Chapter 31
CHAPTER 31
IVRAEL
I ’m still lost in the afterglow of Lara’s touch, my skin humming where her warmth branded me, when the voices reach me.
They slice through my pleasure-hazed mind—harsh, determined voices that don’t belong in my maze. My body tenses, every muscle coiling tight as instincts I didn’t realize I possessed roar to life.
Protect. Defend.
Kill if necessary.
“I don’t think those voices are real,” Lara says, her voice still languid, her body relaxed. “I think the maze amplifies whatever you’re worried about.”
“Oh, these are real. Not the usual magical whispers meant to unsettle visitors—though I don’t doubt you heard those earlier, too.”
“Oh, my God. They are?” She shakes her head, closing her eyes for a moment and swallowing hard. “I swear, this is the most fucked up, terrifying place.”
“Stay behind me,” I whisper, but she’s already moving, pressing herself against the icy wall.
Her golden-red curls catch the light filtering through the crystalline maze walls. And her eyes—Goddess, her eyes are wide with a fear I haven’t seen since that first day in the Trasqo Market.
The sight sends a molten rage coursing through my veins.
My fingers curl into fists, nails biting into my palms. Frost crackles beneath my skin, spiraling inward and out in patterns I can’t control. The magic writhes inside me, different somehow—wilder, more primitive than anything I’ve felt before.
“The girl has to be in here somewhere.” The hunter’s voice bounces off the walls, the words distorted yet unmistakable. “The duke can’t hide her forever.”
Hide her?
The presumption sends another wave of that strange, burning rage through me. As if Lara is something to be hidden away, as if she belongs to anyone but me.
Mine.
Fury rises in my chest—a howling winter storm, a maelstrom of razor-sharp ice crystals that threatens to tear me apart from within. When it hits the rage, violence billows inside me like steam.
The temperature around us plummets. I should moderate my power, protect her from this bone-deep cold, but I can’t seem to rein it in.
Not now. Not with these threats so close to what’s mine.
My blood feels strange, alternating between burning hot and freezing cold, as if two natures war within me. The sensation is familiar from my recent power fluctuations, but stronger now, almost overwhelming.
“Found fresh tracks.” Another voice, closer this time. “She passed through here recently.”
The words send ice crackling across my skin—actual ice this time, not just the usual frost. Something is very wrong with my magic, but all I can focus on is the threat in those voices.
They’re hunting Lara. My Lara. The possessive thought triggers another surge of that strange power, and this time it brings pain with it—sharp, transformative.
New.
A sound builds in my throat, rumbling up from deep inside—not quite a growl, not quite a roar, but ancient and terrible, resonating through my chest like the crack of breaking ice, vibrating in my bones with a frequency that sets my teeth on edge.
Pain lances through me, sharp and bright, starting at my sternum and radiating outward.
My skin feels too tight, stretched thin as new ice over deep water, ready to shatter at the slightest pressure. Every breath burns in my lungs, the air itself seeming to turn to steam with each inhale, then freeze and crystallize with each exhale.
The magic builds to an impossible crescendo, ice and fire warring in my blood until I think it might tear me apart. Perhaps it already is.
“Ivrael?” Lara’s voice is barely a whisper, but it cuts through the roaring in my ears like a blade.
She reaches for me, her hand extended, warmth radiating from her palm—warmth I suddenly crave and fear in equal measure.
I stumble backward, away from her touch. Something’s happening to me, something wild, something I can’t control. The magic pulses beneath my skin like a living thing, no longer content to be contained in this too-small form.
I try to warn her away, but the words twist into an uncanny groan as my body rebels against itself.
My spine writhes and cracks, vertebrae grinding against each other. My bones begin to shift and crack as I’m torn apart and reformed simultaneously.
The sound that tears from my throat echoes off the maze walls—part scream, part storm wind howling through mountain peaks. It carries all the fury of a midwinter blizzard, all the loneliness of ancient ice fields.
My vision blurs and fragments, the world seeming to splinter before me. Through the haze of pain, I see Lara’s face—the mixture of concern and fear in her eyes sends another wave of that protective rage surging through me.
Must protect her. Must keep her safe.
The thoughts pound through my mind with each thundering heartbeat, driving the transformation faster, harder. The sensation is excruciating—yet underneath lies an odd sense of rightness, as if my body is finally becoming what it was always meant to be.
I welcome the pain now, embrace the change. Anything to become strong enough to keep her safe.
Mine to protect. Mine to save. Mine.
The thoughts spiral through my mind as my body continues its brutal metamorphosis, each crack and shift bringing me closer to what I truly am.
“What’s going on?” Lara moves toward me again, her face lined with concern that makes my heart clench even through the waves of pain wracking my body.
