The Angel of Frost

XIX.

(A/N: sorry for taking too long to update. Enjoy!)

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Darkness.

It plagued Hasuma in her dreams, snaking into the bleak scenes of her blurred memory like thousands of black snakes. Anything touched by it was instantly disfigured into shapeless, insentient blobs of ink. It slowly engulfed her mind's landscape, creating lakes of ominious ink and forests of dark blades, before stopping within feet of her. Wherever she walked, the black masses scattered, shrinking away from her footsteps. She knew it was only a matter of time before she, too, was consumed.

Then she woke, and she gasped, feeling a sudden chill.

As the feeling registered itself in her numbed mind, she became aware that she was being carried on a pair of scaly, cold arms. She stared up at the river's surface, unable to turn her head due to an unnatural stiffness in her neck. The faint outline of a golden sun from up above would have lifted her spirits with its beauty, if not for her imagination presenting her with unpleasant scenarios, not least horrifying of which was a reptilian man with rows of sharp fangs for teeth bringing her to its den for consumption.

She wished to cry out, but her throat was frozen. Her lips refused to move. Her entire body felt like it was dragging lifelessly at her nerves. Her limbs hung limp, useless as tools for resistance or escape.

Then her memory returned fully, and she remembered.

Levi.

She tried to call out his name, to make him snap out of his madness. That was what she wanted more than anything else, more than escape.

When Hasuma was adopted by Lissandra, it was not because of the queen's whims, but it was from the utter lack of a heir. The nobles and officials denied it furiously, but word had spread that Lissandra was barren. Some said that King Harridion's death had been completely orchestrated, and that Lissandra herself had ordered it in secret, to have an excuse for not being able to give the kingdom a heir. If the king was dead, there was no heir to be made, therefore, Lissandra's childlessness was not from a barren womb, but rather the lack of a husband - at least that's what the queen wanted them to believe.

At first, upon her adoption, Hasuma had been overjoyed. Her dream as a girl, like most of her age, was to become a member of the royal family out of some sort of miracle. When the queen had the children of the city line up for inspection, she had taken one look at Hasuma and said, "She's the one."

As the queen was going through the usual red tape when it came to adoptions - at least, that was what Hasuma was told, but she knew that someone as powerful as the queen was more than able to bypass the complicated processes - Hasuma waited, and prepared herself for the grand night when she would be introduced into the palace, and to the kingdom, as a princess.

At school, Hasuma was a complete loner - one of the many reasons she was slightly confused why the queen would choose her, as a more outgoing princess would have been useful in improving the image of the royals. But when word got out that she was to become the new heir, everyone flocked to her, asking for autographs, talking excitedly, and attempting to secure future favors. Unused to the social pressure, Hasuma had crumbled. Within moments, she was in tears, sobbing, wishing out loud that everyone would leave her alone. They instantly left, and their opinion of her didn't improve one bit. In fact, their backstabbing, which had been horrible enough before her adoption, became worse. Behind her back, they called her a fake heir. A mere substitute.

Hasuma, fortunately, was too busy crying to hear.

Aside from that, the days leading to the grand night were more or less eventful, if the time when newspaper editors tried to cram themselves into her little house to ask for interviews wasn't taken into account. Her father had bolted the door, and the editors, seeing that brute force would get them nowhere - or in jail, for the queen was always more or less in a fiery mood after the death of her husband - switched to flattery. He, however, refused to listen to their "compliments" and boarded up the windows.

It was a full day before they finally left.

My father then, he probably was a good man. He saved me from those nosy editors. I wonder what his name was? I can't remember, I must have forgotten it sometime ago . . .

I must remember.

She couldn't - that was the problem. She couldn't remember the names of those who had been in her past life, only memories, and even those were unreliable at best. Friends, even mere acquiantances, were forgotten, so she treated Levi and Glaucus as her only two friends. The servants and maids who attended to her in the palace acted too cooly to befriend, and Lissandra herself would constantly remind her of her fragile position - if a better heir was found, she would be returned to her former life of poverty.
What should have been a girl's dream had turned into a nightmare. It wasn't a nightmare because of fear, but because of the loneliness. She had everything many dreamed for, but she had no one.

I'd give everything to be back in that old hut, with my parents, without the luxury of the palace. I'd give everything to have just one friend.

Instead, I was swept away to sea by a storm, and I met an angel, and his demon brother. I think of them as my friends. Do they think the same of me too, even if they're beings beyond my league?

To her surprise, she found that her lips could move again. She chuckled, feeling like a fool.

We've been together only for days; of course they don't think of me as a friend. I'm sure that to them, I'm merely a passing acquaintance . . .

Her thoughts were interrupted as Levi stopped, and set her down upon a stone floor.

Her vision, which had been blurred by tears earlier, instantly cleared, and she saw her tormentor.

She was horribly disfigured, a nymph queen with flesh torn between Hell and Earth. And she sneered, bringing back  memories of the cold, hard smiles she had given her when she had been a princess, a false heir.

"'Don't get your hopes up, dear, many deserve the throne more.' Oh, I delight in remembering times past! Would you like to have a toast, Hasuma, to your approaching death?"

Still sneering, the nymph queen held up a dark, defiled book, with one eye like a viper's on its cover. Tendrils of purple energy sprouted from its edges, flicking through the water.

It drew her in, and she, with a body rendered numb once more, was powerless to resist.