“She froze my heart, and only an act of true love can save me,” Anna added, as if reading Hans’s mind. With effort, she raised her eyes until she was looking right at him.
Her expression said it all. She expected him to be the one to save her. “A true love’s kiss,” he said, knowing without being told that it was the act Anna was referring to. He was no fool. He had read his fair share of fairy tales with their perfect happy endings. Did she honestly think this was one such tale?
Hans couldn’t help himself. After years of bullying by his brothers, after years of taking the joke but never making the joke, after years of being the thirteenth son, he was going to get the last laugh. And he wanted to make it count.
He leaned closer to Anna, putting his hands gently on her shoulders. Through his gloves, he could feel the chill pouring from her body. He could feel her soft, nervous breath as he came closer and closer. He could feel, and hear, the sharp intake of breath as she waited, anticipating the moment his lips would touch hers. He saw her eyes flutter closed. He drew closer…and closer…
And then he pulled back.
Wiping the simpering expression off his face, he removed his hands from her shoulders. The sudden removal of support caused Anna to fall back against the couch. She looked up at him, confusion racing across her face. At one time, he might have pretended to care. But he was done playing games.
“Oh, Anna,” he said, his voice dripping with condescension. “If only there was someone out there who loved you.”
ANNA HADN’T THOUGHT it possible to feel any colder. Until now. Wave after wave of ice seemed to attack her heart anew as Hans’s chilly words echoed through her mind. If she had heard him correctly, and there was no doubt she had, he had just told her in no uncertain terms that he didn’t love her. The realization hit her harder and more painfully than even the bolt of Elsa’s magic.
As Anna watched helplessly, Hans stood up and moved away from the small couch. The absence of his warmth deepened the chill in her body, and she began to shiver uncontrollably. What had happened? How could the man who was now standing there looking at her with empty eyes be the same man who only a day before had asked her to marry him? It didn’t make sense. None of this made any sense.
Images of the past two days flashed before her as though her mind was coming to grips with Hans’s words before her heart could process them. She was, it seemed, watching their love play out before her very eyes. Their first meeting and how happy Hans had seemed to have run into her. The way he had waved shyly at her during Elsa’s coronation and saved her on the dance floor. Running through the castle halls and sharing stories of their families up on the roof. The moment Hans had asked her to marry him, as water rushed past and stars twinkled in the sky above. It had all been so perfect and felt so real. She couldn’t have imagined his love, could she?
“You said you did,” Anna finally managed to stutter. Her voice sounded weak and desperate, even to her own ears.
Hans looked over at her and shook his head. “As thirteenth in line in my own kingdom, I didn’t stand a chance,” he said as he began to move around the room, pulling all the curtains closed. “I knew I’d have to marry into the throne somewhere…”
“What are you talking about?” Anna asked. What he was saying was so preposterous, it was as though he were speaking a foreign language.
Hans walked back toward her, and her treacherous heart thudded hopefully in her chest. But he simply leaned over and blew out the candles on the nearby table. “As heir,” he went on, detailing his awfulness to Anna, “Elsa was preferable, of course. But no one was getting anywhere with her. But you…You were so desperate for love that you were willing to marry me, just like that.”
Anna sucked in her breath. She had been so terribly, terribly naive. She had blindly opened her heart to Hans without once questioning his motives. If she only had thought to look past his dreamy eyes and charming smile, she might have figured out that, to him, she was nothing but a political pawn in a nasty game of chess.
Crossing the room, Hans grabbed a pitcher of water and approached the fireplace. He looked back at Anna, a wicked gleam in his eyes. “I figured, after we’d married, I’d have to stage a little accident for Elsa,” he said, revealing his ultimate plan piece by piece. Slowly, he began to pour the water over the flames, dousing them.
“Hans!” Anna cried out desperately, feeling the temperature in the room drop instantly. “Stop!”
