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Chapter Text

Part II

WATER

“I don't care about that in the least,” said Gerda, “it's no use telling me that.” So she ran to the border of the garden; the door was locked, but she twisted at the rusty staple till it came away, and the door flew open, and then out ran little Gerda barefoot into the wide world. Thrice she looked back, but there was nobody coming after her. At last she could run no further, and sat down on a big stone, and when she looked about her, why, summer was over and it was late autumn. You couldn't see that inside that beautiful garden, where there was always sunshine and flowers of all seasons bloomed.

“Good heavens! How I have dawdled!” said Gerda. “It's autumn now. I daren't rest a minute!” So she got up and went on.

Hans Christian Andersen — The Snow Queen, 1845

translated by M. R. James

Chapter Text

Chapter 23

Crumb

Dead body was slowly cooling somewhere out there, in the forgotten town he’d left behind, heavy with iron and steel. The jagged mountain peaks rose in front of him, becoming more and more visible on the horizon.

Hans broke through the bushes — flowers that turned white like bones were emerging from between the branches — and behind the hill a gilded, onion–shaped tserkov* dome appeared.

He remembered gold and silver, music, science and freedom that awaited beyond Arendelle's borders.

He searched his pockets and tried to  t h i n k ,  but the settlement in front of him stole every thought. It was just a miserable, foggy place, remote and wild, but Hans felt like the forest was suffocating him.

His improvised plan B was to run far away until his name no longer meant anything to anyone, but he knew he hadn’t come there yet.

The word ‘danger’ played on a loop in his mind as he looked at the waves and curves, depressions and little valleys. It seemed that the village was hidden in a bend of the river. It was sheltered and hidden, shrouded in mystery.

Worth the risk.

Although the water at its deepest point barely reached his thighs, wading through it required dozens of steps and just as many seconds in the icy guillotine. Halfway there, he didn't care what was trying to get under his clothes: algae, hands of the Lady of the Sea, or horse shit.

On the shore, he had to stop for a moment because a snowy landscape began to enter his field of vision.

Danger, danger, danger.

When the snowflakes disappeared, he saw blood dripping onto his muddy shoes and wondered where it came from. A moment later he tasted it and realized it was his own. The taste took him back to the Fishermen’s Peninsula and his mind was no longer able to focus on anything other than the fact that he was alive.  A l i v e .

He realized that the man twitching at his feet was dead. He was dead and Hans was alive, and that thought was much more surprising than he could have wished.

The revolver he still held in his hand was getting heavier and more cumbersome, and holding it felt so strange. Even in the thinning darkness he could see the blood on the coat, the hard crust on the barrel. He thought it was a miracle he hadn't lost it in his mad dash.

He opened his hand and a dark, sticky web spread between his fingers. He still hadn't washed the blood from his hair either, he realized as he nervously brushed away a few strands that had fallen on his forehead. The mud stuck to his skin and clothes in strips and congealed under his fingernails.

He looked at the river again. How strange would it be to wash both his body and his sins in the same water.

Are you still human?

Suddenly the door of the nearest cabin opened, quick footsteps were heard, but no one came out.

The first drops of rain began to draw a line on the glass that looked like traces of cat claws. Hans wiped with his sleeve first his mouth, then the glass; a red streak crossed the face of a man standing outside the window, a blurry figure with hair falling over his face.

The man shuffled forward, hunched over, one hand clenched into a fist and the other extended towards him. Beggar. Something gleamed metallic among the bloody suns of trembling knuckles — probably a can passers–by were supposed to throw money into.

Who’d let him in?

Hans instinctively stepped back. He thought about all his father's affairs, about chère maman’s mercury pills — because syphilis was the only French thing that didn't thrill her — and how his brothers threatened him that if any whore looked at him, his nose would fall off.

What would happen if he touched him?

“Please…” he croaked. He didn't know what he was asking for. What did he expect?

The Westergårds didn't ask, but he was no longer a Westergård.

Are you human?

The man's lips behind the glass repeated his words. More blood flowed out of them along with them, and only then did Hans realize that he was looking at his own reflection, that this beggar with matted hair caked with sweat and blood was him — what was left of him.

He felt himself sink into the ground, his trembling legs no longer able to hold him. The revolver fell next to him; the metal mocked him. The blood watered the earth too easily, and he no longer had a plan. He gave in to the rising waves.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Night turned to day, but it only got colder. Hans hadn't moved for a long time and he felt the numbness slowly creeping into his fingers and toes. He rubbed them for so long that he couldn't tell if the stinging skin was red from blood, cold, or scrubbing.

He watched as the clots broke away from the body and floated with the current, and shreds of his shirt soaked with the Tikaan even under the cover of his cloak. He also had to get rid of his coat as soon as possible.

