The next couple days seemed to pass by in a blur. Horseback riding lessons went much more smoothly after Marian helped me, and I think Sigurd and I were even getting a little friendship going, though he was hard to read, being a horse and all. Yesterday I even managed to get him up to a gallop without falling off, and I was pretty proud of myself. Vidar shot Marian disapproving looks, but she came to each lesson after that, helping me saddle Sigurd and take all the gear off afterword, giving me huge grins and a thumbs up when I was doing something right.
Lessons with Erik were going a bit differently. The sword play and hand to hand were all right, progressing smoothly even. The meditation – safe to say – was not. We were even doing two lessons a day now, one after horseback riding and one before.
“How much longer do I have to sit on this floor?” I could hear the whiny note in my voice and it made me cringe, but my butt was killing me.
Erik’s back was ramrod straight. Somehow he seemed perfectly relaxed, even though we’d been sitting on the hard stone floor for twenty minutes straight. I couldn’t keep composed, I was fidgeting and grumpy.
“As long as it takes,” he said shortly.
I squeezed my eyes shut, miserable and furious with myself. He was probably getting fed up with me. For the last three days he’d tried to get me to “unblock” myself all the way, but it was a frustrating, painfully slow progress. As far as I could see, no progress had been made at all. All I could see was blackness now, the inside of my eyelids. I tried to force myself inwards, to push the stupid block further out of the way. My fingernails bit into the palms of my hands as I grew more and more frustrated with myself. Anger flooded my chest, making it tight, making me grind my teeth together. He must think I’m not trying. He must think….
“Megan…”
Erik’s voice was alarmed. My head jerked up and my eyes snapped open. I was sitting cross-legged, my fists on the ground, something sharp was digging into my knuckles. All around me was a circle of thick, slippery ice. It encased both my hands, running up my arms, freezing the fabric of my shirt. The floor in front of me was frozen solid.
Now he looked excited, “Just now, what were you thinking? What were you feeling?”
“I…I was feeling…mad,” I stared down at the ground in shock. The ice had begun to melt into slush already, “I was frustrated.”
He looked thoughtful, “I guess that would open your powers up fully. Can you make yourself mad at the drop of a hat if you need to?”
“I think so…” I shrugged, “I mean, sure why not.”
There were things I could think about to drum up frustration when I needed to.
“Alright,” Erik nodded, climbing to his feet with a groan, “that will have to do. Just remember your trigger is anger. When you need the ice, access it that way. It shouldn’t be hard in battle. Eventually we’ll fine tune it, but we only have another week or so.”
“Does that mean lessons are over? No more meditation?”
He laughed at the hope in my voice, “You wish, don’t you? No, we’ll still utilize every day we have left.”
“Alright,” I glanced up at the clock, “it’s almost dinner time though. We’re done for today, right?” I was tired and sweaty for riding horses and sword fighting. If I went quickly, there was just enough time for a bath before dinner. There was no way I was going like this.
Erik looked over at the clock as well, “yes, alright. Same times tomorrow though. You go on, I’ll clean up. I’ll see you at dinner.”
I groaned in reply and shuffled for the door, my legs and backside aching from sitting on the stupid floor for so long. Walking outside the training room and into the halls was like emerging into a different world. The training room was always cleared out by the time Erik and I had our second lesson, so it had been silent, but the rest of the castle was bustling with activity. Just a few more days and we’d been going to battle. The jotun were preparing. I pushed down the dread that was trying to seep up into my chest and suck the air from my lungs.
Don’t think about it.
To get from the training room to hall where our rooms were, I had to go down a few different corridors, pushing past servants on their way to various destinations, and tall fire jotun carrying armfuls of leather or chainmail. One of the biggest rooms on the floor I was passing through now was the weapons room, not for training, like the huge hall I’d just been in, but a room dedicated to storing weapons only. There were over twenty jotun sitting inside, talking to one another loudly over the hammering and clinking of metal. They were constructing chainmail. Shirts their men would wear under tough leather tunics into battle. I hurried past them, trying not to think about someone making me one of those. When that happened, I knew it was all real. That I was going into battle soon.
