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Water is rebirth.
You will survive in the water.
And it wasnear. I could smell it.
I reached out with my hand to crawl when a set of claws burst from my fingertips. Blood dripped onto the snow and while I screamed, I dug into the earth, using my claws to pull myself forward, propelled by my one and only goal—water.
Even as I crawled, my bones moved, fusing into something that made me feel completelyother. The knowledge that I was no longer human passed through my mind before I rose to my feet with what energy remained in my body and staggered into the grotto.
My vision was blurry, but I knew where I was because of the lingering scent of jasmine in the air. I came to the edge of the pool and broke the ice layer on top as I waded into the depths. The water cradled my body in a cold embrace, and the burning in my blood and the ache in my bones ceased.
“Isolde.”
Adrian stood on the bank, and even in the dark, his eyes glittered.
“Stay,” I said. “I will be back.”
Then I submerged myself beneath the water, and there was no pain as I felt my body transform and become a foreign thing—an animal, covered in thick black fur.
Reemerging, I crept to the shore on all fours, holding Adrian’s gaze as I sat, allowing a long, black tail to curl around my feet.
The corner of my husband’s lips lifted.
“Aren’t you a beautiful beast?” he said.
I narrowed my eyes at him, allowing a growl to escape my mouth. I did not appreciate his humor so shortly after becoming the very same creature that had killed so many of my people.
I had become an aufhocker.
I was an omen of death.
Six
Isolde
When I woke, it was cold.
I sat up, holding my blankets to my chest, noticing the shutters were open. Snow had gathered on the ledge while flurries fell, languid and delicate, to the floor.
I rose, naked, and crossed to the window.
Adrian’s room overlooked part of the palace gardens. Yesterday, everything had glittered with a dusting of icy crystals. Today, nothing was visible above heavy drifts of red-stained snow.
Gavriel had been right. Winter did come fast.
I should close the shutters, but I couldn’t look away from the garden below as I remembered toiling through the snow to reach water, and when I had emerged, I had been something monstrous.
A darkness gathered in my chest, as I recalled that I had become an aufhocker.
The very thing that had killed my people in Cel Ceredi.
And while I was somehow once again in my human form, I felt different, altered. I looked at my arm, where the aufhocker had bit me, where Adrian had bit me—it was fully healed. I looked at my hands, spreading my fingers wide—fingers that had sprouted claws last night. Something gathered in my throat, a hysteria I wasn’t certain I could quell.
I did not want to be this—whateverthiswas. A shifter. A creature that craved extinguishing life.
The door opened and I turned as Adrian entered the room.
He stared at me, his eyes like embers, and as his gaze trailed my body, I warmed beneath it despite the winter air.
