Chapter 78: Ice Princess
[Flashback]
"Are you the kid from the North?"
The young Elias turned toward the voice of another boy around his age. He saw three boys standing nearby. This was his first time outside the North. He was supposed to attend a birthday party at the Royal Pack before, but something had happened, and he couldn’t make it.
This year, however, he had been invited again, and Elias didn’t want to miss it.
Not because he was desperate to attend the birthday.
But because he wanted to see what the world looked like outside the North.
Sure enough, there were more colors here.
"Why?" he blinked, pushing himself up from where he had been crouching, playing with a toad. He dusted off his pants and stood. When he faced the boys, his expression darkened.
"Looking for a fight?"
The boys shivered at the coldness in his eyes. Even though they had only wanted to hang out with him, they found themselves running away out of fear.
"Heh," Elias smirked mischievously, thinking he had just intimidated a few bullies.
Little did he know, they had simply been curious about what the North was like and had wanted to befriend him.
Not dwelling on it, he turned back to the toad he had been talking to and carefully picked it up.
"I heard the nobles of the central region are all savages — even when they’re children," he said to the toad, keeping it safe in his palm. "So don’t go hopping around. They might step on you, and I might... claw their eyes out."
Innocent as he was, Elias had no idea that the danger among the nobles of the central region was mostly political. Unlike in the North, where children like him were trained from a tender age, the children here were not nearly as savage as he was.
Walking back toward where the children were gathered, his steps halted when he saw them flocking around someone. His brows knitted as he stopped beside a tree.
"The princess probably arrived," he muttered. "I wonder what she looks... like."
The rest of his words trailed off the moment he caught sight of the little girl standing in the center of the crowd.
His round cheeks flushed as his eyes widened in surprise. And somehow, even at that age... he knew.
He wanted to be part of her world.
But as he kept watching her, he noticed something.
Even though the other children surrounded her with smiles and cheerful voices, the princess simply stood there, expressionless. Her chin was lifted proudly, but her eyes were cast downward.
She looked distant.
Cold.
Colder than the North where he lived.
"Ice... princess?" he blurted out innocently.
The young Lynsandra didn’t even look like she wanted to be there. Despite all the smiling faces around her, she didn’t smile once. The other children kept asking her to play, urging her to do something.
When she finally spoke, all she said was,
"Okay, let’s play. I want to play a game called... do nothing."
All the children — even Elias, who was observing from a distance thanks to his keen hearing — were confused.
That was when her lips curled up, her eyes narrowing mischievously.
"We do nothing."
And so, the children tried to play a game of doing nothing. They simply sat there, staring at her, utterly confused, utterly bored.
Elias tried to approach her afterward, but she was elusive. Even when he managed to get closer, she wouldn’t look at him and pretended he didn’t exist.
The party ended early because she said she wanted to rest. That was the last time he saw her because she didn’t even come out of her room the next day to see off the guests who had stayed overnight.
From then on, he made a promise.
On her next birthday, he would approach her properly.
He blamed it on the fact that he was from the isolated North — that he simply didn’t know how to approach someone like her.
Unfortunately, there were no birthday parties the following year.
Or the year after that.
Or the year after that.
Years passed, and Elias grew busy with his life in the North. Yet the ice princess never left his mind.
It was just hard to meet her, and each time he traveled to the central region, it was mostly for business.
So when the selection invitation landed beside him while he was in the middle of doing two hundred push-ups, he knew.
That was his chance.
His chance to step into her world.
He prepared with the support of their pack’s alpha. He tried to learn what she liked and kept up with the news and even rumors about her. Even when he heard that she had lived a promiscuous life and never shied away from the whispers about her sex life, it didn’t discourage him.
Instead, he memorized everything.
He carried those thoughts with him all the way from the North to the central region.
Then, on New Year’s Eve, he finally saw her again after all those years.
Standing among the countless guests filling the grand hall of the Royal Pack, Elias froze in place.
He watched as the Alpha King and the princess made their entrance and took their respective thrones.
"There she is," he whispered, his lips curling into a wide grin. "And she’s still the same."
She had grown into a stunning woman. But she still looked just as stunningly distant as he remembered.
She sat there, looking down at everyone as though their lives were in her hands.
It reminded him of his very first memory of her.
Just like before, she showed no interest in what surrounded her. Even when drama unfolded in the hall, she didn’t show the slightest reaction.
The only time she did... was when she glanced at her hand as everyone else revealed their red threads — the mark of their fated mates.
It was brief, but he caught it.
The confusion in her eyes. As if she was wondering why everyone else had been blessed with a destined mate... and not her.
That was when he looked at his own hands that were just as empty as hers. It had never bothered him before... until now.
"..."
Elias clenched his fist and turned his gaze back to where she sat. She had already returned to her usual expression, watching as lovers celebrated their blessings under the moon.
"If we don’t have those..." he murmured, eyes fixed on her. "...should we just make the thread ourselves?"
