Page 94 of The Kingdom of Eternal Ice
“Oh, I wanted to talk to her, but she was lost in her thoughts and didn’t notice me. She didn’t answer,” the man says.
Something doesn’t add up.You were right, Cas.
I know.Caspian is fully on alert now.She is out there! Something feels wrong…
I don’t wait any longer. I swiftly link my brothers before heading out. Azadeh’s scent still lingers in the air, and I make sure to follow it. It’s easy to pick it up despite the various other scents around us, some warriors are out and on patrol.
At one point, her scent gets less and less though until disappearing completely. Fuck! I curse under my breath, emergency mode kicking in. I ask the patrols, but they repeat what the innkeeper said, that the young princess was out here, but didn’t answer their questions. She didn’t seem to even see or hear them.
I don’t know why, but Erin is the first to come to my mind and I hurry to her cottage, knocking at the door, until she rips the door open. “WHAT!?” she huffs with a glare until she sees me. “I… I apologize, Prince E-“
“Forget it,” I blurt out. “Azadeh left the inn tonight, and her scent disappeared,” I explain swiftly. “Everyone says she just walked by them without recognizing them.”
“Damn it,” Erin curses, grabbing her shawl and closing the door behind it.
“What does that mean?” I ask, noticing how my brothers are running in our direction. I fill them in on what’s going on briefly before turning my attention back to Erin.
“I’m not sure,” she frowns. “I can’t sense any witchcraft here…”
“Fuck,” Flinn curses. “I will take one of the horses and ride through the adjacent fields, just in case.”
“I will grab some warriors and roam the forest,” Caelan offers. I just nod at them briefly and wait for them to hurry away. I swallow thickly, willing my panic down. What happened to my sweet princess?
“Can you locate her!?” I ask.
“I could, but it takes a while,” Erin says, before eyeing me with the same analytical gaze as the day before.
“What?” I ask her, annoyed.
“I apologize, young prince…” She pauses. “It’s just… I think you could locate her.”
“But how? I don’t share a bond with her,” I say.
“But you woke up, knowing that something was off,” she says. “There is a connection between you,” she says. “You just don’t know what kind of connection it is yet.”
She isn’t wrong,Caspian mutters.
Then let’s try it.I say, closing my eyes. As wolves, we are used to meditating and to finding our fates and bonds. And once more I realize that the stream of fate is changing for me. The last time Flinn, Caelan and I discovered new branches in our stream, but it’s even more today. If we were mates, I would have been able to follow the bond connecting us, but I can’t. However, Aza is still connected to me through our fate. The prophecy clearly says so.
I try to think of her, to imagine her in front of me, her regal smile, her deep brown eyes, the way she moves and walks, how she tilts her head when she listens, how she licks over her lips when she thinks deeply and brushes through her hair when she is embarrassed. The sound of her voice and the way her laugh sounds like bells in the wind. The way she treats everyone with respect and kindness, and how she emits so much warmth.
So much warmth…
Like the sun shining on sand dunes….
Something inside me seems to tug.There it is!Caspian exclaims.Let’s follow it!
I follow the hint of warmth I just felt, ignoring everything and just walking forward, until step by step the warmth gets stronger. I faintly register Erin following me, but she doesn’t interrupt me. In front of my inner eye, I can see a person radiating a soft orange light… like when the sun sets. It’s her. She is standing in front of me, her head tilted to the side slightly.
Now that I found the connection to her, her scent fills my nostrils again. Whatever blocked it lost its power. “I can smell her again!” I call towards Erin, before running towards the direction her scent comes from.
Erin and some of our warriors follow me. Her scent leads us away from the pack and town, over a snowy path towards a frozen lake. Azadeh is standing on it. She walks from one spot to another, gesturing something towards someone. I halt, signaling my men to stop. “What is she doing?”
Erin and I carefully walk over the icy surface of the lake. I can hear Azadeh saying something to a person I can’t see. “Is she hallucinating?”
Erin frowns, before her eyes widen. “Close enough. She is sleepwalking and at the same time being manipulated in her sleep,” she says, worried. “This is not good, young prince! Someone lured her out here in her sleep! Her mind was vulnerable because we worked on the connection.”
“But why is it dangerous for her?” I ask.
