Daughter of the Frozen Flame

TAIDEN’s back ached from being hunched over the large mahogany desk all morning. After breakfast, he had asked for directions to the library, and the ever obliging servants had taken him straight there with Julius following at his heel. Taiden didn’t know what to make of these arrangements. He understood the concept of aegis, but nothing had been formally announced. He appeared to have access to as much of the palace as he wanted and no one seemed to look at him in shock or horror. It was all very much like he was expected to be there and that was the end of that. It troubled him slightly, but right now troubled was all he felt. There was so much to worry about. His kingdom was in an unknown state far beyond his reach. They were in a part of the world he had never even heard of when studying his geography of history back as a small boy. And then there was Xylia. He found himself worrying about her more than anything, which he knew he shouldn’t. She was safe here, and Lyris should be his biggest concern now, not the dragonborn girl who could summon ice to her fingers and had scars he wanted to know better.
“Your highness, this passage might be of interest to you.” Julius pushed a book over the surface of the table to him, pulling Taiden’s thoughts back to the moment and away from Xylia.
He let his eyes scan over the text. It meant very little to him, despite how versed he was in his study of magicks. Runes, ancient artefacts, and wards were usually the stuff of stories told after dinner when guests were full of fine food and finer wine.
“I don’t understand how an entire kingdom can vanish.” Taiden mumbled, digging his fingers into his curls. His hair was on the longer side now, with messy locks falling into his eyes and tickling the back of his neck. “Even with the ancient arcane it just seems impossible.”
“In the last month you’ve met a girl who could control ice, and who turned out to be a lost princess of a fallen kingdom. Yet you still think things are impossible?” Julius asked, arching an eyebrow quizzically at the prince.
“Are you saying you believe all of this?” Taiden was surprised by his Captain. Julius was always the level headed man who rejected most of Taiden’s ideas and beliefs. He thought with his sword and shield, Taiden always said.
“I’m saying, your highness, that after these last few weeks, I wouldn’t reject anything.” Julius said after a moment of thought. Taiden blinked at him curiously until Julius sighed and expanded further. “When we first met Xylia – the Phryensh’a – I thought very little of her. She was scruffy and rude. Then she bared no thought for herself when Devanna’s firestorm reigned down, but still, she was nothing. She was a malnourished scrap of a thing. I thought you would see it for yourself when we parted ways, and I half expected you to have someone else in your company when we met again; someone else who also fit the poor description the seer left you with. Then you told me and I saw for myself what she could do with the ice. It was beyond magicks, your highness. The strange, angry waif of a girl was a fighter, better than some of the men I had trained over the years. And she was willing to die to save Lyris. I never expected any of that the day we met her.” Julius paused, casting his gaze down at the book he had pushed towards the prince. “So, if that was possible, then so is a vanishing kingdom of ice.”
Taiden looked back over the text in front of him. "I know I wasn't a model student for the scholars, but I’d remember Fallycia if I'd studied it.”
Julius frowned. In all his years he had never heard of anything existing beyond the northern mountains. It was wild land where the weather was deadly and creatures of nightmares were still rumoured to roam. He couldn't understand why Fallycia would hide away like it had done, or why no one could even remember its name. More baffling to him was the connection between Lyris and the kingdom of ice. How could there be a direct line between the two that he never knew about? Why was there one? Answers were missing from crucial questions, and Julius simply couldn't relax. Xylia might have been the heir to this realm, but that didn't give the captain cause to trust the King. Yet again he found himself surrounded by secrets and wrapped up in a convoluted plot he didn't even know the entirety of. What was worse was knowing that Prince Taiden felt so strongly about Xylia that he might abandon all reason and go along with whatever madness was afoot here. Because it had to be madness. Kingdoms don't just remove themselves from the tomes of history for the good of it.
"They kept their link to Lyris." Julius said in a hushed voice, still suspicious by that one act. "Why might they do that?"
Taiden shrugged wearily. They were getting absolutely nowhere with the stack of books in front of them. "Maybe we were allies." He suggested half-heartedly.
"But then why hide from us? You are the heir to the throne after all."
