Episode 10 + 4 - Cold Hit Me
534 Words
Icelynn wouldn't stop looking me inquisitively.
She didn't move.
Not ogling me as usual. No tilted head, no honey-sweet smile that meant she wanted something. She seemed serious as ever. Jaw set. Eyes narrowed.
The kind of look she gave when she thought someone had stolen from her.
I exhaled. "Look, if this is about Ayla, just drop it."
My voice came out flat. Tired. "We only met yesterday and you know I don’t care."
That was the lie. Or half of it. I didn’t care about titles. About court games. About who stood where.
But Ayla? The girl who walked out of the forest with a miracle and mud on her boots? That was different.
She then closed in.
One step. Two. Close enough that I could smell the winter-rose perfume she always wore. The same one since we were children.
"Maybe," she said. "But it’s not her."
She saw me squeeze my face in confusion and she said again, "It’s you."
I asked, "What are you talking about?"
She studied me. Not my clothes. Not my empty hands. Me. The space where my sigil used to burn under my skin.
She said that she knew me more than anyone.
That she could tell something was wrong with me.
And that it started from the night I was absent from the castle.
I swallowed with difficulty.
Because I knew she liked me since childhood.
She’d told me once, when we were thirteen and hiding from lessons in the orchard. Said it with peach juice on her chin and her whole face red. I’d laughed. She hadn’t.
And due to her greedy nature she kept eyes peeled for me all the time for unlucky victims who wanted to have me.
Any girl who smiled too long at me ended up with her cloak missing. Any lord’s daughter who danced too close found her horse missing the next morning. Icelynn didn’t share. Not toys. Not people. Not me.
She kept on visiting the kingdom with flimsy excuses because she claimed to miss me.
"The spring festival," she’d say. "The autumn hunt. The winter frost fair." Always something. Always ending with her in my study, asking if I’d read the book she sent.
So naturally she was right.
She’d know if something was off with me.
She’d know the way I walked had changed. The way my shoulders didn’t sit like they used to, braced for wind that never came. The way my hands stayed at my sides instead of flexing for flame or stone.
But I made like I was fine.
I rolled my shoulders. "Nothing’s wrong. Father’s alive. That’s what matters."
She didn’t buy it.
And bull-headedly said, desperate, "Only one way to find out."
Her hand flicked.
Cold hit me. Fast. Brutal.
Ice climbed my wrist before I could blink. Thick. White. Crawling up my forearm, locking my fingers together. The chill bit deep.
She iced up my hand and watched me helplessly try to free myself.
I pulled. Nothing. The ice didn’t c***k. It held. My muscles strained. My teeth gritted. I was a prince. I was heir. And I couldn’t break a girl’s trick.
Her eyes gaped in astonishment.
"You’re human."
- Writer
