Chapter 9: Chapter 9

“Who the hell are you to disturb the ground where the dead are resting? Show yourself!” I yelled out to the group of silhouettes that I spotted behind the trees. My anger was making my powers become unstable, that I had to keep on repeating that I had to stay calm in order to use them properly in this situation.

I glanced down momentarily at the arrows that I knocked down on the ground. I don’t think that they were here to disturb the dead. I think that they were here for an assassination. And considering that I am the only living being within the range of their arrows, I can only assume that I am their target. After all, I am the only living being in this place who wasn’t on their side at the moment.

From its looks, they still showed no signs of attempting to cooperate. I raised my hands at midlevel and formed the moisture in the air into spikes that pointed in their direction. “I don’t know what you want from me, but from the looks of it, I don’t think that this is a friendly greeting.” I hardened my gaze as I glared at the group. “What do you want from me?” I was furious. But it was not because I was getting attacked. It was for the reason that they disturbed the graveyard where my uncle was resting.

If I was in a different location, I might have frozen the whole place already. But considering the number of bodies buried underground, it would be considered disrespectful.

Finally, one of them entered my line of sight. I couldn’t decipher their identity because they had dark cloaks covering their whole body.

And because I can’t tell whether they are armed or not under their cloaks, I used one of my hands to aim the ice spikes while I prepared the other hand to create another icy wind for defense.

“Kellar.” A man spoke from under his cape, making me take a step back.

“W-What did you say?” I said it in almost a whisper.

“Prince Kellar Eilur, youngest prince of the old Kingdom of Tereau.” The man says.

My lips quivered and, despite being a winter fairy, I felt my body turning cold. Kellar. It was a name that I hadn’t heard for a long time but have never really forgotten? How could I? The boy once saved my life.

No, he didn’t just save me once. He saved me more times than I could count.

My hand went to my chest as if it could feel steady my pulse. I gulped. “What about him? What about K-Kellar?” My voice came out more shaken than I would have liked. I was nervous about the reason why his name was suddenly brought up. Sweat dripped from the side of my face as I asked the question.

“Where is he?” The demand in his tone of voice shocked me that I think that I was just hearing things.

“Pardon?”

“Our prince,” The man says. “Hand him over!”

I blinked as the information of his words sank. “Your prince?” I gasped. “Does that mean that you guys came from the late Kingdom of Tereau?”

“That’s right.” The man confirmed and finally pulled his hood down. He was a man in his middle ages. There was a lot of scaring on his face, making it difficult to decipher his expression. “We are from Tereau. And we demand that you hand over our prince!”

“Hand over you-” I shook my head in disbelief. “Don’t be crazy. Tereau no longer exist! It was destroyed in the last war. You guys should have been relocated already in Thalia. I even heard that most of you can return to your respective kingdoms after receiving pardons from the head royals of each king-”

“Shut up!” The man suddenly cut me off. His voice rose and sent chilling echoes in the cemetery. “We never wanted to return to our old kingdom. Nor do we want to stay in Thalia! Why does King Nathaniel have to decide everything for us? All we want is to return to Tereau!”

I’ll be honest. I know only a little about the issue regarding what happens to the other residents in Tereau after the war. This is why I was carefully choosing my words.

“Why?” I asked. “Why would you want to return to that place? It’s completely in ruins! King Nathaniel provided you with land and enough money to get settled in.” At least that’s what I last heard from my sister and Ace.

The man scoffed at me. “You fucking ignorant. You wouldn’t even understand. Just give us our prince back!”

I shook my head sadly and fought the urge to wrap my hands around myself whenever I am reminded of him. Of Kellar. “You’re right. I am a royal, and I am ignorant of the events in the Kingdom. But I also know that by staying in the ruins of Tereau, you guys are turning yourselves into rogues, which the others considered a threat.” I explained to him in an even voice in order to not cause a stir. “And I apologize, but I don’t know where...Kellar is.” The last part came as a whisper.

There was a long pause, and I assumed that all of them were trying to absorb my words. “You’re Princess Stella, right? The fairy sibling of Queen Rosalie?” The man asked.

“That’s right,” I confirmed. “If you guys have any trouble living in Thalia, maybe you guys would like to relocate to Gija?” I suggested. “It’s still a small kingdom, but-”

I was too complacent just because we were having a sort of decent chat a while back. This is why I narrowly dodged the array that was headed in my way that grazed my cheek.

“Are you making fun of us?” The tone in his voice was dangerously low. It made every part of my body tense up as I readied myself into combat. “The royals who killed our king are offering to offer us a place to stay? STOP SCREWING WITH US!”

