Page 167 of When Sisters Collide
Alena bolted. The shield wall had fallen—the hounds had decimated most of the soldiers, their mangled bodies strewn across the camp. Even the watchtower had succumbed after the ferocious pack swarmed it.
“Alena!” Nik’s urgent voice cut through the din.
Leukos was still on his knees, eyes glazed, an unnatural ice-blue glow radiating from within. The ethereal light flickered like a pulse, spreading beneath his skin.
Alena’s stomach dropped. This wasn’t just exhaustion.
Something was very, very wrong.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
ALENA
Alena’s breath hitched. She dropped to her knees before him, heart hammering as her fingers fumbled with the leather straps of his armour. “Leukos, I’m here,” she whispered. “It’s me.”
“Careful,” Nik warned, his voice taut.
Beneath the armour, ice-blue swirls bled across Leukos’ skin, curling like veins of frost over his shoulders and upper arms. Cold radiated from him, unnatural and biting. Alena’s breath misted between them, and the leather under her fingers stiffened with a thin glaze of frost.
“Leukos!” Theo exclaimed, falling to his knees beside her, his face pale with alarm.
“What’s wrong with him?” Alena asked, panic creeping in.
Theo’s eyes tracked the spiralling frost marks spreading over Leukos’ skin. “He’s burned through too much magic—he’s losing control. The North Wind’s Gift is taking over. His body can’t hold it.” His voice dropped, heavy with dread. “If we don’t stop this… it’ll kill him.”
Alena’s heart slammed against her ribs. “Nik—find a healer!” she shouted, desperation cracking her voice. “Anyone who can help!”
Nik was gone in an instant. The magic crawled further down Leukos’ arms, the air around him turning glacial, every breath biting at her lungs.
“Theo, what do we do?” she demanded, her hands hovering uselessly over his armour. Every instinct screamed at her to hold him, but the cold radiating from him was sharp enough to burn.
Theo planted a firm hand on her shoulder, steadying her trembling frame. “Touch his Mark. You’re the Omega—only you can reach him. Trust me.”
“But—” She searched Leukos’ eyes for any sign of the man she knew, but the glowing ice-blue magic had swallowed them whole. He was distant. Unreachable.
What if his touch froze her again? What if it killed her—or stripped away his Gift forever?
“Do it!” Theo barked, urgency snapping her back. “Now!”
With a shuddering breath, she slid her trembling hands over Leukos’ shoulders. The instant her fingers grazed his Mark, a surge of ice-cold magic tore through her—sharp, merciless. It raged like a blizzard through her veins, freezing her from the inside out. She gasped, her body convulsing under the force, until the world dissolved into white.
When her vision cleared, the cold was gone. In its place lay a strange, suffocating stillness.
Alena was no longer outside, kneeling beside Leukos, but standing in a deserted hallway, its grandeur familiar yet eerie. It could have been Tiryns’ palace, yet everything felt… wrong, as if memory itself had been twisted.
Polished marble walls reflected the wavering light of torches, their long shadows shifting as if alive. The floor beneath her was an intricate mosaic of white, blue, and gold, depicting wavesshattering against jagged cliffs. Above, in a looming alcove, a massive statue of the Sea God stared down—indifferent, eternal.
A guard in Megarian blue approached, theclinkof his armour echoing softly. Relief surged through her. “Excuse me!” she called, stepping forward?—
—but he passed straight through her outstretched hand.
Her pulse stuttered, arm still suspended in empty space.
By the Moon… What was going on?
Movement flickered at the edge of her vision. A boy darted past, quick as a shadow.
“Wait!” Alena shouted, bolting after him. The slap of her sandals rang loud on the marble as she chased him down echoing corridors devoid of life.
