Chapter Nineteen
The roar came suddenly, a thunderous crack that echoed across the white-capped hills, making the earth seem to tremble beneath them.
Sebastian’s head snapped up at once, his gaze falling on the ridge above the valley.
Snow peeled away like a shattering pane of glass, spilling over itself in an elegant, devastating rush.
Maddie, who had been mid-laugh, froze in place beside him.
For a brief moment, neither of them spoke. The avalanche tumbled downward, its movement hypnotic as it carved a powerful path through the trees and blanketed the lower slopes with pristine white once more. The air crackled with sound, a distant echo of thunder and cascading force.
“Does this…” Maddie’s voice was unsure, almost tentative as she tore her gaze from the sight to glance at him. “Does this happen often?”
Sebastian’s lips tilted into a faint, reassuring smile as he folded his arms, watching the valley stilling after the chaos. “It’s rare enough, though predictable under the right conditions.”
“Predictable?” she echoed, her brows lifting.
“Physics,” he explained, the satisfaction of her curiosity bringing out a smug glint in his eye.
“Snow accumulates, of course, and it settles in layers, some denser than others. A sound or a shift in weight disturbs the delicate equilibrium.” His tone softened, and he gestured toward the ridge.
“The force it released just now was inevitable.”
Beautiful, but inevitable.
Maddie turned her head slowly back to the scene. “You make terrifying things sound rather poetic.”
“Perhaps terrifying things have their own kind of poetry,” Sebastian said lightly, though her words lingered with an unexpected weight in his chest.
Just as the last echoes of the avalanche faded into the brisk air, a loud snort and a startled shuffle reminded him of something infinitely less poetic.
“Swan,” he said sharply, just as the mare reared back, her ears flat against her skull.
The thunder, the chaos, and the quaking ground were too much for her.
Swan’s hooves scraped against the frozen earth before she bolted, dashing back toward the hills at a breakneck pace.
“Sebastian!” Maddie cried, clutching his arm. “The horse!”
He drew a breath, steadying her with one hand while his gaze followed Swan’s retreating form.
A pang of frustration hit him, but it was tempered by a flicker of regret—not for the horse, but for Maddie’s startled expression.
“I see her,” he murmured. “She’ll be fine.
She knows these paths better than either of us. ”
“But she ran,” Maddie pressed, her tone uncertain. “Why didn’t you tie her up?”
Sebastian met her gaze, his own calm and unshaken. “Because I wanted her trust, not shackles,” he said simply. “A horse bolts when it feels trapped. She’ll come back when she’s ready.”
For a moment, Maddie said nothing. She studied him with a searching expression, her lips parting as though words were on the tip of her tongue.
But then she surprised him with a soft laugh, shaking her head.
“Trust, not shackles,” she echoed, almost to herself.
“I suppose that should apply to more than just horses.”
The rumble at first was faint, so low she almost convinced herself it wasn’t growing louder.
Maddie barely noticed it over her laughter, but Swan did.
The horse reared her head, ears flipping back.
A sharp whinny echoed across the hills as Swan darted off through the snow, her hooves kicking up powder as she vanished down the slope.
Maddie turned instinctively, catching the concern etched in Sebastian’s face.
The sound returned, louder now and closer, rolling through her chest as if the earth itself groaned with effort.
Her eyes traced the hills in the distance, and she froze, her breath shallow.
A sheer patch of snow slid away from a ridge, swift and smooth as a wave breaking on a shore.
It couldn’t be dangerous, could it? But then another slab broke free nearby. And another.
“Maddie…” Sebastian’s voice was low, tight, shaking with something she couldn’t place.
She tore her gaze from the hills to him, alarm building as his posture stiffened. His hand raised slightly, as if to halt her from moving even though she hadn’t dared to yet.
“What’s happening?” Her own voice sounded fragile in the frigid air.
“A rockslide. Snow on top.” His words came so clipped it barely registered.
Her brows knitted together. “You mean like an avalan—”
But her voice faltered when his eyes darted behind her, the sudden shift in focus pinning her in place.
Her stomach dropped. She turned slowly, her heart hammering in her chest, and saw it.
A great white cloud burst outward like a ghost clawing its way up the hill.