Everything was melting away: water, birds’ cries and the crazy light that wanted to penetrate everywhere. He was disgusted by this world that so callously emphasized his helplessness.

The whistle still rang in his ears, bullet–tissue–blood–brain ; he was stopped only by a small, sharp stone bouncing off his cheek. Hans blinked. Someone whistled. It sounded just like the inhaled ‘ja’ of Lars' wife, that nouveau riche Helga from the continent, whose crooked teeth must have blessed the existence of fans.

Across from him sat an overgrown boy with water–colored eyes. He didn't say anything, just watched, whistled under his breath and made the hairs on the back of Hans' neck stand up. Before he could find his voice, he heard another: “Hey, rusalka**!” at the sound of which the boy quickly stood up. “Didn't your mother tell you to stop hanging around here?!”

The boy continued to balance on the slippery stones for a fraction of a second, and when Hans had the impression that he was going to fall, he jumped forward with a surprising cat–like grace, grabbed the coat lying next to him, and ran towards the tree line behind him.

“ Lort***.” Hans took his hands out of the water and began combing mud around him with stiff fingers. Revolver. The Bible with water–softened cover and crumpled money that had cost him too much inside, still lying where he’d put it — fuck the coat — one shoe had just started floating away — where was the other one?

Light danced on the drops of mud at the bottom of her skirt and filtered through the cracks in the wicker basket as the girl whose voice he’d heard moments before approached him. Her apron was so bright white it almost blinded him.

“Did he scare you?” Hans had the impression that there were questions stuck between her words that she wasn't asking. “It's just Groundhog. He's… a little weird, but rather harmless.”

“I'm not scared,” he replied as haughtily as he could, barefoot, robbed by some village idiot, and disgustingly pathetic. Later he realized that he’d answered her in Danish and he pronounced the next words more carefully, trying to emphasize letters that usually didn’t exist for him. “He surprised me, that's all.”

“Aye.” There were fires playing in her eyes. “Were you doing laundry, too?”

Hans looked at the flesh of his hand, the shreds of clothes and the lumps of blood.

“Yes.” It was as good an answer as any. None of the excuses he could think of would sound plausible.

The girl smiled. She had full lips and a surprisingly symmetrical face, with a ladder of freckles running down the center of her nose and a mole in the corner of her left eye and just outside the right corner of her mouth.

“You're not from here, are you? You look like you're from somewhere…” she started and trailed off. Her gaze ran over his entire figure, lingering a moment longer on his hair. “Somewhere else. From afar.”

He was shirtless and she didn't look away. The only blush he saw on her face must have been the chill of the morning. He felt as if her gaze had dusted his cheeks; he felt warm under the thick layer of dirt.

“I have to…” He had to come back. He had to escape. He should start worrying about Sitron. (Why couldn't he bring himself to think about Sitron?) He just wanted to get to the harbor. “Do you have a horse?” he asked, because in the distance he noticed a gray patch among the grass. (A Belgian?)

The girl bent down to pick up the brown fabrics, even from a distance looking rough, that littered the bottom of the basket.

Men's shirts. Men's trousers.

This couldn't end well.

“Not me, father.” She followed his gaze. “I just named her. It's Mus.”

“‘Mouse’? Quite a small name for such a big mare.”

She laughed.

“And you, what's  y o u r  name?” she said with a strangely effortless ease.

She introduced herself to him, but her name was too long and didn't fit her at all. She said everyone calls her Crumb anyway. She was just a little shorter than him and slim in that strong, wiry way he'd seen before on girls like her. For some reason, the nickname seemed as sarcastic as it was appropriate.

Hans opened his mouth.

The question was simple.

He had lots of names. Hans, Hensar. To the Tikaans he could be Haansi or Hanseraq, if he thought it was worth giving them one. Axel called him Johnny.

It was the hardest question she could ask.

She looked at him for a moment. The silence was beginning to become menacing.

“Okay, if you don't want to tell me, I'll choose how I’ll be addressing you myself.” Hans didn't look at the hand she held out to him, but at the one she placed on her hip; with skin too wrinkled for such a young body, pink and slippery and with a texture that still seemed to sizzle. He looked at her and saw fire. He was thinking about warmth. “I’ll go with Loki, what do you think?”

He took her hand, hoping that her touch would burn away all the remnants of the Southern Isles, the little princess, the cursed queen, and the dead Nasturia.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

If tar, spirit and sauna don't help, there is no help —  that's what they said here. And they had both alcohol and a sauna, and Hans would be able to use them if Crumb’s father agreed. He already had his shirt, still damp, one of the ones she’d hung on a string by the river.

