She had been lulled into a false sense of security. For weeks, nothing had happened. She had spent her days training and honing her strength, almost forgetting why she was trying so hard to become strong in the first place.
She was in the dining hall. Thuraya, as usual, was in charge of her dinner. A delicious meal that made her almost wish to stay in this world forever. Haitham was lazying around somewhere in the castle, where he usually disappeared. She had stopped asking after the first week and got the servants to send his dinner to his chamber instead.
She heard the shouts first—the sound of knights yelling and screaming. Then the smell reached her.
She ran to the corridor, almost colliding with the hurrying knights as they headed toward the source of the commotion.
“What’s happening?” she asked the one knight she managed to stop.
“The castle is under attack, your Highness.” His eyes were blown wide with panic. He bowed once before following the others.
Daliya lifted the hem of her skirt and instructed Thuraya to stay hidden while she dealt with the matter. The maid could not defend herself; her safety fell on Daliya.
A hand stopped her before she could venture further through the corridor.
“What are you doing here?” Haitham asked.
“We’re under attack!”
He breathed out, his shoulders sagging, his eyes staring at her, an unreadable expression flittering in his dark orbs before disappearing. She narrowed her eyes at the lack of reaction to her words.
“Do you know who they are?”
Haitham’s face darkened. “I might have an idea.”
“Who–”
“Get to safety,” he said, pushing her back towards the hall.
“What about you?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
He vanished before she could protest. She bristled. She might not have been the real princess. But to these people, she was. And it was her duty to protect them.
The window next to her shattered, and a man wearing a black and red uniform jumped inside. Daliya had a split-second to gawk at the intruder before the corridor erupted in flames.
They were fire bearers, like Haitham.
She called her ice to her and cleared a path back to the hall. Thuraya was waiting. She closed the hall door and pulled Daliya to the other side.
But the doors could never hold out a fire bearer bent on getting inside.
The flames devoured the heavy oak door like butter. The man entered the hall, pillars of fire exploding from his hands and enveloping the whole place. He reached into a hidden pocket by his side and fished a handful of soul stones. She felt the energy stutter as the energy was siphoned from them. They gave a final, desperate glow before shattering into dust.
The assassin’s body shuddered, tremors quaking his body as it absorbed the energy and led it to his core.
Haitham always advised against using the soul stones. She often thought it hypocritical of him, with the number of stones stashed on his person. He shrugged when she voiced her thoughts. He called it a last measure, one for desperate times when his survival depended on a slight energy boost.
He said—stressed—that a person should be careful in dealing with them, that they were akin to using drugs. The more one used, the more addicted they became, till eventually, they turned completely dependent on them. Then, both the body and mind would strain under the foreign source of power, only to succumb to ruin in the end.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
They should be used as a last resort, and never more than one soul tone at a time. But this man had used more than four. Wasn’t he afraid of the consequences? Or was murdering her more important than his life?
Daliya called her ice, trying to put out the fire. To smother the flames enough for her and Thuraya to escape.
The flames tore into her ice like a man lost in the desert.
She needed more power. She needed more ice.
The ice spread only to be melted again and again.
She threw her hands around her, desperate. She needed to do something. She needed to stop him.
She reached deep within her, down to her soul, and unleashed all her powers.
At first, she smiled, relieved. Her ice engulfed the flames, freezing them and creating a beautiful canvas of red and icy blue.
But then, it continued.
She watched, her eyes wide with mounting horror, as she desperately tried to stop the ice from spreading on the marble floor. She willed it to halt its devastating destruction, but her efforts were in vain. The ice continued its relentless advance, devouring everything in its path.
The massive table at the center of the hall, the marble pillars, and the vases displayed along the walls… all succumbed to the ice’s relentless advance, freezing and then crumbling to white, sparkling dust.
The intruder turned on his heels and sprinted toward the door. His eyes, the only thing visible above the cloth woven around his lower face, were wide in wrenching terror. But the hungry ice reached him a couple of feet from the burnt door. It spread up his feet, engulfing its victim in its icy grasp and freezing the screams before they could escape the wide mouth. His body swayed dangerously. Daliya took an involuntary step toward him, halting as the intruder’s frozen body fell to the floor, shattering into a million shards.
But it didn’t stop there.
Daliya’s heart seized in her chest. She cursed her powers, cursed the ice and all the destruction it brought along with it.
“Stop,” she pleaded, but the ice refused to listen.
Then, her eyes fell to one corner of the hall. Huddled against one of the vases was Thuraya, her hands clutched to her chest, her terrified eyes watching the ice advance toward her.
“No, no, no, no,” Daliya whispered with growing horror. She took a step toward her, her pleading hand reaching for Thuraya. Her action seemed to amplify her treacherous powers. The ice purged forward with newfound strength.
No! This wasn’t supposed to happen! Why? Why?
Daliya stood. She could no longer feel her hands or feet. She felt like she was floating like she was stuck in a nightmare.
Wake up! You have to wake up! Please don’t let this be real!
She pleaded, but no one listened.
Ice surged before Thuraya, forming a wall separating her from Daliya. She could no longer see her, no longer witness the horror of her actions, the horrors she had committed.
She had killed her.
She had killed her!
The storm inside her chest raged, twisted, and unfurled. Then, it erupted.
All around her was white. She could hear the sound the ice made as it crushed against the walls and broke through every crevice in the hall. The world beyond the ice ceased to exist. She wished the ice would devour her, quell this storm inside, and turn it into nothingness. She wished it would turn her into one of the ice statues and shatter her remains till nothing was found of her.
But it still refused to listen.
She fell to her knees. The ground shattered as she dug her fingers into it.
Then she heard it—a faint flicker, like the sound of flames dancing around the fireplace. The ground shifted and cracked, and water started seeping between the cracks.
Two booted feet stood before her, the ice long melted underneath them. The raging storm flickered briefly before picking up as if a dying animal giving its last roar before succumbing to its death.
Haitham knelt before her. “No,” Daliya choked out. She jerked back as his hand reached for her face. He paused, his hand hovering between them. “You’ll freeze!” she screamed. But her voice was barely above a whisper, lost in the raging blizzard around her. Her throat ached like the ground beneath her. Cracked and ravaged by what she had thought would be the means of her salvation.
How long had she been screaming?
He smiled. “It’s okay. My fire can withstand your ice.” He cradled her face. “Sleep for now. Everything would be fine.”
No. It won’t, she wanted to say. Nothing was fine. She had destroyed everything. She had killed Thuraya, and only God knew who else. She was a murderer now. He might become her next victim.
She flinched away from his hands… or tried to. His hands were fastened to her face like manacles. Why? Why was he so adamant about touching her when he knew what she was capable of?
Her eyes bored into his. She felt a pinch at the side of her neck. The last thing she saw was Haitham’s worried gaze. Then everything faded into darkness.
