"It’s PRINCE." He corrected her in annoyance.

I was only looking at him expectantly and waited for him to offer me his hand. Suddenly, he grabbed my hand and looked at the man next to him, and called his attention. When he looked at us, he offered my hand to the stranger. "Wanna switch partners? I'll pay you," he said, even though he knew that he's a duke and he'll have tons of gold in his pocket.

I jerked my hand back and frowned at him. "Oh no, you won't! Fred already ditched our dance. I will not be exchanged for another dance partner twice in one night!" I took his hand and forced us both to dance.

Well, Fred didn't really ditch me, to be honest.

He raised an eyebrow at me. "Does it look like I care?" He told me.

I countered him with a frown. "And does it look like I'm giving you any other choice?"

"You're ugly. That's why Prince Fred switched you." He said bluntly.

"And you're annoying. Shut up."

"I'm not the one who's talking."

"You just talked."

"That's because you were talking. Now shut up."

"No, you shut up."

"I'm a Prince. You can't order me around."

"Just because you're a prince doesn't mean you can order people around."

"Yes, I can."

"Prove it."

Ace suddenly turned his head towards the nearby boy serving some champagne and called his attention. He looked at Ace with a confused face. "Jump off a cliff and die." The poor boy looked at him in horror, and his hands started to tremble at his command.

"Ace!!" I screamed at him, horrified. I turned towards the servant boy and smiled at him sweetly. "Don't mind him. He's just playing around. You can go now." I said, and the servant boy looked happy to leave.

"It's PRINCE Ace. How many times do I have to repeat that to you, you retarded fool!" He said. He was not hiding the annoyance in his tone.

I gave him an incredulous look. "Are you freaking serious? You'll seriously order him to jump off a cliff?" I said angrily.

At that moment, he looked like he wanted to hit me at the back of my head for being stupid. "Weren't you the one who asked me to prove to you that I can order people around?"

"That wasn't what I meant!!"

He frowned at me. "If you don't want people to misunderstand your words, then say it clearly. You're not a kid anymore. Tch!"

"Did you just 'tch' me?"

He ignored me and continued to dance. "I don't want to waste my breath talking to ugly people, which is everybody in the room." He said.

My foot 'accidentally' stepped on trash. Ace turned and gave me a deadly glare. I, on the other hand, quickly looked away and feigned innocence.

"You did that on purpose!"

"Nope." I lied.

With a frown, he stepped on the hem of my dress and made me trip a bit. My head quickly snapped into attention as I looked at him. My eyebrows furrowed, and I stepped on my foot again. And like earlier, he returned the favor.

"What's your problem?"

"What's your problem?" He told me.

"Stop stepping on my dress, you immature big-eared elf!!" I said. My voice squeaked a little as I tried to dodge his foot but failed. He snorted. "And you call me the immature one." I narrowed my gaze at him and made a move as if to step on his foot again. Then he stepped back to avoid my foot.

I frowned, stepped my other foot forward, attempted to catch it again, and missed when he took another step back. My foot slightly grazed him, making him look at me in annoyance. "Watch it!"

As a reply, I only stuck my tongue out at him and continued to go after his foot. This time, he took side steps to avoid my actions, and we ended up doing a weird dance of our own.

We were so caught up in our little dance that we didn't notice the couple, who was dancing right beside us, ended up splitting apart when we ran in between them with our hands outstretched.

"Stop moving!"

"You stop moving!!"

I don't know for how long we were making that dance, but we stopped as soon as I finally gave up. I was pretty much panting while he didn't even break a sweat and was now looking at me bored-ly when I noticed something. I lifted my gaze to scan the crowd, only to see them looking at us. We just conquered the dance floor.

"Tell me they're not looking at us," I whispered.

"They are." He answered shortly. I cursed under my breath and gave a hesitant laugh, and the crowd started to applaud us. Ace raised his eyebrows at them while my cheeks continued to turn red.

"Mind your own business!" Ace yelled at the crowd, making them stop, and continued to dance.

Ace started to exit but paused when he noticed that I wasn't moving. One of the things that I learned from the twins is that you're not supposed to leave a girl in the middle of the dance floor alone without a partner. It's rude and disrespectful.