"I was also pretending to be completely insane, too." He fixed the Captain with a sceptical look. "Would you have trusted me with the kingdom's secrets when I was running around behaving like a madman?"
"You may have a fair point, your highness." It had taken some time for Julius to understand the game Taiden was playing, and the lengths he was willing to go to in an attempt to restore order to Lyris. Even then there were still moments in which he doubted the prince's sanity. Taiden still led with his heart, and gave into his emotions, and that was something Julius couldn't fathom. It was a form of madness all of its own.
"I expected to find something here though. Even one line about it, but there appears to be nothing at all. It's like it's always been this way, but that can't be the case. A kingdom has supply lines, treaties, annual galas-"
"Unless that kingdom is burnt to cinders during an Imperial War." The steely voice that cut Taiden off belonged to Allela, and when the men turned around her silver eyes were as sharp as her sword's edge. The weapon in question was attached to her hip once more, but she was still without her crested armour. "You're looking in entirely the wrong place for answers. A library in Fallycia holds stories, not the truth."
"Why?" Julius asked the question before he could stop himself.
Her eyes fell on him, cold and hard. "Because no one wants to be reminded of the truth when they can still smell it in the air every morning, every night. There is no escaping what happened to us. Why would anyone want to read about it when we walk on the bones of our own every day?"
She crossed the space in three long, powerful strides. Allela owned Fallycia as much as King Eirwyn ruled it. Julius saw it in the way she held herself. She oozed power, stood tall, and seemed even more fearless in the ice realm. Her rosegold hair was twisted over one shoulder, a thick tendril of pink tickling her collarbone as she approached them.
"You may not embrace the cold like we do, but you smell the smoke, don't you?" Allela waited for the men before her to nod their heads. "It's like the fire you extinguished at the end of a long evening. The embers still warm in the hearth, the logs blackened and crumbling if you risk touching them. The smoke isn't choking, but it's there, reminding you that a fire once burnt. It lingers, maybe for the night, maybe for another day, but you feel it tickling your nose, at the back of your throat. Now imagine it never goes away. Imagine that heat stays, embers and ash sitting like sediment for centuries. The smoke stays, too, like an unwelcome ghost. It haunts Fallycia from the shores to the mountains, reminding everyone of the horror story we wish was just a tale to scare the children into behaving." Allela's face had darkened. If she had ever been scary before, it was nothing compared to how she looked now. Her hand gripped the pommel of her sword so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
"What happened?" Taiden barely whispered, not entirely sure if he wanted Allela to tell the story. She looked like she needed to kill something, and she was armed. He knew what she could do and he didn't want to be on the receiving end of it.
She looked at him, and her anger was coupled with a bitter sadness. Her silver eyes held so many heavy emotions that he was scared to move while her eyes were upon him. As she parted her pink lips, another voice broke through the suspenseful silence, interrupting them.
"Knight Commander! The King wishes to speak with you!" The servant girl fell into the perfect curtsey and then saw Allela's thunderous face. "At your earliest convenience." She added hastily, averting her eyes from the tall woman, choosing to look at the carpeted floor.
Allela sighed, relaxing just enough to shake off her anger at the history of the kingdom. She cast a glance at Julius and Taiden. "It appears you'll have to wait for your history lesson.”
The two men watched Allela walk from the library. She oozed confidence, even in her anger.
Julius turned to Taiden. He didn’t know what to make of the Knight Commander. She was strong, deadly, but she seemed to be far more than her title suggested. In his opinion, a Knight Commander would not have slipped across the border to hunt for seventeen years when she had recruits to train or a position to hold. Plus, Allela appeared younger than himself, considerably so. He reckoned there was a decade between them, putting her closer to Taiden’s age than his own. Nothing made sense in this ivory kingdom.
“What do you think, your highness?”
Taiden leaned back in his chair, brows furrowed deeply. “I think Fallycia is one very confusing puzzle. Thankfully, I happen to enjoy puzzles.”
Julius sighed, shaking his head as the prince leapt from the chair suddenly and darted towards the open door. For once, he wished that Taiden would take something seriously. This wasn’t a game, and Julius couldn’t help but think that whatever secrets Fallycia held were dangerous, and likely to embroil them in another war.