All she could remember was the sword coming down on Elsa — Elsa, who’d never intended any of this, who’d meant no harm to anyone. The fog of cold that somehow lay between had numbed her senses until she did not know where she had been, or what urgency had driven her out onto the ice. The last vivid thing in the world had been the bright flash of steel, and Elsa’s white neck bowed in yielding despair, and the impulse that had flung her between them.
Anna remembered the sword, and the agonised moment before the blade could cleave through flesh and bone. Then — nothing.
Had she died? Was this the Bishop’s promised heaven? She was guiltily conscious that she’d never really paid attention to his endless sermons... but this didn’t seem much like any sort of heaven. In fact — she looked around at snow, rocks and lichen, taking in her surroundings for the first time, then down at fields and forests and the great arm of the sea stretched out below — it looked very much like North Mountain. Only there were little clinging star-flowers twined amidst the cracks in the cliff, and the treetops far beneath bore no burden of white. North Mountain in the summer, then, where she had never been.
It was still cold. She let fall the arm she had instinctively flung up to ward off the coming blow and drew the thick wool of her cloak more closely round her, shivering. How had she climbed this high? Had Kristoff—
Kristoff. Memory came flooding back and she doubled over, pressing both hands into the pit of her stomach with a sob. She had been out on the ice looking for Kristoff, because her true love— because Hans had cast her aside and left her to die for what she really was: a stupid little girl with a head full of dreams, who knew nothing about love, or men, or whom she could trust and whom it was that smiled and laughed and lied and lied...
It had been Hans with the sword; Hans, who had told her he would kill Elsa and end the winter. And she had been searching desperately for Kristoff in the hopes that he could break the curse that was killing her before it was too late. She had been numb, so numb, barely able to stumble one foot in front of another, but she had heard Kristoff calling and thought that she saw him. There might still have been time... but then she had heard the blade clear its sheath, and turned to see Elsa.
Anna hadn’t even known Elsa was out there in the storm with her. Elsa didn’t mind the cold, of course. Maybe she’d even made the snowstorm herself, the way she’d made all Arendelle’s other odd weather... but there hadn’t been any storm in that moment, not any more. Only Elsa kneeling on the ice, unresisting, with her head bent for the executioner’s stroke.
Strength Anna hadn’t known she still possessed had carried her far enough to hurl herself between the sister she loved and the man who had betrayed them both. The burning outrage of that instant was the last thing she remembered clearly. After that... after that, she supposed, the sword had come down. Not on Elsa, but on Anna’s upraised arm.
She straightened slowly, uncurling the fingers that had been clenched into a fist. Somehow she had half expected to see blood trickling across her wrist, despite the lack of pain. But the palm she turned up to the sunlight was small and pink and unhurt, and she did not seem to be injured anywhere. What had happened? Was she a ghost, like the lost spirits the waiting-women had whispered about in corners when she was little?
She kicked one booted foot against a rock experimentally, and winced. As far as she knew, ghosts didn’t get stubbed toes... and rolling up one sleeve revealed that she still had a full crop of freckles, which she was pretty sure ghosts didn’t get either.
Anna sighed, and sat back on her heels. “This makes no sense,” she said out loud, addressing the black speck of a buzzard hovering a hundred feet above.
“Yes, I did wonder exactly how confused you’d be if you woke up.” The voice was elderly, amused, and came from directly behind her.
Anna jumped to her feet, whirling round. Seated snugly in a crevice of the rocks, one elegantly-clad knee crossed over the other and very much at his ease, an old man with a neatly-pointed white beard and moustaches was observing her with an air of detached curiosity as if she were a particularly fascinating specimen.
She raised her chin a little under that scrutiny, and folded her arms. “All right, this isn’t funny. How did I get here, what’s going on, and”—as the meaning of what she had just heard caught up with her—“just what did you mean by if I woke up?”
The old gentleman rose a little stiffly, leaning on an ebony-handled cane, and came towards her. He was spry but bent with age, and his eyes were very bright and oddly familiar.
“You see, no-one really knew what would happen. The general feeling was that you’d simply melt.”
“Melt?” It squeaked upwards into horror, and she got a sharp look in response.
“Do you really not remember? Your sister put a curse of ice on your heart, and you were dying. Only you didn’t just freeze to death. Her powers turned you into a sculpture of solid ice.”
Anna stared back at him, then down at her hands, remembering how frost crystals had begun to creep across her flesh, and caught her breath in a gasp. “So when I—”
“When you flung yourself heroically in front of Queen Elsa”—the words held a sardonic edge—“you were already almost gone. An instant later you’d transformed to ice on the spot: hard, unyielding, and cold enough to shatter steel. You’d saved your sister’s life, and she was wild with grief, but there was nothing to be done.”
He shifted his weight, leaning more heavily on his cane.
