Chapter 30

'Cool head, warm feet' was the perfect sleeping condition I heard form a pillow ad. I never had a chance to work out whether it was true, after all, I was always sleeping in an air-conditioning room. Does the fake coldness count as the factor I was not sure, but I had a feeling that I was experiencing one now. The perfect warmth cloaking my whole body and the right amount of coolness surrounding my head was just bliss.

I thought dreamily, squirming a bit to get my arm in the right angle, and went back to sleep.

When I came around again, my conscious was even clearer than deionized water. I felt like really awaken for the very first time, and that finally Coronale dream was over. I did not need to be a phony princess anymore, and it was finally time to go to work. That was 'cool head warm feet' for you.

I was met by a ceiling that had beautiful color of the sea. Not just the color, it seemed to be transparent like water too. But I was very confident about the efficiency of my brain in the memory section, and I clearly remembered having been waken up to see it every day, that my white bedroom ceiling was pinkish from the morning light streaming through the old-rose curtains.

And if I was in a hotel somewhere in the world on a vacation, there would not have been a genuine furry fleece covering my body as a blanket, the room should not be this posh making wholly out of that vitreous turquoise thing, and most of all if this were real, I would not spend my money on this class of room, it's a total waste!

"You're awake?" A wavy shadow from the opposite side of the clear wall said. I immediately recognized the flaw of this place. There was no privacy here.

A young man walked in through a square trench carving in the blue partition with a jug of water. His hair and eyes were both the same color of the surroundings, only darker. His skin was very white like the bear trudging by his side. Wait, a polar bear?

I eyed the animal a little anxiously wondering if I was in a zoo, but judging from the man's fashion, I probably was still in the world where Magic runs wild. My sober mind confirmed the assumption as well.

I sighed.

"How are you feeling?" the man said pouring a glass of water and handing it to me. "Drink before it hardens."

I did not really understand what he meant but I took the glass. It was fiercely cold outside the mellow fur and I had to put my arms back under it again as soon as I could.

"He's not gonna bite right?" I said the first thing eyeing the bear that had its black beady eyes on me for the past half minute.

"He's a bear." I did not get his point but there was more important thing I must ask now.

"Erm, excuse me, where am I now?"

"Edurne." said the man, "Are you hungry?"

"A little," I said recalling the name but not its geographical quality, "how did I end up here?"

"I'll make something." He said and retreated to the exit, "Nothing warm though, fire doesn't work very well here." He was about to leave without giving me any clues to why I am here.

The bear did not follow him. It lay down in a big fluffy cotton puff beside the bed. I was forced to slowly slid into the fluffy covering pretending to be dead. The man came back not long bringing a bowl of mashed whatever-meat soup. I quickly drank it and flinched at the cold caressing down my throat. It was like drinking an ice cold water.

I had always hated cold food, but it must be rude to complain. "Thank you very much."

"He brought you here," the man suddenly said touching the bear's snowy back. "Your back were injured and there were ice bites all over you."

"Then, I must thank you too." I told the bear wherein it ignored me and finished the ice soup.

"You should take some more rest." The man took the bowl. "You had a high fever when you got here too."

So my body basically had been at its lowest. I obeyed the man and lay down once more. It was not as if I liked to get out of this blanket, it was just too cold for me. "Thank you so much again, err—"

"Kay." He said and left.

I was nursed in this ice castle, on ice caters for another week before my spine completely healed. It was lucky of me that I fell onto Kimhan—that was the bear's name. Speaking of name, I got mixed up for many days thinking that it was 'okay' he said at the time, when actually the man name was Kay.

From what Kay slipped out from time to time (he hadn't been really talking to me or answering my questions) I had been unconscious for three days, so it had been almost ten restful and undisturbed days totally at this place. I knew nothing more about Kay nor Kimhan more than I knew the first day. Their taciturn demeanor might be influenced from the stillness of the wintry environment.

I was eager to move as soon as I felt better and Kay agreed to take me out for a walk. One suspicion was melt, I had a thought they were imprisoning me in this icy room.

