Page 75 of Beyond the Winter Kingdom
“Answer the question.”
“I don’t know,” I blurted out, but somehow it didn’t even feel like the truth. It just felt like words that needed to be said by someone, even if they weren’t my own. Teardrops fell fast, coating my cheeks as I tried to breathe. I wanted to take thewords back and stuff them into a place where no one could hear them.
“I need some air.” He got up and started to walk away.
“We are literally outside, but sure, walk away. It’s what you’re good at!” I shouted as I got up to follow him, but Damon held my arm gently. There was a look of concern in his eye, and it gave me pause when I remembered the story of Vareck’s mom losing control.
“Let him rage for a minute,” he said softly while watching Vareck storm off. “He’ll be okay.”
“We can’t split up.” I crossed my arms, not out of annoyance, but self-soothing and comfort. Everything felt wrong. “It’s not safe.”
Sadie gave my shoulder a squeeze before she jogged off in the direction he’d gone. “I’ll go get him.”
“I’m sorry, Meera, I know you two haven’t completed it, but I really thought you were just waiting to be out of this. I don’t know why I asked that,” Damon said, motioning all around us. I believed him. He had no idea what Vareck and I had been going through. “Guess you have some things to figure out as well.”
I sighed. “We were doing better. We talked in the cave, and I thought we were okay. I just need time. I thought he understood that.”
“He will.” Damon turned when he heard a noise in the distance. A soft rumble miles away. “I didn’t mean to get him riled up like this. He doesn’t usually lose his temper so fast. It’s like the place just puts us all on edge. I don’t know, maybe it’s the food.” He kicked one of the empty food pouches into the fire. “Sadie had a better disposition when the tiny monsters were feeding her.”
I snapped my head up. “What’d you just say?”
He frowned. “About Sadie being better when she’s fed?”
I shook my head. “No ... this place ... we’re all on edge. It wasn’t just you and Sadie, but me and Vareck too ...”
Damon narrowed his eyes, searching for more information. “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“The realm is sentient. And it’s almost like ...” I swallowed, barely able to get the words out from the dread coiling tight in my throat. “It wants to split us apart.” My whispered revelation seemed to click with Damon immediately. “I told Vareck I was suspicious, and he said maybe it was trying to break you and Sadie apart because there is strength in numbers. What if...?”
“‘Like calls to like,’” Damon repeated, his eyes widening as he spoke. “I don’t think it’s us the realm wants. I think it’s trying to separate you,” he muttered in horror, checking our surroundings just as a thundering crack rent the air.
The land shifted hard, and I nearly toppled over. His strong arms wrapped around me protectively, and he held me tight. In panic, I held him in return. “Do not let go of me,” he ordered, placing a hand over my head as he pressed me closer. “Do you hear me?” I nodded harshly, closing my eyes and curling my face into Damon’s side as my body was rocked by the twisting and turning of the landscape. Wind whipped around us, cocooning us in a tiny vortex as the ground trembled then broke apart.
Through all the noise, I heard Vareck scream my name. I saw him in the distance with my sister, running toward us, one arm outstretched. Every second counted. He was almost to us when the violent haze of a mirage clouded my vision. He wasn’t going to make it. As I called out to him, the roar of the land shift swallowed my voice, and he was gone.
The realm got what it wanted. As the land split, so were we, and the last words I said to Vareck came from a place of anger that may not have been my own.
The twin hells played their games just as we played ours.
And we just lost.
Chapter 20
Vareck
The cold always helped.
At least, that was the lie I told myself as I stormed away from the fire, from the game, from her. The air was heavy and humid, trickling into my lungs like sap from a tree as the realm’s magic thickened it further. Each breath weighed me down, and yet it wasn’t enough to distract me from the very real possibility that Meera might reject me. Rejectus.
Her voice played on repeat in my head.
“I don’t know.”
Three godsdamned words. That was all it took to unravel something in me I hadn’t even realized was tightly wound. Hope. What a stupid, fragile thing.
I clenched my fists and let out a slow exhale. My muscles twitched as the fury beneath my skin shifted, dangerously close to the surface.
I knew she wasn’t ready. I knew the bond had shaken her, same as it did me. But I’d been ready to try. Ready to reach across the unknown and trust it meant something. Thatwemeant something.
