Page 72 of The Kingdom of Eternal Ice
Aylin and Gillean look at each other, seemingly having a whole conversation by just staring at each other.
I turn to look at my protector, but Royan just shrugs helplessly.
“Alright,” Aylin takes a deep breath. “These are just wild speculations, but there is only one type of person who has this kind of eyes, a certain type of shifter.”
“Wait,” Gillean objects. “Maybe we should-”
“No, we shouldn’t,” Aylin argues. “Azadeh saw what she saw, and I don’t doubt it.” She turns to me. “Dragon shifters. Their eyes can turn into those you described when their dragon spirit is on the surface. Unfortunately, we don’t know much about the dragon shifters. They have always lived very secluded and stayed within themselves. In a way, all shifters are like that, which is why we know so little about the smaller populations. A lot of mysteries surround the dragons, though, as they disappeared one day. Even for a small shifter folk, it’s unusual to just be gone.”
“Was it never researched?” I ask.
Aylin doesn’t answer my question, just tosses Gillean a look. The king sighs. “What Aylin said isn’t wrong, shifters like to stay with themselves and not mingle with other shifters’ business. I’m starting to think it’s a flaw we have. So, to answer your question: We didn’t research. And just like Aylin said, I don’t know much about the dragons, either. When I was young, I met a dragon shifter once, and just loosely remember that he turned into a green dragon.”
If I remember correctly, Alana saw a blue one. “They have different colors?”
“Yes,” Aylin says. “The little we know verifies it. I’ve seen a red and a yellow dragon many many years ago, centuries ago. The rarest are supposed to be golden dragons. Even when the dragon shifters were still around, it was said that golden dragons were extinct.”
Centuries… just how old is Aylin? I shake this thought off, and instead focus on the most urgent question. “Favian and Favia,” I say. “They may be some of the last dragon shifters. A female and male one.” I grasp Aylin’s hand. “Is this why they are the two sides of a coin?”
“I think it’s highly likely,” she says. “Although I feel like we are missing something.”
“Dragons are extinct,” Gillean whispers.
“Alana saw one,” I point out. “As a child.”
Gillean clearly looks uncomfortable. “She was a child, close to freezing to death.”
“Why is it so hard to accept that said child was telling the truth?” Aylin points out. “Something saved her back then. And yes, it could have been a bird shifter, but her explanation about what happened sounded too real, too detailed to be just a hallucination.”
Gillean grimaces.
“What?” Aylin asks nonchalantly. I’m surprised by her tone towards Gillean. She really doesn’t care at all that he is the king. “Feeling guilty for having manipulated your daughter into believing she was making this up?”
Gillean grumbles. “It wasn’t intentional.”
“Intentional or not,” Aylin shrugs. “She started to believe she was hallucinating, and now we need to talk to her and make sure to re-awaken her memories.”
“What does the woman in white have to do with the dragons?” I want to know.
“I’m not sure,” Gillean mutters. “But we already suspect she controls the bears, maybe she is also controlling the dragons?”
Aylin frowns. “I wonder… the golden dragons are said to have a special life essence, almost like their blood is sacred. That’s why they went extinct in the first place.”
“And, the cult you talked about?” I ask.
“We don’t know much about them,” Gillean explains. “Sine is currently researching them as well. It’s said they do not believe in the Moon Goddess, but in another deity.”
“In the veiled woman?” I ask. “Flinn said she is called the Cailleach.”
“You have been studying a lot,” Gillean says, impressed. “Yes, that’s who they claim to believe in. But the truth is, it has to be a twisted version of her. Cailleach is not said to be violent or driven by revenge.”
“I wonder how the woman in white is connected to this…”
Both Flinn and Eibhlin told me that Cailleach is a deity, a protective one, and that she can’t be the woman in white. But, how come these two are always mentioned together whenever we look into something?
“Well, the woman in white is probably the connection between everything,” Aylin says. She and Gillean start discussing a few possibilities, while my thoughts keep wandering off. I feel like understanding the woman in white will lead us further than going for a direct attack against said cult we know so little about. Eibhlin said that she is the manifestation of a thought, the embodiment of sorrow.
Who knows what drives her?
