His insides began to quiver.


    It was all crystal: the walls, the floor, the vanity, the small chair. The bed too, probably. He was sat up feeling deja vu, dangerously alert and ready to strike. But there was no one in the room but him. Diane Hunster was the only one who would keep him company; the others had better things to do. He pushed the covers, white, off his body, stepped onto the fluffy carpet, also white, and put on a pair of white slippers.


    A real madhouse.


    Thomas was in the royal castle, no doubt about it, but he had no idea how he got there. His skin felt slimy somehow, sticky, and gross, but there was nothing unusual on it, like lotions or fancy soaps. He was wearing a pair of silk white pajamas that felt smooth to the touch and oddly cooling. He looked around; through the gap between the white curtains, a little sunlight snuck into the room, making the floor glisten. He touched the wall, then the floor, the vanity, and the small chair. All was crystal, even the bed frame. His ears rang as his thoughts raced through his brain, too fast to catch and develop.


    He opened the door. There were no guards in front of his room or anywhere he could see. But there was more crystal, literally everywhere. A white rug followed the hallway, this one thin and with some decorations, like snowflakes or flowers. He left the door open as he made his way down the hallway, following the white rug. There was nothing else to look at, so he hypnotized himself by counting the little snowflakes, completely blocking out any and every sensation created by his surroundings. That was how he, as he turned the corner, hit someone, knocking them off their feet and onto the white carpet.


    “What the hell are you doing?!” she screamed, more out of habit than true irritation. As Thomas moved his gaze towards her and pieced together her eyes, her hair, and her nose, once he saw her lips curl upwards, he realized that he had no idea what her name was. But he remembered her clearly; he could repeat every word she had said to him the night when his life fell apart. “I should have known,” she said with the same superiority in her voice that she had had back then. “Only uncouth peasants like you could be so unaware of their surroundings.”


    A peasant’s better than a swineherd, I guess.


    “It is a pleasure to see you again,” he replied and offered her his hand. He couldn’t believe his eyes when she took it, her freezing skin sending his nerves on rampant, screaming for help; if he didn’t think her a ghost before, he sure did now.


    She showed him her teeth when she smiled, they too were perfectly white. “Where’s your master?”


    Thomas narrowed his eyebrows. “Who?”


    She chuckled. “Right. Let me try again. Why is Diane Hunster not with you? I thought you two were a package deal.”


    Thomas looked to the side. “I don’t know why you would think that. But she’s not here.”


    “Evidently.”


    He cleared his throat when she didn’t follow up with another question. “Yes, well… I will see you later then.”


    Her porcelain hand grabbed his arm so strongly Thomas’s first instinct was to use it to push her to the side. It had been so long since he was in contact with a regular person that he forgot that his strength was not regular, causing him to accidentally slam her against the wall and dent it. Now that there was a bit of red, he felt relieved.


    He quickly grabbed her arm and pulled her up, turning her head to see a red spot in her white hair. But she was awake and staring at him with a strange mixture of excitement and terror. Her right arm, which was visible through her translucent sleeves, was also pinkish. But she didn’t look at all in pain; in fact, she grabbed his jaw and pulled him closer, so their noses were almost touching.


    “You,” she whispered all but threateningly, “what are you to Diane Hunster?”


    He wanted to pull away, but the way she was grabbing onto him, the way she was looking at him, and the way her voice deviated from her standard calm and echoed with a hit of urgency through the white hallway, made him feel at ease.


    “A friend,” he replied.


    “No,” she insistent, squeezing even harder, “no, you two…you two are up to something. I can tell. What are you up to? Why are you here? And why is she not?”


    “I didn’t know you two were this friendly,” a man suddenly said. “I’m glad to see you’ve put the past behind you.”


    Isaac was standing a few steps away from them, his hands behind his back and his face moderately lit up. Thomas let go of the girl immediately, but her fingers lingered on his face for another moment, probably disinterested in the implications this scene might have had.


    “Hello, Isaac,” she said, now using a white handkerchief to press the spot on her head that was still slightly bleeding.


    “Hello, Sofia,” he replied. “I see you fell and hit the wall?”


    “I did,” she sighed, “but I was lucky Mr…”


    “Hammer.”


    “Mr Hammer was here to help me up.”


    “How kind of him.”


    “How kind indeed.”


    “You must feel sorry now about the way you spoke to him before.”


    “Very much sorry.”This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    “How kind of you.”


    She smiled. “And when have I not been kind, Isaac?”


    He returned the smile. “Truly never.”


    “Well then,” she nodded at him, gave Thomas a disinterested glance, made a few steps away from the two, then turned around and said, “Oh, and Isaac, I am not blind. Whatever it is you are scheming, I will uncover it.”


    Isaac smiled even wider. “I certainly hope you will.”


    Isaac approached Thomas when she was out of sight. As he attempted to roll Thomas’s sleeve a little to hide the singular drop of blood that tainted it, Thomas flinched and walked a few steps back. Isaac only smiled, like he didn’t want to tell this Flamer that he too would be appalled by his own touch.


    “It’s been a long time,” the prince commented.


    “Not that long,” Thomas replied as they continued following the white rug together. Each time he saw Issac was a little more uncomfortable than the previous and Thomas couldn’t understand why. Thomas hadn’t judged Isaac for his choice even before he started doubting his own, so he couldn’t understand why the prince talked to him with so much uncertainty and looked at him with a hint of fear.


