Page 166 of The Kingdom of Eternal Ice
Eada screeches. Instead of words, just incomprehensible sounds leave her mouth. Like a flash, she circles me. I feel the surface of the ice getting looser, but unlike last time, I don’t run. I just keep rooted to the spot, having faith in myself and the bond to Endellion and my friends. Little snow crystals appear beneath my feet, spreading throughout the icy surface and covering it all, making it impossible to break.
Eada targets my mind, but after Endellion marked me, my walls are so much stronger. I have more confidence in my abilities, remaining unfazed as she tries to get through to me again.
Eventually, Eada stops, dropping down in exhaustion.
I kneel down in front of her. “You lost your son to the blizzard,” I say quietly. I look around, scanning my surroundings. She is obsessed with water, it seems. “Did he drown? Did he drop into an icy lake?”
She looks up at me, pure pain and sorrow in her eyes. I carefully angle for the teddy bear in my jacket and reach it out to her. “I’m sure Jeremiah wants you to have this.”
Eada grabs the bear, pressing it against her chest, and hovering over it. She weeps, black tears falling onto her hands. With every passing minute, though, her tears become clearer until they are like little crystals dropping from her eyes. “Jerry,” she whispers. “After the blizzard, I just found his frozen corpse, washed up by a nearby river. He must have been so scared,” she cries. “All alone outside in the cold, haunted by the weather, and then drowning.”
I’m not sure what to tell her, because there are no words that can relieve her pain. Instead, I reach out my hand, gently touching her shoulder. I try to pour my feelings through my touch… my relief, my love… forgiveness.
A shudder goes through the woman, her eyes snapping open. I can see more and more clarity in them until, slowly, a shadow seems to move out of her. Eada gasps for her air, clenching her chest in pain. She doesn’t look like the woman in white from the horror stories any longer. She just looks like a grieving woman who has lost everything.
Before I can help her, the shadow transforms into another woman, looking very similar to the being that haunted us all the time by using Eada’s body. She gently pulls Eada into her arms and strokes her hair.
“Cailleach,” I whisper.
Cailleach looks at me. “She will pass. Her body has given up long ago. When that insufferable witch enchanted her, she was already drowning in the lake, planning on taking her life.”
“She is dead?” I say sadly.
“There is no second chance here for her,” Cailleach tells me. “Penelope kept her body alive for her own gains. Now, it’s time to allow Eada to do what she was prevented from doing: to move on.”
I reach out my hand, resting it on Eada’s arm. “May you be united with your son again,” I say.
For a few long moments after the last breath left Eada’s lips, neither of us says anything, until Cailleach breaks the silence. “I assume you still have a task to accomplish.” Her eyes darken. “So do I,” she says.
“The bears here…” I say.
Dark fog surrounds Cailleach before she clasps her hands. “-are free from the spell,” she says. “They will have to deal with the repercussions of what they did, though.”
“They followed Penelope willingly?”
“Not all of them, but their leaders were hungry for power, and led their sleuths into servitude. See for yourself.”
I get up, walking towards the edge of the cliff Cailleach is leading me to, and notice Elio seated above on a rock ledge, while the bears have turned against each other, seeking vengeance from those within them who led them to their demise.
Cailleach turns away from the bloodshed and turns to me. “So, what does Aine’s child want to do next?”
“Wake up the dragon prince,” I say.
“Then, let’s go.”
“You are going to help me?” I ask.
“It’s the least I can do,” she says bitterly. “Penelope bound me first. I was unsuspecting and didn’t see the threat soon enough. But the death of all those innocent dragons, the imprisonment of the dragon crown prince and the slaughter of his family… that was I. Unwilling or not, it is my guilt and my conscience.”
“You are the mother of these lands, aren’t you?” I ask. “The deity that protects the snow, the weather, the lakes and mountains. You are the symbol of these lands, as you stand for winter.”
“You learned a lot,” she says. “And, you are right. That’s who I am.”
“You are a peaceful deity,” I say. “Penelope is at fault, not you.”
“It was my power that led to the downfall of the dragons and killed so many other innocent shifters,” she says. “I will spend eternity making amends.”
“Then, let’s start with the dragons. They will need a deity that protects them while they rebuild their lands.”
