I, Princess Kara of Glandarin, loved my home. The hallways were long and sometimes kinda dark, so they were perfect for hide and seek. I remembered when I was young, playing with my brother and our cousin, who was just a little older than him, out in the gardens. I remembered walking with my mother as she greeted the visitors in the courtyard, and I loved sitting by Father’s side as he talked about adult things with people. Every time he was frustrated, I would give his arm a little tug. He would turn, every time with a struggling smile on his face.

“Daddy, your job is hard, but I still love you,” I would say every time. Then I would give him a big five year old hug and I would get to see his smile turn from a struggling smile to a real one. I would always just feel my happiness seep into him.

Then, a year ago, my life changed. A new ruler came from the west, where they made lots of weapons. I knew they had killed Daddy, but I hid. I don’t know what happened to my mother or brother. I think they died too. The new king didn’t like me very much because I was from my family, which didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Mommy always said to not judge people because of where they were from.

Lucky for me, Princess Theo said she wanted someone to be her little sister, because she was an only child of the new king. Princess Theo wasn’t so bad, but I didn’t have any friends for three cycles until Robin showed up. I stopped by her shop when she first opened up to see what she was like, and she was really nice. She reminded me a little of Mother.

It wasn’t until six cycles ago that I found my family again. I was in the courtyard when I was approached by a somewhat familiar woman, though I couldn’t put my mind to where I had seen her before. She was nice at first, but I didn’t know why. It turned out she was my aunt, whom I had only met when I had just learned to walk. She explained that she and her sister had not been on the best of terms and she hadn’t been to the kingdom since I was young.

I wasn’t a fool, so I knew to ask for proof that she was my aunt, and she gave me a brooch I recognized from my mother’s collection. She really was my aunt Lydia. I had been out to her home twice since then, and I really was happy to have her back. It was hard to find the time to sneak away to visit my aunt, but it was today that I figured I would try again. First though, I heard there would be some guests that I should greet.

I was in the entrance hall when the visitors arrived, though my mind was solely thinking about Aunt Lydia. She would be so happy when I came to see her again. I didn’t even pay attention to the royal figure that strode through the doors of the palace. I did notice the wild colors that he wore though. He wore a black coat jacket over a white shirt, and a white cape hung over his shoulders. His hair was a stunning mix of wild black and white, blown backwards as if by some freezing wind. The strangest thing was the thick, black gloves that adorned his hands. It was midsummer, so this must be an aristocrat from Borea, the northern kingdom that paid tribute to King Raegis.

“Announcing the Sky’s Bane Prince,” one of the heralds shouted into the massive hall, “Sir Brenson Hylion of the North!” It was only at the name that I really thought about who the visitor was. I finally remembered him.

“Kara! I was so worried about you this past year!” the prince said. This was indeed her cousin Brenson. He was actually Lydia’s son, though how in the world he became a prince I didn’t know.

“Bren!” I called back to him. I spread my arms wide to give him a hug, but he quickly backed away.

“No, Kara. No hugging, I’m sorry.” I didn’t understand. Brenson had always been a hugger. Something might have changed in the last year? It wasn’t too big of an issue, but I was a little disappointed. 

“I’ll explain later, don’t worry Kara,” he said, quieting his voice. I wondered what he would be explaining. How he became a prince? Why he was here? Maybe why he was so against hugs all of a sudden?

We were about to turn to go into the next room, but the doors were thrown open once again. This time, a party of several people entered, dressed in headwraps and different shades of brown and tan. I noted that one of the men amongst the group wore a thin silver circlet, as well as one of the women.

“Announcing their highnesses, Prince Magnus Neala and Princess Rin Neala of Notosin!” I wanted to keep moving, but Brenson seemed almost rooted to the spot. I glanced at his feet, and indeed there were several crystals of ice forming where he stood. Was this why he wasn’t willing to give me a hug?

I watched as he simply stared at the envoy from the southern desert. Why was everyone coming at the same time? I followed his gaze and realized just what, or rather who, he was staring at. It was Princess Rin. He was staring straight at her. I smirked and tried to catch his attention. 

“Someone’s got a princess crush,” I teased. He finally snapped his head back to me with a scowl.

“I do not! It’s… complicated. Something else to explain later.”

