Chapter Thirty-Two
Dahlia
Sita wakes me in the early dawn when the sun is just a whisper on the horizon.
We roll up our sleeping bags, our movements stiff from the cold, hands fumbling over frozen fabric.
The air is thinner at this altitude, biting at every exposed inch of skin.
My breath curls in the breaking light, ghostly wisps vanishing into a paling sky.
Sita hands me a steaming cup of tea, and I cradle it between my palms, letting the warmth seep into my frozen fingers. The first sip scalds my tongue, but I don’t care. I need the heat, the illusion of comfort before we begin another grueling day.
The morning is silent but for the rustling of fabric and the distant groan of shifting ice. The mountains are waking, stretching beneath the weight of the cold.
I pull on my gloves and move to break down the tent. That’s when I see them. Just outside the perimeter of our small encampment are impressions in the snow. I blink, the breath stilling in my lungs.
Bigger than any human boot print. Too deep to be from the wind.
I crouch, pressing my fingers to the edge of the indent. The snow is packed firm, the print deep—whatever made this was big. Heavy. A flicker of warmth blooms in my chest before I can stop it. A pull, sharp and aching.
I swallow hard and shove it down. It could be anything. A trick of the snow, a settling drift, or even an animal. Probably the latter.
But still, my fingers linger over the edges of the print, tracing the symmetry of it. A gust of wind kicks up loose powder around me, and I shiver, but it has nothing to do with the cold. Something in my bones hums with awareness, and I know Eryon has been here.
Sita zips up her pack and glances over. “Dahlia?”
I startle, snatching my hand away from the print as if I’ve been caught touching something sacred. The hope is too fragile to voice it out loud, but my heart knows it was him despite my rational mind denying it.
“Yeah,” I say quickly, standing and brushing off my gloves. “Just zoned out for a second.”
She eyes me, then the ground where I was crouching, but doesn’t push.
“We should get moving as soon as you finish your tea,” she says, and I nod, forcing my feet to move. Forcing myself to leave the proof behind, but not the hope. I hang on to it like a lifeline.
As we shoulder our packs and begin our trek upward, I feel it—the weight of unseen eyes. The feeling is burned into my memory, returning ripples along my skin with delicious awareness, and gives me the strength I need to keep going.
The air thins further as we ascend, each step a battle against the mountain’s relentless pull. My thighs burn, my lungs ache, and yet I push forward, refusing to slow. The trail grows more treacherous with every passing hour, and as I dig my boots into the frozen ground, a thought strikes me.
Eryon carried me down this. What had taken him less than a day is taking us, two determined women, a damned eternity. It’s humbling.
I picture his massive form moving through the snow, effortless and swift, his white fur blending with the storm. Twice he had held me, shielding me from the worst of the cold, never once faltering in his steps. My fingers tingle with the ghost of his velvety skin deep under the fur.
I press a hand against my chest, as if I can still feel the lingering warmth where our bodies had pressed together.
Instead, a gust of wind cuts through my layers, and I grit my teeth, pulling my scarf higher over my nose.
The world around us is nothing but white and gray, a never-ending blur of snow, stone, and sky.
The silence is vast, broken only by the crunch of our boots and the occasional howl of the wind.
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any harder, the squall hits. It comes without warning, a violent roar swallowing the world in a matter of seconds. Snow whips through the air, turning the trail into a blind, white abyss.
“Down!” Sita yells over the wind.
We press ourselves into the mountainside, huddling close for warmth. My heart pounds as the wind shrieks, tearing at us like unseen claws. My fingers go numb almost instantly, my thick gloves no match for the ferocity of the terrain. The cold is merciless, insidious, creeping into my bones.
Sita fumbles with her pack, managing to rip open a pouch of heat packs. We shove them into our gloves, into our boots, and drop them down our clothes. The warmth is fleeting, fragile, but it keeps us from freezing solid.
The wind roars and roars, and we have no choice but to wait it out.
What I wouldn’t give to be in a hot spring again with Eryon.
Minutes stretch into eternity. My body stiffens from stillness, my muscles locking against the cold.
I press my forehead against my knees, breathing through the panic rising in my chest. What if this storm doesn’t pass?
What if we’re trapped here? What if I can’t save him?
