Soul of Ice

Chapter Nineteen

It was a dark world she had entered. A heavy fog hung over the scene—a foreign land of flat earth. Shrieks and howls sounded, leaving her skin prickling with unease.

This was not the reality she knew. The reality was her in a white reclined chair, bound tight by ropes, her eyes smothered by darkness, and a struggle against her own magic.

"You know this time period," someone spoke. The voice was slow, each word spoken with deliberateness. A woman dressed in golden battle armor, seemingly appearing from invisibility, walked towards her.

"Who are you?" Astra demanded.

The woman smiled secretively. "You know who I am, but your mind has blocked out most of these memories."

Astra scowled at the avoidance of the question, but it would be a waste of time to think further questions on her identity would get her anywhere. She changed tactics. "Then why am I here? Where is here?"
"Here is the world of ages past. And perhaps one of the future." The woman swept an arm across the scene. "I may only be an illusion of your mind, but I serve as a reminder.

"It matters not how far you run. War is coming, Astreia. And it is coming for you."

•

Crown Prince Antoine Veroa of Auxerre toed the thick layers of ice that covered every surface in the room. Around the black-haired girl, a solid, transparent wall of ice spikes had grown up, acting as both defense and offense for anyone that dared to reach her. The room was quite chilly now, and Anton could see his breath floating in the air as he exhaled.

The powers of the Seam were truly incomprehensible. Yet the toll it took on its host was... horrific. He watched in silence as the girl thrashed, her arms struggling against the coarse rope bindings. Although she'd been unconscious for several minutes now, the moans of pain and fear still escaped her, leaving the room eerie and silent, save for the mutterings of the short man before him.

"Dosage one... " Nigel, the physician his father had promoted several months prior, was scrambling around, balancing quantities of strangely colored liquids while scribbling down notes every few seconds on a ratty notebook he kept taking out of his lab coat before putting it back in moments later, only for the process to repeat.

The three guards that had brought the girl in leaned against the wall. Anton snuck a look at the hulking guard next to him that had tackled the girl. His finger was awkwardly hovering near his nose, and Anton suspected that he was trying to pick at it. How awfully unfortunate. He might've allowed him to do so in peace, if the guard hadn't just tackled the poor girl and then slammed her face into the wall. There was a blood print there now that contrasted hideously with the cream-colored wall behind it. To appease that inner need to dole out justice, the prince began blatantly staring at the guard until he noticed and quickly dropped his hand.

Self-satisfied for the time being, Anton looked ahead at the wraith girl once more. Faint lines of dark blue, perhaps black, had appeared along the veins of her arms.

"What are those?" he asked, pointing toward the lines.

"Oh, simply a side effect, Your Highness. There's not enough research of course—" he gave the prince a pointed look at that "—but I suspect it's due to excess waste product from magic use. Her body simply isn't used to such a large output of magic, especially since we stimulated her with more of it." He smiled faintly.

The prince frowned as he traced the lines on the girl's arms with his eyes. They were reaching down towards her wrists and hands, and up as well, towards her neck, where Anton could see the discolor creeping its way past her collar.