Chapter 286
Chapter 286
The forest would not let her stop.
Drea ran until the inside of her throat burned and every breath scraped raw on the way down. Mud sucked at her boots. Wet branches whipped across her face and caught in her hair, but she did not slow. She could hear something behind her, though every time she turned there was nothing except trees, rain-dark bark, and the churned track she had made through the leaves.
There was no snow.
That was the first thing that felt wrong, though she had no room to question it. The woods were wet and green and black with shadow. Water clung to the ferns. The ground beneath her boots was soft with old leaves, and the air smelled of soil, moss, and rain waiting somewhere above the canopy.
She had never known a forest like this.
Still, she knew she had to keep moving.
“Logan!”
Her voice tore out of her and vanished between the trees.
No answer came.
Drea pushed harder. Her lungs cramped. Her legs had started to feel heavy several minutes ago, but something inside her refused to let her slow down. She could not explain what she was chasing. She only knew Logan was ahead of her. She knew he was in danger. She knew with the certainty of instinct that if she stopped, even for a second, something terrible would happen.
“Logan!”
This time the name came out as a scream.
The forest gave nothing back.
She stumbled over a thick root and caught herself against the trunk of a tree. Wet bark scraped her palm. She shoved away from it immediately, almost angry at the interruption. There was no time to check the blood on her hand. There was no time to think about why she could not hear anyone else or why the woods seemed to stretch forever in every direction.
She ran.
Her dress dragged around her legs, soaked near the hem. She did not remember putting it on. It was pale, lighter than anything she would have chosen for running through mud, and by now the lower half was streaked brown and green. Her cloak was gone. Her hair had fallen completely loose and stuck to her mouth whenever she turned her face.
A branch struck her shoulder.
Drea cried out but kept moving.
“Logan, answer me!”
Somewhere far ahead, something cracked.
She stopped so suddenly her feet slid in the mud.
The sound came again.
Not a branch this time.
A shout.
Drea’s heart slammed against her ribs.
“Logan?”
She listened.
Nothing.
Her breath shook. She looked between the trees, trying to find any sign of movement. The woods were too thick. Trunks crowded her vision. Ferns reached nearly to her knees. Pale mist hung low between the roots, and somewhere beyond it, something dark shifted.
“Logan?”
The shape disappeared.
Drea moved toward it.
One step.
Two.
Then the earth vanished beneath her foot.
She fell hard.
Her knee struck first, then both palms. Pain shot up her arms. The impact knocked the breath from her, and for several seconds she stayed on all fours, sucking air through clenched teeth while mud seeped through the fabric over her knees.
Something fluttered above her.
Drea froze.
The sound was soft but distinct. Wings.
She lifted her head.
A raven landed on the ground several feet in front of her.
It should not have frightened her. It was only a bird, black feathers glossy with moisture, claws gripping the wet leaves. Yet something about the way it watched her made her chest tighten.
The raven did not hop or peck at the earth.
It simply looked at her.
Its head tilted once.
Drea’s breathing slowed despite herself.
“What?” she whispered.
The bird blinked.
A small drop of water slipped from the end of its beak.
Drea pushed herself upright onto one knee. Pain burned through the skin she had scraped, but she barely noticed it now. The raven remained where it was, staring at her with a stillness that felt deliberate.
“Go away.”
It did not move.
Drea looked around, suddenly aware of how quiet the forest had become. There were no insects. No wind. No movement beyond the bird in front of her. Even her own breathing sounded wrong in all that silence.
“Go.”
The raven opened its wings.
Drea flinched.
With one powerful beat, it lifted from the ground. Another carried it between the branches, and then it rose through an opening in the canopy and disappeared into the gray sky.
Drea watched until she could no longer see it.
The moment it vanished, sound returned.
Leaves rustled.
Water dripped.
Far away, a voice shouted.
“Drea!”
Logan.
She surged to her feet so quickly her injured knee nearly gave out.
“Logan!”
She ran toward his voice.
Pain stabbed through her leg with every step, but it did not matter. She shoved branches aside with both hands, slipped between two close trees, and nearly fell again when her boot sank into deep mud.
“Logan!”
