Page 147 of Of Rime and Ruin
“Wrong. That’s my name. Yours is Perrin.”
He gives her a toothy grin. “Nice one.”
“Watch.” She holds up two fingers, and he tracks them slowly with his eyes. “Concussion, likely. Nothing permanent. We need to get you to the surface and Lucas can—” She bites her lip, glancing at me. “We’ll get you sorted, okay?”
She pulls him into her arms and faces my mother. “Can you lead us out of here?”
Chapter sixty-two
Aethan
Thewindcutssharplyacross the frozen crust of the sea. My knees plant on the ice as I help my mother out of the water. Nahla and Perrin are already two-legged, hobbling to the distant shore in the light of the dawn.
Weariness settles heavy in my bones, and my body screams for respite. It’s been a long fucking night, and I’m glad to see the sun.
The clawbeast hesitates, her mouth set as she treads beneath the surface.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “Take my hand.”
She nods curtly. With tentative claws, she reaches for my outstretched hand. Her rough palm slips into mine, and I pull her bulk onto the ice. She crouches low, water rolling off her slick scales. Her claws curl into the ice. The spines along her back flex and quiver as she glances around.
As the wind hits her body, her scales shift in color. Dark blue fades to light, then white. Her spines retreat. Body shrinks.Claws retract. Horns coil into her skull. With a final whip of her tail, it disappears into her tailbone, leaving my mother naked and dripping wet on the ice. Her long, white hair falls into her face, covering her torso and shielding her expression from view.
She gasps and gulps the air like a fish struggling to breathe. A fit of coughing takes her as she hacks up seawater, spitting it onto the ice with a moan. Then she draws a shaky breath, shock written across her face. She lifts her hand and twists it before her face, her soft white skin catching the light of the rising sun. She flutters her fingers.
“Are you okay?” I whisper.
My mother snaps her head up, and she takes in her surroundings, glancing first to Nahla, then Perrin. When she sees me, she cocks her head. She has piercing sky-blue eyes, just as I remember.
“Aethan?” she asks, her voice raspy and raw.
“Hey, Mama,” I whisper. Salt pricks in my eyes.
“You’re sotall.” She smiles, and my chest tightens.It’s really her.“Where am I?” She presses her fist to her forehead and scrunches her face. “I can’t remember. Everything is so fuzzy.”
“You’ve been trapped in this form for a while, Your Majesty,” Nahla says, several feet away. “Can you walk?” She stands with Perrin, her arm looped around his waist to support him. She’s found his cloak and draped it around him. The young guard shivers, teeth chattering audibly.
My mother stares at Nahla. “I rememberyou,” she says. “You were in my head. You shared memories with me. I saw…” She shakes her head, rises to her feet, and takes a step with wobbly knees. I catch her elbow before she falls.
“Let’s get you home,” I say.
We hobble across the frozen Rime, Nahla helping Perrin as I support my mother. I watch Nahla’s form ahead of me, my chest growing warm at the soft sway of her hips. Despite all my effortsto the contrary, she is safe. Shooting irritated glances over her shoulder, but alive.
It’s the best I can ask for.
She’s mad at me, still. I can feel the tension rolling off her body. But mad I can handle. I’ll take her anger over her absence any day, because it means she cares enough to stay in the fight. I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to her, if she’ll let me.
Ahead of us, several figures huddle on the shore. I make out their faces as we grow closer—Deirdre, worried; Lucas, scowling; and the captain of the Frost Guard, cold-stone unreadable. My mother stiffens in my arms, and her fingers curl into a fist. She misses a step, and I haul her onto her feet.
“Nervous?” I chuckle.
“That’s him,” she growls. “I remember his face. The healer who trapped me.”
Ice crawls the length of my spine. “Lucas?”
“He said he could heal me of the curse. He wanted to help. We did several sessions where he entered my mind and…” She shudders. “It backfired. I got so angry, I chased him into the sea. You were there in the shallows. Once I transformed into the clawbeast, I couldn’t shift back.”
I glance toward the shore. Lucas shifts his weight, eyes darting between our faces. Sweat clings to his brow, despite the cold wind.
