The Ice Queen of Lessaenes (Book 5)

Beyond the Garden- 2

A note from Queen Saralee: The utter niceness of my childhood self disgusts me.  

"My daughter is dead," the man said sharply, looking down at his feet. "She was murdered. By the King," he fumed. 

At that moment, I realized with horror that he had been talking about his old life, his village, and his daughter in past tense...

"The Ice Guards flooded into the valley one day and planted bombs everywhere. No one knew why, they just came. Then, they threatened to detonate all the bombs if we didn't tell them where the White Hot Flame was hiding. Of course, we didn't, but the thing was, we didn't know! Yes, several villages in the West Arabella Province were disguised rebel bases, but ours weren't, and we had no idea which ones were!" 

"Maybe it was the Warrior Chief who sent them," I told him with surety. "The King is a very nice man. He would never do anything like that."

"Oh, it was the King alright," he spat. "I still remembered him, he stepped out of his car with a gun slung over his shoulder. He said he'd give us one last chance to give him the information he needed, and then he'd destroy us. And we couldn't tell him because we didn't know! My people pleaded with him, but he didn't listen. He took that gun in his hands and fired it into the air. That must've been some sort of a signal, because a second later, the valley exploded," he choked out. "I was the only survivor." 

"I...I'm so sorry," I was so shocked I didn't know what to say. This was nothing like the King Khariel I knew, the warm, caring father who bought me roomfuls of toys and clothes, let me play peekaboo behind his throne, and took me on trips to the beaches of Kilaenas. 

"It's alright, it wasn't your fault," he smiled kindly, before his lips curled into a frown. "Wait a second...I've seen you before..." 

Oh no. 

I turned my face into the shadows, hoping that he wouldn't recognize me. I started to plan how I would reason with him to not tell my parents about my "adventure" when I heard his angry shout. 

"You're Princess Saralee!" He yelled, his eyes narrowing to slits. 

"Yeah..." I trailed off, a bit scared. 

A note from Queen Saralee: *facepalm*

"He took my daughter...Now I will take his!" The emta man swung his fist into my cheek and stars exploded across my vision. I staggered backward in utter fear and confusion. That was truly the first time in my life I had ever experienced any sort of pain. At birth, wealthy Lessaenites all got a series of injections that made us immune to most diseases, so I had never even been sick. I was honestly more in shock than hurt. 

"No! I didn't do anything wrong!" I shrieked, but he only shook his head and replied bitterly. "Neither did Felicia." 

I turned to run, dashing through the narrow streets of the Lekhone as fast as my little legs would take me, but my Aura had other plans. I decided to succumb to the electrical impulses in my fingertips this time, the man was probably much faster than me anyway. 

My Aura ballooned out in front of me, forming a shield between me and the man, who was quickly approaching. Clearly, he wasn't expecting so much power from a girl as young as me, and he tried to stop himself. However, he had been running too fast for too long, and barreled straight into my Aural force field. 

He grunted as he slammed into the wall, and bounced off of it, flying into a wall. I was a bit shaken, I had never used my Aura as a weapon outside of the training hall, but the effect was satisfying. 

"Leave it to the Arystenns to train their nine year old children to be assassins!" The man shouted with rage as he sprung off the wall and was after me once again. 

It wasn't our fault there were people like him hiding in the shadows, just waiting to get revenge on our family. 

I continued to run, leaving bubbles of Aura in my wake to block his vision and hopefully confuse him. Finally, I spotted a ditch and hopped in, sinking to my knees in an effort to hide. I raised my hand and let the trail of Aura continue forwards, making it look as if I was still running. 

To my relief, the man fell for my ruse and continued to follow the trail. As soon as he was out of sight, I jumped out of the ditch and sprinted madly in the direction of Arystenn Hill, grateful for the height and prominence of the palace that sat atop it. 

My cheek throbbed painfully and I was sure I would have a nasty bruise, but I ignored it as best as I could as I ran. As I entered the Populati I began to slow down from fatigue. Yet, I was too afraid to stop, so I let blue bags form under my feet and allowed my Aura to carry me briskly through the streets. 

I knew I would be stopped at the gate that separated the Populati from the Elitia, so I did something I had never tried before. As I Aura-skated closer to the gate, I bent my knees and created tension in my Aura. Then, before the shocked Ice Guards could say anything, I sprung upwards, headed over the tall wall. 

For a moment, I was afraid I would fall short and tumble back to the ground, but I managed to grab the top of the wall with my fingertips. 

"Hey! You! Where do you think you're going?" Called one of the Ice Guards from beneath me, and I quickly scrambled onto the wall and jumped into the soft, cushion of Aura that waited on the other side. Wait...I didn't put that Aura there...

I looked up to see my sister and brother staring down into my face. 

"Hey, Sara," Keilee said with a smirk as she licked the ice cream cone in her hand. "Did you have fun listening to a guy play emta? Airel and I sure had fun on that ferris wheel, in that ferryboat, and buying ice cream. Wait a second, what happened to your face?" She asked, her expression instantly changing from one of mockery to one of concern. 

"The emta guy punched me!" I whined. "And he said he would...kill me, but I escaped." 

"What!?" Keilee's eyes widened, and she began to grin. "Father's going to kill him!" 

"If the Ice Guards can find him," I grumbled. "There's probably thousands of guys like him in Glaisse!" 

"Well...let's see...did he have any distinguishing features? Anything weird or noticeable about him?" Keilee asked. 

I replayed the incident in my head, yet I noticed nothing I could tell her. He was perfectly nondescript. Well, except for one thing. I recalled how the long sleeve of his shirt had slid up slightly while he handed me the doll, revealing the only thing about him that stood out. 

"He has a tattoo on his right wrist," I said. "It's pure white, and I couldn't see the whole thing, but it looked like a flame of some sort." 

"Oh!" Keilee gasped, her eyes snapping fully open with fear. "We have to get back to Icicle Hall right now!" 

"But why? Is the tattoo important?"

"No, it's not important at all," Keilee snapped sarcastically. "It only means that there's a White Hot Flame member in our capital city! And those rebels are like fungi. You never see just one mushroom. Where there's one rebel, there's bound to be more.