This is a sequel to Shadowsoon. I recommend reading that story first.
When that poor girl’s demise finally sweeps Winter away, they get only a three month reprieve—the sweet warmth of loving Spring—before the hellfire of Summer storms in to punish them for the sin of sacrifice. Flesh sears and hope blisters as the heat coils around their ankles and slithers around their chests, squeezing until every breath is a struggle against the weight of the serpentine air. Summer does not care what Winter demanded of them—only that they were not strong enough to resist it. But how can you resist Nature herself?
Shutters are closed, windows are boarded, and no one risks stepping into the eternal day or the Sun’s scorching roil. It takes only seconds to char under the brutality of the light, name evaporating with the rest of the once-was. It is a sick recompense, robbing them of the illumination that kept them safe during Winter’s terrible reign; now, they must survive in sweltering prisons shaped like homes. Night retreats, nowhere to be found—even she wants no part in this. The Sun remains, a judgemental eye ever-visible on the horizon, staring them down into rust and ash.
Summer, unlike Winter, asks for nothing: Summer only takes. It takes, and it takes, and it takes, water and children and elderly and every beloved stray, until it grows tired of them all—deems them undeserving of even its torment—and allows the Sun to set at last. Then, the omens of Autumn will bring a tense chill to the crisp air. Autumn neither asks nor punishes: it warns. Though they will finally be allowed to leave their homes, starving and dehydrated, they will all pass one another silently. They will not look each other in the eyes.
How could they, when they will rely on the disappearance of another to survive another wretched year under the tyranny of the Seasons? Even Spring, gentle Spring, cannot, or will not, save them. They may not be free. They may not even die—not until they are next to be taken.
Every year, their numbers grow fewer, and the torment will continue until the Seasons have taken everything from them. A transgression against Nature by their ancestors has doomed them all, and their debt will not be forgiven so long as one of them still lingers to be collected on.