Page 164 of The Heart of Winter

For nearly half an hour, I tried every way I could to pull myself higher, to climb, shift sideways, or even jump a little, but nothing worked. With each passing minute, and with the sun lowering on the horizon, I began to realize that I had made a huge mistake. I was paying for my greed.

There was no way Winter could come to help me. There was no way I could jump.

Had I survived starvation just to freeze here on a rock ledge, dying on the face of this lonely cliff?

LAKE

I woke at the crack of dawn, trembling. I knew. Even in my sleep, my body was aching and shivering. From the day Winter’s plane went down in the ocean, I had barely closed my eyes. Every day felt like a million icy needles piercing my skin.

Vividly, palpably… I knew my child was suffering.

I had always had a strange, rather supernatural connection with all my children. I could feel it whenever something terrible happened to them. But never like this. Was Summer’s presence acting like a lens, amplifying my link to Winter? Was it something we had done before, used our energy to save him, and some connection had remained?

I just knew. He was starving, desperate for rescue.

That evening, we found out that the Japanese authorities had decided to call off the search. They were convinced there were no survivors. Despite my pleas for them to search the Kuril Islands, we kept receiving refusals. The plane hadn’t crashed into the water anywhere near them, it had gone down several hundred miles further east.

They saw searching the islands as a waste of time. According to their analysis of the ocean currents in the region, the wreckage couldn’t have been scattered across such a vast area. The final recorded conversation with the pilot indicated that the plane hadn’t exploded into tiny pieces; instead, they determined it had likely broken apart midair, and two large sections had plunged into the ocean.

No one wanted to listen. We had exhausted every possible channel, but all we managed to get was permission to send a single drone. It scanned the volcanic islands we had pointed out but found no signs of life. Meanwhile, I knew, every day that passed was narrowing the thin line between life and death for my son.

I opened my eyes to the dim light of morning. Aiden wasn’t asleep. His arm was wrapped around me, his gaze fixed on my face in the dim light, concern radiating from him.

"Try to get at least a few minutes more rest," he whispered. "I can feel how little sleep you’ve had…"

But my eyes wouldn’t close. Instead, they filled with tears.

"He’s suffering. My baby is suffering so much, Aiden! He’s hungry, he’s cold! I can’t take it, do you understand? I can’t!" I breathed out, my body tensing, my voice breaking. "I can’t stand knowing he’s waiting for rescue, and we’re not sending one…"

"I know," Aiden murmured. "But please, you’re important too, try to get some rest…"

"We have to go there. We have to do something, Aiden."

"Lake, there are dozens of volcanic islands there. Neither Snow nor Summer could say exactly which one. Most of them look the same, each with a single central volcano. Even if we sold everything we owned, we couldn’t afford to fund a private search expedition. A whole crew, a separate ship scouring the entire region for a week, circling every island, sending people ashore… We have to rely on the coast guard."

"Then we need to try reaching the Lowens again. Money isn’t an issue for them!"

"We already tried," he reminded me. "Jacob Lowen hasn’t responded."

But I only squeezed my eyes shut, more tears welling up. I had been crying almost nonstop for a week, my eyelids swollen and heavy.

"You want to give up?!" I gasped, my voice nearly accusatory. "That’s our son! The child of our love, Aiden!"

I felt the way that hit him. He closed his eyes briefly.

"Please, don’t say that, Lake. I love Winter as much as you do."

Swallowing hard, I whispered, "I’m sorry. But I refuse to give up…"

"Even Storm tried. He reached out through Damien, but Jacob is drowning in grief. He just doesn’t believe anyone could have survived the crash. And honestly… nobody can blame him for not wanting to give himself false hope over something so fragile. He doesn’t know about Snow’s abilities. Just like we don’t know the extent of Summer’s."

"We can’t just sit here and do nothing, Aiden!" I almost shouted, then sat up, pressing my hands to my eyes, my whole body aching.

Aiden sat up too, trying to pull me into his arms, but I was stiff in his embrace.

"Listen," he murmured, "we’ll try contacting the local fishermen again. The ones who go out to sea might have a better sense of the area. We can ask them to check the islands they pass by. That’s our best chance…"

"That’s not the region they usually fish in…"

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