“Fifty-eight…fifty-nine…sixty!”
Despite herself, Anna smiled. The cute little guy had taken her quite literally when she said she needed a minute.
Bursting into the great hall, Olaf saw Anna and Elsa and waved. “Hi! I’m Olaf, and I like warm hugs.”
As he wobbled up the stairs, Anna watched her sister. Confusion flashed across Elsa’s face, followed by fear, and then shock. But the good thing was, the last emotion on Elsa’s face before Olaf reached Anna was wonder.
“Olaf?” she said. “You’re alive?”
The little snowman hesitated, then shrugged. “I think so?” he answered uncertainly.
Anna knew what her sister must be thinking. She had been thinking it herself, not so long ago. “He’s just like the one we built as kids,” Anna said, kneeling down next to Olaf. “We were so close. We can be like that again.”
To Anna’s surprise, Elsa smiled. But as quickly as it came, the smile faded, replaced by a look of pain. Whatever Elsa was thinking about, it wasn’t the warm and happy memory Anna had envisioned when she first met Olaf.
“No, we can’t,” Elsa said. Turning, she headed toward another flight of stairs.
“Elsa! Wait!”
“I’m just trying to protect you,” Elsa called over her shoulder.
“You don’t have to protect me,” Anna said, following her sister. “I’m not afraid. Please don’t shut me out again.”
Why can’t she just understand? Anna thought as she pursued her sister up the stairs. I get it. She had to grow up with powers she didn’t understand. It must have been terrifying. But if she had let me in then, maybe we wouldn’t be here now. Doesn’t she see that I’m as alone as she is? And it doesn’t have to be that way. Neither of us has to alone or afraid. We could have each other—if Elsa would just let me in.
Maybe Kristoff was right. Maybe Anna was being naive to think she could just walk in there and make everything all right. Even if she doesn’t want to forgive me, I thought that at least she would be concerned about the people back in Arendelle. Unless…Maybe she doesn’t know.
Anna caught up to her sister just as Elsa walked out onto the huge balcony Anna had spotted from outside. In the distance, the sun was sinking in the sky, causing the ice underneath their feet to shimmer in shades of gold, purple, and red.
Anna’s movement caught Elsa’s attention, and Elsa spun around.
Anna gulped. It was now or never. Sighing, she pointed down at the frozen ground. “You kind of set off an eternal winter…everywhere.” Her sister’s face filled with fear, breaking Anna’s heart. “It’s okay. You can just unfreeze it,” she said.
“No, I can’t.”
“Sure you can,” Anna said, not willing to give up on her sister. “I know you can.” And she did know it. Elsa could come home and fix it. It would all be okay.
But it wasn’t okay. It wasn’t okay at all.
As Anna watched, Elsa began to twirl nervously around the room. “I’m such a fool!” she shouted as a strong wind began to whip around her legs. Snow began to fall from the ceiling, and the room’s temperature dropped instantly. Beneath Elsa’s feet, another layer of ice began to form.
“Don’t panic!” Anna cried, trying to calm her sister. The last time her sister had gotten like this, Arendelle had ended up in deep, deep snow.
It was no use. Elsa was beyond listening. Ice was beginning to form on her fingertips, and the gently falling snow had turned into a full-blown blizzard. Raising her arm to protect her eyes from the sting of the snow, Anna tried to find her sister. But all she could hear was the howling wind. “Elsa! Please!” she shouted. “We can change this!”
“I CAN’T!”
As if in slow motion, Anna watched as Elsa’s scream caused the blizzard to swirl out of control. There was a tense pause and then—the snow shot out at Anna. She sank to the floor, grasping her chest in pain.
Instantly, it felt like her body was turning to ice from the inside out, and she began to shiver. Reaching a hand down to steady herself, she was only vaguely aware of Elsa’s tortured cry and the sound of footsteps as Kristoff burst into the room. All she could hear was her own heart pounding painfully in her chest.
“Anna?” Kristoff’s worried voice broke into her thoughts. “Are you okay?”
