Daughter of the Frozen Flame

LYRIS was in chaos. News of what had happened at the Queen’s Banquet travelled fast, but no one dared believe the whispers. Truth turned into rumours and the missing prince was presumed murdered by his own step-mother, or imprisoned in a high tower lost to his own madness. Stories of the mysterious girl who could summon ice left citizens terrified and enchanted, but since she had gone against the Queen no one dared to speak in support of her. Since she too had vanished immediately after the disturbance, the royal propaganda was that she had been captured and killed, but there were still whispers that could not be silenced. Where was the body? Who even was she? Too many questions went unanswered, and the castle was too quiet for the people in the kingdom to simply accept what they were being told. More guards patrolled the streets of each city, restrictions in travel became tighter, and Lyris knew that darker times were coming. No one saw the queen for weeks, but her orders for searches and executions came fast and heavy.

The castle servants were still cleaning up the horrors from the banquet, weeks after the night was over. Ice was still melting in the grand hall, and the smell of smoke from the pyre lingered no matter how many times the maids washed the castle fabrics. The courtyard had been ablaze with the bodies burnt the day after the battle. The Queen had not given the guard time to identify the fallen, she just wanted the corpses cremated as soon as she had spoken. The furniture that was smashed in the fighting was still being replaced, and the damaged pieces were being chopped down and used as wood for some of the fireplaces. The Queen, however, was in her chambers. Orders came from The Empress Loreina, who spoke on behalf of her daughter. Devanna was apparently in shock from the attempt on her life, and needed rest to recover from the assault. Rest, however, was all Queen Devanna could do.

It had taken a full day for her mother’s blind and deaf handmaiden to chip away at the tomb of ice that encased her from the waist down. They trusted no one else with the task, for fear of the truth escaping the castle walls. The ice magic had been powerful, far greater than anything Loreina or Devanna could summon to melt it. Devanna had been stuck fast in the gown and in place while the whimpering handmaiden used tool after tool to chip away until finally the queen was free; free, but paralysed still. She could not move or feel her lower half. She was still frozen.

Days went by and both rulers tried to find a spell or a way to break the frozen enchantment, but there was nothing that succeeded. Devanna was confined to her bed, or a chair when lifted into one. Anger coursed through her veins at her helplessness. She was queen; she ought not to have to be carried everywhere. No healer could find damage to her body, so there was nothing to cure, and no enchanter knew where to begin when they had never come across such magic before. A girl who could summon ice and wield it as a weapon? Even legends didn’t speak of such things.
As another healer was escorted from the room and muted with a curse flung from Empress Loreina’s palm, Devanna threw a hand mirror across the room, her roar of anger masking the noise of the glass shattering against the stone wall.
“I will not be confined to this state for the rest of my days!” Devanna shouted, glaring hotly up at her mother who remained calm as ever.
“Control yourself, Devanna. Your anger will not fix your ailment.”
“Then what will?!”
“Perhaps nothing in this kingdom or my own. We may need to find the girl.”
“She vanished, along with that rotten Prince Taiden and their accomplices. I have guards scouring Lyris for them, but so far they can’t even find a hint of them.”
“And they won’t.” Loreina looked out of the tower window, her eyes cast to the calm waters of the ocean that led back to Nephille. “If I am correct they have left Lyris and gone north.”
“North? But there’s nothing north. Only the mountains where madmen go to die.”
“That’s what they would have you believe.” Loreina mumbled, slowly moving from the window to the dressing table. There she picked up a scroll and crossed the room to hand it to Devanna. “It’s true those mountains are inhospitable, home to the creatures that children have nightmares about, but it is not the world’s end.”
Devanna pulled the scroll open and let her eyes fall upon a map of Lyris and the surrounding kingdoms. She saw the mountains to the north, but beyond them there was nothing but blank parchment, blotchy with the damage that comes with age. “I don’t understand.”
“Land is never unclaimed. Not land like this.” Loreina tapped her finger on the empty space and moved away from the bed once more. “At least it wasn’t once upon a time. Someone – someone with great power – removed its tale from our history. Seeing that girl has begun to weaken that enchantment, and now I remember little bits of the stories my grandfather told me as a little girl. Stories of a land our kingdom destroyed. A great war with dragons, of fire and ice. And of a kingdom beyond the northern mountains.”