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Kia had been working hard in her little garden when her mind floods with a memory. She was standing in a house no bigger than the greenhouse she was in right now. She runs towards someone... an older lady... and gives her a hug.
Has Kia seen her somewhere before?
The lady smiles kindly back at her, and Kia feels a warm glow in her heart.
“Grandma, can I have an extra cookie?” Kia hears herself say. “I want to give it to my friend.”
“Yes, Pumpkin,” grandma said, smiling. “You can have anything.”
Kia makes a face. “Grandma, I am not a pumpkin!”
“But you are round and sweet?” grandma said. When Kia pouts and shakes her head, grandma says: “How about sweet pea?”
“That’s worse, grandma!” Kia cried. “I don’t want to be green!”
The two of them looked at one another and burst out laughing.
As soon as it came, the memory fades, leaving Kia dizzy and disoriented.
Who was that? She wondered. When did this happen?
How come I don’t remember anything else?
Kia tried to go back to gardening, but the memory bothered her. Not knowing when it happened, and if it happened, bothered her greatly.
I will ask Queen Eirlys, Kia thought. She will know... The queen knows everything.
Kia found the ice queen in the throne room. Queen Eirlys rested on her throne like a sculpture of ice, unmoving and silent. Kia moved past her own miniature copy of the throne and sat by her feet. She gently tugged the queen’s dress and the small, embellished jewels on them undulated like a ripple through a pond.
“Can I ask you something?” Kia asked.
The ice queen remained silent.
“Who is grandma?”
The ice queen blinked, the only sign that she had been listening.
“No one,” the ice queen replied. “No one you should worry about, my child.”
“But I remembered her. Who is she?”
The ice queen was silent once more.
Why does the child remember her human life? The ice queen wondered. What hold do they have over her?
“Are you angry with me?” Kia asked.
“No. Why do you ask, child?” the ice queen said.
“You got quiet, that’s why,” Kia said. She looked concerned.
“I am not angry.”
Kia furrowed her eyebrows, contemplating something. “Do you like me?” she asked.
The ice queen smiled. “Yes, very much,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because I know you,” the ice queen replied. “You are who I used to be... before my heart was ice.”
“Will my heart turn to ice as well?” Kia asks. “Will it hurt?”
“On the contrary, my child, once your heart freezes, you will never feel pain again.”
Kia seemed relieved by her answer. The ice queen gave a grim smile.
Only an innocent child would be relieved to hear such a fate, the ice queen thought.
No pain. No love. One day, my dear child, you will feel nothing at all.
—————
The valley seemed endless from where they were standing. Jade was nervous, but Aeron had a determined look on his face.
“Remember what Callahan said?” he asked.
“Only use the thrusters in an emergency,” Jade replied. “And don’t look back.”
Aeron nodded. “Are you ready?”
“Yes, let’s go.”
They pointed their snowboards straight down the slope and glided forward. Jade felt how seamlessly the board responded when she shifted her weight and changed direction from one to another as she leaned. The wind and the snow blew against her face and she felt a rush as she sped down the slope.
They came across fir trees that were completely covered in snow. Their silhouettes looked like looming beasts. As they went further down, the trees became barely recognizable as they became larger and more grotesque.
Jade felt she was in a dark fairytale, where trees had monstrous limbs and they swallowed the sunlight whole in this overcast, bone-chilling landscape. They glided among the icy giants and she wondered if it was the trees that caused people’s imaginations to run wild and see monsters in them.
That tree looks like a bear, she observed. And that one looks like a skeleton.
One tree even moved.
Jade blinked her eyes and looked back. She hadn’t imagined it. The tree was moving!
“Did you see that?” she asked.
“Yes, keep going,” Aeron said. “We still have a long way to go.”
Jade couldn’t help herself. She looked back again and the monstrous creature stuck out its limbs and threw a giant snowball in her direction. She swerves and glides out of the way. The snowball the creature threw had ice shards sticking out from it like sharp knives.
