Chapter 29 Ice Vine
ICE VINE
Lumi-
Everything is so quiet. There’s a haze sitting behind my eyes, like I’m still half-stuck in a dream I can’t wake up from.
Andrik hasn’t left my side, and I should feel safe—I know I should—but instead I feel like I’m about to crawl out of my own skin.
I don’t want to be around anyone. Not even him.
My brain feels wrong, like bugs are skittering through it. Voices that can’t be real keep threading themselves through the silence, and yet I hear them, clear as my own heartbeat.
I chased a man through the woods who’s been dead for over a week. I ran into something in my apartment hallway that just disappeared.
I want to be alone, but every time I get three seconds to myself, something happens—every damn time. I haven’t wanted to run this badly since the night Anna died.
“Lumi?” His voice, normally grounding, scrapes across my nerves, and guilt flashes sharp and acidic in my gut.
How shitty am I, resenting the only person who has literally ever tried to take care of me?
What’s the opposite of Stockholm syndrome? Because whatever that is, I think it’s eating me alive.
I know part of it is just... overload—the past week has been a nightmare. But deeper than that, there’s something else. Something I hate admitting even to myself.
I don’t know how to accept softness. Peace makes me uncomfortable. It means exposure. It means there’s nowhere to hide the parts of me that are still bleeding.
I know I’m ruining this before it even has a chance to become something, because deep down, I still believe I have to earn every good thing.
If it comes too easily, too willingly, it feels like a trick.
So I pull away first. I question everything. I fortify the walls. Because if I’m the one who lets go, then it can’t be ripped from me later.
“Lumi?” His voice snaps the thought in half. “Do you want something to eat?”
I almost chuckle. How very domestic of him. He wants to cook for me while I’m hearing voices no one else can hear.
What’s next?
Chasing dead men through the woods? Oh wait.
I drag my palms down my face until it stings. Maybe if I rub hard enough, the images behind my eyelids will smear away. Maybe the voices will go with them.
I shouldn’t resent him. I know that.
He’s been nothing but patient. But patience feels like pity when you’re already being held together by threads.
Every kindness feels like a hand closing around my throat, soft at first, then tighter, until I can’t tell if I’m being held or choked.
A laugh tries to claw its way up again. I press my knuckles against my mouth to trap it. It’s not funny. None of this is funny. But my brain isn't processing reality in the right shape anymore.
I think about her scarf, damp and cold in my hands like she’s only just worn it.
I think about the dead man standing where he shouldn’t be.
I smell Anna’s perfume on my skin, and feel Andrik’s hands trying to keep me from falling apart.
It’s all too much.
All of it is just... too much.
What kind of person runs to monsters for protection from other monsters?
I curl tighter and stare out through the morning window until my eyes sting. It’s easier to focus on the frost feathering across the pane than the heart print I still swear I can see.
I wish I could pretend none of this was real. But, even at the risk of losing my mind—I can’t.
I’m not scared of letting Andrik in. I’m afraid of what I’ll do when he isn't enough to fill this endless void inside me.
And yet...
There’s this piece of me screaming, so loud I can’t ignore it: don’t run from him. He’s the only thing you’ve never had to guard yourself from.
That incessant sensation of home I can’t explain.
My eyes don’t move from the window, even when I catch him in my periphery—crouching down in front of me.
The sky changes from crystal clear to dusk before his second knee even touches the floor.
The trees start to sway like they’re panicking.
I don’t turn toward him. I know the second I do, I’ll either break down or say something I can’t take back.
My brain is screaming: Run. Run before it feels good again. Before you mistake this for safety.
He inhales deeply. “Lumi, we need to talk.”
I can’t help it, my lip curls back in a quiet sneer. I don’t want to talk. I want to be left alone. I want my sister back. I want dead men to stop haunting me.
“I don't think we have anything to talk about right now.” My voice comes out even colder than I mean it to.
The hitch in his breath tells me that it landed.
“I think maybe I should go to the cops,” I say, almost daring him to argue. “I should tell them about the stalking. How I think it’s connected to Anna’s case. The flowers. Her scarf. All of it.”
“Did they do anything last time?” He snaps, more on edge than usual. “I don’t want you leaving this cabin.”
I know he’s saying it from a place of concern. But God does it hit me wrong.
“If I want to leave, I will,” I interject.
“You won’t.”
Andrik-
Her words land like a bomb. “If I want to leave, I will.”
The frost beneath my skin shifts. It’s barely a sound—just a hairline crack— but the forest hears it.
