The thought unsettles me more than it should. She does not belong there. In fact, she does not belong here at all, and yet she keeps coming back. Pulled to me just as I am to her.
The wind shifts, sending tension coursing through my limbs, my fur prickling with awareness. The sky is heavy, pressing low, thick with something unseen. The trees murmur, uneasy. The scent of the storm curls through the peaks, slow and creeping, until it is all I can smell—all I can feel.
The mountain is changing.
I tighten my pace, scanning the ridges above them, my instincts twisting with unease. She isn’t safe. The thought echoes in every beat of my heart—not safe, not safe, not safe.
The first flakes fall, no more than a breath.
She does not heed the warning the mountains whisper. I debate forcing the women to turn back to the safety of theashram, but they are determined to return to the guest house. My only option to not yet reveal myself but still assure her safety is to ensure their arrival back home.
The wind whips through the trees as the weight of the sky deepens. The flakes move from a delicate flurry to an absolute downpour, a monsoon of white, blinding in its intensity.
Instinct has me moving, as close as I dare to protect them and then—I see it happen. She falters for a moment, and Sita keeps going. I’m close enough to see her spinning in a circle, yelling for her friend. Yet too far away to stop the danger looming ahead.
Instinct has me running, my long legs eating up the distance before my mind can even register I have made the decision. My heart pounds in my chest as I will my Winter Star to stay still until I can get to her.
But the determined thing moves again, chasing her friend, and one wrong step is all it takes.
The ground shifts. And then—she is gone.
The world collapses with her in a deafening blast of snow and ice and rock tearing away from the mountain, roaring down its side, consuming everything in its path, devouring my heart, and ripping it from my chest into its icy maw.
I lunge forward, a snarl ripping from my throat, but I am too far away. Too late. The avalanche takes her. And for the first time in ages, I am powerless. Once again watching as forces beyond my control tear my heart away.
I move.
Faster than I have in years, pushing through the storm, through the chaos, my breath a fire in my chest as I chase my own heart down the side of a mountain that for the first time in my existence, I hate.
As love is ripped once more from my grasp, as hope disappears in the deluge, I curse the earth that swallows her as eagerly as it accepted my blood oath.
I track her scent before the wind can steal it and track it down, heedless of the unstable ground beneath my feet. The mountain does not give back what it takes.
But I will defy it. I call on the creator, the moon goddess, and all the guardians that have come before. I beg for their blessing, throwing myself down at their mercy if only I can hold this sweet flower, my harbinger of Spring, my Winter Star.
If I can only sweep her up into my arms, just once to save her, not for my sake but for hers, it will be a divine miracle.
The storm thickens, an unrelenting force bent on stopping me. Even the wind tries to push me back. The world is nothing but endless white. My hands burn as they tear through the drifts, peeling away the layers of ice and snow and rock that swallowed her whole. My fingertips shred against the debris, my muscles scream—but I do not stop. I cannot. Her oxygen is slipping away; each second lost like grains of sand in an hourglass.
Then—
A sound. Her sweet voice. At first, I think she is calling for help. My brilliant flower is helping me find her. Brow furrowed, I listen harder. She isn’t crying for help. I think she is…singing.
A strange, muttered melody drifts up from beneath the snow—soft, cracked with cold, absurdly light for the gravity of her situation.
She is dying. And yet she is singing some terrible song with words that are so strange. She is singing about, if I’m not mistaken, her ass. Although it may also be my favorite part of her, I cannot imagine why on earth she would be singing about it.
A growl rumbles deep in my chest, sharp and incredulous. She defies reason. She is a paradox, a Gordian knot I ache to unravel. Even on the edge of death, she does not understand how fragile she is. Or perhaps she does but simply does not care.
But I do.
I care enough for the both of us. And I will not lose her. I should dig faster. I should tear through the snow until she is safe. But for a single moment, I hesitate and just listen.
I let her have these final notes, because if she is singing, she has enough air, and I need her to know that she is brave and fierce and strong. But I also need her to know that I am here.
I am here for her, and I will not allow those tears in her eyes, will not accept the slump of her shoulders in defeat. I will not allow her to live without whatever plant she so desperately seeks. Yes, she is strong, but she is my strength now, too.
I act.
