Ice

4

The man in the doorway (I am assuming he is the councilman) laughs. He laughs at me. Is he not intimidated by me? I wonder if he will think it is funny if I use him as a dartboard. I am the Princess of the Empire, the Cold Conqueror, and he dares to laugh at me.

"I have never heard such a funny joke in my life. The Princess Nivia. Try being more convincing next time. Do not claim to be a dead woman. Or at least not a woman who died 432 years ago."

"You think you can lie to me? You want to deceive me. Trust me, you do not want to deceive me. Try and I will do what I did to the last group of assassins who tried to deceive me. I beheaded them with my own ice."

"This medallion must be from the ancients. It was never recorded, I heard that it existed, but I could never find it. It must be studied. I shall-"

"Excuse me. That belongs to me. Return it. I earned it rightfully in battle. You are nothing but an outsider, an invader, a rodent. Bringing filth like the Ignius into this city, this castle."

I feel my fingers getting cold. My ice wants to attack. My thirst for vengeance and ensuring that they fear my people needs to be quenched. They are lying scum and must be gotten rid of. The man beside me is an enemy king and the man before me is a councilman, probably some self-appointed idiot. I have never seen him before; he is not from this city.

"What you are is an imposter."

"You are a liar. If anything you are the fraud. I have never seen you in the city and you are on the council. Not even a junior on the council. I am sorry but the fact that you think you hold so much power is ridiculous. Winter and Elise would have never let someone as stupid as you on the council, someone who cannot even recognize their princess. If you were from the city, I would have seen you. I make sure to be present in my people's lives."

"You are nothing but a fake and a thief. This medallion, it must be protected and held out of the reach of people like you."

"That medal belongs to me. I earned it. It is rightfully mine and was presented to me by the emperor on my sixteenth birthday for my victory against the Terra. Tell me I am lying, and I will do to you what I did to them. Their punishments were all earned by them, as will be yours. They hurt my family and my people, taking advantage of how spread out we were at the time. You may not have done such heinous acts, but accusing me of lying..."

"It is 227 ME. It has been 227 years since the Great War ended. You are not supposed to even be alive!" The girl shouts at me.

"The war just started. It has only been a few years. You are extremely deluded."

"Just started? The war went on for over two hundred years," the Ignius man says from beside me.

"You are all crazy! You are mad!" I scream.

"Look, just stop this charade. Who are you really?" The Ignius King asks.

"I am Nivia. I have no other name! Why are you all so insistent on proving me to be a liar when I am telling the truth? You are all trying to confuse and manipulate me. You want me to become weak and vulnerable to your manipulation. Well I will not fall for it."

"What you are is a little girl whose imagination is too wild and too big. To the point of pretending to be a dead princess and flaunting a historic artifact."

"Am I not supposed to wear a medal that I got for a battle? It is not flaunting; I am proud of it. I protected my people."

"Father, there have been no missing people signs, no one has been reported missing. She has to be from here. Maybe she is-"

"Odelia, are you even thinking of entertaining such a notion?"

"But she can use ice. Surely you find that strange. No one remembers how to use ice. She could not have learnt it from anyone."