“You totally have feelings for her, Bren!” I said, and I pushed at his chest playfully. That was a mistake. I watched as the ice that had rooted him to the ground broke and he stumbled backwards. In the meantime, I could feel my fingers chilling quickly. When I glanced at my hands, they were covered in ice. It was so cold, like it was freezing my hands to the bone. I concluded to do the most reasonable thing in this situation. One really must keep their head when their hands are being encased in magical ice.

I screamed.

This, of course, drew the attention of everyone in the room, including Brenson’s traveling group and the entire envoy from Notosin. I felt ice spreading down my arms and heard only one voice above the suddenly deafening hall.

“Let me through!” a soft voice was saying. I didn’t recognize the voice, but soon a kind face with sun-baked skin was before me. I sat down in my shocked delirium, and she was kneeling before me. It was Princess Rin.

“Give me your hands, little one,” she said. I didn’t want to hurt her with the ice, but I offered her my ice covered appendages anyhow. She put her hands on the ice like it wasn’t freezing my skin off. I watched it melt before my eyes, a comforting warmth flowing into the same appendages that had been numbed to death only a moment before, even the water evaporated into the air. It was beautiful, really.

“Now you,” She said, the kindness vanishing as she turned to Brenson. She poked him in the chest as though it were a casual manner to touch the young man who had just accidentally frozen a little girl’s hands. She looked like she was going to scold him, but she seemed to hesitate. I wasn’t certain if it was from the heat she had just released, but I think I detected a hint of red on her face. She liked him too. Yuck. I hate thinking about how that will be me someday.

“You should be more careful with your frosty powers, Mr…”

“Brenson. I’m just a young boy visiting my cousin, Princess Kara there.” It was something of a blatant lie, and I couldn’t tell why he would pretend to not be a prince. It seemed like a good way to impress a princess.

“I would certainly love to learn to control the curse of Ursirei, but I have nobody to learn from,” Brenson noted.

“Perhaps you should stop thinking of it as a curse, and begin thinking of it as a blessing.”

“But would a blessing keep me from embracing my cousin, whom I haven’t seen in a year?” Brenson countered.

“Ahem,” I chose to interrupt, “perhaps my cousin can talk with you later about his icy hands, but I want to talk with him right now.” I politely nodded my head, and motioned for him to follow. I normally would have grabbed his sleeve and dragged him, but that evidently wouldn’t work out for me now. Brenson bowed to the princess, then her brother, then followed me out. He looked back one last time and waved to Rin.

“Urgh, do you have to get all gushy in front of me like that Bren?” I asked when we were out of earshot. “It’s super gross.”

“Hey, I can’t help it if she’s literally hot!” I shot him a glare as we walked. The analogy to her obvious heat power and being beautiful was sad.

“So, you’re a prince now, huh? How’d that one happen?”

“Want the long version or the short version?” He asked. I considered all of my schedule, and I knew I wanted to get away to Lydia’s house. I elected to have him summarize.

“Short version.”

“Alright, so I was on a journey to the northern kingdom, Borea, when I heard it was under attack. It was a random traveler that told me to turn away from the city. Basically, I went to the city anyway and found that it wasn’t just under attack by some army, but rather a dragon.”

“Wait,” I interrupted, “You willing went to a city with a dragon attacking it?”

“Oh, of course not! I killed it before I went into the city.”

“You did what?!” I nearly shouted. I only barely remembered to keep my voice down.

“It wasn’t that hard.” I couldn’t tell if Brenson was trying to sound more impressive or if he simply didn’t know how hard it was to kill a dragon. Those were known to tear apart armies, and they were ageless beings. I had heard a rumor that it was actually dragons that became the first elves. Anyone who knew anything about our history knew about the age of dragons that came before the second age.

“So how did that make you a prince? Does that explain the icy curse?” I finally asked.

“Well, the king was so grateful he wanted to make me royalty, but I told him that I wasn’t going to marry any of his daughters. He simply adopted me, and I kept my last name. I became the Sky’s Bane Prince.”

“And the ice powers?”

“Well that came later. As far as I can tell, the ice dragon that was attacking Borea was a sacred dragon of Ursirei. She cursed me with this ice touch, though she didn’t explicitly say why. Nobody can touch me. I’ve talked to the most powerful of ice mages, both followers of Ursirei and mana manipulators. None of them have even been able to touch me.”

