Cinderella vs. Happily Ever After

Chapter 44

           Valerie gulped, shook her head, gulped again then turned around. “Enax,” she called. “We need you to look at this.”

            “What, what, what?” The magician said, stalking over. “If this is something else you wish me to fix that is not made of metal-”

            She pointed at the human popsicle. “Just tell me if she’s alive or not. And if staying in there longer will hurt her.”

            Frowning, Enax spiralled around the column of ice, getting closer while his fuzzy grey eyebrows rose higher at every circuit. Finally he faced the frozen woman’s face, lips moving as he murmured inaudible things to himself. He pulled a thin copper disc from one of his pockets, one that when the light hit it, Valerie could see odd designs carved into it, and pressed it to the ice with one finger. Then he stared at the disc for a moment before nodding and putting it away. “She lives and will continue to live in the ice. Her time is as frozen as her body. She has no awareness of what is happening around her.”

            “So we can leave her there until we figure a proper way to melt them and they won’t be harmed?” She asked, fiddling with one of her earrings.

            “Yes. It is Fae magic and will be most easily removed by another Fae.”

            “Alright,” she said. Taking a deep breath she turned to face the assembled army. Or rather, the half that had gotten inside so far. They were assembling into their squads, soon to be dispersed to the strategic points Eneric had pointed out, to fortify or reclaim from the enemy. She took another deep breath and pitched her voice to carry. “Okay, I need your attention please. And please pass this on to those who can’t hear me. There are columns of ice, I’m going to assume there are more than the handful we can see in this hall. You may notice that there are people in them. I have it on good authority,” she bowed in Enax’s direction who nodded. “That the people trapped are safe and have no idea what’s happening around them. So we’re going to ignore them. I know it’s hard but there’s nothing we can do for them right now. We’re outnumbered as is and our main concern needs to be retaking the palace. Any questions?”

            The only response she got was stunned silence. She shrugged. “Well that’s that then. You know what to do and why we’re here. We might as well get this show on the road.”

            Isaac, who’d come up behind her, put a hand on her shoulder and called, “Let’s get to work.” The soldiers, slowly and with frequent glances at Valerie and the ice around them, went back to work. She turned to him, her eyes narrowed. He started before she could. “You have to watch your slang. They don’t understand all of it.”

            She froze, blinked, then nodded. “I didn’t think of that.”

            He grinned. “I know. Alas, it seems my job to do your thinking for you. Brains and beauty, why, I’m damn near perfect.”

            She shoved him then waved the rest of their squad in. Enax, Miette, Sir Alejandro who was pulled over by Kafin, Amorrt and Konah all feel in quickly. Their job was to find and free Darren and his parents, taking out whatever enemies they could along the way.

            “Where are we going?” Amorrt asked when everyone was there.

            “What’s the most central room?” Val said. “We heard rumours that that’s where Darren is.”

            He snorted. “Rumours? You will put stock in the tales people tell one another to frighten themselves?”

            “The rumours we heard also mentioned the castle being sealed in ice and people trapped in ice,” she snapped back, tension making her even more waspish. “So forgive me for going with the only clue we have.”

            His eyes snapped together but Konah rested his hand on his head before he could do more than glare. Isaac leaned himself against Valerie at the same time. Both turned hard stares on the men touching them, and both men gave them looks, Isaac’s mocking, Konah’s serious. Amorrt dropped his eyes and muttered something while Val flushed then sighed. “Sorry,” she told the prince. “I’m just…this is not something I ever thought I’d be doing.”

            Amorrt looked at her, frowning, then nodded. “I expect that is true. And you are…we have no other ideas on where my cousin or my aunt and uncle will be so I suppose the throne room is not a poor option to begin with.”

            She grinned. “Careful there. Keep talking like that and people are going to think you like me.”

            He snorted and straightened. “Follow me. It will not take us long to reach it provided we do not meet with the enemy.”

            So they fell into a double line behind Amorrt and Konah, eyes and ears on alert for any sign of the invaders. The walk through the halls was almost dream-like to Valerie. They were all places she’d been before but with frozen people and icicles scattered throughout the otherwise empty pink halls, it was nothing like she remembered. Even the light was pale and watery, as it fought its way through the ice filling every outer door and window.

            Isaac, now over his initial shock at the ice people, began staring at every column, looking for anyone familiar. The twelfth one they passed made him pause and sigh. She looked at him and he shook his head. “That was one of my students. He’s rather cute and I was just thinking it was a pity you can generally only see their faces.”

            She frowned for a moment then noted the slight tremor in his hands and smiled instead. “Yes well if we find Darren in one of those I might be tempted to keep him there. It would make my life so much easier. And I wouldn’t have to worry about him pulling stunts like drugging me.”

            He chuckled. “I’m telling him you said that.”

            “He deserves it,” she said, sniffing.

            They continued through eerily empty halls, making Valerie’s hair stand on end. She thought they’d have met the enemy already. It was too easy, she kept thinking, looking around for the ambush she expected around every corner.

            They came to one of the wider intersections of two halls, this one having benches placed by what would normally be wide windows but were now ice blocks, when Isaac froze, staring. Valerie sighed and grabbed his arm, tugging him along. He shook her arm free. “Val,” he said, voice serious. “You need to look at this.”

            She followed his arm and saw him pointing to one of the ice columns. She rolled her eyes. “I said leave them. There’s nothing we can do for them now.”

            “No, Val. We need to deal with that one.”

            Her forehead creasing and her lips pulling down, she moved up beside him to stare at the ice-human in front of her. Except it wasn’t a human. She gasped as her eyes took in the purple eyes of Satinka.