Crumb's brother had left, but she stayed with her father because she’d broken a boy's heart. Besides, she was barely twenty, with no fortune in sight and plenty of time left, and the only person courting her was Anders Groven.

B a r e l y —  thought Hans, who was four years older, equally poor, rejected, not rejecting for the first time, and definitely not as optimistic, gloomily.

But no one would want to marry Anders, he agreed eagerly. The more he heard about him, the more he seemed suspiciously similar to Niels.

He wondered what it would sound like to European ears when — if — he returned home and never married, he argued it that way. Because he’d broken a girl's heart.

“Besides, you wouldn't be the first guy to spend the night in our barn.” Crumb's voice broke him out of his thoughts. The corner of her mouth twitched slightly, but she did nothing to hide the venom in her tone. Even though he wasn't the target, Hans felt its bitterness.

When they reached the cabin, the first thing he thought was that it was warm again. Grass, shrubs and even herbs, which were still blooming, grew from the turf climbing the colorful walls. The air around it smelled of dried hay and old wood.

He poisoned it with the stench of death.

“I have money,” he announced in the doorway. He could have said something more, asked for help, but his sense of self–respect hampered him. He was still too proud to put into words what he needed — he needed too many things — he’d learned that everything had a price, but not that yet.

Crumb’s father was a man like a rock. Hans had expected this, because the fabric of the shirt he’d borrowed without his knowledge clung to his back and shoulders, leaving enough space to hide what he still had with him, mainly anxiety and doubt.

Maybe Hans was actually a beggar.

The man got up from the table where he was rolling cigarettes. A few pieces of tissue paper floated up to the light. They looked like the wings of insects, a favorite game of bad boys whose tin soldiers had been taken away and rocking horses broken.

“If I wanted to have money, son, I wouldn't take up ice harvesting.” He might look menacing if he had more lines between his eyebrows than in the corners of his eyes. “What do they call you?”

“Loki,” Hans replied — and it wasn't a lie. Not anymore.

Apparently, when those from the North asked who you were, they wanted to know everything, going several generations back. That's what he’d heard.

While waiting for the interrogation, he began to weave webs of new half–truths and lies in his head. They were just simple, trusting, naïve people, generous in their misery. He could have told them everything.

The man's mouth was almost invisible under his thick beard, but he saw a smile in his brown eyes. He didn't ask anything else.

“Oh, you couldn’t have chosen a better name, really,” he said simply, extending his hand. His fingers were yellow from tobacco. “I am Tor.”

_______________

* Tserkov — Orthodox church.

** Rusalka — Slavic water spirit, a beautiful woman associated with nature, fertility, but also mischief or even danger.

*** Lort (Danish) — shit.

Chapter Text

Chapter 24

Valley of oblivion

“Ask him about his mother,” Peterssen had said .

“I don't trust him,” had the ice harvester said.

And Elsa didn't trust  h i m .

She also didn't trust herself when it came to  b e i n g  f i n e .   Something always went wrong, sooner or later— most often  s o o n e r ,  because she’d learned from experience and caused it to happen on her own.

She didn't need to cut her hands on the sharp edges of her curse. But she did it, because otherwise she would have been able to pretend in front of Peterssen that but nothing happened , and then he would find a chink in her armor, and could ask something she didn't have a ready answer to.

She didn't have to listen to him or ask Bjorgman anything, she could just continue playing picnic with Anna — but Elsa's appetite would have passed, it always did, quickly and unexpectedly, like all good things — just as her sister's interest in the ice harvester would soon fade away (because it  h a d  to pass, too ) — and what would she say then?

It was easier when she ruined everything herself; at least then she knew why she blamed herself.

She didn't really want to ask about it — but the world around her was ripe with death.  Autumn wrapped around them like a cloak, warm and bright, and Elsa found herself thinking about it again. Sometimes she had a feeling that she would never stop, that she carried it with her in the small space between her fingers and the fabric of her gloves, and maybe one day she would finally be able to pull it out.

She looked at her hands — too thin, too long, too pale, too little skin, too much curse …  — they were clenching on the edge of the wagon, while the rest of her was melting into the twilight creeping up on them from all sides.

At the edge of the forest they had left, there was a rotting carcass of an animal ( Yes! thus will you be, queen of the Graces * ). Bjorgman didn't dwell on the answer; Anna seemed much more moved than he was.

The blood–red twilight glowed and faded.

There were only blue shadows and silence left.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

They entered the valley painfully, tomme after tomme .

Elsa felt like ages had passed since her last words.

In the beginning, there were only trees with stars shining through them and a perfect half of the moon chasing them, and a path she didn't even know existed, different from the one her parents had taken a lifetime ago, too narrow for the wagon that now shuddered for the last time and stopped.

