Page 134 of The Kingdom of Eternal Ice
“She has a fever,” Aylin explains.
“How is that possible?” Kilah asks. “I know she dropped into the icy lake, but it’s only been a very few hours since then. Wouldn’t it take days for her to develop a fever?”
“Maybe she was sick before that?” Simin suggests, her kind face now full of worry. She keeps brushing some of Azadeh’s hair out of her face. “She is sweating, too.”
“Kilah is right, it happened too fast,” Aylin says. “How did you find her, Prince Endellion?” she inquires, while she starts checking on Azadeh.
“She just muttered something about Cailleach,” I say, furrowing my brows and trying to remember what she said exactly. Everything happened so fast. She was looking at me while coughing up blood and at the brink of fainting. And my whole mind almost froze. But she said something…
Didn’t she say the crazy woman in white spit at her?Caspian asks. He keeps pacing around in worry, his whole attention on our chosen mate.
“She blew…” I begin, before my memory returns. “I think she said Cailleach blew something at her.”
Aylin looks appalled. “She had direct contact with Azadeh?”
“Is that bad?” Kilah asks. “I mean, of course it’s horrifying, but…”
“Go and find Eibhlin, Princess,” Aylin interrupts her. “And, tell her she should fetch my emergency bag from my cottage. She will know what I’m talking about.”
Kilah nods. “Anything else?”
“Have the maids prepare some cold towels, we need to bring the fever down.”
With her last instructions given, Kilah dashes off.
“What can I do?” Simin asks.
“You and the other two princes clean this room from all the little objects standing around and lock them into her library,” she says. “I don’t want her to inhale anything dusty.”
While the others rush around, I stay with Aylin and Azadeh. Aza’s hand in mine feels hot, her body is completely unresponsive. “Did she faint due to her fever?”
“Your Highness,” Aylin says, surprisingly formal. “I… this looks more like she fell into a coma,” she admits.
“WHAT!?”
“You need to let me do my work, please,” she says. “You won’t like what I’m doing next.”
I look from her to Azadeh. “Anything that helps.”
Aylin nods. “Please step back a bit,” she says, right when Eibhlin bursts through the door with Aylin’s bag in her arms. To my surprise, my father follows her, but instead of approaching Aylin he stands next to me.
Aylin and Eibhlin instantly start to prepare some candles, a weird scent engulfing the whole room. Then, Aylin draws a few runes around the bed before grabbing a pendulum and moving it over Azadeh’s face. She exchanges a short look with Flinn, who instantly drags Caelan over to me.
“Just in case,” Flinn says quietly.
“I can behave, you know?” I say.
“I… your instincts are as if she is your fated mate,” Flinn says. “We don’t know how your wolf will
react.”
I feel stunned at his words. Everyone keeps saying the same to me ever since I told them that I felt Azadeh getting hurt. But, I know for a fact that we don’t share a mate bond. It’s impossible that-
A scream pulls me out of my thoughts. Azadeh’s whole body is convulsing, her expression one of agony. Eibhlin tries to keep her down, while Aylin keeps moving her pendulum over Azadeh’s body, drawing more screams from her. The veins on her arms and face turn almost black, her eyes snapping open, but instead of her beautiful brown eyes, they are just white.
With a growl Caspian comes forward.They are hurting her!
With a power I didn’t know I possessed, I pushed Flinn out of the way. Caelan and my father react fast, one of them wrapping his arms around my middle, the other grabbing my arms. I have never felt that angry before. Someone hurt my mate, she is screaming in pain. Someone invaded her mind and her body. They almost took her from me today, and now they are trying to take her from me again.