He didn’t. In fact, Anna saw that he simply poured the water faster, as though relishing the way the dying flames made her shiver more violently. This was not the man Anna thought she knew. This was a monster. Someone so full of evil that he didn’t even care about the pain he was causing her with every word he spoke. Had he truly had such a miserable life to have no heart? Anna wondered. Was his father that cold? His brothers that terrible? Something had to have happened to make Hans into this creature.
Or maybe not, Anna realized sadly. Maybe he was just a terrible excuse for a human being.
“But then she doomed herself, and you were dumb enough to go after her,” Hans added with a nasty chuckle. “All that’s left now is to kill Elsa and bring back summer.”
Anna raised her chin. Hans might have made a fool of her, but if his plan was to get rid of her sister, he was in for a nasty surprise. “You’re no match for Elsa,” she hissed through clenched teeth. You try and go up against her and she’ll show everyone in Arendelle the weak, horrible man you are.
Squatting down next to her, Hans put a finger under her chin just as he had done not so long ago. But this time, when he lifted her head, there was a violence to his actions that made Anna recoil. “No,” he sneered. “You’re no match for Elsa. I, on the other hand, am the hero who is going to save Arendelle from destruction.”
“You won’t get away with this,” Anna said, wrenching her face free of his slimy hands. How could she have ever longed for his touch? It repulsed her now.
Hans got to his feet and walked to the door. Putting a hand on the doorknob, he gave her one last look over his shoulder. “Oh, I already have,” he said darkly. He turned and walked out the door, gently shutting it behind him.
Inside the dark room that was growing colder by the second, Anna pushed herself off the couch and struggled to the door. Weakly, she turned the knob. But it was no use. It was locked. Hans was now somewhere on the other side, about to take over her kingdom—and she had never seen it coming.
Anna didn’t know how long she had been lying on the cold floor. All she knew was that it was becoming harder to breathe. It felt as though Elsa’s snow giant were sitting on her chest, like her hands were trapped in blocks of ice.
But that pain paled in comparison to the shame and anger she felt at having been duped—at having allowed herself to be duped.
For a while after Hans left, Anna had lain in front of the door, trying to shout for help. Her voice, though, was weak and growing weaker, and the door was thick. It was futile to try, and eventually Anna stopped, desperate to conserve what little energy she had left. She had leaned back against the door and let her head sink to her chest.
At some point, the rest of her hair had turned white, and now she stared at the tip of her braid, both horrified and fascinated by the transformation. Seems like everything is changing fast around here, she thought sadly. First Elsa, then my hair and my heart. And if Hans gets his way, the whole kingdom is going to be in for one huge change.
The thought of Hans sitting on the throne sent a fresh wave of anger coursing through Anna. He had left her there to die. The man she had wanted to marry—the man who had ultimately driven the final wedge between her and Elsa—had left her to die.
What was wrong with her? Why did things like this keep happening to her? Love wasn’t supposed to hurt, yet it felt like all she knew when it came to love was pain. Every time she opened her heart, she just got burned. Or, in this case, frozen. And she was getting sick and tired of it.
Looking back on t
he loves of her life, Anna saw the pattern clear as day. She had loved her parents. So very much. And then they had been ripped away from her. Anna still mourned for all the days they would never share.
And then there was Elsa. Her big sister had been her world when they were younger. Even now, surrounded by cold and shivering to death because of her sister, Anna could remember the fun they had had. The adventures they had gone on and the way Elsa used to drop everything to play games around the castle. And then that all stopped. Elsa pulled her love away from me.
Finally, there was Hans. The man of her dreams. A man she had been convinced would never pull away from her. Hans, who had known how much Anna’s family had hurt her, and who had been equally hurt by his own family. It hadn’t seemed possible that someone with whom she had shared such intimate details of her life would be able to just turn from her. But Hans had—and he had done so with such ease.
A fresh wave of tears—ones born of frustration now—welled up in Anna’s eyes as she began to see the injustice of it all. Here she was blaming herself for believing in Hans, but how was she supposed to have learned how to give and receive love when she had so little experience with it? No wonder she had fallen for Hans’s act. It was the first time in a long time that someone had cared for her—or at least, had pretended to care about her. What a fool I’ve been, she thought sadly.