The ice harvester got out first, straight into the jagged heksering ** of cloud funnel.

“You sure you want this?” he asked with a sneer in his voice, but his eyes were serious.

“You  p r o m i s e d , ”  Anna replied, so quiet until then that Elsa had almost forgotten she was there.

He gritted his teeth and looked at Elsa, who still didn't know which of them his question was addressed to. She didn't ask for any of this, she didn't want any of this.

He looked as if he could accept the challenge — the line of his spine was like an iron beam — as if he could declare war on her himself. But when she nodded hesitantly after a moment, he exhaled, hunched his shoulders, and Elsa had never seen such a huge man look so small.

Something gleamed between his fingers as he knelt down and placed his hand against a boulder. Starry flowers of the mountain mint growing there were white in the darkness like bared teeth. Elsa had an impression that there was someone among the light and the lengthening shadows.

After the man withdrew his hand, blood flowed through the hard veins of granite.

Elsa blinked hard and for a moment it seemed to her that the mountains on the horizon were moving.

AH! AH! AH! AH!

The ice harvester straightened up, his eyes turned in the direction the sound came from, as if he too had heard it.

They waited in the sticky darkness filled with unwelcome sounds and unrest.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

“Look,” Anna whispered as the aurora borealis gleamed bluish green on the horizon, muffling the starlight. “The sky’s woken up.”

It really looked like it came to life, with a crackling and grating sound. This is how Elsa had always imagined Fenrir devouring Odin, in sounds, not pictures.

She felt her sister's fingers tighten around her wrist, saw her other hand groping for the ice harvester’s hand, and fought the urge to pull away.

Panic fell from Anna in waves and rose into small lakes in Elsa's palm. Maybe, as incredible as it sounds, maybe this one time, she needed Elsa more than Elsa needed her.

“Easy, Anna.”

Elsa tried to recreate the outline of heksering they’d entered into on her skin surface skin, and remember the calm tone of their father's voice — conceal it, don't feel it, don’t let it show .

She still remembered the look of raw emotion in his eyes. In certain light they became more hazel than green. She still remembered what they looked like at the grave bottom of the Valley of the Living Rock when he held his hand on her shoulder, close but distant.

She thought she had lost those eyes forever — but when she lifted her head, she saw them again. This time they didn't belong to her father, even though they expressed exactly the same thing.

The ice harvester swallowed.

He is  a f r a i d   — Elsa realized and felt sudden terror.

If he was afraid, if even her father was afraid of this place, she saw no reason why she shouldn't be, too.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Ah — ah — ah — ah …

The sound was getting closer, getting louder. The fabric of the gloves dulled her senses, the curse beneath her skin itched in its prison, but she still felt it all over her,  i n s i d e  her.

This time it sounded completely different, like faded legends, forgotten pain, repressed love. It seemed to contain the immensity of the mountains.

Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!

There was something in the darkness, staring at her with its heavy, old eyes.

Trolls. They were trolls, stuck in the landscape like wild animals.

They were waiting, being, existing.

Elsa imagined their little country at the time of its founding, when her grandfather was young — with dirty streets and unpaved cobblestones, with a wild forest and a new castle rising in the space torn from the sea. This land did not belong to him. The trolls had been there long before all of them.

The flames in her eyes trembled in time with the roar that rolled beneath their feet, low and piercing, and she could already hear it. The scream of the trolls, their cry. Why were they screaming? Could they cry? What were they saying?

Elsa stumbled on the packed, root–filled earth, which shook unexpectedly as she tried to take a step forward and—

—suddenly she's only nine years old again. The girl whose limp body is swayed in her mother’s arms to the rhythm of a silent shanty: You'll be fine, I'm holding you, everything's fine — is only five. And she’s already destroyed everything, out of love, perhaps, but still — she cursed her.

“It's not my fault, it was an accident … ” She half screams, half sobs until her voice fails her.

But has no idea if anyone understands.

The earth shook again as the rocks came to life. Rocky, hulking, like the bodies of fallen giants, they began to emerge from the mist and grow in size before her eyes. First was the troll elder. Elsa didn't notice him move — but he must have, because suddenly he was right in front of her.

“Elisabet dróttning .” His voice was soft and deep, like music in the sparkling darkness.

He looked almost exactly as he had when she was a child. Like in the stories about those taken deep into the mountain Fräulein Hahn told — in a rotten cloak of moss and lichen, with burning coals in his eyes.

“Anna konungsdóttir .”