Soon, more creatures join the first, and start hurling snowballs from every direction.
“Ice monsters!” Aeron warns. “We should use the thrusters now.”
Jade nods. She presses the mechanism that would start the thrusters, but nothing happens.
“Mine is not working!” Jade cries.
The creatures are getting closer, their hulking figures are towering surreal oddities of snow and ice. One monster bares its teeth and they are sharp icicles. Jade is transfixed by its appearance.
Aeron glides and stops next to her. “Get on!” he says.
Jade has moments to react. She jumps on his board and he holds her firmly by the waist, making her fast heart rate go even faster.
Aeron presses the mechanism for the thrusters, and as they ignite, they fly down the slope. Soon, they leave the ice monsters far behind and get safely out of their firing range.
“Do you think we lost them?” Jade asks.
“It seems like it,” Aeron says, from close behind her. Jade tries not to blush at his closeness.
She still feels his hand on her waist.
“What’s that up ahead?”
“It looks like a huge boulder,” Aeron replies. “That’s strange.”
He stops his snowboard in front of the mound of snow. “Did an avalanche bring the boulder down here?”
“We should go around it,” Jade said. She had an ominous feeling about it.
“Let me climb up and see how far we are from the bottom,” Aeron says. “Stay here.”
Before Jade could stop him, Aeron climbs the boulder. He reaches to the middle when the whole mound shakes like an earthquake.
Aeron loses his footing and falls.
“Aeron!” Jade cries. She gasps, not believing what she sees next.
What they thought was a boulder wasn’t a boulder at all. A giant white bear catches Aeron before he falls to the ground.
It had been sleeping. Aeron disturbed it from its slumber and made it angry.
The disgruntled giant bear holds him upside down in his claws. Aeron, to his credit, remained calm, but Jade wondered how long before he lost control and they got in even greater trouble.
The bear roared in his face.
“We are not here to hurt you,” Jade said. She dropped her weapon to the ground and raised both her arms in the air. “Please let him go.”
The bear carefully watched her every movement. It grunted, then sniffed the prince.
Aeron’s hair ruffled with the hot breath. “I don’t have any weapons either,” he said. It had fallen off earlier when the bear held him upside down.
The bear swiveled its head towards Aeron and then looked at Jade again. She gives a smile to the giant beast.
The angry beast seemed to consider their words for a moment. It then unceremoniously dropped Aeron into the snow.
He lands with an inelegant thud.
Jade fought the urge to run to Aeron. Any sudden movements would incense the bear, she thought. I should wait.
The giant beast stared at them, gave another ear-piercing roar, before bounding back to the slopes. The ground shook as it ran and a few trees fell in its wake.
Jade sighed. “That was close.”
“I wonder who else heard the bear?” Aeron asked, rubbing his ears.
“Just us,” said a female voice, coolly. A group of frost soldiers had quietly gathered behind, pointing their ice blasters towards them.
The cool female voice belonged to their leader.
“Impressive,” she said. “You made it through the valley and escaped Graeta unscathed.”
“Who’s Graeta?” Jade asked.
“The ice bear you just met,” she said. “I won’t be as easy to convince, though, but you can try.”
“I am Prince Aeron of the fire realm. This is Jade. We have come to negotiate peace with your queen,” Aeron said.
She seemed surprised by his reply. “I am Freya,” she said. “Leader of the frost army and general of the queen. I can take you to her, fire prince.”
———
If the fire realm’s palace was dark, gothic and ornate, the palace of the ice realm was light, unadorned and surreal. The palace was sprawled over the snowy grounds like a giant, unruly crystal, with jagged towers and walls of ice.
Freya took them through the front entrance. The whole place was a dream, but nothing prepared Jade for the ethereal beauty of the palace’s interior.
