The clouds shift, moonlight slicing across the ice.
And what stands there, what I was running toward, is not my father at all.
At the fractured heart of the lake, a wide, jagged hole yawns open in the ice, and crawling out of it, half-slithered onto the frozen surface, is the thing that called my name.
A creature of shadow and nightmares.
Its body writhes like smoke trapped in a warped humanoid shape, every movement wrong, bending where no limb should. Long, wiry arms drag across the ice, carving deep, splintering grooves. Its torso shifts and distorts, as if its bones melt and reform with each breath.
Where a face should be, there is only smooth darkness.
Then two eyes ignite.
Blinding white. Bright enough to sear the air, to bleach the shadows from its form.
A mouth rips open beneath them, stretching impossibly wide, lined with rows of razor-thin teeth like shattered glass packed into a bleeding wound. Black ichor spills between them, hissing as it strikes the ice.
The creature coils toward me in a slick, fluid motion, and when it speaks, I hear my father’s voice once more.
Neve… come to me…
And in that moment, under the silvered moon, I understand. This thing did not call me by accident. It chose me. It hunted me, and I almost ran straight into its jaws.
Luceran steps off me in one smooth, powerful motion, planting himself between me and the horror at the center of the lake. His massive wolf body bristles, every hair along his spine standing rigid as frost ripples outward from his paws, threading like veins across the ice.
I tremble where I lie, the cold and terror sinking into my bones.
The wolf lifts his head to the winter moon and howls, a sound so deep it vibrates through my ribs, a tear of raw fury that splits the night itself. Frost blooms out in circles from the force of it, the air crackling around him like breaking glass.
The creature’s head snaps toward him.It hisses, an awful, wet, dragging hiss that scrapes across my mind like claws.
Then it retreats, slinking into the ruptured hole, dragging its limbs behind it.
The ice mends. Cracks weave together. Frost gathers thick and fast, and in seconds, the fracture is gone, sealed as if it never existed.
A perfect sheet of moonlit ice.
I lie there, stunned, struggling even to breathe. The cold night, the monstrous voice, the wolf at my side. None of it feels real, as though I’ve fallen into a waking nightmare.
Then Luceran’s wolf form shudders.
He stumbles once, and I freeze as his body begins to change.
It starts along his spine, a rolling ripple beneath his fur, as though something inside him is forcing its way free. His massive frame bends forward, limbs twisting where they should not before snapping back into place. Shoulders broaden and reshape. Bones crack, reform, fuse again. Paws split into long fingers, claws scoring the ice before curling inward.
His muzzle draws back, fur receding, until only his mismatched eyes remain. Gold and blue. Watching me.
When the last threads of magic snap away, he stands naked on the ice, breath heaving, steam rising from his skin. Runes burn down his chest like blue fire.
He doesn’t look at me at first.
He stares at the lake, jaw clenched so tightly the muscle in his cheek twitches. His hair, long, white, untamed, whips behind him in the wind. He looks almost feral. Not the cold, composed lord of Frostwyn, but an ancient predatory creature.
Finally, he turns towards me, those hungry eyes lock onto mine, and for the first time since I arrived in this cursed palace, I see something in them that stops my heart.
Fear.
Not for himself.
