Where The Ice Gives Way Chapter 82

**Charlotte**

We have lunch outside. The guys dragged a long folding table and some chairs into the yard. I help Mara bring out the food, and everyone settles around as we eat. I sit between Charlie and Blake, and between the pair of them, my plate quickly becomes overfilled. The sun hangs low but bright over the yard, catching on the snow and turning the whole place white and gold. I glance at Blake once. Then again. He catches me the second time, and the corner of his mouth shifts upward. I look back at my plate fast enough that Charlie snorts beside me.

After lunch, dishes are stacked, chairs are stacked, and Theo is sent to carry things inside and complains the whole way. Mara takes her time wiping her hands on a tea towel before she looks at me and says, very gently, “Are you up for a little more?” I swallow the last of my drink and nod. “What kind of more?” Her eyes soften as she smiles. “Would you like to learn about your wolf?” That gets all of me excited. “Yes,” I say a little too quickly, not even trying to hide my smile. “Good.” She leads me inside and straight into the living room. The second we step through the doorway, she turns and looks at every man within hearing distance. “Out,” she says. Theo gasps dramatically. “What?”

“You heard me. Go and busy yourselves. She doesn’t need an audience.” Theo presses a hand to his chest. “I’m not an audience. I’m supporting.”

“You’re noise,” Mara says flatly. Charlie laughs, and Blake looks like he wants to argue, but then thinks better of it when Mara gives him a brow. Gareth takes his coffee and goes without any complaint. John follows, dragging Theo out as the latter mutters something about being deeply unappreciated. Blake is the last to leave. He pauses in the doorway, and I swear he pouts at his mother before she points again in the direction for him to leave.

Once the room is empty, Mara crosses to the tall old cabinet by the wall and opens the lower door. She pulls out a huge, old book. The leather is dark and worn smooth in places from age, the edges of the pages uneven and thick, the spine bowed slightly, as if it has survived too many years and too many hands to be anything less than stubborn. Dust lifts from it when she sets it down on the coffee table with both hands. “That looks ancient.”

“It is,” Mara says. She lowers herself onto the couch opposite me and opens the cover carefully. The pages inside are yellowed and brittle at the edges, the writing dark and elegant and faded in places where time has chewed through ink and meaning. She runs one finger lightly down the first page before glancing up at me.

“This is one of the very few texts that mentions white wolves,” she says. “Most of what we know comes from fragments, copied stories, and old pack histories passed down through word of mouth. With your help, we may be able to learn and record more.” Mara turns a few pages, scanning, until she finds what she is looking for. Then she begins to read.

“White wolves were once said to be the balance between wolves and the humans they are bound to,” she says, her voice slowing over the old words. “They were not common, even in the earliest records. Their wolves were noted to be calm where others were not, and their presence was said to restore order in those who had been broken from it. There are stories of wolves losing their mates and, with them, losing the last of their humanity. Becoming wild, feral and unable to return to themselves. Where force, grief and pack failed, the white wolf’s howl brought them back.” She turns the page carefully, fingertips hovering at the corner before she eases it over. “There are notes here about speed,” she says. “About agility and how white wolves could move in ways other wolves could not. Fast enough to outpace threat, but quiet enough to move unseen.” I smile a little despite myself. That part, at least, sounds familiar already. Mara’s eyes move lower down the page. “And here...” She narrows her eyes slightly. “Masking scent.”

“What?” She taps the line. “It says they could conceal themselves. Hide their scent from those tracking them.”

“That’s... useful.”

“That,” Mara says dryly, “would be one word for it.” She reads a little more, then stops. The page has darkened at the bottom where age and moisture have eaten through the ink. Whole sections are there, and then not there, the words falling away into stains and half marks and gaps too large to fill by guessing. “That’s annoying,” I mutter. Mara laughs softly. “Yes, it is.” She turns a few more brittle pages and finds another passage that has survived a little better.

“A white wolf’s power is strongest when she is calm, centred, and safe.” Mara pauses and looks up at me to make sure I’m listening. “It says panic weakens it. Grief distorts it. Fear can scatter it.”

“So if I’m scared,” I say slowly, “it won’t work?” Mara tilts her head. “I think it still will, but maybe not with the kind of control you’ll want. The best way to start,” she says, closing the book carefully and resting her hand over the cover, “is not with force.” She leans back slightly against the couch, tea towel still forgotten in her lap, and says, “We start with stillness.” I must be looking at her funny because she laughs and smiles, tapping my leg. “Meditation.” I blink. “Really?”

“Really.” Her mouth twitches. “Before you make that face, hear me out. You need to learn where you end, and Shanti begins, and where the two of you meet as one.” She taps two fingers lightly over the centre of her chest. “You need to know how to go inward on purpose. How to steady yourself. How to feel your own body before the world gets to it first.” I sit back slowly, thinking, and Mara’s voice grows quieter. “Pray to the Gods, if that feels right to you. Speak to your higher self. Sit with your wolf. Let the noise go still enough that you can hear what she is trying to tell you.”

I look at the cover of the ancient book sitting between us. At everything it holds and everything it doesn’t. Then I look back at her. “How do we start?” Mara smiles. “By breathing,” she says. “And for once, doing nothing else.”