I glared at the man for being unreasonable. “Stop twisting my words! That’s not what I meant!” Icy air emitted from my hands as I readied myself for battle. “Besides, from what I read, Tereau isn’t supposed to exist anyway. It was a kingdom for the rogues. The kingdom that annihilated other kingdoms just to gain power. My sister and the others were on the right to destroy Tereau before it destroys other kingdoms.” A lot of people have told me this, but I rarely believe them. But hearing myself now, I can finally agree when they told me that I resemble my sister in more ways than I would have liked.

We both have a blunt mouth that can get us into trouble. That we rarely think about our words before uttering them.

One by one, the people slowly lowered their capes. I can see that there is a lot of them of different races. There are beastmen, vampires, fairies, and magicians in the group. I could see from their stance that they were preparing themselves for an attack. From their numbers alone, I could estimate six of them in total. But I am not sure since there might be elves in the trees who are out of my sight.

This is bad. If there were one or two enemies, I could probably take them. But six? Now that was too much of a stretch. I could freeze them, but it would be hard with beastmen and vampires who have supernatural speed. They could disable me before I could freeze them completely.

This means that if I want to stand any chance against them, I have to disable them first. Thankfully, the sun was already starting to set, which was causing a mild fog. I could use the cold air molecules from it to immobilize them immediately. My eyes trained along the running fog in the air and waited until it settled onto their foot.

“Capture the princess!” The man says and pointed his dagger in my way. “We’ll use her as our bargaining chip until they return Prince Kellar!”

I raised my right hand and balled it into a fist as soon as he raised his command to his group. The cold molecules from the fog followed my command and immediately froze the legs of the two beastmen among the group. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to capture the vampire because he was too fast for me.

“Sorry, uncle Luke. I promise to have BROTHER Ace revive the plants around you.” I closed my eyes and froze the ground around me. As suspected, the vampire was nearby as he got caught in my trap. He tripped onto his feet as soon as he stepped onto the slippery ground of the ice surrounding me.

One by one, the others were beginning to launch their attacks on me. I created a thick shard of ice clumsily from thin air and blocked the swing of a sword from a girl. I don’t have much experience fighting hand in hand since I am a fairy, so I immediately moved back to keep a distance from her.

“Be careful! I thought I was going to be your hostage!?” I’m not going to lie. I’m not a fan of swords. Just the image of the sharp blade piercing my skin sounds awfully painful.

“Then stop resisting!” The girl, who I now recognize as an autumn fairy, yelled out once more and attempted to make an attack. But before she could launch another attack, I froze her body.

“No, thank you. I still have school tomorrow.” I grinned before turning to face the others. As I did, I screamed and ran away when I saw a ball of fire being hurled in my air. The magicians were starting to attack. And they are cleverly using an element that can counter my ice magic.

The area where I once stood had its ice melted immediately. And it was an area near my uncle’s grave. I quickly extinguished the small flames that burned the area and glared at the magician who launched the attack. “You’re going to pay for that.” All hint of playfulness diminished from my face as I began to use stronger ice magic using the natural cold elements in the area and incorporating it with my own magical energy.

“W-What’s ha-happening?” The magician panicked and began to cast flame magic everywhere to warm himself up. But as hard as he tried, no matter how many fireballs he threw in the air, it would immediately extinguish before he could hurl it.

“Sorry but without enough oxygen, the fire would die. Why don’t you sleep for a while? I think you used enough magic for the day?” I placed my hands together and urged the magic to follow. In an instant, the mage was encapsulated in ice.

“Caezar!” The man, who seemed to be the leader, yelled out when he saw the frozen sculpture of his comrade. He turned to me with a murderous glare.

“He’s alive. The ice will melt in a while, and he will be free. I just don’t like him using fire in this place.” I said.

“You’ll pay for that.” He said menacingly. “Holmer, restrain her.” He commanded with his eyes casting behind me.

It was only then that I remembered that I had forgotten to restrain one of them earlier. I was about to turn around and cast a shield, but it was too late. The vampire had already grabbed my hands from behind and pulled them until they were both behind me.

I turned to the man in front of me who was now drawing his blade as he marched towards me. My eyes widened in fear as I saw the tip glinting from the hue of the setting sun. “Hey, wait. Aren’t you going too far? You guys are going to capture me and make me hostage, right?” I spoke faster than I would have liked. I was nervous and afraid.

“No.” He says. “I changed my mind. I was just taking you up as hostage is going to be a pain. And there won’t be any guarantee that your family will follow the terms. So, I am going to make things quicker since I can already tell where this is going.”

“What are you talking about?” I gulped, my eyes still cast on the blade on his sword.

The man grinned, stretching his scarface into a wide grin. “I’m going to have to take your head and declare war amongst the royals.”