Chapter 40
ANNELISE
The scream tears from my throat before I’m fully awake, ripping through the pre-dawn darkness like a blade. My body jolts upright, cold sweat slicking my skin despite the warmth of our shared furs. My heart hammers so hard it feels like it might crack my ribs.
“Annelise.” Tarek’s voice cuts through the terror, steady and grounding. His arms are around me in an instant, pulling my trembling frame against the solid wall of his chest. “I’m here. You’re safe.”
But I can’t stop shaking. The nightmare clings like cobwebs spun from tar, sticky and suffocating, its tendrils still curling around my ribs, refusing to let go. My breath comes in sharp, ragged gasps that fog in the cold mountain air. Every inhale scrapes raw in my throat.
“The same dream?” he asks softly, his large hand stroking my hair with infinite gentleness.
I nod against him, my face buried in his shirt, not trusting my voice yet. It’s been two weeks since the manor went up in flames behind us. Two weeks of trudging north through frozen wilderness, each day harder than the last. And every single night, the same vision hunts me down.
“Tell me,” he murmurs, settling me more comfortably in his lap as though I weigh nothing. “Sometimes speaking it aloud helps rob it of its power.”
I close my eyes, but the images blaze behind my lids with cruel clarity. “I’m standing at the top of the manor again. The one we burned. But it’s whole, untouched, as if the fire never touched it.”
His arms tighten around me, silent encouragement.
“Something comes from the sea,” I whisper. “A shadow. Vast, moving across the water like a storm made solid. It eats the light, swallows the world until there’s nothing but twilight.”
I feel his chest stiffen beneath me, though his voice stays quiet.
“And you’re on the shore,” I breathe, voice cracking as the terror of it curls sharp inside me. “Alone. Calling to me. I can’t hear the words, only your voice carried by the wind. I try to run, try to reach you, but my legs won’t move. I’m trapped.”
“It’s just a dream,” he says, though uncertainty seeps into his tone like frost through a crack. “Your mind is trying to make sense of the horrors we’ve endured.”
“Is it?” I pull back enough to study his face in the dying firelight. His eyes betray him, shadows flickering there when he thinks I don’t see. “You feel it too. You carry the same weight—the sense that something’s coming. Something dark.”
He doesn’t deny it. His jaw works as he swallows. “The storm that wrecked our ship. There was… something unnatural about it. Something aware. Malevolent.”
“In the dream, the shadow swallows you,” I whisper, tears sliding hot and unbidden down my cheeks. “One moment you’re there, calling my name, the next… the darkness takes you. And I’m left screaming in that tower. Alone.”
His hand cups my face, thumb brushing away the tears. “I’m not going anywhere, Annelise. Whatever’s out there—if there is anything—we’ll face it together.”
“Promise me,” I say fiercely, gripping his shirt as though I can anchor him by force of will. “Promise me you won’t throw yourself to it for my sake. That you won’t try to be noble and die alone.”
“Annelise—”
“Promise me,” I cut him off, steel in my voice. “I didn’t claw my way out of that cage just to lose you to some sacrifice. We’re partners. Equals. We live together or we die together.”
His eyes search mine, and I see when the resistance breaks. He knows I won’t yield. This isn’t fear speaking—it’s resolve.
“I promise,” he says at last, solemn and steady. “Whatever comes, we face it as one.”
Relief crashes through me, and I kiss him hard, pouring everything into the contact—fear, gratitude, love, defiance. When we break apart, he lowers us back beneath the furs, curling around me, his warmth a shield against the chill.
“Try to sleep,” he murmurs into my hair. “We’ve a long road still, and you need your strength.”
I close my eyes, but sleep does not come easy. The dream still coils inside me, heavy as a prophecy.
And beyond the fragile glow of our fire, I swear I hear the low rumble of distant thunder.
The shadow is coming. I only pray we are strong enough to meet it when it arrives.