There was a double staircase, made of stained glass, bursting in colour like a prism, that led towards two solid doors of ice. There were no chandeliers, but blue, green, purple lights swirled at the top like auroras in the north.
The grand staircases, the ice doors, and the lights weren’t even the most remarkable feature of the entrance. A marble statue of a beautiful princess stood centrepiece. She wore a crown of moonstone, her statue as luminous as the moon in the sky. She held a mirror in her hand and there was an owl perched on her shoulder, with the face of a human.
It was the oracle.
“Whose statue is that?” Jade asked in a daze.
“That is Princess Selene and her most beloved owl,” Freya replied.
Jade realized something... the oracle belonged to Selene, the first of the witches, daughter of the moon.
“The queen is waiting,” the general said. She wanted them to hurry.
Freya gave Jade no time to inquire about the oracle.
They climbed the heavenly staircase and passed through the double doors carved of ice to enter the throne room. The queen sat majestically on her throne, the brightest star in the ice realm. Jade was mesmerized by her beauty, but their visit did not impress the ice queen. Freya had whispered something to her as soon as they got there.
Her sister Kia wasn’t in the room.
“Why are you here, prince of the fire realm?” the ice queen asked, her voice as cold as winter. “Have you finally come for your brother?
“My brother?” Aeron asked. “Zaeden is alive?”
He was both surprised and relieved.
“If this news surprises you, then he is not the reason for you being here,” the ice queen observed. “Yes, Prince Zaeden is alive. He lingers in my dungeon and refuses to leave.”
“I am glad that my brother is alive and that no harm has come to him, but you are correct,” Aeron said. “I have come to negotiate peace between our realms.”
The ice queen scoffed. “Peace?”
“Yes,” Aeron said. “We can finally end the war between us.”
“Why would I want to do that?” she asked, amused.
“To end the bloodshed. To foster a new era of trust.”
“Trust the fire realm?” the ice queen said skeptically. “What will the terms of the peace treaty be?”
“We will equally share this world,” Aeron said. “And the humans will be free to choose where their allegiance lies.”
The ice queen smiled and shook her head. “I do not accept the terms.”
“But why?” Aeron asks, surprised.
“Because I have no intention of sharing this world,” the ice queen replies. “It belongs to the ice realm.”
“Is that why you placed a curse on the fire king?” Aeron asked angrily, his hands turned into fists.
“Do you think I am capable of such a feat?” the ice queen asked coldly. “Why would I curse your king?”
“Some legends in the fire realm say it was you,” Aeron admitted. “I have heard stories about you that cast doubt on my mind. I don’t trust hearsay, so I want to hear it for myself.”
“Ask what you want to know,” the ice queen said.
“What are you?” Aeron asked. “Are you a queen, a witch, or a monster?”
“I am Eirlys Frost,” the ice queen replied. “To my people, I am their queen. To the world, I am a witch. For my enemies, I am a monster. Depending on who I meet, I am all three.”
“Was it you that cursed my father with madness and the fire kings before him?”
“No,” the ice queen replied. “I did not curse them.”
Aeron was crestfallen. “Who can it be? Who would place such a curse on us?”
“For that, you must search your past and search within to find your nemesis,” the ice queen said. Her eyes drifted towards Jade. “I can understand your reason for coming, fire prince, but why has a human crossed into my lands?”
“Jade will be the best person to answer it,” Aeron said. He nods at Jade to come forward.
“Why did you come to my realm?” the ice queen demanded.
“I am here for my little sister,” Jade said. “You took her from us a few weeks ago. I came to take her home.”
“Your sister?”
“I know she is here,” Jade said, her voice shaking. “I know Kia is here.”
“The child doesn’t have ties to the human world anymore,” the ice queen says. “Kia is the future queen of the ice realm.”
Jade is stunned. Aeron looks as surprised as she is.
Future queen? Her thoughts were in a panic. So Kia was the new heir....
So what?
Jade would not be intimidated by anyone.
