ICE

147. In A Sea of Ice (Part. 2)

THE NOTION ONLY further fueled the wildfire in her veins. She glared at him, wisps of icy magic dancing across her knuckles. "You seem quite sure of yourself," she remarked. Her expression was cold. "Necromancy spells are known not to work. The entire field of study is considered taboo."

"Lyth-"

"Is dead. There is nothing more that we can do for him," Ravenna hissed. Each word was a dagger dipped in poison. They were the exact words that Vyses had said to her about Caelan. The words that replayed in her head each day — a never ending nightmare.

She sat back in her chair, crossing one leg over the other. It took all of her strength to maintain a relaxed and unbothered expression. Her eyes blazed. "I know that it is hard, Vyses. But right now, we need to focus on ourselves. Lyth is gone. Nothing is going to change that now."

"You are so utterly stupid," he growled at her. Tendrils of crimson magic danced across the skin of his hands. "Death is not a finality. Lyth will not leave this world until I allow him to."

Ravenna arched an eyebrow at him. "Is that so?" she mused. Her voice and her expression were colder than an arctic tundra.

He scoffed at her. Beside him, the other royal advisers seemed to radiate waves of anxiety. They shook their heads, their gazes flitting back and forth between Vyses and Ravenna.

Vyses rolled his eyes toward the ceiling above their heads. "Please. I know that you are not that dense, Ravenna. You have a brain, so use it. Necromancy exists. And I have quite a bit of experience with that particular field of magic."

"If necromancy exists," Ravenna said, her voice ice cold, "then why did we not use it to save Caelan?

He blinked and hesitated.

She tilted her head slightly, arching her brow once more. A tight smile stretched across her lips. "I find it fascinating that you are so determined to revive Lyth, and yet were so adamant about leaving Caelan behind. You told me that nothing could be done. That I needed to just let go."

"We were about to be discovered," Vyses said through gritted teeth. "We were about to be killed."

"The same could be said now," she said, her voice nonchalant. "We have absolutely no clue of the whereabouts of the masked person that is attacking our soldiers — a person who is obviously making their way to the Capitol just to stop us. For all that we know, this person could already be here. Just waiting for the opportune moment to attack."

"This is absurd," Vyses scoffed. He shook his head in disgust and glared at Ravenna.

"I disagree. I think that if you genuinely take a step back and look at both situations objectively, you will find quite a few similarities. Caelan and Lyth were both murdered by us," she said. She ignored his outraged expression and continued, "If you get down to the technicalities, you are the one who ordered Lyth to go investigate the initial attacks. You are the one that sent him to his death. Both deaths were accidents. I did not mean to kill Caelan, just as you did not intend to kill Lyth."

He opened his mouth to interject but she simply glared at him and snapped her fingers. "I am not finished," she snapped at him. His mouth clamped shut, his eyes burning a bright crimson.

"The issue that I am now facing, however, is the blatant difference in how you see these situations. One death matters while another does not — based purely on your own personal gain. Despite your skill and talent in necromancy-related spells, you insisted that nothing could be done to save Caelan. You knew how much pain his death caused me. How the guilt was festering and eating me alive. You could have brought him back. Easily."

She blinked back fresh tears. "But you didn't. You chose not to, because it did not benefit you."

Vyses's jaw clenched. He rolled his eyes again. "Ravenna, you are way too emotional to see reason right now."

"I'm a human-being. I cry when I'm upset," she retorted with a half-shrug. "It's normal. The fact that you are trying to shame me for it and change the subject only proves that you genuinely can't contribute to this conversation anymore."

"Are you a human-being though?" he questioned. He sneered at her. "Last I remember, you died a long time ago. Drowned in a sea of frozen ice."

Ravenna stared at him for a moment, slightly bewildered. "I do not remember telling you that," she said.

He made a face. "I do not have time for this," he snapped. "I am leaving tonight to find Lyth. Do not do anything stupid while I am gone."

His hand lifted. A sphere of crimson colored magic appeared within his hand. It stretched until it engulfed him whole.

And then Vyses vanished.