The Ice Queen, Winter

Cold. Bone chilling, oppressively cold.

But beautiful.

The grand, spacious throne room was so cold. Lined with marble, elegant pillars stretched 30 feet tall, with the soft blues of aquamarine accenting the white stone. The whole room had an effervescent blue glow, whether from the aquamarine or some unknown element you did not know. Not that you cared. Three grand fireplaces lined each side of the room, unstoked, unused. “ What a waste”, you thought, looking at the huge fireplaces that probably cost a fortune.

Guards stood at the base of each pillar, looking how you felt. Cold. Their shining armour, draped in sashes of blue, chattered as their wearers shivered from the cold. The elegant emblems of the Aesparian Kingdom were supposed to instill a sense of honour, of pride and unfaltering will, the core values of this country.

Laughable, you thought.

Here, as the guards and your teeth chittered in this grand throneroom, you understood something. The emblem was designed like a snowflake, but the long lines making up its arms resembled swords. This didn’t represent pride, or strength, or any of that bullshit thousand year old propaganda pushed into the minds of its citizens. No, it stood for cold. Cold in climate and in heart. A whole room full of shivering people, and the fires went unstoked to satisfy one woman.

And that woman was the Ice Queen, Winter. She sat on the throne, uninterested. She took one glance at you with her sharp, digging eyes as you entered the throneroom, but had seemingly found you uninteresting. She now absent-mindedly peered around the room in boredom. She was exactly as described, exactly like this room. Cold, but unequivocally, deathly beautiful.

Through the freezing steam coming out of your breath, you saw an elegant, but light dress hanging off her shoulders. Much of the Ice Queen’s skin was exposed, her pale white skin made even paler in the blueish hue of the room. And atop her head sat a tiara, the most elegant thing in the room. Well, aside from her. Pure silver, the tiara was lined in ornaments of Aesparian diamonds, the most valuable jewel on the continent. Seeing this brought your mind back from the freezing temperature. Yes, that was what you were here for.

“There’s no hope for that area of the Kingdom”, a similarly elegantly dressed man standing next to Winter spewed, as if hissing. His eyes were harsh, snake like. He adjusted his royal badge, a pure gold insignia pinned to his chest, showing it off, signifying loud and clear the difference between royalty and you.

He was supposed to be the only person the Queen wasn’t cold to. Oh, if he only heard what those from the Lower Detail, your home, said about him. And by the sound of it, he wasn’t fond of those from the LD either.

But today, you were not just one of the many thieves that called the LD home. Today you were a member of The Order of the Winter Hand, a group advocating for developing some of the poorer districts in the Kingdom. Not that you actually were, no, it was just a role you assumed to gain access to the palace.

By the look of the way he spoke about the Lower Detail, had Jacko known you were a commoner from the LD, he’d have you thrown out of the castle in an instant.

Back to pretending, you thought. Not that it was much of a hassle. You’d been lying your whole life. Standing up tall, you became someone you weren’t. Proud, presentable and friendly.

“With all due respect, your highness”, you bowed low towards the Queen, “We believe that with steady infrastructure chang-“

”With all due respect, sir ”, Jacko hissed, as he stepped closer to Winter, covering your view of her as if to say you are to look at me, not the Queen. “ The royal family has been trying to salvage whatever it could from that, that district”, he mocked, “ever since her Majesty assumed the crown.”, he said with an air of finality.

A surge of anger surged within you as he looked down at you, daring you to contradict him. It was everything you could not to let the anger show. Trying to salvage it? The crown had done nothing but send more guards to rough up its inhabitants, all in an effort to ‘fix’ the LD. Crime and violence still ran rampant. Pushing the anger down, you straightened up. You, the real you, was a part of that crime anyway.

You bowed low again, this time towards Jacko. “We at the Development Council thank you for hearing us out” you droned. A smile crept on Jacko’s lips, clearly liking the way you submitted. Better for you to have the hearing finished, you weren’t really here to advocate for a better LD. You were here for something else, something grander.

The Queen’s eyes flicked towards you as you turned to leave, and for a moment, something changed. Her eyes didn’t seem cold, they seemed soft, tired, almost lonely. It was as if she wanted to speak, to offer something up, something other than “we have abandoned that area of the city”. You almost felt pity for the Queen as that short moment stretched out for an eternity. Pity at living lonely in great halls of cold.

A glint of the huge diamond in her tiara reminded you why you were there.

——

You left the throne room a little while later, thanking the warmth it bestowed.

“I can manage, I was given the palace tour before the hearing”, you waved off the guards, who had been assigned to accompany you. As custom for visitors of the palace, a tour and accommodations were provided to all of its guests, no matter which part of the city they were from. “ I guess customs don’t discriminate”, you thought. “Bet I wouldn’t be offered a stay if I was wearing what I usually wear”, you smirked, looking down at the dress clothes your thieving guild scored from an unlucky dignitary who found himself on the wrong side of the river. You made your way through the main castle, making sure to note window entrances, and where each guard was stationed as you left.

The chill of Aesparia’s winter air hit you as you left, but oddly enough it wasn’t as cold as the throneroom. No, maybe it was just different. Less imposing.

You made your way across the magnificent quad to a smaller, slightly less grand building. By now the sun was on its way down. A couple more hours to kill until your real job started. You passed the elegant gardens, the fountains spewing clear water. You approached the fountain, dipping a hand in.

The icy flow of the water seemed to shimmer. You eyed the fountain with longing. The water in the LD was often boiled before it was safe to drink. And here, in the Queen’s backyard there was a towering 3 story fountain, each layer shaped like a snowflake that pissed out drinking water like it was nothing.

