Newham was a small backwater town often forgotten at the southern border of Arendelle.

Sheltering only 20 families who were either too poor or too old to be moving to a better place, the slowly dying town barely had enough resources to feed itself, let alone spare riches to be exploited by others.

So, Irene really didn’t know why the six Southern Isles muggers she saw standing in front of the town’s one and only tavern were even in the impoverished place to begin with.

What are they trying to take away, from this small struggling town?

“Stay close to each other and wait for my word.” She ordered Joy and Chanyeol with hushed voice, the two soldiers stopping behind her and nodding readily before taking a spot to hide themselves from the enemies’ sight.

After receiving reports about another group of Southern Isles muggers breaching the kingdom’s territory, the three of them had gotten on their horsebacks immediately and left the city center for an hour ride.

Irene, now strapping the Sergeant Major insignia on her uniform and bearing all of its ever-growing burden, had selected her own emergency team to ambush the invaders.

Joy’s name came up easily to her mind when she was considering, because despite still being new to the army, the young, bright-eyed girl had proved her battle skills to be much more noteworthy than older soldiers, just as Seulgi had always said.

And as for Chanyeol, Irene had chosen him solely because she thought they might need at least one brute force in their team – no matter how unrefined – but she was beginning to think that maybe, she had made a mistake.

“I think we should attack now –”

“Not yet, Private.” She turned to give him the briefest of looks, and even though she didn’t fix him with an outright glare or unleash a loud scold, the steel blue in her eyes and the quiet authority in her voice was enough to tell him who was in charge. “As I said, you will wait for my word.”

Chanyeol shut his mouth and seemed embarrassed at the reminder of his now lower rank, and Irene sighed inwardly as she turned her attention back to the invaders.

Even years after climbing the army ranks and eventually surpassing the older soldiers, this guy and many others still had troubles accepting her.

Not that it still bothered her.

She had long since abandoned her needs for acceptance.

But should their disobedience to her result in chaos or failure in battlefields, then it would be her responsibility she had to explain in the court of Arendelle.

Irene couldn’t care less for their childish vendetta against her, but she would put them in their place with her given authority if she must, to get the job done. She didn’t want to disappoint King Agnar or put him in a difficult position.

After all, he had put his name and pride on her when he trusted her against others’ refusal.

“There are still too many civilians around them.” She stated matter-of-factly, not looking back at Chanyeol even though she meant it to ease his wounded pride. “We will wait until it’s less crowded so the chance for collateral damage will be lower. No civilian is to be harmed. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Sergeant.” Both soldiers answered her readily, and Irene resumed to watch the muggers again from the abandoned warehouse they were hiding in.

When the number of civilians in the alley had dwindled enough for confrontation, she looked back at the two of them and motioned them with her hand. “It’s time.”

Touching the wall beside her with her other hand, she closed her eyes and focused her energy to send a wave of cold traveling through the old woods, moving it all the way down to the ground beneath their boots.

The insidious chill crawled underground towards where the six muggers stood, and finally burst out from the soil as tendrils of ice to seize their ankles with surprise.

Instantly, the six huge men broke into chaos and started shouting loudly, scrambling to break free from the dead grip around their legs.

“Get away from this place! Now!” Chanyeol yelled at the remaining civilians as he stepped out and brandished his sword, Joy following beside him with her own trusty falchion ready in hand. “Steer clear from this place, everyone! Run!” She moved them along.

The few civilians who were still there recognized their uniforms, and upon realizing that a brawl was about to break loose, immediately fled the spot.

“And now, to deal with these murderers.” Irene’s eyes burned with blue fire as she came face to face with the invaders, her ice sword manifesting easily in her grip. “Get on your knees, muggers! And throw your weapons aside! You will be spared from harm should you listen to my order!”

Every fiber in her body hummed against her kinder decision and rebelled, wanting nothing but revenge whenever she lay eyes on these people who had maimed her innocent parents brutally 16 years ago.

She held back and held back and held back, not wanting to regress to that vicious monster everyone seemed to claim she was.

It was the reason why she had bothered to bring Chanyeol and Joy at all, when she could easily finish these men alone.

The presence of the two soldiers was the only thing that kept her from reaching her hand out and tearing through these men’s throats with her icicles like an animal.

It would be so, so easy.

“The sorceress!” One of the muggers shouted, pointing at her with the tip of his sword. “Kill her immediately! Now!”

They slashed the ice bounding their feet and broke free of it, charging at the three of them with a loud battle roar.

Swords hitting swords, they clashed in the middle of the alley in a ferocious fight, slashing and hacking and stabbing in a blur of motions.

One of the men who stayed behind raised his crossbow and fired an arrow at Irene while she was incapacitating another man, but a wall of protective ice burst out from the soil behind her and trapped the weapon before it could hit her back.

Irene sliced her opponent’s arm off cleanly and then, ignoring the pained scream he let out, turned around to eye her attacker with murderous glint in her eyes.

The man standing several feet away blanched and rose his crossbow again to fire more arrows at her.

One.

Three.

Five.

