Page 75 of A Requiem of Fire and Ice

“You will die,” she stated matter-of-factly.

“Did you want me to die somewhere else?” Reen spoke, his voice low as if he were committed to leaving if she told him to.

Bright pink eyes darken, and her lips curl in disdain. “No, we have to have some entertainment. The dance bores me.”

Reen doesn’t answer. Instead, he watches her bite the corner of her mouth as she struggles with her inner turmoil. He didn’t tell her to leave, perhaps because of the fear of dying alone. This young girl knelt beside him, as white as snow, when she could have moved on with her life without a care and left him to die alone in the snow.

“Show me,” she breathed.

Reen hesitated before deciding it would make no difference if she tricked him and wanted him to reveal the wound so she could kill him. Either way, he would die unless he could prevent the bleeding.

She leaned down, examining the cut. “It doesn’t look like it hit a vital organ. I think I can patch you up before summoning someone to help with your recovery.”

“Why?” Reen said, with hostility on his tongue.

The teenage girl shrugged her shoulders before she murmured, “I’ve seen too much death already.”

Prince Reen reluctantly agreed to let her help him. He watched her scoop snow from the ground as she pressed it against the wound to thicken the blood and harden the skin around the cut. He didn’t question her actions or expertise. Instead, he listened to orders from someone other than family or the King for the first time, doing as she said with little pushback.

“I’m going to pinch the ends together. Can you burn flesh enough for the skin to overlap and melt? If you can do that, I can harden the skin quicker with my powers,” she said.

He does as he’s told, and when her nimble hands pinch his flesh, Prince Reen glides his finger across. Reen winces at the surge of pain and the tingling sensation that sparks when he does so. When he finishes, the girl does as promised, places her hands against the wound and presses them to it.

“How did it happen?” she asked.

Reen shifted uncomfortably at how close she was to him. Instead, he tilted his head away and overlooked the drunken fools stumbling in the snow.

“I was protecting my family,” Reen answered.

She smiled when he looked back at her, but he noticed it didn’t reach her eyes. They glistened pink and wavered in the dull light. It briefly captivated him before he averted his gaze to avoid his feelings.

“When do we stop?” she breathed. Her fingers released from the wound, and she rose to her feet. “I will get someone to take you somewhere and have them watch over you. Tell me if they don’t, and I will kill them, okay?”

He knitted his brows at her matter-of-fact promise until she twitched a smile. He smiled, too, and when she turned to leave, he asked her name. Pandora hesitated momentarily as if she weighed up telling him her real name, but her parents’ words rang true, and she told him the name of another.

Prince Reen thanked her, and before Pandora could suppress the urge to turn around and sit with the mutt that she thought was as cruel as King Ragan and for them to understand one another, she left before her heart thumped to the same rhythm as his.

Many would question what would have happened if Pandora had spoken her true name. What would have happened had Reen asked her to stay or held her gaze longer? Would he have fallen for her? Found her intriguing enough to converse with? Would the Kingdom of Crystal have fallen into ruin if they had stayed? Would Prince Reen have convinced King Ragan not to slaughter the kingdom…or told King Ragan he would become king if he left the Kingdom of Crystal instead?

As the curator and creator of the story, but still a helpless bystander, I believe this story wouldn’t have existed had Prince Reen and Pandora understood the complicated, swirling feelings within each other. With many obsessions, he would have been attentive to her and keen to unravel her mysteries. As a woman lacking any formed friendships, she would have grown to love the bastard and pursued him romantically at seventeen.

They would have married. She would have given him children. It would have been a perfect fairy tale, filled with all things light, with no hint of darkness or revenge to explore. Their families would join, and the old friendship of King Ragan and Fross Hart would remain strong.

If only they weren’t so stubborn and proud, this story would have ended happily…

Reen Kyong, July 14th

I leave the confines of my room after the memory of realising Pandora Hart was Myra…the girl who saved my life. It bothers me. The thought of owing someone irritates me.

Now, I seem to have conflicting views about this hunt. I want her dead. There is no contest in those desires of mine, but it seems I still owe her. Therefore, I’ve decided to agree to spare her life until after Walkyer finishes questioning her. I hate the idea of prolonging this more than I should, but it’s the only other option unless something else happens that allows me to spare her life and remove this debt.

Alad steps out of the shadows as I lean my arms against the railing and overlook the starry night with my chain hooked around my finger. Waves ripple against the ship. The air stills with silence as the breeze tickles my exposed skin, sending a chill across the sweat clinging to my back.

“Why didn’t you tell me that Pandora was the girl who saved my life that day?” I ask Alad.

“You would have thought that I was saying anything I could to prevent you from killing her,” he answers with honesty thick in his words.

“Is that the reason you don’t want her dead?”