Raising her eyes to meet Kristoff’s, she was surprised to see that he looked scared. “I’m fine,” Anna said, pushing herself to her feet. True, she felt like she was going to be sick. But she wasn’t going to let anyone see how much pain she was in. She was there for her sister, and Elsa still needed her.
“Elsa,” she said softly, “I know we can figure this out together—”
But it was too late to try to reason with her sister. Anna knew it even as the words came out of her mouth. Her sister’s shoulders had tensed, and her hands were now clenched at her sides. She was on the defense.
“How?” Elsa shouted desperately. “What power do you have to stop this winter? To stop me?” As she spoke, sharp spikes of ice began to creep down the walls and pop up on the floor.
“Anna, I think we should go,” Kristoff said as he wrapped a protective arm around her shoulder.
She shrugged him off. “No. This isn’t who Elsa is. She’s just scared.”
“She’s scared?” Kristoff repeated. “You’re joking right? I’m pretty sure she has nothing to be scared of.”
But Kristoff was wrong. Elsa was scared. Anna could see it. Not in the tense way she held her body, but in the desperate look in her eyes. In the way her glance kept going to Anna. It might have been years since the two had confided in each other, but Anna still knew what Elsa looked like when she was terrified.
“Elsa, you didn’t mean to do any of this,” Anna finally said aloud. “It was an accident. We can fix this. We can fix it all. Together. I’m not leaving without you, Elsa.”
“Yes,” Elsa said, sounding heartbroken, “you are.”
Waving her arms in the air, Elsa began to pull the snow off the floor, moving and shaping the powder until finally—standing between her and her sister—was the largest, strongest, scariest-looking snowman Anna had ever seen.
As the creature took one menacing step toward them, Anna and Kristoff exchanged looks. They clearly had only one option—RUN!
HANS KNEW the search party was beginning to lose hope. He knew they were tired and hungry. He knew that they wanted to stop. But he didn’t care. He needed to find Anna.
Since leaving Wandering Oaken’s Trading Post, Hans had been pushing the group relentlessly. Despite the deepening snow and the increasing wind, he kept the pace fast and the distractions to a minimum. With every step they took, he felt the Duke’s men watching him, their gazes cold and judging. He knew that they would report everything that had happened to the Duke. It could be Hans’s undoing. So he kept his guard up and his back straight and did his best to focus on the task at hand. Which meant keeping everyone moving—fast.
“Your Highness?”
Hans whipped around in his saddle but did not pull back on his horse’s reins. One of the younger volunteers was trotting a few steps back. His horse’s head hung low, and the boy was shaking. “Your Highness, I know you told us we must keep going, but, well…”
“What is it, Thomas?”
“Well, not me, Your Highness, but some of the older men…they are growing tired. We were thinking maybe we might stop? Just for a few minutes? Give the horses a chance to rest and then we can move on? There is a grove up ahead. I took the liberty of riding ahead and, well, it is a good place to stop. It’s actually quite beautiful….”
Hans raised an eyebrow. Did the boy honestly think he cared about seeing something beautiful? All he cared about was finding Anna and forcing Elsa to stop this winter. Then he would return to Arendelle the conquering hero. He would be applauded and hailed as the kingdom’s savior. Elsa would be forced to abdicate her throne, and he would marry Anna, become king, and finally accept control of the throne and the kingdom from hi
s bride.
Stopping to see beautiful groves did not fit in that scenario.
But as he looked at the young boy shaking in his saddle, Hans realized he had little choice. He had to stop. At least for a moment. To insist they press on would make him look inhumane. His best option, his only real option, was to reassure the men that he was one of them. That he, too, felt the cold and that he, too, was tired. If he showed them all that he could power through it, they would have to do the same. Plus, if he were to return to Arendelle with Anna but without some of the kingdom’s beloved townspeople, it might put a dent in his glowing reputation.
“Very well,” he said. “We will go to this grove and rest. But only for a short while. And warn the others, this stop means we will only ride faster and harder after.”