The questions are suffocating, but I force myself to stay calm. The mountain may be testing us, but we won’t fail. We can’t. There simply is no other option.
Finally, after what feels like forever, the wind dies down. The storm retreats as quickly as it arrived, leaving the world eerily still.
Sita is the first to move. She brushes the snow off and turns to me, breathless. “Dahlia, are you okay?”
I nod, though my joints are stiff as I push myself upright.
We stand and survey the damage. The bright sun staring down from an azure blue sky turns the landscape into a sparkling winter scene from a travel brochure.
Despite the beauty, my stomach drops as I realize the trail is gone.
The snow has shifted so much that the path ahead is unrecognizable.
Panic gnaws at the edges of my resolve, and if the tears wouldn’t freeze to my face, I would cry.
Why is doing the right thing so damn hard?
I’m trying to save Eryon, save the land, and the mountain is testing me.
Hell this whole damn life has been testing me.
Where is Ben’s test? Where is the fucking universal balance that Eryon is supposed to keep?
When will I finally get what I deserve? Because Ben sure as shit isn’t.
I look to Sita, hoping she can figure out where to go from here. She’s already scanning the landscape, her sharp eyes darting from ridge to ridge, cataloging landmarks. I see a plan forming behind her sharp eyes.
“Didi, look!” she exclaims, pointing ahead.
I follow her gaze, my breath catching. There, partially uncovered by the shifting snow, are two massive boulders standing side by side. They form a narrow passage between them, like a gateway. Excitement hums through my veins like electricity, erasing the creeping despair.
The sentinel stones.
We had been looking for the landmark, but without this storm I doubted we’d have found them. We would have just stuck to the trail. But here they are, standing before us, as if they had been waiting here all this time. Maybe the mountain wasn’t testing us, but helping us.
I can’t take the time to overthink it. We shift our course, cutting a new path to the boulders. The way down is steep, treacherous. Snow slips beneath our boots, and we slide more than we walk, half-running, half-falling through the drifts. My heart pounds, exhilarated despite the danger.
It feels right. As if the mountain itself is leading me forward, not just toward fate, but to him. My Eryon.
When we reach the landmark, we pause, both of us staring up in silent awe. They’re enormous, towering high above our heads. Their placement is too precise, too deliberate. My fingers brush over the weathered sacred stones.
As we step between them, I feel it. A shift, like crossing an invisible threshold. The air changes, thickening with something old and waiting. It feels like coming home.
As we walk through, I turn to glance back at the stones one last time and that’s when I see it. My breath catches as I see writing scratched into the rock.
At first, the markings are faint, almost lost in the stone’s natural grooves. But as the sun dips lower, its golden light strikes the surface at just the right angle, highlighting not just the carving themselves but a dark shadow pressed into the cuts —and the word reveals itself.
My pulse stutters. I know these letters. They are not fully familiar, but I recognize their shape, their weight.
“Sita,” I gasp, pointing. “Can you read that?”
She steps closer to me, squinting at the carving above our heads too high for a human to reach. Her lips move soundlessly as she pieces it together, mouthing different possibilities before settling on one.
“I don’t know this language,” she says slowly. “But it looks close to some words I do recognize. If I’m reading it correctly, I think it starts with Sru—?”
A shockwave ripples through me and my lips curve into a smile as my heart leaps. “Sruhnar.”
She looks at me with wide eyes and then back to the carving, “Yes, that fits. But what is it?”
He carved my name into a rock. It’s a gesture so simple, yet so profound. His way of marking our connection, like two lovers carving their initials into a tree. My spirits surge, and I’m suddenly re-energized. Without thinking, I break into a run, laughing, with Sita hot on my heels.
“My name,” I call back over my shoulder.
She shouts after me, but I barely hear her over the bounding of my own pulse and my laughter. The air burns in my lungs, but I don’t stop. Every step is one more step closer to him.
Gradually my pace slows with the fading light as the sun sinks lower. The excitement lingers, but reality creeps back in. We still don’t know how far we’ve come. Or how much further we have to go.
The wind whispers through the stones, brushing over my skin with a chill that has nothing to do with the cold. I hate to stop when every instinct screams at me to keep going. But the darkness is relentless.
The wild does not wait. And the dark does not forgive. For every mark left on stone, the wild carves its own in flesh and bone.