"May I have a shower later too?" I asked Kay who draped a fur coat around my shoulders giving me his unreadable frosty stare which must mean I was crazy talking about shower. Almost everyone had been giving me that since I arrived here. It wasn't my fault that my country is darn hot all year long and that I'm used to taking shower twice a day!

"It's a joke," I said putting on the funniest expression, "ha ha."

No one laughed or even made a sound and Kimhan started out of the room. I put on woolly boots shaking the flatness off my face and walked after him out into the huge carved ice-cube complex that looked indifferently blue everywhere. Kimhan knew his way. We slithered from one cyan corner to another and eventually out to the open.

The only sign I knew that we were outside was because of some sparse white chunk of snow and that there were no more walls. I threw my head round to watch the building that I had been living for almost a week and was surprised to see a giant sapphire stripe, vertically connected to sky-high snow mountain. I edged a little further backward to get a good purchase of the architecture, and was completely frozen at the actual frozen waterfall looming colossal and cold over me.

"You built your house in a waterfall, I mean—your house is carved out of a waterfall?" I said, awed.

"No, it's a fountain." Kay said coldly.

A small trickling noise pulled me away from the splendid scene and the new wonderful knowledge of the enormous blue building, and I saw a small bar of running water rolling its way down into small aquamarine pool at the foot of the fountain (still feel kinda mesmerize at this point). Kay was there too.

"Is your house melting?" I asked worriedly trailing my index along the water-line.

"No," said Kay, "this is drinking water." I quickly pulled my finger out. "I wonder why it won't harden since you're here quite a while already."

"It's not like I'm a freezer." I said frivolously but Kay was having the most serious face on and I could not laugh anymore at my lame joke.

"No," okay, he's totally serious. "but you are the Princess of Coronale."

"You know?!" Do you know that I'm a sham too?

"It's almost two weeks..." Kay murmured to himself rather than talking to me. I had almost grown used to it with him not answering my questions. Okay people, do whatever please you. "you came to this world for almost four months and we still have water to drink," he observed the running water, "what happen to your power?"

I was absorbed at observing the beauty of running water on the hard-water surface. It was only a moment later with his cold persistent stare that I was aware he was waiting for me to say, but—say what? say I don't have any powers to begin with?

"Only god knows." Lamest answer ever!

Kay made a face implying the same thing I thought, but he did not inquire any further and we continued our snow stroll. I curbed my curiosity of Kay's identity knowing he would not tell me anything anyway and kept my pace. The boots, despite furry, attached very well to the slippery ground which embalmed plants and fantastic landscapes deep down below. It felt extraordinarily astounding walking on thick and big stretching sheet of ice. There was not much to see afterward though, but a few white hills and a vast vista of clear turquoise floor, but it was breathtaking enough to make my heart light.

Kimhan let me ride on his back sometimes. It was another incredible experience. I could not help hugging the white squashy bear back, sinking my body into the depth of his fur all the time I was on there. Only that unforgettable ice mountain could tear me away from such coziness.

I gathered it could not be called a mountain, because it was only twice as tall as Kay, and was only a few meters thick. Most eldritch thing of all, there was a woman inside.

But she could be some kind of realistic ice-laser art, or ice-magic art for this world's case. I edged closer to admire the delicate detail of the cloth and lifelike dark brown hair. "The artist must be really good!" It was so good that I forgot to think quietly in my head.

"Somebody's here." murmured Kay running his hand on a give in the snow.

"Kay, who made this? How do you put colors inside of the ice?" I studied his ignorance.

The uncommunicative Kay stood up and casted a detective eyes over the blue horizon. He halted at the arty ice, hardened his stare, hollered off his lung.

"Frosty hell! Queen Neera!"

"Queen what?" I asked per instinct though I knew he wouldn't answer me.

"Queen Neera!—"

Oh, okay, now it's weird. Why are you talking to me?

"it's melting!"

I decided to follow his stare. Perhaps it was something serious since he talked to me. As I raised my face up, a few drop of cold water splashed on my cheeks and striped down the ice cube in stands. I could almost understand Kay out of his cool seeing such masterpiece melting at a rate faster than greenhouse gas could have achieved.