No, the look the Queen gave you wasn’t one of pity, you concluded. She hadn’t noticed you, or cared about your pleas about a better LD, however fake they were. It was a look of indifference.

You let the water drip from your hands for a moment, before leaving for your building. Reaching it, you climbed to the third floor, finding your room.

The fire in your room was already roaring, warming you up from the inside. You plopped on the small armchair, pulling out a notebook. Here, in this small palace room, was the most comfortable chair you had ever sat on.

Taking out a pencil, you started to map out every detail of the palace you could remember. The tour before the hearing definitely helped, and revealed many areas where you noticed security was lacking. A low window here, a corner to slip away from guards there. Maybe stealing Winter’s tiara wouldn’t be so hard. But that wasn’t the operative for today. No, you were just here to scout.

It was a little past midnight when the snow started to fall. The perfect time to cross the courtyard. The snow would cover up your tracks if things went awry. Deciding against wearing the dress robes, you changed into something more nimble. A light tunic and some trousers. You’d need to map a bit more of the main palace, as your tour was limited in the castle proper.

Silently crossing the courtyard, you made your way to the main building. A couple of guards at the doors briefly stopped you, and you rattled off a story about a forgotten headpiece.

“You…forgot your hat?”, one of the guards eyed you suspiciously.

”Took it off just before my hearing with the Queen”, you said apologetically. “Didn’t want to offend her”.

The guard thought for a moment, before letting you pass, before muttering to his colleague, “poor guy. Hear Jacko really laid into him”, with an icy puff of his breath.

You made your way up the stairs towards more of the castle, the areas unexplored. You passed the throne room, sketching out a rough path to the fourth floor, walking past stands holding historic pieces of armour, swords owned by warriors whose names were long forgotten, and majestic paintings depicting grand battles that lined the walls.

Not too many guards here, you thought. It was odd, you were making your way to the royal corner, the place where the Queen, more importantly, where the tiara resided.

It was a blessing though, as you had an easy path and ample time to sketch this floor. Keeping an ear out for any guards, you nimbly made your way through the marble halls, noting that aquamarine lined this floor. Better for you, the soft hum that exuded these mythical jewels would better cover the sound of footsteps. You snickered under your breath. Your score room back in the LD had better security than this. But the feeling of uneasiness as you made your way deeper into the royal corner only grew as not a single guard was, well, guarding.

You had completely mapped out the floor, save for a short corridor which led to a set of spiral stairs going up. You could only assume this was the Queen’s, Winters chamber. You hesitated for a moment. If you were to be caught right outside her chamber, you’d be immediately hung. Surely there were guards that stood there, right? But against all better judgement, you slowly climbed the stairs. It was only about 10 steps up, but as the spiral turned to reveal the heavy chamber door, you immediately realized something was wrong. Two guards lay splayed on the small landing in front of the slightly open door, blood pooling around them.

You’d seen enough bodies in the Lower Detail to know these bodies were dead. Because of their armour, you couldn’t make out if they were still fresh, but the blood still ran liquid. You hesitated once more. Of all days to be here, and you happen to stumble upon this? Two guards in front of Winter’s chamber, dead? An image of the Queen, staring at you with those tired, lonely eyes turned colder, turned dead flashed in your eyes.

You slowly, hesitantly slipped past the dead guards, approaching the door. Heavy breathing on the other side of it spurred you into action. You quickly opened the door to find Winter on the floor in front of her bed, blood spilling from her abdomen as she clutched it. She sat on her side, resting on her elbow as her other hand feebly attempted to stop the bleeding. Her eyes, soft now, pleading, looked up as you entered.

Your body went slack as you took in the sight of the Queen, dying in front of you. You could see her struggling to breath, and as her eyes flitted in and out of consciousness, you acted.

It would be useless to call for help, there was no one on this floor, and running for aid was out of the question. The girl would be dead before you made it to a doctor. No, you needed to save the Queen, now.

You laid Winter down on her back as her eyes, half closed, lost their focus. Her skin was even paler than before. You took your tunic off and staunched the bleeding. Quickly, you begged as you applied pressure to the wound, her breathing growing unsteadier. Your tunic saturated in moments. Fuck, quickly!, you thought, desperate. You’ve dealt with stab wounds before. You’ve been stabbed more times than you could count, common for thieves from the lower detail. But nothing like this.

You cursed your useless tunic as you threw it to the side. Winter’s breathing was slower now, long and slow. Rushing to her bed, you grabbed whatever sheets you could find. Running back to the Queen, your Queen you thought as you fought to save her, you lifted her dress up to expose her midriff, and wrapped the sheets around her.

This is your Queen. Yes, you may be from the Lower Detail, a region of the kingdom the royal court has seemingly abandoned, but you were still a citizen of Aesparia. Wasn’t it your duty to serve the Queen? Is that why you ignored the tiara you knew was in this room? The tiara that would guarantee your guild riches beyond what’s ever been seen in the Lower Detail? Or was this just your weakness, beautiful women, actualized. Would you be helping, say, if this was a King, instead of her, Winter?

You thought this as you lifted the Queen on her side, blood pooling in her mouth. She was choking on blood, you realized. With a cough, sprays of blood stained the floors and you alike. Facing you now, you noticed how desperate she looked. A weird sight, seeing the Queen not composed. She was fighting to stay alive.

“Y-you’re gonna be fine”, you said with no air of confidence.

Her eyes flitted towards yours, and she gave a slow, small nod.

”You’re gonna be fine, your majesty”, you said more surely this time, more for yourself than for her.

Soon, her skin seemed a little less pale, and the bleeding slowed.