“You can’t take my sister away from her family!” Jade said. “You can’t keep her against her will.”
“The child wants to be here. She won’t go with you, no matter what you say,” the ice queen said. “If you don’t believe me, you can ask her yourself.”
The queen gestured to her general, who obeys her silent command. Freya left the throne room and came back after a few moments with Kia. Jade’s little sister stands behind the queen’s throne and looks towards them with a wary expression.
“Kia!” Jade exclaimed. It was so good to see her sister again. “Kia, I came to take you home!”
Kia turns to Queen Eirlys to see what she would tell her.
“Do you want to go home with her?” the ice queen asked with an amused expression.
“But I am home,” Kia said, confused.
“No, the ice queen took you away from your real home,” Jade said. “Don’t you want to go back to your garden and your friend?”
“I have a garden... and she is my friend,” Kia said, looking at the ice queen.
“I told you,” the ice queen said, amused. “She won’t go with you.”
Jade stood stunned. She didn’t know what to do, but Aeron quietly nudged her.
“She might be under her spell, Jade,” Aeron whispers. “Keep talking to her. She will remember.”
Jade stirred at Aeron’s words. “What about grandma?” she asked her sister. “Don’t you want to see her again? Don’t you miss her?”
Kia becomes still. “Who is grandma?”
Jade felt encouraged by her sister’s interest. “Grandma is someone who loves you very much,” Jade said. “She is very sad without you.”
Her sister was quiet for a few moments, then she asked, “Who are you?”
Kia didn’t remember her. Jade thought her heart would burst.
“I am your sister,” Jade said. “Don’t you remember me?”
Kia frowned. “I don’t have a sister,” she said. “I have Queen Eirlys, Freya, and the frost army... This is my home.”
“Please try to remember,” Jade pleaded.
Kia shakes her head and gets visibly upset. “I don’t remember anything you are saying. You are lying. Please go away.”
“You heard the child. She doesn’t want to talk to you anymore,” Queen Eirlys said. Frost soldiers surround both Aeron and Jade. “Guards! Throw them out of my realm. I don’t want to see them here ever again.”
“No, I can’t leave without my sister,” Jade said. “Please, Kia, listen to me.”
Kia turns her face away from her big sister, refusing to listen to her.
The frost soldiers grabbed Jade by the arms and were dragging her away when she remembered the gift the oracle gave her.
“Wait!” Jade said. She took out the sunflowers she carried in her pocket.
“What are those?” Kia asks. She is looking at them with interest.
“They are a gift for you.” Jade hands the sunflowers to her sister.
“What do you call them?”
“These were your favourite flowers back home. Do you remember them?”
The sunflowers smiled at her little sister. “You are Kia!” the flowers cried. “We are honored to meet you!”
Their magic surprised everyone in the room, including the ice queen.
But Kia is not surprised. “I have seen you before,” she said. “Do I know you?”
“Yes, you love us. We are sunflowers!”
“I've seen her somewhere,” Kia said. “Do I know her?”
“Yes, she is your big sister,” the sunflowers sang. “Her name is Jade.”
“Jade? I think I remember,” Kia said. She looks towards the ice queen. “Don’t send her away... I think... I think she is my sister.”
The ice queen’s smile turns to rage. The room’s temperature drops suddenly, becoming blisteringly cold. “She is confusing you with her lies... I am the only family you have!” the ice queen said, her voice like the howling wind.
Kia steps back, frightened. She turns pale. “I d.. don’t feel so good,” she stammers.
Jade’s heart stops when her little sister stumbles, then faints, onto the floor.
“Kia!”
“Look at what you did!” the ice queen screams at Jade. “Guards! Throw her in the dungeons.”
The ice queen gets down on her knees and picks Kia up. She looks so small in her arms.
“Kia!” Jade calls out to her sister, but she doesn’t answer.
As the ice queen carries her away from the throne room, Kia remains unconscious.