“Drea!”
His voice was clearer now.
Closer.
Relief hit her so hard it almost made her laugh.
“I’m coming!”
“No!”
The response cracked through the woods.
Drea stopped.
“Logan?”
“Stay back!”
His voice was strained.
Not angry.
Afraid.
She had heard Logan furious. She had heard him cold. She had heard him exhausted, controlled, and dangerously quiet.
She had never heard him like that.
“Drea, stay back!”
She began running again.
The first raindrop struck her cheek.
Then another.
The sky opened.
Rain crashed through the canopy in a sudden sheet, pounding against the leaves and the forest floor. Within seconds, Drea’s hair was plastered to her face and neck. Her dress clung to her body. Water ran into her eyes so quickly that she had to wipe them again and again just to see where she was going.
“Logan!”
His answer came from somewhere ahead.
“Go back!”
“I’m not leaving you!”
“You have to!”
Lightning flashed beyond the trees.
For one white instant, the entire forest sharpened around her. Every trunk. Every branch. Every flooded patch of earth. Something moved far ahead.
A man.
Logan.
She saw him only for a second, but it was enough.
He stood between two trees with his back partly turned toward her. Someone else was near him, though Drea could not make out the shape. Logan’s arm moved sharply, and then darkness swallowed everything again.
“Logan!”
“Drea, stop!”
She could not.
Whatever fear had driven her before was nothing compared with the terror in his voice now. Drea ran harder, fighting the mud as rain hammered the ground. Water rushed in small streams around her boots. Roots disappeared beneath brown runoff. The path she had been following became impossible to see.
Another crack of thunder rolled overhead.
Drea flinched.
Her boot slipped.
She went down.
This time there was no chance to catch herself.
Her foot shot forward, and her body twisted sideways. Her hands reached for anything they could grab, but her fingers closed on wet leaves. She struck the ground hard.
Her stomach hit first.
Pain exploded through her.
Drea screamed.
For a moment she could not move.
The rain struck the back of her head, shoulders, and spine while she lay face-down in the mud. Her lungs refused to work properly. A deep, horrible ache spread through her abdomen.
“No.”
She rolled onto her side and clutched her stomach.
“No, no, no.”
The panic came instantly.
Her baby.
Drea pushed herself onto her hands and knees. Mud coated her palms. Her arms shook so badly she almost collapsed again.
“Please.”
She pressed one hand low against her abdomen, terrified of what she might feel.
Pain.
Only pain.
Was that good? Was that bad? She did not know. She knew nothing. She was alone in a forest she did not recognize, soaked to the skin, and Logan was somewhere ahead screaming at her to stay away.
“Logan!”
No answer.
Drea dragged herself upright.
Her legs trembled. She leaned against the nearest tree and tried to breathe through the pain. Rainwater ran down her face like tears.
Then she looked down.
Something pale streaked along the inside of her calf.
At first she thought it was mud washed clean by the rain.
Then she saw it move.
White frost crept down her leg.
Drea stared.
The cold spread in a thin, jagged line from beneath the hem of her dress, sliding over her skin despite the rain. The frost did not melt. It brightened, branching across her ankle and disappearing beneath her boot.
Her heart lurched.
“No.”
She lifted the hem of her dress with shaking hands.
More frost.
It traced the inside of both thighs in pale veins, too white against her skin, moving downward as if something inside her body was leaking cold.
Drea’s breath broke.
“No. No, please.”
Her hands went to her stomach.
The skin beneath her palms felt cold.
Not cool from the rain.
Cold.
Wrong.
Terror hollowed her out.
She leaned harder against the tree until the bark pressed painfully into her spine.
“My baby.”
Her voice barely existed.
She closed her eyes, tears mixing with the rain.
“Please.”
She did not know who she was begging.
Logan.
God.
The child.
Her own body.
Anyone who might hear her.
She sank partly against the tree, one hand covering her stomach and the other gripping the bark for support. Her knees bent because she could not keep herself upright anymore.
The frost continued downward.
Drea watched it through blurred vision.
Was this what Logan meant?
Was this the strain?
Had the baby been dying all along?