It didn’t matter how many shaky shots he launched. Tendrils of ice materialized from thin air and caught every single one of them easily in eternal frost.

Irene was untouchable.

When she was only three meters away from him and ready to raise her sword to cripple him forever, a piercing scream erupted from Joy and snagged her attention.

Whipping around, she found the younger girl struggling to defend herself while trying to protect Chanyeol at the same time, who had gotten injured and now lay defenseless on the ground.

Irene’s mind raced and before she knew it, her hand had outstretched to release a burst of cold so strong, it erupted as a giant ice dome in front of the two soldiers and stood hard enough to shield them and break any sword that came slashing down on it.

But, in channeling her energy to create ice harder than diamonds such as that, her own magic reserve for self-defense dwindled and an arrow was able to hit her in the back with surprise.

A sharp, pained gasp left her lips, but it only took a second for the acute pang to pass through her before it was replaced by a foreign, white rage.

Blood chilling in her veins, Irene froze the arrow embedded on her back and numbed the pain instantly, whipping around to do what she had refrained from doing.

She raised a hand and launched a sharp shard of ice towards the man, impaling him in the throat until the full length of the ice reemerged at the back of his broken neck.

He thudded on the ground with his lifeless eyes wide open and blood spilling around his head.

--------------------------------------------

King Agnar was in his study when Irene came back to the palace reeking of blood that night.

She had cleaned herself well before meeting him, but it seemed like no matter how many times she had scrubbed herself, the stench of blood wouldn’t leave her.

The image of the dead man lying prostrate on the ground still played in her mind too, and she in a deep breath to banish the disturbing thoughts before lifting a hand to knock on the door.

“Come on in.” King Agnar’s deep voice filtered through the door, and Irene tidied herself once more before finally pushing the door open.

Stepping inside and standing below the dais of his desk, she gave him a small bow. “Your majesty. I am here to report about our ambush at Newham earlier this afternoon. We have arrested five of the Southern Isles invaders and put them in prison. Investigation about their true motives will be continued in the morning and I will make sure to personally oversee the process.”

King Agnar raised his eyes from the papers he was signing and gave her a long look.

“You are hurt,” was the only thing that he said, lowering his reading glasses to get a better glimpse of her. “How is that possible? These muggers, I am sure they are not at all on your level. How did you allow them to hurt you?”

When Irene remained silent, afraid that he would find out she still tried to hold back her powers against enemies and failed to follow his old lessons, he reclined on his chair and deduced the correct answer for himself with a simple question. “How many of them were there?”

“Six.” She answered quietly, keeping her gaze low on floor because she didn’t know what else to do.

“And yet you bring home five. Which means, you only killed one. What did I tell you about wasting time and blood from our side, trying to fight like a regular person, when you could have easily wiped all of them out with your power?”

When she still offered him no answer, his voice rose to a higher tone, much stronger than anything she had ever heard from him so far. “Answer me, Irene!”

“I couldn’t just massacre a group of people and not feel anything about it, okay?” Her own volume spiked at last, but it came out with slight tremor unlike the King’s booming tone. “They are still people no matter how horrible. It is human life I am ripping away. Do you know that whenever I kill someone with my powers, whenever my ice punctures through flesh and blood, I feel as if it’s my own hand clawing through muscles and digging into blood? Do you know how sickening that feels?”

At her uncharacteristic retort, The King seemed taken aback and grew mum for a second before finally speaking up again with a lower tone. “I apologize, my child. I guess that was inconsiderate of me. I did not think it thoroughly. I was just…concerned about your wellbeing. I don’t want you to be hurt. Will you forgive me for being callous?”

Irene swallowed and blinked all her tears back, only letting out the most miniscule sign of crying one would completely miss if they hadn’t known her for a long time.

She raised a hand to wipe at the corner of her eyes and in a deep breath.

The King descended from his dais and leveled with her on the ground to take her hands.

“I apologize too, your majesty. I should not have lost my temper. It was very insolent and unbecoming of me. I am sorry. I know that you are only worried about my wellbeing. I feel like I always lose my temper whenever I come back from missions these days...It’s just that – I always feel off after –”

“It is understandable.” King Agnar said kindly, giving her hands a gentle tap. “You are still young and kindhearted. I think I am the one who has grown too old and jaded to remember what it felt like to take out a life. It is natural to feel off-kilter afterwards.”

Irene wanted to tell him just how unnatural her anger felt to herself; how unsettling it was to feel the odd, phantom cold in her chest grow again whenever she killed someone just  like what she felt after her first massacre 16 years ago, but the door to the study sprawled open and a worried looking Queen Hana barreled inside.

“I am sorry, sweetheart. Is everything all right?” She looked at the two of them warily, and only then did Irene realize that she had accidentally dropped the temperature in the palace to a freezing level when she had her outburst.

Frost seemed to creep on the windowpanes again for the first time in many, many years.

It was all too unsettlingly similar to the time when she couldn’t control her magic yet.

“It’s okay, Aunt Hana.” She forced herself to calm down and smile, willing her powers to withdraw all its cold and getti