Page 67 of An Enigma for the Lycan Crown Prince

Samuel stares at me. “What did you just say?”

“It’s complicated to explain, but I see things.”

“Like a vision?”

“No, not that spontaneous and momentary. When I focus on a person, like on you, I can see several of the potential decisions you are going to make. It’s not just a simple follow-up of actions and consequences. It’s much more complicated. As if there are hundreds of options, and depending on your decisions and actions one of them becomes the prominent path into the future.”

“Elden,” Samuel says seriously. “This is an incredibly rare gift. Up to now, I’ve only read of one other lycan who ever had it.”

“Then, you know more about it?” I ask.

While Samuel thinks, I try to focus on another person. Now that I know what to do, it’s so much easier. Let’s see what Dad is up to. To my surprise though, I don’t seem to be able to grasp what he is doing. “It doesn’t work on Dad.”

“From what I know, I could be trickier with people you share a bond with,” he explains. “Many powerful gifts come with a handicap. Yours is probably to ensure you don’t abuse your power and use it for your personal gain.”

He might be onto something because earlier in school, it didn’t work on Flora and Vincent either. “Isn’t it terrible that I have a gift but can’t protect my family with it?”

“You can protect your pack with it,” he says. “And I assume there are ways to use it on your family. They are not a blank-spot, are they? Let’s say, you want to focus on Flora, but you can’t because she is your mate.”

I nod.

“But you probably could focus on Hazel, and try to get glimpses of Flora’s decisions through her.”

I try what he said, focusing on Hazel, and indeed I can spot Flora in several strings into the future. The problem is just that it’s so much more difficult to grasp and to influence it. “It means, if I wanted to change Flora’s fate, I’d need to try to shift Hazel’s decisions and then try to spot how they influence Flora. That’s complicated.” I feel exhausted even exploring the several paths, and I’m not even diving very deep into it.

“It is,” Samuel says. “You need to train this gift of yours properly.”

He is right. Influencing Clive’s fate was easy to do, because I coincidentally spotted it as it was so obvious.

“Elden,” Samuel mutters. “This is not a gift you can use daily or for the fun of it. It’s not a circus act. You could train this to influence outcomes of a war or political decisions. That’s how powerful it is. Please don’t play around with it. Train it, polish it, but don’t use it as a gimmick.”

I rub over my head, feeling incredibly exhausted, as if my whole body is giving in. “You don’t need to remind me of that,” I say.

“I am just worried,” he admits.

“I know, but I promise I won’t abuse this gift.”

twenty-one

The Truth

*ELDEN*

Eventually, I fell asleep after Samuel left to allow me to get some rest. I don’t know how long I have slept, but I wake up to the sun still shining and to Calvin keeping watch.

“How long was I out of it?” I ask him.

“Not long enough,” he says. “You only slept for an hour.”

“Well, sleep is for night,” I say. Truth to be told, I still feel drained, but my mind is still too much on a high for me to truly rest. “Thank you for helping me during my breakdown in school.”

“That’s my job,” he says. “It’s what I am here for.”

Somehow his words amuse me, and I can’t help a chuckle.

“What’s so funny?” Calvin asks, curiously and a tad bit anxious.

“You really are a weird one,” I say. “Anyone else would have pretended to have done it out of the goodness of their heart.”