But there were also details she didn't remember. The gray cavern of a mouth that could suck life out. A cavern torn out in his cheek smoldering with a ghastly inner glow — the same sickly shade of green as the crystal burning around his neck. Rune tattoos crawling down his arms like snakes.

“Wonderful daughters of the Solstice.”

Elsa was five and a half feet tall and had never considered herself short, nor had she ever felt overly small (not physically), but the troll began to grow, like the lump in her throat that kept her from speaking — for a moment she was able to look into his eyes — she could see the night sky through them — and one heartbeat later he was as tall as an ice harvester whose lips barely moved: “Anna,” trying to warn her about something — but wasn't it too late?

The circle of trolls tightened around them like a noose. Black, rocky islands rose up all around them among the forest floor. How could she not have noticed them before? She didn't want to see? She couldn't?

“I'm begging you, just don't … ”

Wonderful daughters of the Solstice.

Blessed. Cursed.

One was born under the summer sun, the other on the darkest day of the year.

“That explains everything,” the troll elder had said, but Anna didn't remember that. “Nothing this hot could be born out of winter.”

Elsa looked at her hands. Was that why she was always so cold?

“Will you help us, sir?” her sister blurted out. Her voice almost disappeared. “Elsa's power — and my … my memories … are … I don't know if … because Kristoff said that I … I just wish …”

“ … what the fuck sinnatagg !” The ice harvester immediately interrupted her: “I — I will pay, Pápi.”

The troll looked at him blankly.

Why did Anna want to  r e m e m b e r  so desperately?

Elsa would give anything to forget what her sister wanted to remember.

“We don't want anything from you anymore, Kristoffer.”

For a moment they stood facing each other and stared at each other, a man and a troll.

The troll's body began to crack with a crunch, his eyes sunk into dark holes, the light burned brighter, and his knees and elbows bent in directions they shouldn't, Elsa was sure of it. It was physically impossible, such a transformation — but she had seen the impossible. They all had.

There was something wild in the man's eyes. His breathing was struggling to come out of his chest, he was clenching his fists — it wasn't a threat yet, but it wasn't an invitation either.

Elsa looked at his face again, then looked down at the stain on her glove and thought that, in fact, all blood looked exactly the same once it had flowed from the body.

“The best healers are love and time, lítil vinr ,” the troll finally announced, as if casually. Anna's words stopped at the edge of her mouth. She could only hope that she would have enough of both.

Love will thaw — Elsa repeated in her mind. She already knew about it. She should. Love should have given her the ability to control her powers — but it didn't. Not quite. Winter still lurked in her bones. In her bones, in her heart … The curse would never just go away.

If it were that simple, she would have long ago been exactly the person her father had always wanted her to be.

An icy wind blew between them, screaming in her voice from years ago (“Mamma! Pappa! — although she already knows how angry they’ll get. She’s terrified like never before in her life).

The memory of fear was all the more vivid because Elsa could still feel it.

“You've come a long way,” the troll said to her. His voice mingled with the roar of the distant seas, sounding more and more melodious with each word, with each step he took. “But you still have a long way to go. Come.” He held out a gleaming hand and she recoiled, the mere memory of his touch reminding her of those first few years when she couldn't cope with pain at all. “Dont—”

“Conceal,” her father intones. His voice is quiet and the words don't belong to any song at all.

"Don't feel," Elsa continues. Despite the gloves that hug her fingers tightly, her bare hands are so far from her shoulders. Father is also becoming more and more distant every day, even more than mother.

“Don’t let it show,” they finish together. And so it goes every day for thirteen years, until one day he stops repeating it — he is no longer there. Gone, just like that. Forever.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

At first she saw nothing; the night in the valley was much darker than the ones in the city, even lit by the rays of the aurora, and she had to almost run to keep up with the giant troll, the ground rocking under its avalanche of feet.

She felt a damp mist clinging to her clothes — and sulfurous fumes. Smoke fumes. Finally she began to make out shapes and saw it moving towards the pale stars.

Ah — ah — ah — ah …

The mountains whispered to her that she didn't know where she was. That she hadn’t known that for a long time.

“Take off your gloves,” the troll ordered, stopping. Now he pronounced each syllable carefully, slowly, in time for her to say a whole sentence. The ribbons of aurora at the northern end of the sky swirled restlessly. “Don't be afraid. Everything’s united here.”

Elsa didn't understand. She refused to understand.

How could she be united with this distorted figure that loomed over her in its heavy, mossy power that had once taken her sister from her?

It was simple.

S h e  c o u l d n ' t .

She wasn't even united with her curse.

She felt like her heart was beating against his hand. For a moment she was unable to take off her gloves; frost immobilized her hands.

