Page 106 of Beyond the Winter Kingdom
I dipped my chin. “I do.”
I’d seen Vareck furious, ruthless, cold. I’d never seen him like this—stripped bare, raw enough that I almost felt like I was trespassing just by looking at him. His eyes closed, lashes trembling, and when he opened them again, the devastation was still there, but so was something else. A fracture in the grief. A space where hope could bleed through, if only he let it.
“Liessss,” a voice hissed. Out of nowhere, a golden snake appeared. “You don’t sssseriously believe that, do you, Ssssadie?”
Chapter 28
Vareck
Sadie stumbled back, crab walking as fast as she could, her hands digging into the grass in a frantic scramble to put distance between herself and the serpent.
“What is it with talking animals,” she muttered under her breath, panic sharpening her voice. “You. Snake. Go away. You’re not wanted here.”
The creature slithered forward, silent and sinuous, the golden sheen of its scales catching the sunlight. It stopped just short of my knees and rose, its long neck arching upward until its face hovered inches from mine. Its black eyes burned bright, soulless, and endless.
“I can’t believe,” it hissed, “after all you’ve been through, you can sssstill hope.”
The words landed like a whisper, but they cut like a blade. Behind me, Sadie’s breath hitched.
A shadow of doubt flickered through me, brief as a heartbeat, but enough. Enough for the serpent to feel it; to smell it like blood in the water.
“Shut up,” Sadie snapped, pushing to her knees. “Vareck, don’t listen. In every storyever, the snake is deceitful?—”
“Ssssilence.”
The word rippled with magic. A pulse of unnatural energy crackled through the air. Sadie gasped, then clutched her mouth with both hands. Her eyes blazed, but no words followed. Only muffled, furious sounds as she fought to speak through the spell.
“Be sssstill.”
She looked at me.
I didn’t look back.
The serpent had me. Its gaze was like chains, cold and binding. It saw too much. More than I wanted anyone to see. All the wreckage I carried inside; Meera’s absence, the way her laughter had once filled the hollows of my soul, and the aching silence that had replaced it. The serpent looked at me like itknew. And worse, itunderstood.
“The Fold has tessssted you,” it said, almost gently now. “And you’ve been found wanting.”
Sadie snarled behind her gag, desperation bleeding through every twitch of her limbs. She would’ve lunged if she could.
I didn’t move. I couldn’t. The serpent's voice had wrapped around my mind like a coil, tightening, drawing me in.
“You got what you desssserved, Vareck. You desssstroyed the balance. You shattered the bond meant to endure time, war, death itsssself. You took away your people’ssss fate. Yet you were ssssurprised when the ley line took your own?”
My fists clenched. The bones in my hands cracked.
“What would Maeve think had she not perished?” it whispered. “You were gifted a true mate, and sssstill you chose to ssssever that bond. You walked willingly into the ley line, knowing the rissssk.”
“That’s not true,” I said, but the words felt thin. Flimsy. My voice cracked on the second syllable.
“Isssn’t it?” The serpent tilted its head, slowly, like a puppeteer studying his marionette. “You made the bargain. Youknew what it had taken before. What wassss to sssstop it from assssking again?”
“I didn’t know it would be Meera.”
“But you did. In your heart of heartssss, you knew.” It slithered closer, unblinking. “You felt the tension in the bond. You felt her sssslipping through your fingerssss. And you let her go.”
Did I?
A single thought, but it stopped me cold.
