Page 30 of Dark as the Cursed Abyss

Chloe swallowed. Farah chose the second quickly after. They stood there for a moment, the weight of the decision pressing in. Then, without another word, they lifted the cups and drank. The world unraveled. Violently and all at once, like a thread slowly pulled loose.

The chamber dissolved, gold bleeding into green, stone softening into something living. Chloe blinked and the cold was gone. The weight, the acolytes in the room, all of it.

But it was still a room she stood in. Familiar—painfully so.

The small bed. The worn wooden floor. The soft glow of morning light filtering through stained-glass windows. And yet, now, vines crept along the walls, curling through the cracks, blooming with delicate white flowers that pulsed faintly with life.

The air smelled sweet—warm and safe. Too safe. Her breath hitched as the world around her came into focus. She knew this place. It was on the tip of her tongue. The knit blanket that fell off the small bed in the corner. The raging fire in the corner with two half drank glasses of wine.

A memory tugged at the edge of her mind, just out of reach.

“This is where you send us?” came a voice behind her.

Chloe turned.

Farah stood there, bathed in soft light, her dark hair loose around her shoulders, her expression unreadable but softened—freed of the tension that so often shadowed her.

“You always did have a fondness for this place,” Farah said lightly.

Chloe’s chest tightened. “I didn’t—I’ve never—” She stopped. The words felt wrong in her mouth, like she didn’t know what she was defending. Even though the room felt familiar, Chloe had never been there. At least, she could not remember that she had.

Farah stepped closer. The vines shifted as she moved, brushing softly against her skin. One curled around Chloe’s wrist, gentle, almost curious.

“You really don’t remember?” Farah murmured.

Her fingers brushed Chloe’s arm. light, barely there. and yet Chloe felt it like a spark beneath her skin. The room seemed to shrink around them.

Farah’s gaze dropped briefly to Chloe’s lips, then back to her eyes. “Tell me something,” she said, voice softer now. “What is it you want, little wolf?”

Chloe’s mind flickered—images, fragments, feelings she could not fully grasp. Loss. Longing. Something just out of reach.

And standing there, with Farah this close, with her touch lingering like a fire ablaze, the answer came. Unbidden. Unstoppable.

“You.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Farah

Her fingers dragged slowly along the seam for what must have been the fifth or sixth time, feeling the fine give of the fabric beneath her touch. It wasn’t worn down by years of use, nor stiff with utility like the leathers she had lived in for most of her life. The stitching was deliberate. Crafted. Meant to be slipped over her skin with ease. As delicate and exceptionally stitched as any gown she wore.

Each thread was placed with precision, making the seams nearly invisible. Whoever had made them had known exactly what they were doing. Worse—they had known her.

Farah exhaled through her nose, shifting her weight as she stood in the center of her chambers. The fire behind her crackled low, embers casting a dim, amber glow that flickered at the stone walls and left the corners of the room in shadow. Outside, the wind howled through the mountains, rattling faintly against the glass panes, carrying with it the distant echo of drums beginning somewhere far below.

Haloa had already begun.

Her gaze flicked up toward her reflection.

The sweater was worse than the breeches.

It draped over her frame in a way that should have felt foreign—too warm, too fitted. Almost intentional. The knit clung just slightly at her wrists, her waist, but left enough room to move, to breathe, to fight even, need be. It softened the harsh lines of her usual silhouette, made her look less like a weapon and more like something human.

She hated that it was the most marvelous thing she ever wore. Her jaw tightened as she stared at herself.

“This is ridiculous,” she muttered, dragging her hands down the front of the fabric as if she could somehow strip the comfort from it. “It’s just clothing.”

But it wasn’t. Chloe hadn’t needed to give her this. Haloa was so much more than trinkets and gifts exchanged between friends. Between lovers.