Finally, she slowly peeled the silk from them, finger by finger, trying to ignore their shaking. Ice danced on the fingertips, blue sparks jumping from one to the other like fireworks.

The world suddenly sped up as the troll's hand reached out towards her again, and this time she didn't have time to escape it. It was larger than her head, and the fingers, like stone branches, began to elongate, sharpen, until crystal claws gleamed at their tips. Only … only four.

Smoke–filled greens, blues, purples and pinks — they looked as if they’d absorbed the light of the sky above them. New runes were floating to the surface, their insides trembling as if something was about to hatch from them.

“A–air,” Elsa choked out, looking at each of them in turn, “fire. Water … earth?”

On a sudden impulse, she began searching her coat pockets. The rain crystals that had frozen in the courtyard were the same. She tried to collect them, she had to show him, she wanted to ask …

There was no trace of them, like treasures from fairy–tales and trolls at dawn; all she pulled out from the folds of the fabric was a hand full of water. It flowed through the stone fingers like a waterfall.

Can you take my powers, too? — she wanted to start begging him like she had done before. Maybe this time …

“I hope you are prepared for what you have done, barnit mitt .”

“I haven’t done anything,” Elsa protested weakly. “It was an accident … ”

“Everything is united here,” the troll repeated. “ Megnið. You. You must start following Her voice.” He held her hand in his, bristling with crystals, powerful and immeasurable. “I will show you.”

Elsa suspected she didn't have much choice in the matter.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

When she was fifteen, she broke a mirror.

She’d gotten it from her cousin Frederik, a tall, slender young man who spoke exaggeratedly perfect French and was said to be an excellent duelist. He’d left her a miniature portrait of himself and promised that if she was as beautiful in three years, he would marry her.

Three years later, he became engaged to a daughter of a Weselton general, because he had apparently forgotten about it — fortunately, although Elsa still remembered — and after another three years, his youngest brother began to seek her hand in marriage. The promises were fragile, like thin, very thin ice.

Elsa tried to pick up and put the pieces back together (she must have failed, because her bad luck was still there; she only cut the skin, which brought a surprising, unwanted relief) — her hands were shiny with glass dust, and the reflected world was exactly as she saw it now. Distorted. Fragmentary. Broken.

But from every piece her own face was looking back at her.

It was all her.

Just like now.

And then — later she stopped seeing anything.

Everything went dark.

_______________

* Charles Baudelaire — A Carcass (translated by William Aggeler).

** Heksering (Norwegian) — fairy ring; a circular pattern on the forest floor created from mushroom fruiting bodies.

Chapter Text

Chapter 25

The boy who knew the names of trolls

January 1855

Neither Ivar Havik nor Tor Helland allowed their children to go near the Ice Fields at all. Leif Bjorgman sometimes took his son with him to work.

It always made Kristoff feel important and special; only later did he begin to envy Jens and Geir their fathers — when the shanties stopped, only traces of the sleigh bent in áinnádat * under the ice remained, and the northern lights creaked into the sky. He heard other sounds from the shore — the distant harbor, seagulls screaming at him and their eerie songs of water and death.

“An ice harvester works long but lives short,” Ketil or Klem, one of his father's Glass Buddies (he was normally friends with Ivar Havik, but Ivar's wife wouldn't let him drink), had him informed when he stepped onto the ice for the first time. He’d hit him in the back so hard that Kristoff felt as if he would cut a blow–hole in it. (Or maybe his name was Kåre, such a round name, it would suit him.)

It was nice. He thought it was supposed to be. So Kristoff tried really hard not to hold any grudge against any of the harvesters for just leaving him behind — after all, he wasn't their responsibility, they didn't have to care about him. He was nine years old, nine more and he would be an adult, he should take care of himself.

…

“Well, damn it,” Anton liked to reply to everything. His name, as soft as Sven's undercoat, was pleasantly easy to remember. That day, his words sounded more like an insult than a compliment — everything always depended on intonation — and turned out to be surprisingly accurate.

Bright snow was falling from the dark sky, obliterating the last traces of footprints and hooves. Kristoff wrinkled his nose as one of the flakes landed on it. It shouldn't snow at this temperature. That's what everyone in the Village said: “It's too cold for snow.” (But Gauri also said that in such weather one couldn’t take a piss under any circumstances, “because the piss will freeze and your mulkku** will fall off, Kristoffer”. And that wasn't true at all, not at all.)

The narrow road suddenly turned into a path.

“Well, damn it,” Kristoff muttered now, shaking his head. He kicked what he thought was a pebble, but turned out to be a branch sticking out from under the snow, and cursed again, hopping on one foot.

For balance, he rested his hand on the trunk of the nearest tree.