Ace was probably thinking about it too.

Another wave of music arrived, and the dance started to resume. This time, it's a dance where you don’t need to change your dance partner, but you may do so when someone wants to cut in. Basically, it's their version of free dance.

I watched as everybody in the room grabbed their own chosen partners and headed for the dance floor. Soon we were surrounded by dancing pairs. He cursed as the space started to become cramped. He grabbed my hand and started to lead me away.

A girl suddenly approached us. She's tall and lean with silver locks of hair and a fake makeup-ridden face. Her dress, a metallic silver that gleamed in the light. She stopped right in front of us, and I finally recognized her as the princess of the Trylle trolls. They may look like normal human beings, like warlocks and witches, but they possess a hard physical body.

"Prince Ace Feradin, is it?" She asked and gave him a friendly smile. Ace nodded grumpily. He was probably annoyed at the fact that she suddenly blocked our path.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Princess Laurette from the Kingdom of Hale." She said as politely as she could.

"Do I look stupid to you that I wouldn't know who you are?! I may not care who you are, but I certainly know your name." Ace clicked his tongue in annoyance. "You must be confusing me with this idiot." He said and pointed at me. I frowned and slapped his hand away.

"I'm not an idiot!"

"And I'm not the silly ignorant princess who grouped Prince Leonardo, Duke Rafael, Prince Donatello, and Duke Michelangelo and call them ninja tur-"

I slapped a hand to his mouth to stop him from finishing his sentence.

"Such a joker you are." I laughed and gave Ace a very tight smile.

Princess Laurette giggled. "Princess Rose, I'm so honored to have the pleasure to meet the both of you." She said.

"The pleasure-" I started.

"-is all yours." Ace moved my hand away to snap at her.

She laughed. "You're funny. You can call me Laurette."

"PRINCE Ace."

Princess Laurette only smiled at me. "You don't talk much, do you?"

"..." I gave her a hesitant laugh.

"I guess not." She sighed. "Well, I apologize for intruding on your walk. I just didn't want the party to end without speaking to the both of you." She bowed and went away.

"Finally!" Ace said when she was out of earshot.

"You really are a rude bastard, aren't you?"

He clicked his tongue and grabbed my hand again as we dodged all the dancing royals.

I was glaring at Ace's hand on mine as he pulled me away from the crowd. "Let me go!" I growled at him and tried to pry his hands from mine. Ace turned to glare at me and released my hand. "Shut up. You're drawing unwanted attention." He said. I narrowed my gaze at him and was about to say something when someone tapped Ace's shoulder, making him look back at the person standing behind him. I took a good look at the boy.

He was slender and young, around 12 years old, judging from his face. His hair is a very dark shade of midnight blue that you could easily mistake as black if lights don't hit it. His soft blue eyes like ice glint as he smirks at Ace. His expensive light blue coat gave off an image of royalty. He then regarded Ace and me with a mischievous look.

And I was surprised that Ace didn't slaughter him at that moment for that look of his.

"Prince Ace Feradin from the elven clan." He nodded at Ace. His voice speaks of arrogance.

Wow. Ace sure is popular.

I could feel Ace narrowing his gaze at the person in front of us without even looking. "Prince Chace Clevelan from the fae clan." Ace nodded. And I was a bit surprised that he sounded normal for once—no harsh or disrespectful words to the opposite party.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

I spoke too soon.

I stood beside Ace and gave him a horrified look, and elbowed him. "The hell!? Be nice!" I snarled at him. Why do I even bother?

The boy chuckled, making us return our gazes to him. His eyes looked at us with pure amusement before they focused on me. "Don't bother. He doesn't show respect to anyone unless you're a king or a queen." He smiled. I turned to look at Ace with a 'go figure' look.

He was looking bored and looked at someplace else. "I don't waste my time and energy showing the same respect as I have for our leaders to fools like you two." His gaze then shifted back to Prince Chace. "You want my respect? You find it in the trash."