“Thank you, Your Highness!” Thomas said. “Thank you! I’ll tell the others.” Turning, he trotted back to the men.
Hans watched as Thomas delivered his message and smiled when the men, delighted by the news, began to applaud. It never ceased to surprise him how easily people could be manipulated. He had given up a few moments of time and, in turn, garnered more respect.
And then they reached the grove.
Instantly, Hans’s confidence all but vanished. In that moment, he knew that while he wanted to blame his fears completely on the Duke’s men, the fault did not lie solely on their shoulders. It lay mostly, he now realized, on the shoulders of the person who had created the masterpiece he was looking at—Elsa.
Hans had been clinging to one single reassuring thought: Elsa was a monster. Elsa was a monster who had covered Arendelle in snow and then abandoned her people to suffer. She had frozen the fjord and cut her kingdom off from any potential help. She had made children go hungry and families freeze. It was this, her utter lack of humanity, which guaranteed Hans his chance to be a hero. If the people of Arendelle feared Elsa, they would want her to be captured and restrained. They would want her to abdicate her throne, and in turn, they would want Hans to take it. For his plan to work, Hans needed Elsa to be the monster.
And yet, looking around him now, Hans had to admit that Elsa’s power was not only destructive—it was also beautiful. The grove Hans found himself standing in was surrounded by tall, mature willow trees. On a regular summer day, he imagined that their long, thin branches would have swayed gently in the warm breeze and their distinctive feathery leaves would have made a gentle rustling sound. But it was not a regular summer day, and the leaves did not rustle—instead, they tinkled. Elsa’s winter had frozen the trees. The branches hung low and the frozen feathers and small buds were encased in ice. The wind blowing through the glen caused the branches to hit one another, filling the air with the sound of a hundred wind chimes.
It looked as beautiful as it sounded. Even though the sun had long since sunk beneath the horizon, the glen still seemed to glow. Moonlight reflected off the frozen branches, bathing the whole area in a bluish-white light and causing the air around them to shimmer.
If anyone in Arendelle saw this, Hans realized, his anxiety mounting, they wouldn’t see Elsa as a complete monster. This place, whatever it was, was something special. Something perfect. Elsa had created something beautiful, something pure, and not in the least bit frightening. If this was any indication, Elsa was more powerful than Hans had thought. And if her magic was this strong…well, Hans’s plan might not be as easy to execute as he had hoped. Unless…
Hans smiled. He had been looking at this all wrong. If Elsa was captured, she would be scared. And clearly, when she was scared, her power was dangerous, not beautiful. All he had to do was make sure she never created anything like this again. He would destroy this glen and any trace of beauty. No one else ever needed to know what she was capable of.
There was just one obstacle in his way—the Duke’s men. Their allegiance to the little man was off-putting, and their doubt in Hans was grating. Looking over, he saw that they had moved slightly outside the glen, as though allergic to all that beauty. What he needed was to have them on his side. And the easiest way to get a thug to do what you want? Offer him a reward, of course.
Kicking his horse forward, Hans trotted over to the men. Both were holding their hands in front of their faces, blowing on their fingers in the vain hope of making them warm.
“Gentlemen,” Hans said, nodding in greeting. “I think perhaps we got off on the wrong foot.”
The taller of the men lowered his hands. “And how do you figure that?” he asked, his deep voice rumbling loudly.
Hans moved slightly closer and leaned in. “I realize now,” he whispered, “I wasn’t quite clear on how I can make this little adventure of ours come out to your advantage.” He waited to see if the men would turn and ignore him or keep listening. They kept listening. “You are here at the behest of your duke. But if I may ask, is he making it worth your while to risk your life up here on this mountain?”
“The Duke ain’t said nothing about making things worth our while,” the shorter of the two men protested. “He just said Erik and I should go with you.”
“Shut it, Francis,” Erik, the taller thug, said. “We don’t need to be telling this guy the Duke’s business.” Then he looked back at Hans. “And we don’t answer to nobody but the Duke. So you can stop your prying.”