Once he had regained it, he tried to move away, but the frost had sealed the fabric into the wood. Bare skin behaved in the same way when it came into contact with cold metal. (Stupid Mari almost cut her tongue off when he and Jens had made her lick the padlock on the door of the Stenbergs’ barn before Christmas. She couldn’t eat julegrøt *** after that. And they couldn’t quite sit after Geir had found out about that.)

For good measure, he gave it another tug, but it only made the black fir’s bark twist and strain, as if it were trying to tear itself out of the ground. It was strange, and there were no fir trees on the way home — only wiry birch trees, twisted from fighting the wind and snow.

We’re lost — said Sven's ears. He laid them flat against each other and trembled. Coward.

“Not at all,” Kristoff protested. He sniffled, unraveling his fingers from his fur and accepting the possibility of frostbite. Some old ice harvesters had loads of them, such a big deal. He rolled onto the path, blew into his clenched fist and tucked it under his arm. He looked down at his feet, trying to see the tracks he and Sven had left — or at least that stupid tree limb — but the snow was falling harder and harder. “We just have to…”

The wind carried away his words, howled like a damned man, and brought anxious neighing of a horse. Kristoff didn't even have time to consider who might come back for him, before eight heavy hooves rushed past, kicking up clumps of mud and leaving nothing but skava ****.

…

The snow crunched so nicely under the skis. When the poles hit the ice, they created a sense of security.

Kristoff was wishing he had skis right now, trying to spot the riders at the bottom of the valley without breaking his neck when a column of boiling water burst in front of him. The water froze in the air for a moment and then fell, leaving clouds of steam behind.

Oh! A geyser! — Sven's look informed him.

Kristoff had heard about geysers. Fishermen who’d been everywhere — even on Sagøen! — and always had the most to say, said that they were so hot because there were entrances to hell in them. If one looked closely, one could see little devils coming out of them.

“Yeah, right,” he grumbled. Then the heart of the valley pulsated beneath his feet.

…

Konungr , dróttning , sólhvarf – and konungsdǿtr .

Strange, hoarse voices echoed through his body with tremors.

“Blágrýti,” they whispered most often.

Blágrýtiblágrýtilágrýtiágrýtigrýtirýtiýtiti … — until they became just the sounds of rolling stones, almost like a game of marbles. If giants played marbles.

The black, rocky edges of the valley began to grow into islands, peninsulas, and split into more small, floating rafts than he could count. They engulfed the figures cowering below before he could get a good look at them. He only noticed a girl whose braid flapped around her head like a sail.

"Trolls," he whispered, nuzzling the fur at the back of Sven's neck and holding him so he wouldn't run away. So that he wouldn't leave him.

“ Stilltu!” hissed a voice that sounded… it just  s o u n d e d .  Like a boulder. Kristoff couldn't tell if it belonged to a woman or a man, or if it even resembled anything human; all he could hear was Sven letting out a long squeal, almost a scream — and that,  t h a t  was the most human thing in this place — and starting to struggle to break free.

He tried to stop him, but the reindeer’s fur was wet and slippery and his palms were sweaty with fear.

“Sven!” he shouted, because there was no point in hiding any longer. They had to know — he felt they did.

In fairy–tales, trolls were huge, stupid and cruel. They sensed fear, kidnapped children and devoured lives. In legends, they were powerful and wise. They hid from the world, but helped those who needed it.

In fact, a billowing mane, full of mountain flowers and crystals, grew before him, followed by two arms, as big as — probably like that dam they talked about at school — and as strong as a vice.

“Buldring!” it thundered.

Kristoff closed his eyes — he was probably going to be eaten — got passed from hand to hand, and when he opened them, he saw another troll, scarred with runes and with will–o'–the–wisps for eyes.

His hand seemed so small in the troll's hand, the fingers were white, thin and brittle, like frozen twigs — almost like Ragna's, whose hand he’d never shaken. Everyone seemed to think he didn’t like her, but he just didn’t want to crush her — she wasn't much taller than him, and she wouldn’t grow any bigger, and her skin was spotted like quail’s eggs; probably similarly delicate. (Tarja, for example, was different, Tarja had a grip like a real man.)

It was as if he had been out in the cold too long — first his toes became stiff, then the rest of his body, and when he came home and took off his wet clothes, everything felt funny and tingled in the warmth.

He tried to tighten his left hand around that too strong, too foreign arm, but the troll in front of him was getting bigger and bigger — growing and growing, his body breaking one by one at all the joints and bends — he couldn't catch it — just like the thing that had previously been Kristoff's right hand.

It still hurt, even though it was no longer his hand. An avalanche of stones fell under his feet, absorbing and crushing everything in its path: the thumb and little finger, the middle finger, the wrist…

Kristoff wasn't afraid of pain, because it was just a part of everyday life.