I had to squeeze past a group of fire jotun who were sweeping by, nearly taking up the entire stone hallway. One of them, the giant in the lead, was Surtr. His long black beard was clipped in the middle with a golden link set with a red ruby, and his chest plate was gleaming brass today. He was every inch the king, even the way he barged forward. He was deep in conversation with the person to his right, a well-muscled woman with long brown hair, a strong jaw-line and fierce, blue-green eyes. She was wearing armor as well, except while Surtr’s was brass, her chest plate and arm guards were silver.
The king nearly ran into me, and the woman held out a hand to pull him up short. He looked at me with wide eyes, “Ah! Amora, didn’t see you there lass. I nearly ran you over. Apologies.”
A few of the other fire jotun who were trailing behind the two warriors looked amused. Obviously they were used to Sutr wandering around bumping into people.
“That’s alright,” I gave him a smile.
He seemed to remember his manners with a start when the woman beside him gave him a swift elbow in his side, “Ow, yes! How rude of me. Amora, this is Angela, my battle tactician. A first rate solider. Angela, meet the ice princess, Amora.”
Angela gave me a curt nod, “nice to meet you, Amora.”
“You can call me Megan,” I did my best to pretend she wasn’t as intimidating as all hell.
She nodded again. Okay, clearly the strong silent type for now. I stepped back to let them go by, but just before they did, Surtr turned to me, “we’ll be having a planning meeting tonight after dinner. Will you join us, lass? I’d say it’s important we include you, considering you’ll be leading your frosties.”
My stomach lurched. It was starting to feel very real indeed. I tried to keep a straight face and nod like it didn’t affect me at all, “that sounds good. Where should we meet?”
“Same room as last time for private talkin’.” He patted me on the shoulder with one of his meaty hands, nearly knocking the wind out of me, “We’ll see you there, lass.”
“Okay,” I watched them sweep away down the corridor, their entourage trailing after them. I turned and hurried for my room, eager to get to relative silence and a steaming hot bath.
I shut the door firmly behind me, already peeling off sweaty clothes as I headed for the bathroom. The tub in this bathroom was nothing like the one I’d had at the frost palace. It was an old, steel clawfoot. Thankfully everything else was old fashioned, but they still had plumbing. I would have been in serious pain if I’d had to haul buckets of water at this point.
I ran the bath as hot as it would go and then stepped in, forcing myself to sit down, even though it was scorching. It would cool down fast, as bath water seemed to do more and more lately when I stepped into it. Maybe it was something to do with coming into my powers. Someday would I sit in a bath and have it turn to a solid block of ice? I glared at the water in front of me, swishing it around with my fingers. It had better not.
Twenty minutes, then the gong went off outside, reverberating through the castle. Dinner time. I sighed and hauled myself out of the bath, water coming off my skin in sheets. I stepped onto the red carpet and stared at my body in the mirror. This mirror was far smaller than I was used to. Obviously the frost jotun were more vain then the fire. It was almost a habit now, to examine myself in the mirror after a bath or ashower. Just in case there were any more weird things happening to me. Any strange changes I should know about. You know, like wings or a tail or something. Nothing was impossible, was it?
I was fine though. No wings, no tail. Just me, tall and pale and…sparkling? I paused. When I had turned in the mirror I could swear my skin had glinted slightly. I looked down at my arm, studying it closely. My jaw dropped.
Tiny water droplets were stuck to my skin. They had solidified into ice, and decorated my body here and there, like party sequins. Utter shock made me stand still for several minutes, trying to process this. What did this mean, exactly? This hadn’t happened before. I spun and stared at myself in the mirror again. Every movement made my skin catch the light, the ice that painted me glittered and shimmered, like I was decorated with thousands of tiny diamonds.
I couldn’t breathe. It was beautiful, but eerie. I wasn’t supposed to shine. It wasn’t right. Would these specks of ice stick to me permanently? Would every water droplet that landed on me turn to ice? I scrubbed my hand across my arm, heart in my throat. To my relief the specs of ice came off easily, showering to the floor around me where they began to melt almost instantly.
Again the dinner gong sounded, making me jump. I dashed over to the shelf on the wall and grabbed a towel, relieved that I was able to scrub all of the ice off. Okay, I could live with that, as long as it came off. I would have to ask Erik what was going on at dinner, maybe he would know what that was all about.