I hold up a hand to ward her off, but the gesture fails as I stare in horrified fascination at my own fingers. Ice-blue scales erupt through my skin like frozen flowers blooming, spreading up my arms in crystalline patterns that echo the frost fractals I’ve created my entire life—but these patterns are becoming my skin, transforming flesh into living ice.
Scales spread like a winter storm across my back, my legs, each new patch burning with cold fire, each new scale bringing fresh agony.
I watch helplessly as my fingers elongate, nails hardening and sharpening into translucent claws.
“Run,” I manage to grind out past teeth that are already sharpening, lengthening. “Get out of here.”
Before you see what I’m becoming. Before you witness the monster emerging from beneath my carefully constructed facade.
She should run. Anyone sane would flee from what I’m becoming. Instead, she takes another step closer, plants her feet, and lifts her chin in that defiant gesture I’ve come to know so well. The one that makes me want to shake her and kiss her in equal measure. “I’m not leaving you.”
My shoulders split apart with a sound like ripping paper as wings, massive and powerful, force their way through muscle and skin. Every nerve ending screams as new bones form and extend, as gossamer lattices of membrane stretch between them. They unfurl with a sound like silk over ice, catching the light in patterns that make my eyes ache.
Through the haze of pain and power, I see Lara pressed against the wall. Her face—Goddess, her face holds a mixture of horror and fascination that pierces straight through my changing heart. I try to tell her again to run, to save herself from what I’m becoming, but my face...
My jaw extends with a series of sharp cracks, teeth lengthening into daggers of pure ice. Each new tooth crystallizes with a sensation like lightning strikes of cold fire. My tongue shifts and changes, becoming something forked and alien in my reforming mouth.
The world seems to shrink around me as I grow taller, larger, my perspective tilting and changing until I tower over where Lara stands. She looks so small now, so fragile.
The hunters’ footsteps grow closer, their boots crunching on the ice-covered ground. The sound sends fresh rage coursing through my veins like liquid nitrogen, super-cooling my blood until even my tears freeze solid before they can fall.
I will not let them have her. I will not let anyone hurt her.
The thoughts pulse through me with each beat of my transforming heart, driving the change faster, harder, remaking me into something powerful enough to keep her safe.
Even if it means becoming the very monster I’ve always known lurked beneath my careful mask of Ice Court control.
My blood sings with a strength I’ve never known, demanding release. The maze trembles around us as my power builds, and for the first time I understand why the firelords guard the secret of their first Change so carefully. This isn’t just transformation—it’s rebirth in its most primal form.
The Caix part of me wants to scream at the overwhelming sensation, but what emerges is a roar that shakes icicles from the walls.
In this moment, I finally understand why my magic has been so out of control. Realize not just how I’ve always been different from other Icecaix, but why. How my father’s heritage—Starcaix and firelord—mixed with my mother’s pure Icecaix.
I am Caix and I am firelord.
I am both, and I am neither, but in this form, I am finally, perfectly myself.
Three hunters round the corner and freeze, their faces draining of color as they stare up—so very far up—at what I’ve become.
My new form towers over them, and I feel a savage satisfaction at their terror. Every breath I take sends clouds of frozen mist into the air, the temperature plummeting until their own breath freezes solid before it can cloud. The cold radiates from me in waves that make the very air crystallize.
“But…” one whispers, voice trembling. “The duke was supposed to be here, too—not this.”
They didn’t just come for Lara—they thought I would be too weak to stop them. That I would be vulnerable, distracted, my powers failing like every other Icecaix.
Rage builds in my chest, colder than the deepest winter night, sharper than the icicles forming at my command.
They are about to learn what it means to wake a dragon of ice.
These men threaten what’s mine. They dare to enter my domain, to hunt what is mine.
Mine to protect. To cherish.
To save.
Even if that means saving her from myself and all my careful plans.
Even as the predator in me yearns to attack, a deeper truth crystallizes in my mind—all my careful plans, all my justifications about saving our world, have been nothing but lies I told myself to avoid one simple, devastating fact.
I love her.
The realization changes everything—my plans, my purpose, my very nature.
The ice in my veins sings with it, even as my heart contracts with the knowledge of what I must now choose to do. Or perhaps what I’ve already chosen, from the moment I first saw her in that market, though I didn’t know it then.
I am no longer simply the Duke of Starfrost, no longer merely a pawn in my own careful game, but something new. Something that terrifies even me.
My lips pull back from my teeth, and the sound that emerges is the crack of a frozen lake giving way. I throw back my head and roar, the sound like a thousand years of fury unleashed at once.
Power surges through me, raw and ancient and absolutely mine.
I am the heir to both ice and fire, formed into something new, into the very soul of ice, and I will destroy anyone who threatens what’s mine.
The certainty of it burns through me colder than any flame. My claws flex, scoring deep grooves in the frozen ground as I prepare to strike.
I am become winter itself.
The hunters turn and run.
Too late.
Far too late.