Raising her head, Anna saw that the last of the embers in the fireplace had flickered out. Through the one window Hans had not covered, Anna could just make out the gray sky and knew that while she had been locked away, more snow had fallen over Arendelle. The wind had picked up still more, and occasional gusts of snow fell through the open flue into the fireplace. A thin layer of ice now covered the pitcher Hans had used to douse the fire, and even the candles’ wax looked frozen mid-drip. Soon the room’s temperature would be well below freezing.
“Well, I guess that’s that,” Anna said aloud. Her energy was fading, but she felt the need to get the words out, even though she knew there was no one to hear her. “Tell my sister, if she ever comes back, that I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. Tell her I didn’t know that Hans was just using me to get the throne. Tell her I never meant to hurt her. I just wanted my sister back. I wanted the doors to stop slamming in my face. I just wanted her to love me. That’s all I ever wanted. For someone to love me.” She stopped, a sob catching in her throat. Saying the words aloud made them so much sadder to her own ears. Raising her eyes toward the ceiling, with the last of her fading strength, she added, “And tell the people of Arendelle that I love them and not to listen to Hans because he’s awful. Please let them know I had no idea, and that if I had been given the chance, next time I would get to know the guy I was going to marry first…”
Suddenly, Anna stopped herself. She pictured Hans standing in front of the people of Arendelle with his smarmy smile and his secret agendas. She imagined Elsa, still hiding on the North Mountain, unaware of her kingdom’s fate. And it made her mad. It made her so mad that for the first time since Hans had left the room, she forgot to be sad. She felt the cold recede ever so slightly.
So Hans had made a fool of her, so what? She had made a fool of herself on plenty of occasions and always bounced back. She was practically a champion at rebounding from rejection. She couldn’t let Hans ruin everything. If she did, then he would have won and gotten the best of her. And she was too strong to let that happen. She had spent too many years alone, surviving on her own company, to be taken down by one awful man’s actions.
No, she resolved, I am not going to let Hans win. I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of finding me in this dark room with tears frozen on my face. He doesn’t deserve that victory. He doesn’t deserve to go on living thinking he finished me and broke my heart. I am stronger than that. I made it up the North Mountain without him. I fought wolves and huge snow creatures. I made friends and met a whole valley of trolls. I did that. Not Hans. And if he thinks he is going to take that from me by not kissing me and leaving me here to die, well, then he’s got another thing coming. Because I know the truth. I know that I’m a better person despite him, not because of him. I’ll never let him take that from me. Ever.
HANS STOOD IN THE shadowed hallway just outside the council chamber and watched. Inside, the dignitaries, representatives, and various other royalty had gathered to await his return. But he wasn’t quite ready to make his entrance. Not yet at least.
After leaving Anna to freeze, Hans had walked through the castle, gathering his thoughts. Much hinged on how the next few moments played out. After acting the part of the loving, doting fiancé for the past forty-eight hours, he knew it would not be difficult to feign sadness when he announced Anna’s tragic death. What would be difficult was not appearing too eager to step up and take over the throne. He would need to seem distraught, angry, and of course, a little bit frightened. Otherwise, the others might find him suspicious. And that was the last thing he needed.
What he needed now was to make his story believable. When everyone was convinced of him, he would make sure Anna was gone and deal with Elsa. With both sisters out of the way, his path would be clear. He would be king of Arendelle and he would never, ever have to return to the Southern Isles. He would never again have to suffer humiliation at the hands of his brothers or his father.
Now, as he stood outside the chamber, biding his time before his grand entrance, he was amazed at how well everything had come together. Given the fact that he’d had only the barest of plans upon arriving in Arendelle, the end result was something of a miracle. True, he’d had to lie, manipulate, and con his way to this point, but that was just part of the game. And it turned out he played the game very, very well.
