t answer. Couldn’t even bluster about not needing his help. The cries were even closer. My knees shook, and he wrapped his arms tighter around them to stop the trembling.

The cold bit into my cheeks, into my lungs. I pressed my face into the thick collar of his cloak, my forehead resting just above his collarbone.

Even though I knew he was about to give me over to torture, that he was only keeping me alive for his own ends, his scent still grounded me. I took a deep breath, inhaling juniper and freshly fallen snow, something wild and crisp with a maddening thread of warmth just beneath it.

Step by step, he carried me higher up the mountain. Each movement was steady, deliberate, like he could walk this path in his sleep. The wind continued to scream around us, but the whispers of the Voidtouched began to slowly fade away.

I focused on the rhythm of his breathing, on the heavy thud of his boots through snow and stone. My fingers curled tighter around the fur of his collar.

Time stretched, unraveling slowly until each heartbeat blurred into the next. My legs were numb, my arms aching from the simple act of holding on.

After an eternity, the whispers faded completely, and the wind shifted. The air grew still, warmer, even.

Then one of the wolves let out a low yowl, and Draven stopped moving.

“We’re here,” he said, voice low.

But I couldn’t move. Couldn’t force my eyes open or stop myself from gripping his neck like he was the last raft in a whirlpool.

“It’s safe,” he said, pulling back the hood of my cloak.

The sun seared across my skin, far brighter than I was ready for, and instinct had me burrowing my face deeper into my husband’s neck before I could help myself.

I half expected him to throw me bodily into the nearest snowbank, but he waited with all the patience I didn’t know he possessed until I forced one eye open, then another.

Batty gave a chirp of warning from inside my hood, like even she wasn’t sure if we could trust him.

Slowly, I untangled myself from him, touching my boots to the ground and taking a look around for the first time since we encountered the Voidtouched.

We were on top of the world. Clouds drifted below us, in between the mountain peaks, while the sun felt close enough to reach out and touch.

Straight ahead of us was the Sanctum.

Just like that, whatever spell I was under with Draven was broken. He had brought me here. He was no different from my uncle, doling out pain and protection at will.

I stepped away from him, examining the structure that had served as a tomb for so many fae like me. It stood at the top of the world—tall and frozen, carved from the very mountain. Its towers shimmered with ancient mana, draped in runes that pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat older than time.

It was far too beautiful for the horrors it housed.

The ones that were waiting for me.