Prince Chace closed his eyes and shook his head. His white-blonde hair swished back and forth. I may be imagining things, but crystal-like ice seemed to fall from his hair as he moved. Finally, he opened his eyes and looked at me. "Prince Chace Clevelan, son of King Simon and Queen Titania; The younger brother of Prince Gregory and Princess Camille." He dipped a little before coming up and meeting my gaze.

I nodded and did a little curtsy. "Yes. A pleasure to meet you. I'm Princess Rosalie." I said politely and heard Ace snort. At that moment, I wanted so badly to kick his legs to make him stumble.

Chace smiled at me before looking at Ace. "Prince Ace, your powers seem to have returned. Last time I saw, they were close to dying."

Ace nodded. Acknowledging his words. "Indeed they have." he said before adding, "But last time I checked, it was none of your business." He straightened up and looked at both of us. "If you two wouldn't mind, I would like to take my leave." And without looking back, he started to turn his back to us and headed for the door out of the room, leaving me alone with Prince Chace.

Unbelievable. So what? He just left me here with a stranger?!

I was still staring at the spot where Ace had gone, so I didn't notice Prince Chace approaching me. When I felt his presence, I quickly snapped my attention to him and saw him offering a dance towards me. "Would you mind if I ask you for a dance?"

I looked at his hand for a second before turning to his face and nodded as I accepted his hand. His hand was cold to the touch, as if I was grasping ice. Soon, he was leading me towards the dance floor where the other pairs were dancing. He picked a spot for us, and we started to take our positions and dance. As we followed the rhythm of the music, I couldn't help but notice that the temperature around us seemed to drop, and I started to shiver.

Prince Chace noticed my discomfort and gave me an apologizing smile. "Sorry. I still have minimal control over my powers. Winter is powerful after all." He raised the hand on my waist, and I watched as he made a twirling motion with his finger making a small whirl of snow. I gasped and followed the snow's path until it flew into the air and vanished.

I return my gaze at him. My eyes filled with amazement. "Are you a-"

"Winter Fairy? That I am." He beamed proudly.

I shook my head as I tried to remember what Ace had said about winter fairies and tilted my head. "Aren't winter fairies said to be rare since not that many offspring survive during the winter season?"

He gave me a look of admiration and respect as he grinned at me approvingly. "Seems like you did your research." He said. "And yes. Winter fairies are rare. Most offspring die before they come out of their mother’s womb. Only the strongest offspring can live during that season. That is why winter fairies hold tremendous power."

"Amazing."

"Indeed." He said and looked away. "But being a winter fairy sometimes sucks."

"Why?" I asked. Feeling his hand going cold again. "Aren't you satisfied with your powers?"

He shook his head. "No. That's not the reason. It's because being a prince and a winter fairy simultaneously makes the royals keep an eye out for you to keep you safe. They treat you rather special. Sure, it sounds fine at first but after a few years? You'll realize that your freedom is limited." I looked at his eyes and saw loneliness and bitterness in them, so I didn't say anything and just waited for him to speak. Finally, he smiled and said. "That's why I admired Prince Ace. He understands."

"What? But A - I mean - PRINCE Ace is not a fairy." I said.

Prince Chace laughed. "Goodness, no. He's an elf. What I'm trying to say is that we're both in the same shoe. He knows what it feels like to hold such power."

"What power?"

He paused and looked at me. His eyebrow raised. "You mean you don't know his powers?" I shook my head as an answer, and he sighed. "Well, I'm not surprised. He did try to kill his powers, and no one seemed to see him use them. Only a few of us know what it is."

"What is it then?"

"If he wants to keep it a secret, then I don't think I have the right to speak of it." He said. "Let's just talk about something else, okay?"

"Okaay," I said and started to open my mouth to ask him the bubbling question inside my head. "You're a younger sibling, right?"

"Correct."

"Why aren't you a candidate as King here?"

He snorted. It was as if the thought had come to his mind. "I'm 12. Too young to be a candidate. You have to be 16 and above to enter." He said bitterly and looked away.

I was about to say something more when someone tapped Prince Chace lightly on his shoulder. We both looked at the man, and my heart skipped a beat as I looked at the delicate creature standing and waiting beside Prince Chace. Prince Fred nodded at me in acknowledgment before looking at Prince Chace.

"May I cut in?" He asked.