“Wait, but Princess Rin…” I noted, motioning how she poked him in the chest.

“Yeah. I think I’ve been looking at the wrong side of things. You can’t fight ice with ice,” he noted. “Nobody else to touch me in the past seven cycles has lived, Kara.” I considered how lucky I was, and a thought occurred to me. Visiting Aunt Lydia in the town would have to wait until tomorrow, I had pulled Brenson away from someone that could help him. I needed to make it up to them both.

I started walking back towards where I guessed Rin and Magnus would have gone, the throne room, where they would be talking with King Raegis. I led Brenson through the corridors to one of the side doors of the throne hall. It was a splendid place with a high ceiling, open air windows that could be shut in the colder cycles, and tall pillars that lined a red carpet draped from the door to the throne. Princess Rin and Prince Magnus were before the foot of the throne when we entered.

I spotted Theo, looking rather unentertained, beside her father’s throne. She acted as though she would rather be out fighting raiders with her new elven guard standing behind her. Theo really was an odd princess. I had only known her for a year, and even then I only interacted with her on short occasions, but I knew she was not a common example of an eighteen year old human princess.

I tried to catch her eye with a wave of my hand, but she didn’t notice. Her bodyguard gave me a glance, but said nothing to Theo.

“Theo!” I whispered. She turned her head where she stood and stared at me.

“What?” she silently mouthed. I could feel the chill of Brenson standing behind me, but I waved her over for a moment. She looked at her father for a second before crossing to the side door, shadowed by the guard of course.

She leaned down so I could whisper in her ear. She nodded as I explained my idea, her eyes glancing back to the throne hall where Rin was and up to Brenson, who was standing a safe distance away from the two of us in the dimly lit side corridor.

“You know, I think that would be an excellent idea, little Kara,” she said with a smile. She turned back to the hall and stopped at her father’s side again. There was a few minutes of conversation, but in one of the pauses Theo leaned over and said something to the king. I guessed she was proposing my idea.

“My daughter has an excellent idea!” he said when she was finished. He was clearly addressing Rin and Magnus now.

“She suggested you join us for a great banquet tonight with all the members of the house. I’m sure if my daughter is in charge, it will be a grand feast with plenty of entertainment! Please, say you’ll join us.” To my delight, they both agreed. Theo would be sitting Brenson right next to me, and Rin right next to him on the other side. My plan was coming together. I smiled at Brenson as the king announced that the banquet would be held the next night. I would have to make sure that I was back by the time is started. Nobody would miss me until then, so I would go to Aunt Lydia’s tonight. There wouldn’t be any harm in telling Brenson though, would there be?

“Hey, Bren,” I decided to say, “I am gonna go visit my Aunt tonight.”

“My mother isn’t here, Kara.” Brenson said with a scowl. “She is still in Borea. She was given royal treatment when I became a prince.”

“Nope,” I calmly said, “She’s in the village right now. I know which house she’s staying in.”

“Kara, you must not visit my mother.” He was suddenly quite serious, and I wasn’t sure why.

“You should come with me, Bren! I’m sure your mother would love to see you.”

“No, Kara,” he hissed, trying to keep his voice down, “I was only thirteen years old when my mother was banished, but your mother had good reason. I am not certain why she was banished, I just know that I didn’t ever see her again until she showed up in Borea before the court, asking about my whereabouts.”

“She was trying to find you. Isn’t that nice? I just want to see my aunt.”

“No, Kara. I didn’t see her at all other than when she showed up before the court. That was seven cycles ago.”

“Lydia has been here for six cycles…” I muttered to myself. The road just to the Northern Pass took a week to travel. Borea was a day beyond that even. Where was Lydia during those three weeks that Brenson or I wouldn’t have seen her?

“Well, see my point now.”

“Yes, I guess,” I admitted. There was only one person to ask that could clear up all the questions now. I wouldn’t be steering clear of Lydia tonight at least. I had a question to ask her, and I wanted to see my aunt

______________________________________

Sup!

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you enjoyed the second chapter of TEB, make sure you hit that vote button to tell me if our loved it! Comments are always appreciated as well if you have something you need me to know.

Due to the holiday, this story and my other primary story will not be updated next week. I barely even got this one out! Make sure to add TEB to your library and follow me to see hear important announcements if you want to keep hearing about TEB.