“I didn’t gather what happened to you next until after I’d been turned unceremoniously out of the kingdom.” This time, his tone was very dry. “But I heard the Queen had your statue brought up here to her ice-palace on the mountain, where it wouldn’t melt in the summer heat. Oh yes, she brought back the summer after your death, something to do with tears melting snow, they told me, and the whole kingdom rallied round poor bereaved Elsa who’d been so grievously wronged. Nothing could bring you back, though, no matter how she tried. There you were, a symbol of sacrifice up on the mountain, preserved in ice, a girl who’d barely ever really lived at all. Despite all the indignities of my exit from Arendelle, I admit it crossed my mind from time to time to think of you, and wonder what would become of you... when the magic wore off.”
A sweeping gesture all around took in the snow-covered shoulder of rock on which they stood, and the ravine that had once been bridged by a soaring staircase of ice. The palace Elsa had once conjured up on this very spot had vanished as though it had never been.
A little shakily, Anna looked from chasm to cliff, recognising at last just where she was. There had been a great hall here, made from a delicate filigree of frost... and for a moment she could picture herself poised amid the pillars, a crystalline shape as frozen as all the rest. She shivered, pinching herself hard beneath the cloak to feel the reassurance of bruised flesh.
“So, since my banishment was conveniently at an end,” her companion was continuing, apparently unabashed by that admission, “I thought I might slip into the country and pay you a visit, just to find out. To pay my courtesies for old times’ sake, if you like.”
He swept her a low bow with a bright edge of malice, sprightly despite his years, and Anna frowned. Despite everything, he did seem oddly familiar. Just who was this old rogue, and what did he think he was up to? Something in the way he moved; they’d danced together, she thought they had danced...
She caught at a memory from the ballroom’s haze. “You’re the Duke of Weaseltown, aren’t you? Why isn’t my sister here? Where’s Elsa?”
For a moment she saw him actually taken aback. Then he began to laugh. “Oh, Anna...”
“How dare you?”
“We’ve been on first name terms for a while, Anna. Longer than you think.”
He’d been tall, once. She still had to look up into his eyes when he straightened from the cane. And there was something in that gaze that caught at her with heart-wrenching recognition.
“The late unlamented Duke Wilfrid of Wesselton-it’s-pronounced-Wesselton suffered an apoplexy a few months after his return from Arendelle. His heir has grandchildren. And Queen Elsa took to her bed a week ago, and passed away peacefully of old age, and all her magic with her. Hence—” One hand indicated Anna herself from head to toe. “It took Elsa’s death to break the spell. And with her gone, there’s no-one else left to remember the lost princess, no-one else who really knew you — but me.”
He laughed again, but this time it came out as more of a wheeze. “But then what we shared was always rather special, wasn’t it? Do you know something crazy?”
And for a moment the tilt of his head was exactly the same as— No. Oh no, no, no...
Anna swallowed, caught between horror and disbelief. It was a trick; another wicked, heartless trick.
“Do you know something crazy?” Hans said. He bent closer, and beneath the grotesque, impossible distortion of age his grin was unchanged. “It’s been almost sixty years since you accepted my proposal. Do you think that’s some kind of record for a royal engagement?”
Anna cried out and stumbled backwards, hands flung up as if to ward him off. “I don’t believe you. It’s not true!”
But it was Hans, Hans shrunken and withered as if by nightmare, with his red hair faded to a yellowed white, and with all the tetchy mannerisms of old age, but she could not un-see the likeness however hard she tried. Whatever had happened to him — however much he’d outwardly changed — this was the same man who’d spurned her first love and left her for dead. The man she’d last seen trying to kill her sister.
He was a liar. She couldn’t trust anything he said. Maybe — she clutched at straws — maybe it was the trolls who had done this to him. Perhaps it was his punishment.
Hans had made no attempt to pursue her. He simply stood there, leaning a little on his cane, with an air of weary tolerance that frightened her more than any swagger or threats. If this were true, if he were as old as he seemed...
“Take a look below,” Hans said quietly. “A good long look. Is that the Arendelle you knew? The castle’s bigger, and so are the ships in the harbour. The docks where we met have gone. Sigurd II rules down there now: Elsa’s eldest, a big solid fellow with a square beard and the beginnings of a belly. From what I hear, he sowed a few wild oats with his brothers when they were young, gave their mother a grey hair or two, but the people loved their Crown Prince and by all accounts he’s steady enough now.”
“Wait.” Anna caught her breath, her head spinning. There were chimneys below that should not be there, and a new bridge and a ribbon of road running out around the point where the fishermen used to dry their nets, and the harbour was all wrong... She had begun to feel sick. “Wait — I’ve got nephews?”
A chuckle in response. “Anna”—his tone was patient, almost kind—“your eldest great-niece got married last year.”
Elsa, a grandmother. Elsa old. Elsa dead... Tears welled up in her eyes, and she could barely take in what he was saying.
“...a whole parcel of pretty fair-haired girls, and not a redhead amongst them. Our children, now, that would have been a different story. I can just see it: as fine a collection of coppernobs as you could ever wish for, and not one of them jeered at for a turned-up nose or being ginger.” It was almost wistful, and nausea rose in her throat as he grinned. “Trust their proud papa to make sure of that.”
“Get away from me!”