"Oh!" By the time I said this, the ice had vanished one-third revealing the head of the sculpture coated with icicles. So they made an ice figure before covering it again with clear ice, such easy but wise trick.

Kay grabbed on my wrist with one hand and beckoned to Kimhan with another. "We have to leave now. Get on Kimhan."

He's talking to me again! For the second time in a row! I thought I could just try my luck to have my questions answer."Why?"

"Because she's melting!"

You must understand how out of the world it feels to have people by your side all the time but never talk to you. I got greedy and kind of happy. It was totally the salesman thing all over again, like you got the customers who never want to talk to you finally opening up their hearts.

"I know. It's a pity that such beautiful statue isn't going to exist anymore. But worry not, I could be your witness, I will tell everyone that the ice melts on its own accord."

"That's not what I mean!" Kay's voice remained clear and cold and he was still talking to me. "We must go now!"

Here I could act like a spoiled princess demanding the right to know what is happening until there was no more mystery to me. But the dire urgency in his cool voice aroused my primal instinct of fear and I obeyed him without second question. Kimhan seemed to sense something as well, because as Kay hopped up behind me, he broke into a great run as if a seal was just in his grasp. The ice was left far away in just a few strides.

Gelid wind slammed my front, lanced my cheeks, and took away feelings on my ears. Kay's wintry garment did not help much now and I really missed the heat back in my home. We did not go back to our ice fountain castle but to somewhere I was not sure since it looked the same everywhere in Edurne. Blue, white, and deserted.

Kimhan rested for breaths. I tried to turn my neck to ask Kay if I could sit behind him but the frost prevent me and I had to pivot my whole body. Even when I did that, I could not speak for the frost had also sealed my lips together coating it with another layer of rime.

Kay stared in my statue-like expression and brought his hands up cupping my whole face with them. "Wow, this is like ice!"

Seemed there were layers of rimes here too because there was not a single feeling on even one square centimeters of an area. Only after about ten times rubbing that I began to discern the warmth from Kay's palms on my cheeks, the flushing of blood, and the smoothness of turquoise ground that seemed to go horribly wrong.

Cracks crept like arms of trees marring impeccable glossy mint surface. And as the noise grew too loud to bear, and the aqua floor shook despite having no lava down there, a ferocious split resonated turning gigantic size of marine ices up before us while a woman—that woman in the ice—turned up like a rocket launching skyward from under an underground base.

She still looked pretty blue to me. Not only because of the blue gown, or the blue eyes, but also the blue skin that must have been caused from embedding in the coldness for too long.

Kimhan made an act to run but cool tall-columns of cyclones assembled in semi-circle forcing us to stay.

"Queen Neera!" I heard Kay say.

"You're not going anywhere." The lady finally spoke with such snow-stormy voice.

"How did you get out of that ice?" Kay asked and the lady voice mumbled in answer.

Much was going on with me as the conversation which was snatched away by the rumbling whirled wind went on. Much included knife-sharp whip of wind, ice bites, buzzing wind noises, nose leak, pain on my skin, fading of consciousness, ice bites—ah, I said that!—I was too busy levering my eyelids, fighting the muddling cold to pay attention to what the whatever-Queen wants. Then came such a powerful pull which I managed to resist only for three seconds before it took me off Kimhan's back landing me on my stomach in front of the Queen's pair of sparkling ice shoes.

She bended over and said something I still could not hear. "Speak louder!" I shouted.

Her mouth was wider. She did speak louder, but the booming wind was much greater and it dissolved her voice away.

"Can't hear ya!" I yelled.

She did the same, yelling, stooping ever closer over me.

"What?"

Her placid face showed sign of anger and from the movement of muscles on her face, she must be bellowing at the top of her lung.

"Just stop the wind, will you!"

That seemed to take on her and the wind stopped instantly. The Queen retreated her head upward straightening her back satisfactorily as Kay came putting a cloak around me. It did not help but at least it showed he was generous.

The Queen, stately and snowy, officially spoke to me for the first time.

"Long time no see, little girl."