The trees go still. The snow stills mid-air. The animals fall silent.
Every part of the forest that answers to me… heels.
She won’t even look at me. Her gaze stays fixed on the window like she can slip through and vanish.
The bond claws at me, feral and unrelenting. It doesn’t care that she’s hurting. It only cares that she’s trying to leave. It knows she’s mine to protect, and it’s screaming for me to drag her back from the edge.
I force my claws to stay sheathed. I don’t reach for her, but gods, I want to. I want to feel her in my hands—but if I touch her like this, I’ll leave bruises on her memories, even if I never leave a mark on her skin.
“You think I’m keeping you here for me?” My voice comes out flat, ironed thin by restraint that’s cracking by the seconds.
Her shoulders twitch, but she still doesn’t turn.
“You think this is about control?” I shake my head. “This isn’t control, Lumi. This is war.”
My voice deepens.
“Someone out there is hunting you. Hunting us. And I will keep you here kicking and screaming if that’s what it takes to make sure there’s still a you left to kick and scream.”
A bitter laugh slips out of her, and it lights something ancient in me like a fuse. The frost in my blood catches flame. “Kaelorin ves’kai. Eyn’thel?n ves kaemorin.” (Your breath belongs to me. I’ll drag my death behind me before I let you go.)
“You think I want you to stay?” My voice breaks, just a fraction. “Every second you’re near me, I’m holding back the beast inside me with bare hands, and it’s clawing me apart, Veskarya.” (You who cut me, and still I crawl to bleed for you.)
I pause to breathe through it.
“I don’t know how much longer I’ll win.”
My claws itch to run down her thighs. To leave something on her that says she’s mine. That she’s claimed. The defiance in her only taunts the monster inside me.
A cold silence stretches between us. She still refuses to acknowledge me. My jaw tightens.
“Do you think I don’t know what I look like to you?” I rasp.“Just some beast in the woods. Some... thing that says it has a claim on you.”
The air turns brittle. My breath fogs around us. Crystals spiral from my fingertips.
“I didn’t ask for this either, Lumi. I didn’t ask the gods to pair me with a mortal I could ruin in a single careless breath. But the second the bond recognized you—it sparked a wildfire I’ll never be able to outrun.”
I edge a knee forward, slow enough not to spook her, but the air tightens anyway.
My hands flex at my sides. The pressure builds between us like steam in a sealed chamber, desperate for relief.
“I dream of you screaming my name.” My voice is barely a whisper now.
“I wake up with your scent burning in my lungs. I have tasted your fear, your arousal, your grief. And still—I am starving for more.”
She hiccups.
“There’s this wild creature inside me,” I murmur, “and every time you pull away, it claws at me to lock you down. And if I lose this war, Lumi—”
My throat catches.
“There will be no one left to save you from me.”
Still, she stares through the window, like I’m nothing more than a shadow.
And that...
Sends ice trickling through my veins.
I would take anything from her. A scream, a sob, a fist to my chest. But this pretending—Like I’m not even real?
No.
“Do you really think you’re the only one falling apart right now?” Her voice is cold, void of emotion.
“What’s so wrong with your life, Andrik? You have this whole goddamn forest, and magic, and immortality. I’ve got a sister in the ground, and a killer who wants me beside her.” She turns to face me.
“And you wanna talk about war?” Her eyes flash. “You have no idea what it feels like to lose everything and still be expected to keep moving like nothing happened.”
Lightning cracks, almost striking the window. Thunder shudders the cabin walls.
She steps off the bed. Shoulders squared, her fury barely leashed.
“So don’t you dare tell me you’re keeping me here for me. You’re keeping me here because it’s the only way you can pretend you’re not alone anymore.”
Something inside me snaps, hard.
The shift floods me like a tide. Claws rip through my skin. I stumble back, fangs bared, knocking everything from the dresser in one violent swipe. The beast barrels up through the split in my ribs, and I can’t—
I can’t hold it back.
Nai’thar veskae. (Control yourself.)
Ice explodes outward, spreading across the walls, spiderwebbing through the ceiling beams. The fog outside the window thickens until it drowns everything.
“I am holding myself for you.” I snarl.
I step forward, “I want you caged?” My voice warps. “I want you safe. This isn’t about me being lonely. I have always been alone.”
Skar’thel?n. I am trying. (Judgment comes.)
“So if protecting you from yourself when you’re being hard-headed makes me the monster in your story... fine.”
My claws flex. The tips glow faintly with godfire.
“But know this...”