"Huh," Jacin scoffed as the red dot on his portsceen disappeared without warning. It used to sit, unmoving, on the electronic map of Iceland's capital that he had been staring at for the past few hours. He expected it to continue moving on its way to the palace – as Queen Levana told him it would – where he was to give one of the packages to the Princess Winter.

The other was supposed to be for the Princess Cinder. Which would have been useful much earlier, he thought bitterly before darkening the screen. No use in watching the progress of trackers that had been found and disabled.

He had to admit, he didn't think whoever his queen had scraped up to deliver the packages would be smart enough to discover they were merely a means of smuggling trackers onto the princesses. Not that he thought they'd be much use one way or the other.

His Queen mentioned offhandedly that she had sent her soldiers down to take care of the Princess Cinder situation. Leading their brigade must have been Cress, who he had found vacant for the past few days. Considering her secluded room in the palace's far tower that remained locked ninety-percent of the time, he knew it was on the queen's order.

The thought still made his insides cringe like pointed nails scraping across an icy sheet solely for the purpose of making a sound that turned ears inside out. She sent Cress down to Earth where the winter tore through the living more than on Artemisia, despite her human-like body. He wasn't surprised at Queen Levana's lack of empathy towards the girl, but he had hoped her skills with tracking would protect her.

Cress's unique differences, to state it kindly, never became a reason for him to avoid her as many had already decided. Like him, she was a pawn to be dusted off then discarded at the Queen's earliest convenience. Speaking with her was always much easier than any of the lifeless dolls blindly devoted to the queen, mostly because she never hid her genuine feelings about anything.

Lighting up his screen, a small rectangle appeared and brought to life an achingly long document from the Queen. Pretending to skim through the endless pages, he stared out the window in the hopes it would bring him to Iceland's castle that much sooner. He already knew the contents of the document as the queen had given him several other debriefs before his arrival.

You are there as an ambassador. Your job is to negotiate peace between Iceland and Artemisia, on the surface. Your real mission is to exploit their weaknesses any way you can. Never make your intentions known or we might face a harder resistance. Do whatever is necessary to manipulate Princess Winter.

The carriage stopped with a jerking that lifted Jacin's head from his portscreen. An electronic voice filled the closed space. "We have arrived, Ambassador Clay."

"Ambassador Jacin," he corrected, knowing the voice could not be reasoned with. "Clay would have been my father's title."

Stepping out into the fading light of evening, he was met with two neat rows of well-armed guards. Fastened stiffly in their uniforms, most stared ahead with looks of disgust trying not to seem too obvious. Some didn't bother hiding it and kept their hands firmly over the rifles strapped to their sides. Though Iceland stepped away from luxurious advancements, it seemed with weapons they felt no guilt about flaunting the best.

Jacin fingered his own weapon hidden deep in the rune-etched sleeves of his uniform. While its ammunition was pure energy – of which it had an unlimited amount – he was still outgunned a hundred to one.

At the helm of the guards stood three humans in greeting. One, a tall man, aged by years of stress with permanent wrinkles cut into his long face. The second, a woman only slightly younger than him that retained bits of her beauty from her youth. Shorter and standing just in front of the two was a girl staring at him with an accusing glare.

Without his consent, his mind conjured up many potential images of Princess Winter, none of them befitting the young girl standing before him. Hair darker than night was pulled away from her face, all but one curl that refused to be restrained by the confines of the hair tie and jeweled crown atop her head. Dark purple in color, her dress adorned with white designs made the glow to her skin that much brighter.

Perhaps that was what had him speechless at first.

Smoothly, his mouth curved into the same overly pleasant smile he used with the queen. As if rehearsed a million times, his words rolled off his tongue easily as he bowed. "A pleasure to meet you Princess Winter of Iceland."

Her lips painted red – or natural he realized as he approached – didn't even pretend to hide her distaste at his arrival. "We are graced with your presence," she blandly stated.

"Ambassador Jacin, at your service."

A faint sigh escaped her lips, as if she would have preferred their interaction him without knowing that piece of information. Pretending as if he remained ignorant of her distrust of him, he looked around feigning confusion. "Pardon me, your highness, but your elder sister seems to be missing from this greeting party."

"Isn't that precisely why you came?" she inquired dryly, earning a hesitant nudge from the man at her side. Though he tried retaining his polite attitude, this girl was really beginning to crawl under his skin.

"Of course my Queen sent me here to give her condolences on King Garan and Queen Adri's deaths. She knew them quite well the past few years."

Princess Winter tilted her head with annoyance, "You mean her many threats and demanding letters she sent my parents since she tried taking over our planet? Yes, she must be crying herself to sleep at night knowing they are no longer around."

Jacin's jaw tightened at the girl's snappy words, only saving him from lashing out was the interruption of the man who also seemed to feel the tension between them rising. "Ambassador Jacin, it is a pleasure to have you staying with us. Your attempts at peace between our worlds are not going unnoticed, I assure you. Please, won't you come inside?"

With a look like a viper, Jacin smiled thinly at the man. "Of course. While I myself am not weak enough to be bothered by the cold, I wouldn't want to make the princess uncomfortable."

Looking over his obvious belittlement, the older two gave tight, frightened smiles the Queen would have loved to see before sauntering back towards the castle. A pause followed them instead of Princess Winter, who needed the extra moment to pierce his demeanor with a sharp glare. Continuing his charade of the charismatic ambassador, he waited a gentlemanly amount of space between them before walking into the palace with her.

Stumbling, Jacin was taken aback as Princess Winter spun on her heel to face him mid-step. "Let's be frank with each other, shall we?"

Honestly surprised, his first response was blinking. His second was, "I'm not sure–"

"Enough of this useless façade that is fooling no one." She rolled her eyes and stood on her tiptoes to match his eye level. "You know why you are here, I know why you are here, and neither of us have to pretend like we don't."

"And to that I say this, you will never get anything out of my kingdom with or without my sister present. In fact, it would be in your best interest to leave before she returns because your Snow Queen does not scare Cinder. I can assure you, trying to weasel something out of me while she is away will be less than a waste of time. So why don't you save us all the unpleasantry of your visit and run back to your queen, hm?"

A chuckle actually escaped Jacin's throat, one lined with malice and bitterness that he had not heard for a long time. "Little Princess, I have no intention of leaving without fulfilling my Queen's wishes. I do, on the other hand, have every intention of making your life miserable while I'm around."

She huffed, brushing him off with an exaggerated spinning of her skirts as she strutted as far away from him as her dignified pace would allow. Imagining how her haughty attitude would crumble into despair when he was done tormenting her, he actually felt himself excited to follow out Queen Levana's orders.

Tensions brew between Earth and the Moon . . .

This update was not up as soon as I wanted it to be, so hopefully the next one will be up in the next few days. Thanks to everyone's lovely support!

Next chapter will be Cinder and Kai with a little bit of unnecessary, but always welcome fluff. I hope you all like it!

Malika DaughterOfWisdom: I present you with your reward: another update and a gigantic thanks from me!

Cheesehead101: I did as well, in the Lunar Chronicles and this story.

Thanks to my amazing, wonderful, irreplaceable reviews - for this chapter and all the others. And of course my followers, favoriters, and Community Manager also deserve a grand thanks.

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