Snow rolled sideways and upward, billowing higher as it swallowed everything in its path.
Beneath it, rocks trapped beneath the snow churned forward with a grinding, hollow roar.
The air wasn’t air anymore. It thickened with the sound, the sheer power growing louder and closer until her knees locked, unsure where to go. The cold grew sharper somehow.
“Maddie!” His shout came a second before his hand caught her shoulder and pulled. She would’ve screamed if she had breath to spare, but all she felt was the sharp burn of impact as her body crashed into the snow.
Her face hit first, the icy sting clawing at her skin. For a moment, the world was an endless smear of pale frost and blinding white. Then something warm barreled into her, heavy and solid.
Her lungs fought for air as the snow pressed cold against her lips, seeping through her gloves and the hem of her coat, freezing her to her core. She shifted slightly, trying to raise her head, but the weight on her back crushed her farther into the endless frost.
Maddie tried again to breathe, but nothing came. Her chest flared in panic, an aching vacuum where air should have been. She blinked furiously, desperate to see more than the endless darkness pressing against her.
Suffocating.
Cold.
Her heart thudded wildly, a frantic beat that seemed to mock her helplessness.
She clawed at the snow with trembling fingers, the icy compactness denying her every effort.
Between the numbness spreading through her body and the crushing pressure above, she couldn’t tell where she ended and the snow began.
And Sebastian? Was he still keeping the worst of it from her, or had he been buried, dragged down into the weight of it all?
She tried to speak his name, but her throat felt tight, dry, as though the snow had filled every space inside her.
Panic churned in her stomach. If she couldn’t see him, didn’t feel him move soon, then surely…
Her mind reeled with possibilities she couldn’t bear to finish.
Was he just inches away, struggling as she was?
Or—as dread pushed at the edges of her fraying thoughts—had he been crushed beneath the merciless weight?
“Sebastian,” she managed, her voice weak and hoarse. It barely broke the cold silence. The only sound in response was the faint, unrelenting hiss of her shallow, ineffective breaths.
Snow.
Everywhere.
Heavy and relentless. Maddie wanted to move, to claw at it, to fight it off of her body, but her muscles refused.
Her back burned under the cold press of soaked fabric, and her cheeks raw from contact with the freezing ground.
Blinking hard didn’t stop the flickering streams of white that seemed fixed in her view.
Then something shifted slightly above her, and her awareness zeroed in on the faint scrape of his breath brushing the nape of her neck.
Sebastian.
He wasn’t fully collapsed, propped up somehow by sheer will and trembling arms just above her.
“Maddie,” he rasped.
She tried to respond, tried to turn her head to look at him. But the snow didn’t allow it, and her body stiffened with the effort. It took too long, every motion sluggish and wrong as though her mind had detached from her limbs. “I’m…” It came out broken, weak, and unfinished.
Her chest clenched again, and this time, panic joined the growing numbness creeping through her fingers and toes. The cold wasn’t just biting anymore. It gnawed. Stole heat, stole strength. Her hand shifted weakly, trying to brush at the snow weighing her down, but it was useless.
Sebastian shifted again, his breath a little louder now, labored. Fear flared in her stomach. Not just for herself but for him.
She’d always thought her fears were logical. Sensible. Fear of disappointing her mother. Fear of being too much, too loud, too independent. Fear of wanting more than society said she ought to.
But this… this was real fear. A raw, soul-deep terror that she might never hear his laugh again. That she might never see the way he softened when he looked at her like she was the only thing worth protecting in a chaotic world.
Sebastian.
She had wanted to believe she had time. Time to sort through her feelings.
Time to figure out what came next. But time had vanished the moment that second avalanche tore through the hills, and now all that remained was the sound of his breath and the weight of his body keeping her from being buried completely.
If he was hurt because of her, if he had shielded her and paid the price, she would never forgive herself even though she had no control over nature.
A sob built in her throat, dry and aching, and she swallowed it down. Not now. Not yet. They weren’t dead. They couldn’t be.
She had fallen for him faster than sense allowed, and still she’d hesitated—held back, waiting for certainty, for signs. But here, under this brutal cold, she realized she didn’t need signs.
She just needed him.