He could see that the men inside were growing restless. It was almost time. Pacing back and forth in front of the blazing fire, the Eldoran dignitary wrung his hands nervously. “It has been too long,” he said. “Why has Prince Hans not returned?”
“I imagine he and the princess have much to discuss. And she was in no condition to speak when we saw her,” the lord of Kongsberg pointed out. Compared to the others, he seemed untouched by the cold. He sat, legs crossed, on a large wingback chair. A book lay open in his lap. But, Hans noticed as he observed the goings-on, the lord hadn’t turned the page once. It was the only indication of his nerves. Looking over at the Eldoran dignitary, he added, “The prince has everything in hand, I’m sure. We just need to be patient.”
“But it’s getting colder by the minute,” the Duke of Weselton pointed out. “If we don’t do something soon, we’ll all freeze to death.”
Leave it to the weasel to stir the pot, Hans thought. It was time to step inside, before the Duke could start trouble. Straightening his shoulders and lifting his head, Hans wiped the smug smile off his face and replaced it with a look of distress. Time to start the final act.
Pushing the door open wider, Hans stepped into the council chamber. All heads swiveled at his arrival.
“Prince Hans,” the Blavenian dignitary said, taking a step forward.
Hans held up a hand, as though the thought of human contact were too painful for him at that moment. Sighing dramatically, he placed his own hand on his heart. “Princess Anna is…” He pretended to struggle to get the words out. “Dead,” he finally said. For effect, he stumbled, as if overcome with grief.
As several of the men helped him to a chair, Hans did his best to appear the heartbroken fiancé. Biting the inside of his cheek brought tears to his eyes, and a well-timed shudder made him look like he was holding back sobs.
“What happened to her?” the Duke asked.
Hans was surprised to hear no suspicion in the Duke’s voice. His confidence growing, Hans paused before answering, building the tension. Everything hinged on what he was about to say and how it would be received. “She was killed…by Queen Elsa.” He paused again as the chamber filled with gasps. He nodded sadly, letting the tears well up even more. The inside of his cheek was going to be a me
ss later, but it would be worth it. Especially when he added the next little gem. This one he had come up with even before leaving Anna. It was, he realized then, the only way to ensure his success. “At least,” he said, laying the emotion on thick, “we got to say our marriage vows…before she died in my arms.” As if the announcement were too much, he hung his head in his hands and let the tears fall.
“There can be no doubt now,” the Duke of Weselton said, his voice serious. “Queen Elsa is a monster and we are all in grave danger.”
Beside him, the Blavenian dignitary nodded. “Prince Hans, Arendelle looks to you.”
Hans stifled the smile that threatened to spread across his face. His brilliant display of grief had worked! Raising his head slowly, Hans looked around the room. Prince Wils’s usually cheerful expression had been replaced by a look of abject worry. The Eldoran dignitary was wringing his hands so hard that it seemed he might rip them off altogether. Even the lord of Kongsberg was finally showing some emotion. While apparently not as distressed as the others, his face had turned distinctly paler. A few of the younger representatives looked almost sick with fear, and Hans heard one of them mumble to the man next to him, “What is he going to do now?”
Pushing himself off his chair, Hans wiped his cheek dramatically. This was his moment. “With a heavy heart,” he said in his most somber of voices, “I charge Queen Elsa of Arendelle with treason and sentence her—to death.”
Despite his bold words earlier, as Hans led the others toward Elsa’s cell, he felt a nagging doubt at the back of his mind. He was reluctant to kill the queen. He was sure Anna would be happy to call him many things—a cad, a scoundrel, and a liar, to name a few—but he was not, and had never been, a murderer. Murdering painted you into a corner. It took away your options and made you a brute. He hated not having options, and he refused to be a brute. His brothers were brutes, and he didn’t respect them in the least. He wanted respect, and he wanted to know that he always, always had a way out of whatever situation presented itself.
A Frozen Heart Page 19
