“Hey, Wife! Where are you?”  The king pushed back from his table. He was a heavily built man with selfishly handsome features.  His eyes were piercing black and body gave off a faint heat that signified his position as a Fire King.  A woman walked silently into the room, her hair hastily braided over one shoulder, eyes on the floor as she approached her husband. 

“You were late for breakfast this morning woman.”  He said heavily.  She did not respond and he gripped her chin in his hand and jerked her face upwards.  Fire raced under his skin and the Ice Princess bit back tears as she felt his heat burn through her skin.

“I’m sorry, I was tired.  I’ll be on time tomorrow.” 

He let her go with a small sound of disgust.  “What were you doing?  Mooning over my disgrace of a brother again?”

The young woman’s eyes chilled as she stared again at the floor. “No.”

Her husband eyed her then reached out to caress her again.  The woman submitted to his hand, giving no sign of the pain she felt from the fire burning just below his skin.  Just once he gripped her arm and squeezed until a whimper pushed past his wife’s lips then he let go with a chuckle and left to begin his day.

After he left Dara sank into a chair and let tears slide down her cheeks.  Her hands clutched the edges of her seat and she noticed that the seat began to cool dramatically under her touch.  She was now twenty two and it had been three years since JiYong’s older brother had offered to marry the daughter of Ilindria.  Without a man, he had reasoned, there would be no king for Ilindria.  Dara remembered the stories she had heard from JiYong and kept silent.  But her father had grown weaker and finally very sick.  Dara agreed to the marriage and a few weeks later her father died quietly with his daughter’s hand held against his cheek. 

At first JiYong’s brother had treated her with a distant courtesy that faintly hurt her.  JiYong had indeed become king over Seoulician.  For a few months he had not been sure if his brother would try to take over the throne that JiYong had been preparing for all his life.  But his brother had turned to Dara and her land and JiYong was left with his father’s throne and no one to sit on his mother’s throne next to him. 

Gradually Dara’s husband had become harsher with her until he no longer bothered to shield her from either the harsh way he treated her land or the harsh way he wished to treat her.  Dara no longer went out in public as much as she wished, afraid her body would show the burn marks left by her husband.

She had been hearing troublesome things too, about JiYong.  For years he had kept his temper closely guarded.  But now the quick anger that had only once flared against Dara, was now allowed to flare at will.  While his advisors and other dignitaries were still held in high respect, anyone else could come at any time under the punishing flames of the young Fire King.  One day while visiting a farm near his palace JiYong had tripped over a dog lying in a furrow.  With one twist of his hand he had incinerated the animal.  Its howl of agony as it died brought its master running and without thinking JiYong swung his hand out and burnt the man as well.  By the time that and other stories reached Dara’s palace, the land of Seoulician had become poorer and its trading partners had begun dropping away as the quality of goods began slipping. 

JiYong had once refused to play for a whole two days because he had accidently set a butterfly on fire.  Worried about the boy who she had known as thoughtful and intensely desperate to control the temper he knew was volatile, Dara wondered what had changed her friend. 

Her own land was in trouble too.  JiYong’s older brother ruled by fire as well and Dara had given up watching terrified subjects dragged into the judgement hall to be either thrown into prison or destroyed in a blaze of shrieking horror before her merciless husband.  At night Dara would slip into the great empty hall and spread soft, soothing ice over the growing burnt scar on the floor of her palace.  She didn’t know how to help either Ilindria or JiYong.  Access to either was forbidden to her.  While JiYong left his land to run itself and simply lashed out at anyone who disturbed him, his older brother sought out people to waste his fire on.  And he delighted in making Dara watch it.  One day she curled in the corner of the carriage as her husband flung his arms out and sent mighty ropes of flames over a stretch of land to a cottage standing on it.  Dara felt tears sting her eyes as screams bit her ears.  Pressing her hands against the seat she watched ice spread helplessly over the material.  Her name drifted desperately through the carriage window and Dara’s head jerked up.  A girl was standing on the front step holding something in her hands as she shouted Dara’s name.  It was a frozen rainbow.  Flinging herself out of the carriage, Dara sent a wave of soft, chilling ice and snow over the flames around the house.  Cold fought briefly with fire before with one more sweep of her arms Dara’s ice triumphed. Then Dara turned to her husband and felt cold with fear. 

“Please.  Please not that house.  I know that family.  They’ve served my father and his family faithfully for many generations.”

She could see the angry glow in her husband’s hands, warning her.  Stepping forward Dara reached out to place her own hands over his, remembering how she had soothed the fire under JiYong’s skin so long ago on her eighteenth birthday.  The Fire King took both her hands in his and held them.  Dara’s eyes switched back up to his face, clueless as to why he was acting so strangely.  His heat began radiating into her fingers.  Glancing down at her hands Dara saw and felt the coolness evaporating out of them, leaving pins and needles.  Meeting his gaze again Dara saw the flickering red in his eyes and knew she would never again think of her husband without terror.  Struggling now against his hold Dara was led back to the carriage and put into it, all without her husband loosening his hold.  As fire continued to sap her ice and strength Dara realised they were going back to the castle and was thankful that at last Bom’s family was safe. She could realise nothing else as dizziness forced her to slump onto the seat.  Hyperventilating from the heat-driven cramps running through her and unable to speak Dara tried to catch her husband’s eye but he was staring out the window.  Only his lips, compressed into a slight smile gave any sign he was still aware of the slight woman in his grip who was slowly being burnt into insensibility.  At the palace he stepped out, dragged an almost unconscious Dara up the stairs and threw her down inside the door.  Crouching over her he pressed one hand against her shoulder and watched his heat imprint the shape of his hand through the snowflake patterns on her skin.  Dara whimpered softly as he straightened and ignoring the servants standing mute and horrified, went back to his room.