Anna scrabbled for footing in a panic, lost her balance and sat down hard in the snow. Hans surveyed her without a word, and she could feel herself going pink in the way she’d always hated that clashed horribly with her hair. He made no move to offer her a hand as she clambered to her feet, and even though the last thing she wanted was for him to lay a finger on her, even though he looked frail enough that an attempt would have left them both sprawling, the fact that he’d failed to make the gesture still — ridiculously — hurt.
She would not let him see her cry. She would not. Anna made a vain attempt at brushing the snow from her skirts, and folded her arms.
“So what are you doing here, Prince Hans?”
“Actually”—he coughed, and one hand came up to stroke the point of his beard—“it’s Count Kalloukratis these days. A minor title, but my own, and honestly... bought.”
“Fine.” He was obviously waiting for her to ask. Well, he could just wait. “So what are you doing here, then, my lord Count... and not in jail, where someone like you belongs? They should have locked you up for life for what you did—”
“Tried to do.” He forestalled her with a raised finger. “Obviously it was awkward when you made your impromptu appearance after everyone had been assured you were already dead — exactly how did you manage that, by the way?”
“Some of us have real friends,” Anna said coldly. “Go on.”
Hans shrugged in what might almost have been apology. “Well, it was awkward, clearly, especially when that little snowman of yours started talking about how you’d made a mistake over the whole ‘true love’ business—”
“I made a mistake?”
“—but when the Queen had just turned her own sister to ice in front of a balcony full of witnesses, there was a certain amount of sympathy for a misguided ‘execute Elsa to end the winter’ approach. Especially when it came to the heart-broken husband-to-be.”
“I don’t believe you even have a heart.” The words slipped out before she could stop them, with a shameful wobble that made her sound about fourteen; but how dared, how dared he stand there and recount the whole thing as if it were some distant youthful escapade? Even if this horrible thing were true and she’d lost her whole life to Elsa’s ice, that didn’t mean he could brush off what he’d done, not when for her it was still so very real.
To her horror she found she was being offered a handkerchief. She snatched it, defiantly blew her nose, and glared.
“As I was saying,” Hans continued with weary emphasis, “they let me go. There wasn’t a lot of evidence with the principal witness turned to ice, after all. The next thing I knew, I’d been banished from Arendelle for the lifetime of Queen Elsa, on pain of death.” Another shrug. “So I went elsewhere.”
“And found some other poor girl, I suppose.” It was an interjection he chose to ignore.
“I went south. It didn’t work out.” His face hardened for a moment, and beneath the finicking airs of the Count she caught a glimpse of the landless young prince who’d let ambition drive him beyond the pale. The bitterness deepened. “I wound up spending the next fifteen years in jail as a consequence of a political conspiracy I hadn’t —as chance would have it— played any part in. I had plenty of time to meditate on the irony of cosmic justice; the first six years were in solitary. I nearly lost my mind.”
Anna gasped. “Hans...”
She bit her lip. ‘Locked up for life’, she’d said, and she’d meant it, hadn’t she ? She’d wanted to see him punished. But she hadn’t faced what that would actually be like.
“For the second half I had a... cellmate, an old philosopher-priest. Indefinite imprisonment for something you haven’t done is conducive to philosophy, and under his tuition I had a lot of time to think. Long years later, after his death, I was finally able to escape. He’d held the secret of an old treasure-map he’d never been able to use; I possessed myself of the money, and with it purchased the position and the security I’d always dreamed of.” He sighed and shifted his weight again. “Kalloukratis was a rocky little island like the ones at home, with scrawny trees clinging to the crags and a clamour of seabirds on cliffs where nothing could grow, but it was mine, honestly and undisputed. That meant something, after what I’d learned with the priest. And there was a certain beautiful black-haired princess in exile who was only too eager to share it with me, in the end.”
His eyes softened, looking back. “She had no kingdom left and not a penny to her name, but that didn’t matter. Not any more.”
Dawning sympathy died a small ignoble death. “And now I suppose the grieving widower has decided to turn up for a second bite at the cherry,” Anna snapped. “Not even you could think that was going to work. In case you hadn’t noticed, my lord Count, you’re not quite the figure of a man you used to be. I think I can promise you one princess who isn’t going to fall for your charms.”
She swung round, turning her back on him, and pulled her cloak about her more tightly, staring down at Arendelle spread out beneath her amid the sparkling sea. He’d ended up with everything he’d ever wanted, and he’d deserved none of it. He’d had forty years of happy ending, while she—
A sigh from behind her. “Anna...”
And he had no right to heave reproving sighs at her like some schoolmaster just because he’d got old when she wasn’t looking.
“I’m not Anna to you, and I’ll never be that Anna again. I wouldn’t trust you an inch further than I could throw you. Now just go away.”
“Your Highness has other plans for the day, no doubt.”
Honesty from an aged Hans hurt. But that edge of silken mockery was something she could handle.
She clenched her fists beneath the cloak. “Just. Go. Away.”
After a long time, when the halting sound of his footsteps had finally gone, she let herself take a cautious look. She was alone in the snow.
| Contents | Continue |