    “Have you found a way to deal with the things that haunted you back then?” Isaac asked out of the blue once the short but sharp silence became unbearable. But Thomas could tell there was more than plain curiosity in his question.


    “I haven’t had the time to be haunted,” Thomas replied. “Things are happening so quickly that I worry about one thing at a time. I guess I will have to deal with all of it once this is over. If I survive, of course. Right now, I’m focused on other things.”


    “Like what?”


    “Oh, you know…” It pained Thomas how he once thought that he could find a confidant in this prince prone to sticking his head in the sand. Now that they were still partially enemies, it was impossible for them to be friends. “But why is that girl here?” Thomas asked to change the subject.


    “Who, Sofia?”


    “Yes.”


    Isaac snorted. “That is one hell of a story to tell. All in all, her mother, the dutchess, is the king’s main advisor, his right hand. She may or may not have gotten that position by murdering both her husband and her sister, the late queen consort.”


    It took Thomas a second or two to grasp the information he had been fed. It never occurred to him that such plots were part of someone’s everyday life. Sister killing a sister, wife killing her husband, power struggles, and wicked daughters that look like ghosts. But there were so many things he couldn’t have imagined existed before. Like himself.


    “What a family,” Thomas let out.


    Isaac laughed. “Nothing unusual in the royal circles. You should ask Diane to tell you about her family. That story’s even better.”


    Thomas smiled sourly. “She even has a peasant killing the queen. Wonderful.”


    Isaac smiled inappropriately widely. It brought him joy to see other people struggle with their past choices. Maybe that was why he loved Diane Hunster so; she never seemed to get it right. Even when she was physically absent, her presence was felt in the air filled with indecision, regret, and disapproval.


    No matter how sinful, one could never be as wrong as Diane Hunster.


    “Where are we going?” Thomas asked once the hallway became a hall heavily guarded by white-haired people with soulless eyes.


    “It’s dinnertime,” Isaac replied like there was no need for further instructions.


    But Thomas was wearing pajamas. He blushed. “Oh, I should change first.”


    “As you wish,” Isaac replied, and let Thomas turn around and walk back to his room following the rug he now considered his own.


    On his way he met a few servants measuring the dented portion of the wall and painting the bloody stain white; they did it with so little concern and so much skill that Thomas figured it must be a daily activity. They didn’t acknowledge him and Thomas felt the urge to stop and tell them he was the genius behind that creation just to see if they would be threatened by his presence. These days he fluctuated between the yearning for greatness and the desperate pleas to be left alone.


    The last thing he expected was to see Sofia leaning against the wall next to his room, her hair still slightly red.


    “What are you doing?” Thomas asked rudely.


    “Waiting for you. What does it look like?” she replied equally as irritably.


    “Why?”


    “Because I have to talk to you.”


    “About what?”


    “Diane Hunster.”


    Thomas opened the door, ready to shut in her face. “No, thank you.”


    But she was not someone who gave up or cared about etiquette or other people’s wishes. So, she put her hand on the doorframe, daring the Falmer to harm a duchess. “I don’t think so. Let me in.”


    “I don’t want to,” he protested.


    “Did I ask?” When he didn’t open the door, she repeated, “Open the door, Thomas.”


    Too low on energy to argue with her, he let her enter his room but didn’t close the door.


    She crossed her arms. “Close the door.”


    “No.”


    “Close the damn door, Thomas, or I swear on my dead father’s name…”


    He quietly did as instructed. “I have to go to dinner.”


    “So do I.”


    “Well, what do you want?” He was leaning against the door, his fingers wrapped around the doorknob in case he needed to escape quickly. He still sometimes forgot who he was and allowed shallow people like that to intimidate him with empty threats.


    “Why are you here?” she asked again.


    Thomas sighed. “It’s none of your business.”


    “Why are you avoiding the question?”


    “I’m not avoiding the question, it just has nothing to do with you.”


    “You’re avoiding the question, which means there is something important you can’t talk about. What is it?” she pressed, ignoring his ears getting redders and his eyes getting more serious.


    “Why do you care?”


    “I’m bored. Why did you come here?”


    “Well, I have things to do, so if you’ll be so kind…”


    “I’m not. Why are you here?”


    “Don’t you get tired of repeating the same question over and over again?” He was shaking now, sure that should she ask him again, she would throw her out the window behind her back.


    “No. I have nothing better to do. So, why…”


    “Well, maybe you should use that time to ask your mother why she killed all those people.”


    At first, he couldn’t tell that the time and space really froze. He thought it must have been subjective, a way for his mind to cope with the horrid things he had just said. But when he tried to apologize and his mouth didn’t move, when he tried to move his arms instead and couldn’t, that was when he realized that there were no more sounds other than Sofia running her hand through her hair. And he couldn’t ask her how she did that when he stood in place, unable to move.


    “I dare you to repeat what you just said.” It took her too a moment to realize that he was frozen. She smiled and said, “Oh, I see how it is. My bad. I shouldn’t have done that.”


    And Thomas knew very little about Iceleans other than they manipulated ice. But he was sure that the freezing didn’t include space and time. Which meant only one thing.


    He had just found the Swan.