Every strange burst of ice returned to her. Frost on her fingers. The frozen blanket. The wall in Logan’s bedroom. The cold that came whenever she panicked.
She had thought the power was coming from the child.
What if it was taking the child instead?
A sob tore from her throat.
“Logan!”
She screamed his name so loudly pain ripped through her chest.
“Logan!”
Nothing.
Drea pushed away from the tree.
Her legs nearly folded.
She forced them straight.
The forest looked different now. Darker. Thicker. Rain blurred every shape ahead of her. She could no longer remember which direction Logan’s voice had come from.
“Logan!”
She turned left.
Nothing.
“Logan!”
Right.
No answer.
Her heart began pounding faster.
“No.”
She stumbled forward several steps.
“Logan!”
The rain swallowed her voice.
She stopped.
Something black moved above her.
Drea looked up.
The raven landed on a branch directly in front of her.
Her stomach dropped.
It was the same bird.
She knew it without any reason to know.
Water rolled over its feathers. Its claws curled around the branch. It tilted its head and stared down at her.
Drea could not breathe.
“No.”
The raven remained still.
“Go away.”
It blinked.
Drea’s eyes filled again.
“Please go away.”
The bird did not move.
Her heart began to sink before she understood why.
She listened for Logan.
Nothing.
She listened harder.
Rain.
Thunder.
Leaves trembling beneath the downpour.
Her own ragged breathing.
No Logan.
Drea stepped backward.
“Logan?”
Silence.
She shouted again.
“Logan!”
Nothing came back.
Her chest tightened so hard she pressed a fist against it.
She could not hear him anymore.
That was wrong.
He had been close.
He had been shouting.
She should hear something.
A command.
A curse.
His breathing.
Anything.
“Logan!”
Drea began moving again, faster now, stumbling through the mud without knowing where she was going.
The raven launched from the branch.
Its wings beat once above her head.
Drea flinched and looked up.
It flew deeper into the forest.
For one terrible second, she wanted to follow it.
Then something inside her went cold.
Not her hands.
Not her legs.
Something deeper.
A connection she had never known how to name.
Drea stopped moving.
Her mouth opened.
“No.”
The certainty arrived before the thought.
She could not feel Logan.
She had never consciously felt him before. She could not have explained where the sensation lived or what it had been. Yet now that it was gone, the absence was enormous.
There should have been something.
Warmth.
Pressure.
Awareness.
A pull she had spent so long resenting that she had stopped noticing it.
There was nothing.
Drea pressed both hands to her chest.
“Logan?”
The name came out broken.
She closed her eyes and reached for him in whatever way instinct demanded.
Nothing.
“No.”
She tried again.
Nothing.
Her knees weakened.
“Logan!”
She screamed until her voice cracked.
The forest gave her rain.
Drea stumbled forward, sobbing now, no longer caring about the mud or the pain in her stomach. She ran toward where she thought she had last seen him. Branches caught her dress. One tore the sleeve near her shoulder. Another struck her cheek.
She kept going.
“Logan!”
The frost on her legs climbed higher.
She felt it now, a cold burn beneath her skin.
Her child.
Logan.
Both of them slipping away at the same time.
Drea could not decide which terror was worse.
Lightning flashed again.
She saw blood on a tree trunk.
Her breath stopped.
The darkness returned before she could tell whether it was real.
Drea lunged toward it.
“Logan!”
Her foot struck something.
She fell to her knees.
This time she barely felt the impact.
Her hands searched the ground.
Leaves.
Mud.
A broken branch.
Nothing else.
“Logan, please.”
The rain grew louder.
The raven called somewhere above her.
Drea looked up sharply.
The sound came again.
One rough cry.
Then another.
She could not see the bird anymore, but she knew it was there.
Watching.
Waiting.
Her body began to shake.
“Please.”
Her voice failed.
She bent forward, arms wrapping around her stomach as if she could physically hold the child inside herself.
“I’m sorry.”
The words poured out between sobs.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
She did not know whether she was apologizing to the baby or Logan.
Maybe both.
She should have stayed back.
He had told her.
Drea, stay back.
She had kept running.
What if she had caused this?
