POV: Tristan
The Black Peaks were a graveyard of ice, and as I prowled the perimeter of the scent-line, I felt the cold sinking into my marrow—not the physical cold, but the hollow, aching silence where the bond used to hum. I had followed her until the wind literally wiped her tracks from the stone, a blizzard screaming down the throat of the pass like a warning from the Goddess herself.
She is gone, Vane mourned, his voice a low, broken vibration. The mountain swallowed the moon.
"She is alive," I growled, my breath blooming in a thick cloud of frost. "She has to be."
I had returned to the manor under the cover of the storm’s peak, slipping back through the ravine and into the hidden servant tunnels. If I were caught outside now, my father would have no choice but to label me a rogue
