One True Queen: A Wings of Fire fanfiction

16.

content warning: hypothermia, hospitals, descriptions of natural disasters, general Allknowing antics

Allknowing

I wake up covered in ice.

It bites into my claws, encases the tip of my tail, calling to attention the frantic pounding of my heart. My whole cell is covered in it, from what I can see in the dim torchlight. I shiver involuntarily.

What's happening? The Night Kingdom never gets this cold.

Did Clearsight do this? Is she trying to punish me?

That does seem like something she would do. For all her high-and-mighty talk of morality and justice, she started this—all she wants is to see me suffer. That's the whole reason she became queen!

Yes. Of course it's her.

When this kingdom is mine again, as it rightfully should be, I'll make her pay for that—give her a slow, painful death. and make all her precious little family watch, before I kill them too. That'll be fun.

But if I'm going to get there, I have to focus. I grit my teeth, bracing against the other side of my cell and trying to pull out my talon from the ice. I let out a yelp of pain—moving my arm hurts more than I thought it would, as though the blood vessels are half-frozen. (Is that possible? I don't think so, but it still hurts.)

"Come on, come on, COME ON!" I snarl. With a final grunt of effort, it comes free, and that's actually almost worse--like running cold talons under hot water, but a thousand times more intense. I grit my teeth, resisting the urge to scream.

The bars of my cage are completely covered in ice too--the lock encased in ice. Hmmm.

Perhaps this wasn't a curse, so much as a blessing in disguise.

I brace myself, with another fifteen minutes of struggle finally managing to free my other talon.

My mind feels all fuzzy around the edges. Every cell in my body just wants to collapse--stay here forever. Lie down, and let the ice take me.

"The whole world's gone upside down, hasn't it?" I murmur, eyes slipping closed.

No. It's just a little cold. I'm not gonna let it get to me.

The guards aren't immune from this kind of cold either. They're going to be injured, and weak, and forces will be even thinner than usual. This is my chance to take the kingdom--Clearsight herself might even be injured.

Maybe. Hmm. Would Darkstalker let that happen?

Doesn't matter. I'll take what I can get—it's the best chance to get out of this cell I've had in a while.

My breath turns to fog in the air. I puff onto my numb talons, wincing as a sharp pain tingles at the tips of my claws.

All right. Now or never.

I grip the lock with all the force I have in me—kind of hard to do from behind—and smash it against the iron bars. I don't know what I expected to happen--but it definitely wasn't for it to shatter into little pieces on the floor.

No time to lose.

I stumble through dimly lit, icy halls, slipping and falling a few times. But it doesn't hurt, weirdly, after the initial shock fades. I think I'm far too numb for that now.

"I hear noises," one of the guards says through the door. "I'm going into check on her."

And now the world is spinning, and what was I doing here anyway? Why is it so hot in here, all of a sudden?