The Poison Prince

IT never came.

Taiden braced himself for the arrows, squeezing Xylia tight in the hopes he might be able to shield her from them, but they never came. His eyes were closed and he felt an icy chill wash over him as though death itself had already come, but there was no pain that followed. Nothing ripped through his flesh or pierced his heart. He waited for it, feared it, and yet his heart continued to pound beneath his ribs and his blood raced safely through his veins. Then he opened his eyes and he didn’t know whether to be more fearful of what he saw around them than he was of the enchanted arrows.
“Xylia.” He whispered, slowly prying her away from his chest.
She lifted her head from his shoulder and gasped as she opened her eyes. The coldness they felt was not the accomplice of death – at least not today. All around them was solid ice. They were encased in a high dome of it. It glinted back at them as they stared, but none of it showed signs of melting or vanishing. It stood firm with no cracks of hints of an exit.
“Is this another of the queen’s tricks?” Xylia asked as she stepped away from Taiden.
Taiden’s brown eyes were wide as he walked around their cage of ice. “She already had us dead. I fail to see what she could gain from imprisoning us like this.” He pressed his hand against the ice and pushed his weight against it as best as he could with his twisted ankle. Pulling away again his palms and fingers had turned red and he tucked them under his arms to warm them up. “It’s solid as a rock. I don’t think we’re going to be able to crack it.”
Xylia pulled her dagger free from her waist and made an attempt to chip away at the walls. A few tiny chinks were made in the ice, but she knew they would freeze to death long before she could make any sizeable hole in the ice.
“Maybe the queen wanted to prolong your death. Maybe you’ve annoyed her enough that she wants to torture you.” She suggested, sinking to her knees and peering back at Taiden over her shoulder.
“Devanna? Or is that you talking?” He asked with a dry laugh. A moment ago they had been clinging to each other for dear life, but just then it sounded like Xylia resented him just like she had after the incident in the Adavale mayor’s home.
Xylia laughed a rare laugh and tipped her head back. She was so very tired now. Maybe going to sleep and letting death take hold wouldn’t be so bad after all. She shook the thoughts away and wearily pushed herself back to her feet before the dark whispers to give up could come back to her.

In her exhaustion, Xylia stumbled backwards and braced herself against the wall of ice to regain her balance. Against her hand there was a hiss, followed by an almost silent crackling that gradually grew louder and louder.
“Xylia?” Taiden hopped closer cautiously, his eyes fixed on her hand which she daren’t remove from the ice, fearful of what was happening beneath her touch.
The ice began to smoke and hiss. It cracked and popped. Slowly, ever so slowly, it peeled back, melting away from the top to the bottom until a gap large enough for them to fit through appeared. It was narrow at the top, forcing them both to stoop slightly, and wide at the bottom where the grass was now wet and dangerously slippy.
Stunned, they both staggered out into the forest where the daylight stung their eyes for a few blinding moments. Taiden was the first to peer at the arrows lodged motionlessly into the thick sheets of ice, all magicks drawn from them at last.
“Only magicks can stop magicks.” He stated matter-of-factly, turning back to Xylia who was sitting in the dirt.
She blinked up at him, colour drained from her face as she rubbed her soaked hand with the other, bewildered by what had just happened. “Oh.”
“Xylia, the ice was magicks. It reacted to you, but not to me.”
Silence hung in the air for a long moment while the two just stared at each other. Slowly, Taiden’s words hit her and she realised what he was implying. “I don’t have magicks!” She snapped, withdrawing further from him in offence.
“The Draca-“
“-Control fire! And not all of them either. Very few, in fact.” She sighed and tried to run her fingers through her hair but her nails snagged on knots and she winced, and gave up. “That was ice, in case you missed it.”
Taiden hobbled closer and awkwardly sat beside her. She twisted away stubbornly, but he stayed close. “What about your father? You said your mother was one of The Draca-“
“I think if I was from Nephille I would have noticed it sooner! Especially if I’m whipping up ice domes in forests at this point!” Xylia retorted, interrupting Taiden before he could finish commenting on her parentage. She had heard enough of that throughout her life to hear it from him now.

Taiden looked back at the dome. It was still standing in pristine condition aside from the gap created by Xylia’s touch. He was almost certain her melting of the ice had to mean she was the reason it had appeared, too. He looked back at Xylia and thought back to the moments before the ice had saved them. He was expecting to be impaled by arrows, greeting death in agony. He had clung to Xylia and breathed in that earthy scent of hers, felt the stickiness of her skin through her thin clothes and noticed just how…cold…she was. She had been sweating from how far and how fast they had been running, but in Taiden’s arms she had been cold; as cold as ice itself.
“What were you thinking right before we both were expecting to be hit by the arrows?” He asked in a whisper, his eyes alight with a nervous excitement as he gazed sideways at Xylia.
She blinked twice and then twisted back to face him again. “I…I was bracing myself for them. Thinking about you, and my uncle…and then how I’d give anything to be able to stop the arrows.” Her eyes flitted to the out of place dome and then back to Taiden. She shook her head wildly. “It’s impossible. Only the Nephille have the ability to control Magicks. I’m not Nephille – or half Nephille. I’d have known long before my seventeenth year, of that I’m sure.”
It was true. Children of Nephille were able to control magicks before their tenth birthday, even those less naturally gifted. Most showed their abilities without realising when they were still infants. It was a cause for celebration when a Nephilite child wielded Magicks for the first time. Families threw parties and feasts just because a book illustration came to life in a nursery, or because a stuffed toy bounded around the room as though it was real. Nothing like that had happened in Xylia’s life. She was not in any way descended from Nephille. Blood of a Nephilite could not run in her veins.
“This still has to be you. There’s no other explanation.” Taiden said softly.
“It’s impossible.” Xylia repeated.
“Indulge me for a moment, please?” Taiden glanced around for an idea, snapping his fingers when one came to him. “We’re in desperate need of water, Xylia. We need a drink or else we’re going to die in these forests. We cannot make it to the next town without getting water right now.”
“There’s a stream just over there-“
He shook his head. “No. I’m injured, you’re tired, we can’t make it. We’re stuck right here and we’ll die right here.”
“Taiden, this is stupid.”
“It’s very, very real. We’re going to die without water. I need you to think about it. Focus on that and nothing else. Just like the arrows again.”
Xylia sighed and closed her eyes for a moment, breathing in deeply as she concentrated hard on what Taiden wanted her to. Tension was thick in the air as he studied her, waiting for something to happen, but it never did. She sighed and opened her eyes again, shrugging.
“I told you; it was impossible. That ice cave, dome, whatever you want to call it, could not have come from me.”
He heard a dripping noise that slowly turned into a constant trickle. Spinning around as fast as his swollen ankle would allow he laughed at what he saw.

The ice dome had now developed a tap of sorts. The thick wall had produced a melted narrow run, which was now trickling water from the high roof. Pure, fresh and cold, it was the answer to the prayers of any dehydrated traveller in the forest. Taiden hobbled over to it, and with a cupped hand sampled the offering. It tasted as good as it looked. Xylia, meanwhile, looked on with wide eyed and a stunned expression.
“It would seem that I was right.” Taiden said proudly, wiping his lips with the sleeve of his shirt.
“It…it’s impossible.” Xylia mumbled, slowly rising to her feet and stumbling over.
She touched the walls again, and then let her fingers dance under the cold stream of water. It continued to flow and she recoiled in shock at the very fact that it was really there and not some hallucination from her own traumatised and tired mind.
“I think, Xylia, we need to discover who your father was. You are something extraordinary indeed.”
Xylia fell to the ground in a dizzy faint.