Ring of Cren [18+]

Chapter 3

Anastasia's POV

I can't let myself be intimidated. I let myself shed a few tears but only in my wardrobe, where I'm surrounded by countless winter coats and boots... and some particular dresses I had made up as costume pieces. They were my little indulgence. I take out my favourite. I had this one made with chain mail. It was expensive but it was to mimic a goddess of ice in one of the stories I read in the library.

I never had a chance to wear it, but now I feel it is appropriate.

It's just chain mail for the breasts, and below it's a metallic skirt that hangs around my waist, purple, thin, with silky purple fabric hanging beneath that.

The chain mail top is sheer, and not as heavy as what men wear. It still looks like armour.

I put all of it on, and I immediately feel united with my favourite character in my favourite book. My heroine – she was a human who ruled a kingdom of elves. She could freeze over oceans.

I had no such power, but I could open that vault, and I could see into the ice – giving us all fair warning about the threats to the Cren and where the best power was centred.

I have shed four tears, for each family member lost, then I shoved it all away for another time. In every book I read the rule of war was repeated over and over – grieve after the war is won.

No point crying when I could be dead soon. You could only cry in peace times.

My hair is peculiar, because it was so silver it looked like ice. But it was just normal hair.

When I've dressed myself, not asking for assistance, I make my way to the Ice, to practice being a Seer.

It's outside my chamber, down a blue encrusted hall that slowly became nature more than architecture.

The castle was built into a glacier.

I leave my coat behind, because I don't want to feel comfortable, I want to feel something distracting, slightly painful and raw. The cold in the Cren was enough to give you that.

The Ice is just a carved and polished oval just like a mirror, and it melts sometimes, becoming dewy, showing different things, before freezing over again.

I look into the Ice on my own, no words need to be uttered.

I'll just see.

But the Ice is more dewy than I've ever seen it, and only one thing keeps showing to me.

One face.

One threat. Or power.

Me.

It's not a normal reflection – it's truly a vision. It's me, wearing exactly what I am now, but it's me in the future. I don't look in at her, she looks out at me, smiling, reaching out a hand. She points to me and brings her fingers to her eyes.

Did I smudge the charcoal?

It's like she's telling me to fix it.

I shake my head and turn away from the vision. I walk to the well behind me, another oval shape, but this is just full of water. This one acts as the normal mirror.

I lean over and look at my face.

I have charcoal dripping down my cheeks, it looks like black tears – but I haven't been crying, I've just applied the makeup wrong.

When my father applied it, he had a certain process. I didn't know what that process was and now I didn't do my face right.

My hair is starting to frizz and looks unkept, not sitting as nicely as I thought it might.