Threadbound (The Fated Realms Trilogy #1)
Chapter 1
Cold.
That’s the first thing I know. Cold sinking into my bones, gnawing like teeth. My skin burns and freezes, damp with snow that clings and melts against me. My head throbs with a fiery pulse at the base of my skull.
I don’t open my eyes right away. I can’t. My eyelashes are heavy, crusted with frost. My body feels like stone.
There was a scream. My mother’s? I can still hear it in my head, sharp enough to split the night. Her hand grabbed for me. The burning at the back of my head flares hotter with the memory, like the echo of fire.
With everything I have, I try to move. Nothing happens. Not at first. Just a tremor inside my chest, a thought trapped inside a body that won’t listen. So, I start small. Fingers. One twitch. Then another. I’m not sure if it’s enough. The darkness pulls me back under.
When I surface again, it’s to silence. The kind that hums in your ears, pressing close, making you wonder if the world has gone hollow. Snowflakes land on my cheek, soft and biting all at once. I’m lying in it. Half-buried in it.
I drag my eyes open. Above me, branches claw at the sky, bare, black, endless. Between them, something moves. Wings. A bird circling, too large to be a crow, too dark to be a hawk. My vision blurs before I can be sure.
I think about moving again. My muscles spasm, but the weight of my body keeps me pinned. How long have I been here? Minutes? Hours?
The crunch of footsteps cuts through the stillness. Slow. Deliberate. Coming closer. Panic flares weakly in my chest. I can’t defend myself. I can’t even sit up.
The snow shifts near me. A shadow leans down. I catch the faintest trace of something warm, human, unmistakably male. The scent lingers in the cold air as a whisper curls against my ear.
“Found you.”
The voice, the words; they stir something in me that feels familiar, like home, but my mind is too foggy to follow the Thread.
Arms slide beneath me, lifting me as if I weigh nothing. Heat surrounds me, pulling me against a chest that feels steady, real. The world tilts and sways. Before I can draw a breath to ask who, before I can see, the dark swallows me whole.