It was a peaceful, even joyful excursion.  Aurum was enjoying the chance to talk to her parents outside of their usual discussions of administration and leadership and her lessons and growth as a royal. That was still most of what they talked about, but it was in the form of gentle encouragement and casually given advice rather than the assignments and frank evaluations of specific tasks Aurum normally recieved from them. There was a warmth between them that was not usually present, or at least, a warmth which Aurum had not been able to receive from her parents for a long time. Their family was close, and her parents were certainly loving, but as the next heir, Aurum had always been held to a particularly rigid standard in her education and her manners. As they rode and talked, it occured to Aurum that it had been years since she had been able to connect with her parents as her parents, rather than as her mentors and teachers.

The light grey clouds had broken into a faint drizzle partway through their ride, but none of them suggested turning back. The royal woodlands they rode through provided a dense canopy of trees as shelter, and none of them wanted to return so soon. As they stopped at a crossing in the trails, her father consulting with the guards that had accompanied them on the best route forward, Aurum looked up to find her mother gazing at her with something between affection and pride, as well as a more somber emotion. Regret, perhaps? Sadness?

“You have grown a great deal, Aurie.” Her eyes shone like her hair, silver and bright. Hearing her childhood nickname from her mother for the first time since she was twelve tugged at Aurum's heart. “I know the last few years have been… challenging. But you are strong, and you have us to support you.”

Aurum felt her throat close. She trusted her family and knew that she was loved, but it had been hard. When high expectations were set for her, it was easy for that love to start to feel almost conditional. As though it was earned by meeting or exceeding those expectations, and not given freely.

“I remember when you were Argen’s age. You would follow me and beg me to carry you, even as you got too big. You never ask for that anymore. Sometimes I wish…”

“Mom…” Aurum said, voice a bit shaky, using that address for the first time in a long, long while. As she met the queen’s silvery gaze, it struck her that perhaps the silver sheen wasn’t just a trick of the light, but tears of emotion.

And then her world shattered.

The air froze. Time froze. A strange pressure built and built and Aurum was sitting alone on her motionless horse, left to look wildly around at her family and the guards, seeing nothing but statue-still figures. And just as she was about to scream or run or do something, anything, there was a snap. Like a twig being stepped on, or the last thread of a hemp rope breaking, only in her very soul, and so very loud.

And as the people around her began to move, as she opened her mouth to exclaim, she met her mother’s eyes again. They were a flat grey, grey like the dreary sky, like dull steel. Aurum’s heart lurched.

“What is the meaning of this?” Her father’s voice sounded deep and harsh. Aurum had only heard him speak that way on a few occasions, and only when faced with the most dire of circumstances, at sentencings and once when a flood caused chaos and disaster.

“Witchcraft,” whispered a guard, and a ripple of tension spread through the group. Not unreasonable, given what had just occurred. Aurum agreed that what had happened must have been witchcraft. But rather than checking their surroundings, all of the hostility was now directed at Aurum.

“How did you come here? You are not welcome on these grounds.” The Queen spoke coldly, freezing Aurum in place. Cold. It was so very cold. It had been a warm day, and now it was so cold. Am I in shock? wondered Aurum, mind almost blank. She saw a leaf snap and fall, the sound like an echo of the unearthly snap from before. Snapped? Leaves didn’t snap. She looked closer at the branches around her. Everything was coated with a thick layer of ice, the gentle rain still falling, freezing where it landed.

“What have you done, witchling?” The captain of the guard moved her horse a few steps to the side, placing herself between Aurum and her mother.

And then three things happened in quick succession.

First, the captain moved forward, raising her sword.

Second, a heavy branch snapped, the cruel sound crashing through the air as the bough fell onto her father’s steed, hitting its rump and startling the horse into a buck and a scream.

Third, her mother shouted. She never shouted. “Restrain her! Use any force necessary!”

Aurum was as frozen as the rest of the forest, but her mare was not. As the captain lunged forward, Cream snorted in panic and flew forward, bursting down the left fork of the path they had just been pondering. All Aurum could do was hang on for dear life. The guards were slow to follow, their horses confused and nervous at the now constant sound of quick-frozen ice and branches breaking throughout the forest. Aurum’s mare ran on pure instinct, no conflict between her will and Aurum’s, only fear and flight.

After what might have been hours, or just ten minutes, Aurum came to herself, gathering the reins and taking some semblance of control. Her pursuers had fallen behind, and she was running as fast as she could out of the royal woodlands into unfamiliar terrain, the trees now mostly conifers where before they had been budding deciduous. She urged her still-terrified mount forwards.

“Easy, girl, come on Cream, you can do this.” Aurum’s voice was rough and broken. “Come on, let’s go now, you’re a hero sweetheart. You’re a hero, keep running…” Aurum tried to focus on the immediate situation. As long as she had Cream, she could escape. She could keep running, and she was not completely alone. But after the day had turned to night, and Cream had slowed to a ragged canter, the darkness of the cloudy moonless sky caused a new disaster for Aurum. A branch too low for Aurum to avoid seemed to appear from nowhere in the dark, and Aurum couldn’t do anything to brace herself. Exhausted, she was knocked easily and painfully from the saddle, hitting the ground in a patch of brambles. At the suddenness of her fall, poor, still-terrified Cream was spooked badly and ran off at a fresh sprint into the darkness.

Alone. Aurum lay in the brambles, unmoving. She was conscious, but the breath had been knocked out of her, and her heart and mind were a mess. Slowly, she calmed enough to remember she needed to check herself for injuries, then evaluate her surroundings, and then keep moving. Taking a breath, she went over her body, looking for damage. Nothing was broken, and her limbs were all usable. She was scratched and bruised, but otherwise unhurt. There was only silence around her, the shock of her fall and Cream’s departure having scared the wildlife into stillness. It would be all to easy for the guards to track her here.

So, weary and desperate, she kept moving, taking care to keep her tracks light, not daring to rest for the night even though it was reckless to risk a broken or twisted ankle in the dark. She had no choice. Staying put was a guarantee she would be caught. And likely killed, she thought hollowly, remembering the rage and terror on the faces of the guards and her parents.

As her mind started moving again, Aurum tried to face what had happened. She had been forgotten. The forest had frozen. Her family – the king and queen thought she had done this. The captain had called her witchling. Witchling. Ice magic. There was only one being who could accomplish something like this. The witch.

Aurum knew of the witch, but as an almost abstract concept. She was something of a boogeyman, an ancient enemy of the entire kingdom, so old her motives had long been forgotten and only superstition and speculation remained in the people’s memory. Most adults in the kingdom thought she was a myth, a story used to scare children into behaving. ‘Don’t misbehave. The witch will turn you into a salamander, and you’ll have to live in a pond forever…’ That kind of thing.

But her father – no, the king and queen – had told her the truth of it. That the witch was real, and once a generation would unleash some terrible disaster on the kingdom. There was a whole secret network of spies and warriors devoted to the study of and the elimination of the witch. All that was truly known about her though was that she was a master of cold magic and stood in opposition to life itself. Ever since Aurum had come of age, she had been taught about the witch and the danger she posed for the kingdom, the consequences of failure to be vigilant as a ruler, and the inevitability of the witch’s eventual return, and the scale of the disaster that would cause.

And for some reason, that disaster had struck now. It had struck Aurum. It had turned her family and the guards who were meant to protect her against her.

She was alone now, and all she could do was run.