“Mistress, you sent for me,” Agnes bowed before Beatrice. Beatrice has been moody and upset for days now, but Agnes never knew why because her mistress never told her the reason.
“Tell the soldiers to prepare, we are going on a hunt for someone,” Beatrice ordered.
“Yes Mistress,” Agnes said and made to turn when a thought came into her mind,
“But Mistress, why are we going on a hunt when you have your mirror?”
“Stop reminding of my broken mirror!” Beatrice yelled at Agnes. Broken? But she always repaired it whenever it got broken, so why was she yelling? Maybe there was something else her Mistress was keeping away from her.
“I’ll kill Ariella if I get her!” Beatrice said loudly to herself and Agnes, who was already leaving, stopped in her track. Ariella was alive? No! That wasn’t possible. The sword used on her had the breath of a dragon. If it could kill the king, who was she that it couldn’t kill?
Agnes shrugged and left with many thoughts in her head.
Agnes delivered Beatrice’s message to the soldiers, and immediately they all started getting prepared for the hunt.
Meanwhile, inside the prison, Tracy coughed repeatedly. The ice placed In her heart was expanding to other part of her body and she knew, she was going to die from chronic cold before finally turning into an ice sculpture.
The door suddenly opened, and a soldier came in, but this soldier held a fire lantern and kept it beside Tracy to give her some warmth.
Who was he?
The soldier removed his helmet, and Tracy’s eyes widened in surprise. Standing before her was the very guy she said no to and also publicly embarrassed when he came to ask for her hand in marriage.
Tracy didn’t know when tears began to roll down her face. She was touched and felt so ashamed of herself. The very guy she did dirty was the only one who tried to keep her warm. Tracy knew she had been a terrible person and didn’t expect anyone to help her, but here he was.
“Are you okay?” The gentleman immediately asked when he saw the tears rolling off Tracy’s eyes.
“Why are you crying? You still feel freezing, right? I know, but please just hang in there. I’ll find a way to get you out of here, okay?”
Tracy kept looking at him and crying without saying a word. After seconds of crying, Tracy finally stood up and hugged him, crying even harder.
The guy caressed her back, gently comforting her. He felt how cold Tracy’s body was and wished could remove the ice from her heart.
When Tracy’s emotion were stable, he narrated everything to her. How he joined the army after he heard what happened to her sister and father.
“I am the cause of their death, I hate myself. It was all my fault. If I wasn’t greedy, they wouldn’t be dead, they would have been here with me.”
“Don’t be hard on yourself, My princess, we all make mistakes and that’s okay. The most important thing Is that you learned a lesson from it all. A lesson you’ll teach the younger folks, and a lesson that will help you live life In a better way.”
“Thank you! Thank you!!” Tracy thanked him repeatedly, and once again the tears began to pour.
He was from a very wealthy and prestigious family, yet he chose to leave him family, his wealth, and his friends so he could join the army and take care of her.
“I am sorry for how I treated you. I am sorry for everything. Please forgive me,” Tracy pleaded amidst tears.
“I forgive you and I still love you. Your reactions to me never stopped me from loving you.”
“And I’ll always be here to keep you warm. It’s time to go. I’ll see you some other time,” He said, and held Tracy’s hand for some seconds before leaving.
*****
Beatrice led her soldiers to the heart of a deep forest. They divided themselves into groups and began to search for traces of humans.
“We found nobody, ma,” A group of soldiers told Beatrice after searching. Beatrice got angry and stretched her hand towards them, after which Immediately they all turned to dust.
Other soldiers became terrified when they saw what Beatrice did to the other soldiers. They also didn’t find anything and had come to tell her, but couldn’t anymore after witnessing the death of their fellow soldiers.
“This is what is going to happen to anyone who tells me they found nothing,” Beatrice warned with seriousness and anger written over her face.
Beatrice knew she was in the same place where she had seen Ariella in the mirror. Beatrice once lived in the forest after she was banished, so she knew every part of the forest like the back of her hand.
Where was Ariella?
Ariella was supposed to be here. It was very impossible for Ariella to have escaped from the forest.
The forest was large, and coming out of it felt like an unending journey. It will take days to leave the forest, and Beatrice never succeeded in ever finding the exit of the forest.
Furthermore, Ariella and Daisy never knew the way out of the forest, so they couldn’t have left the forest successfully.
The soldiers kept searching the area repeatedly, even though they found nothing.
“Let’s move further and search!” Beatrice announced loudly, and they all began to go further into the forest.
“I found something!” A soldier screamed loudly. Beatrice, Agnes and the other soldiers ran to where the soldier stood. He raised the tarpaulin he found, feeling proud of himself.
Beatrice felt so excited that she had gotten a lead that she didn’t know when she said,
“For finding this, you’ve been promoted.”
Agnes was observing quietly how happy her mistress was when the tarpaulin was found. She even promoted a nobody. Agnes decided to find something that’ll make her mistress promote her too.
Fortunately, in the next minute, Agnes found something more intriguing.
The soldier had barely finished showing excitement when Agnes interrupted,
“I found a footprint, I think they went this way.”
Agnes smirked evilly and stared at the soldier in a dangerous way. The soldier averted his gaze from Agnes.
Beatrice was thrilled at the discovery of the footprints. Those people were trying to escape and thought they could outsmart her, Beatrice. She was sure they were still somewhere around the forest.
Beatrice led the soldiers, and they went even further into the forest. They were so engrossed with catching Ariella that they didn’t notice the sun was setting, and finally, it was night.
“It’s night already, the wild animals will soon come out, we need to leave,” Beatrice announced when it occurred to her, and they all turned to leave.
Unknowingly to them, lions had just come out from behind them.
The soldiers weren’t flying yet because they saw no sign of wild animals, but the soldiers, deep in the dense forest, suddenly found themselves under attack from a group of majestic lions.
The tense atmosphere was filled with the roars of the powerful predators and shouts of the soldiers as those who couldn’t fly immediately were devoured by the lions.
Agnes was one of them who was unable to find a way to fly. She had fallen down after a soldier who was struggling to escape for his life pushed her away. A lion approached her and was about to devour her when suddenly a firm hand carried her and flew away.