Page 135 of The Kingdom of Eternal Ice
My muscles are quivering, my heart pounding, so that it almost blocks out all the other sounds around me. It’s like my blood is boiling, my body feeling hot first in despair before I’m filled with the coldest wrath I’ve ever felt. It’s like an ice-cold grip around my heart, but instead of numbing me down, it makes me even angrier.
“Oh fuck!” Caelan grunts. “What is this?”
“What’s happening?” Flinn blurts out.
“We need to stop him from shifting,” my father yells.
I feel my joints elongating as Caspian and I merge to one angry being, and shift to our wolf form. Out of my blurry vision, I can see Eibhlin staring at me, her eyes wide in both horror and odd fascination. “Wow,” she utters.
“This is not the right time to be fascinated,” Caelan yells. “Get over here! Now!”
“We are finished, anyway,” Aylin advises, stepping into my vision. A thundering growl leaves my chest. Aylin bows her head to me and gets down on her knees. She bares her neck to me as she reaches a bowl of herbs towards me. “My Ice Wolf Prince,” she whispers as a calming scent fills my nostrils. “We were just trying to help the princess. I know the cause for her condition, now,” she says quietly. “It’s a curse that infected her body. It has already clung to her internal organs. She needs you. She will need you more than ever, to be able to find her way back to us. You and Caspian, not your third form.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, as my anger feels less violent.
“You are on the right track,” she says quietly. “You need to control your emotions further or it will do great damage.”
“Damage?” I growl.
“He can speak,” Eibhlin exclaims. “This is so amazing!”
“Not the right moment, Eibhlin,” Flinn huffs.
I feel more and more irritated. “What’s going on?”
Aylin points towards the mirror in Azadeh’s room. I turn towards it, the mere surprise at seeing my reflection instantly grounding me again. Instead of my usual wolf form, a huge creature blinks back at me. It has the form of a wolf, but instead of fur there are ice crystals and icicles covering my body. My silver eyes are the only reminder of who I am.
“You need to shift back,” a woman’s voice reaches me. She takes over from Aylin and approaches me now, kneeling down next to me and reaching out her hand carefully. She gently touches my head, turning her palm towards me and showing me how my icy fur spikes her hand. “You and Caspian merged into one being now.”
I turn my head to look at her. Her wild red hair dances around her shoulders as if it is flames.
Mother!
“What you are is beautiful and fascinating,” she says gently. “And strong. It’s been very long since we had an Ice Wolf in our family,” she says. “You will learn to control these powers, and we’ll begin with you shifting back.”
“How?”
“Find your connection to Caspian,” she says. “Find the bond to him.”
I follow her advice, reaching out into my mind and easily finding the bonds to my family and wolf.
“Connect to him,” my mother instructs.
I keep looking for my wolf counterpart until I see his dark fur and his ever present gaze. He looks at me full of pride.We are so strong,he growls.From now on, no one will ever hurt our family or mate again.
Yes, but it was so close that we nearly hurt them, instead.
You are nitpicking,he grumbles, but I can see that he is flustered.
No one will ever hurt her again. And we will learn how to handle these powers… whatever they are. We will learn to understand them and become even stronger.
Deal,he says.Our love won’t want us to be out of control. She will want us to be in control of who we are, and not threaten our families.
We exchange one last look, nodding at each other and verifying we are on the same page. I can feel my anger calming down and diminishing completely, as I shift to my normal wolf form first before shifting back to my human form.
I feel exhausted, my limbs weak and barely able to keep me upright. My father hurries towards me and wraps a blanket around me, before helping me up and making me sit on the chair next to Azadeh’s bed.
Then, he turns his attention back to my mother. “Sine!” he blurts out, hurrying towards her and engulfing her in a hug before twirling her around.