“You’re right,” Hans replied. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to tell me anything. The Duke is lucky to have two such loyal men. I suppose I can ask some of the other men to help me. I should have asked them in the first place. I just hate the idea of giving them land and title when they clearly are to be my subjects. I thought because you two weren’t, you might like a little land and extra money in your pocket. You could make yourself a nice vacation home on the Southern Isles. Get out of Weselton during the winter and enjoy the warmth of my father’s kingdoms. But since you aren’t interested…” Hans paused and shifted the reins as though to go. Who cared if he was offering something he couldn’t actually deliver on? They didn’t need to know that. They just needed to take the bait.
For one tense moment, Hans was sure the Duke’s men were actually going to let him walk away. But then Erik, who Hans was quickly realizing was the “brains” of the pair, spoke up. “What do you have in mind?”
Hans smiled. Then, turning around, he wiped the smile from his face so he would appear all business. “I need you to help me capture Elsa—alive.”
“But the Duke sent us up here to kill her,” Francis said, confused.
“Why would we want to keep her alive?” Erik asked. “Why did we even come up here if we’re just going to let her go?”
Hans held back a groan. He hadn’t expected so many questions from the pair. He had just hoped he could dangle a reward of some kind in front of them and they would do whatever he told them to do, no questions asked. Yet these two wanted answers. Which he didn’t have. Quickly, he tried to think of a believable reason why he would wish to capture, not kill, the queen. A moment later, he had it.
“No, no, no,” Hans finally replied. “That is what the Duke wants. But it is not what I want. Killing her would be the worst thing we could do. Look around you. Elsa is more powerful than we imagined. What if she is killed and the magic doesn’t die with her? What if Arendelle is trapped in winter forever? I don’t want that to happen. And I don’t think the Duke would want that to happen to such a lucrative trading partner. We need to capture her—alive—and get her back to the castle in one piece. If you help me do that, I will guarantee you both titles, as well as land on one of my father’s isles. Are we agreed?”
“Hold on,” Erik said. Then he leaned over and began whispering in Francis’s ear.
Hans watched, holding his breath.
At that moment, Erik held out his hand. “We have a deal,” he said.
Hans smiled. “Deal,” he said, shaking the man’s hand.
That, he thought as he turned and went to gather the rest of his men, was far easier than I expected. Hans had no idea if killing Elsa would really be d
isastrous. In fact, he rather suspected the opposite. But disposing of the queen now created far too many variables. Hans was confident that, for now, he could talk his way to a happy ending.
“STOP!” ANNA SHOUTED. “Put us down!”
No matter how much she squirmed or wiggled, Anna could not free herself from the grip of the giant snow monster. The snow monster my own sister created to throw me out of her ice palace, Anna thought. A wave of anger rushed over her, immediately followed by a wave of sadness. She could wiggle all she wanted, there was no escaping the truth—her sister didn’t want her around.
Next to her, Kristoff struggled to free himself, to no avail. His rosy cheeks were growing rosier as he kicked his legs. Olaf, held tightly in the creature’s other hand, was, as usual, seemingly unaware of the danger he was in.
“You are a lot stronger than I think you realize,” the little snowman said.
In response, the creature pulled back both of his snowy arms and threw the three down the stairs. “Go away!” he shouted.
Anna hit the middle of the staircase and instantly began sliding down the rest of the way. She let out a little squeak as she saw Olaf’s head roll by, followed shortly by his behind. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Anna and Kristoff came to a sliding stop. The little snowman was not so lucky. His head slammed into a snowbank. The rest of him followed until there were three balls of snow protruding from the bank.
Anna had had enough. It was one thing to have her sister kick her out, but it was another thing entirely to have her throw them out—literally. And to let her stupid monster creature thing hurt poor little Olaf. Fuming, Anna turned around. “It is not nice to throw people!” she shouted at the creature’s retreating back. When the snow giant didn’t turn around, Anna moved toward the steps, ready to take him on.
A Frozen Heart Page 15
