Nala Sapphire's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

By morning, Nala's power had returned, and so had the eyes of the court. She walked the marble halls of the Frosted Noble Court, past gold vines wrapped around blue sapphires, and felt the watcher before she saw her. The prince's own advisor, Elara Niven, stood at a window in her sapphire coat. The snow leopard did not bow. She pressed one gloved hand flat against her chest, as if counting a heartbeat she could not find. "You breathe cold now," Elara said. Her voice held no warmth and no anger. "The prince noticed. So did I. Every step you take, I will write it down. Every room you enter, I will know." Nala understood then. This creature was the court's leash on her. She could not reach the prince, could not thaw his frozen heart, while Elara stood between them reporting each move. The advisor felt nothing. Threats would not move her. Nala needed something stranger than fear. That night Nala did not hide. She walked straight to the frozen willow in the inner garden, its branches hung with blue diamond drops. Elara followed, three steps behind, pen and ledger ready. Nala stopped beneath the willow and raised her bare hand. "Watch closely," Nala said. "Write this down." She pulled the cold from the air. Frost spun above her palm and took shape. Not a weapon. A flower. An orchid grew from the ice, frost-bright petals opening around a warm, ember-gold center. Nala held it out to the advisor. Elara stared. Her pen stopped. Her hand drifted from the ledger to her own chest, pressing there again, harder. "I feel nothing," she said. But her voice had cracked, just slightly, on the last word. "You pressed your hand there the moment you saw it," Nala said. "You felt something. You've been checking for a heartbeat all this time. Maybe it still answers." Elara took the ice orchid. It did not melt in her gloved fingers. She looked at it for a long moment, and the ledger hung forgotten at her side. "The prince asked me to report a threat," Elara said at last. "A dragon shaping weapons. Plotting." She closed the ledger. "I will report what I saw. A woman making a flower. There is no crime in that." She turned and walked back toward the court, the orchid still in her hand. Nala had not silenced the watcher. She had turned her. The one set to trap her would now write her story in gentler ink. But Elara paused at the garden gate. "Understand this," she said. "I protect you only while the prince believes you are harmless. The hour he sees you as a rival for his power, I cannot shield you. And he is beginning to see it." Then she was gone. Nala stood alone beneath the frozen willow. Her watcher was now her ally. Yet the prince's fear of her strength had become the next wall between them.