What if the warning had never been about protecting her?
What if Logan had been protecting the baby from whatever waited ahead, and she had followed anyway?
The idea broke something inside her.
Drea screamed his name once more.
“LOGAN!”
She woke with the scream trapped behind her teeth.
Her body jerked violently beneath the blanket, and for several seconds she did not know where she was. Her hands clawed at the sheets. Her breathing came in short, painful bursts.
Darkness surrounded her.
Not the forest.
A room.
Logan’s room.
Drea turned sharply.
He was beside her.
Sleeping.
Relief crashed through her so hard she nearly sobbed.
Logan lay on his side facing her, one arm bent beneath the pillow. The blanket had fallen low across his waist. His breathing was slow and steady, his face relaxed in a way she almost never saw while he was awake.
Alive.
He was alive.
Drea stared at his chest until she saw it rise again.
Then again.
She pressed one hand over her mouth.
The dream remained too vivid.
Rain still seemed to cling to her skin. She could feel mud against her palms. Her stomach remembered the impact even though there was no pain now. Her legs felt cold beneath the blanket.
Drea threw it back.
Her nightdress was dry.
Her skin was clean.
No mud.
No frost.
She stared at her legs anyway.
Nothing.
Her hands moved to her stomach.
Warm.
She closed her eyes.
The baby.
She had no way to check.
No movement yet. Nothing she could feel. Only faith and fear.
Drea looked toward Logan again.
The dream returned in pieces.
The raven.
The rain beginning the instant Logan told her to stay back.
The fall.
Her stomach slamming into the ground.
The white frost streaking down her legs.
The second raven.
Then the worst part.
The absence.
She could not feel him.
Drea’s eyes burned.
She shifted closer without thinking and rested two fingers lightly against Logan’s wrist.
His pulse beat beneath her touch.
Steady.
Real.
She kept her fingers there longer than necessary.
South Carolina.
The thought came immediately.
The forest in her dream had not been Snow territory.
There had been no snow.
Wet woods. Rain. Mud.
The South.
Drea’s stomach tightened.
Was it only fear?
She had spent the evening talking about leaving. Of course her mind would turn that fear into a nightmare. That made sense. It had to make sense.
Still, the raven bothered her.
She had never dreamed of one before.
At least, she did not think she had.
Why twice?
Why had it appeared before Logan disappeared?
Her breathing started to quicken again.
Drea pulled her hand away from his wrist and sat up carefully.
The room was dim, lit only by the dying fire. The ice she had blasted across the wall earlier had mostly melted, leaving dark streaks where water had run down the stone.
She stared at them.
Another reminder.
Her powers were changing.
Her pregnancy was threatened.
Kael was waiting somewhere beyond the palace.
Noel knew more than he said.
Brianna hated her.
And now Logan wanted them to leave the one place where at least they understood the walls.
Drea pressed both hands to her face.
What if South Carolina was a mistake?
The question came quietly at first.
Then louder.
What if the dream was warning her?
She dropped her hands.
No.
She could not start thinking that way.
Dreams were dreams.
She had been under pressure for days. She had barely eaten. She had learned her child might die. She had discovered new powers. She had fought with Logan, cried, panicked, frozen half his bedroom, and then agreed to cross the country for a treatment she had never heard of.
Anyone would dream badly after that.
Drea looked at him again.
Logan shifted slightly in his sleep.
His brow tightened for a moment and then relaxed.
She watched him until her breathing slowed.
He had said the journey was dangerous.
He had not lied.
That should have comforted her. Instead, it frightened her more because Logan rarely admitted danger unless it was real.
Drea lay back down but did not close her eyes.
She turned toward him and studied his face in the low light.
She remembered his voice in the dream.
Drea, stay back.
The fear in it.
The rain.
The blood she thought she had seen.
The emptiness where he should have been.
Her hand moved across the mattress until her fingers touched his.
Logan stirred.
His hand closed around hers without waking.
The automatic gesture nearly made her cry.
Drea stared at their joined hands.
South Carolina might save their child.
South Carolina might also be where everything went wrong.
She did not know which thought frightened her more.
For the rest of the night, Drea did not sleep.