Page 95 of Untethering Dark

Walking across the flame, feet bare on the coals and clad in little more than a short skirt tied at her waist, a mass of red hair ablaze in the firelight and a bloody rack of antlers crowning her head...

Memory slammed into him.

Heldin.

She said nothing, just smiled an all-too-wide, knowing smile, victory glittering in her eyes.

A crow swooped down, coming to perch on her shoulder.

Carving a strip of flesh off one of the impaled, Heldin cooed, holding it aloft for the bird to gobble down. When it squawkedin her ear, she nodded along, something only she understood, and murmured, “Keep looking.”

It flew off.

As a being who caused dread, rather than experienced it, Gudariks had never truly known fear. But now, he feared plenty. For Astrid’s friends, for the forest, for what would be unleashed upon the world in the wake of his death.

Wind kicked up, the atmospheric pressure dropping. Trees swayed, their boughs leaning in, then back, almost like they were reaching. If only they could snatch him up and whisk him away from this macabre scene, whisk them all away.

He retreated to a long-gone time and place.

To his oldest recallable memory.

He looked upon himself as an outsider, an intruder to his own mind.

A smaller, leaner version of himself crouched in the dirt, a tree cradled in the palms of his hands, little more than a sprout. For as far as his eye could see, the landscape was barren, dotted only by the occasional scrub tree and humble shrub, but it was not a wasteland.

Soil squished rich and soft beneath his hooves and moisture hung in the air, promising rain and newness and the potential for something greater.

A beginning.

Too soon Gudariks returned to his living nightmare.

His head lolled back, antlers smacking against the wooden frame, jarring his neck and spine. But he didn’t care. The view of the starry night sky was a reprieve from the horrors thatsurrounded him. He inhaled deeply. There was moisture in the air. A storm was coming. A blizzard.

It would sweep through soon and bury his beloved in snow.

If only it would bury him, too.

Chapter Forty-Five

Cold cocooned Astrid, a blanket of snow her burial shroud.

Its weight pressed all around, shielding her from the world outside. It should’ve been claustrophobic, suffocating...but swaddled as such, it eased away her cares. Nothing could touch her now. Nothing could disturb her endless sleep.

At least nothing except Death, itself, and all that comes with entering a new realm of existence. Or nonexistence was perhaps more accurate, but there was no point debating it.

She ached at every joint, and in parts of her body she hadn’t previously been aware of, muscles a soupy jelly.

If this was Death, it was rife with sensation, even more so than the final moments of her life. A hole blown right through the middle of her chest should’ve eclipsed all, but every nerve ending exploded with new feeling.

The ache grew to acute pain at twin points on either side of her head, something pushing—no,tearing—through her skin, and sprouting from her head. Her jaw ached something fierce, too, teeth loosening then falling bloody onto her tongue. She spat, spittle and chunks of dentition hitting her chin, some landing on her chest, wet and warm. The urge to brush them away was met with a deep pang in her solar plexus but no movement from her arms and hands.

Where each tooth fell, sharpened points emerged. Fangs, a mouth full of them. Nails hardened, then elongated.

The cold deepened, so sharp it was almost fire coursing through her limbs.

Broken down, rearranged anew.

This was not Death, but Winter’s icy womb.

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