But this pain was greater than any other he’d ever known — greater than when Auntie Astrid gave him a tug in the ear, greater than when he had been hit by frøken Østergaard with a ruler on his hands because he hadn’t memorized a hymn or a prayer; even greater than that accompanying the escape of the rest of the air from the lungs. It felt like bone crushing and convinced him that he was doing the right thing by not touching Ragna's bird fingers.

He closed his eyes again and clenched his jaw, trying to stop his chin from shaking. He must have started screaming — he couldn't be sure, because the valley still echoed with the terrifying screams of the girl with white hair. He no longer had to worry about his trembling knees; his feet hung several tommer above the ground.

“B–Blá–Blágrýti,” Kristoff gasped. He bit his tongue, the name crunching in his mouth like shards of rock that looked so much like him. Basalt. “B-Blágrýti, I…”

He could smell sulfur, mountain pine, blood and burning flesh. He swallowed a mouthful.

“You know my name,” the troll said, though the stony façade of his face didn't even twitch. Blind eyes bored into his skull — it looked a bit like an ice drill, and a bit like dáhppat *****. “And names have great power,  K r ​​i s t o f f e r,  s o n  o f  G i ð ð a .  How do you plan to use it?”

Kristoff didn't know. He had no idea. He just repeated something he’d heard the other troll say, something they’d all sung.

In Arendelle, everyone got a patronymic, their father's name (even in the castle, but they made everything weird there). His name was Kristoffer Leifsson, they didn't talk about his mother. In his large book in the rectory, as thick as Jens, next to all the baptisms, confirmations and weddings, the pastor even had the date of her death written down: May 6th, the day of Job the sufferer.

Each of the troll's fingers looked like stuorraniibi ******, as he lifted them to Kristoff's throat, where his pulse was pounding. Then he brushed his lower lip and pulled back. Blood pulsed on the crystal tips.

He said something that sounded like rolling boulders. Kristoff caught only one word: eiðbundinn .

“You can go now,” the troll added later, and Kristoff really didn't like the temporary nature of it — as if the sentence had just been postponed.

He fell on his hand, another troll had grabbed earlier — no, it was probably a  f e m a l e ?  a troll–ess? — and the hand was whole again, with five fingers at the end, five bitten nails and bones of the wrist and elbow sticking out. The skin on its surface shimmered, brand new, fresh, pink and shiny, like a newborn lamb. The only rock he could see now was the remains of clay eaten into the flesh that he didn't bother to scrub thoroughly.

And a rock under his feet, right in the heksering of mushrooms reflecting a bouquet of winter light.

Kristoff rose on unsteady legs. He felt a bit like when he was told to go to bed without dinner as a punishment. He pulled the glove off his left hand and tried to whistle, but his fingers were shaking too much; their trembling echoed through chattering teeth. The groats he'd eaten for breakfast came up in his throat. This time it tasted even nastier than in the morning.

"Sven," he whispered instead. His voice was as shaky as his body. “Sven!”

The wind gnashed its teeth. So did the reindeer chewing on white mushroom caps. He shook his head as if he didn't understand. He was just sitting there, behind a rock. Gravel fell from his fur.

The day was breaking around them like a winter's sleep. Kristoff looked up at the dawn he hadn't noticed before and moved towards it.

…

Sven suddenly remembered the way home.

Or maybe he remembered himself.

Or someone remembered  t h e m  and led them there.

Actually, Kristoff could also have just fallen asleep in the barn. Sometimes he slept there when his father was in such a mood that it was better to stay out of his way.

And that's probably what happened, Kristoff assumed. Why else would he be standing outside the cabin door now? Why couldn't he knock?

His right arm hung as loosely in the sleeve as the sash around his waist, as if it was too big for him, like shoes, so that he could wear them longer — something must have broken in it — a shapeless mass, spilling over in the other's grip. Like snot.

Even his father looked completely different from behind the glass: his face was lurid and pale, and there were shiny spots on his cheeks where the heat of the fireplace had dried, something that might have been tears on anyone else's face. Auntie Astrid sat across the table and held his hand. The wedding rings twinkled in the firelight and made Kristoff feel warm and sleepy.

Yes. It must have been just a dream. Sometimes he dreamed nonsense.

…

He woke up to Mørk's barking, wet tongue, and dog saliva dripping into his eyes and settling at the corners of his mouth. He gasped, trying to get away from it, but he didn't have enough hands. The right one was probably still asleep; it buckled under his weight and Kristoff fell back onto the dirty hay. Kull, all frothing, snorted angrily as he rolled right into his hooves.

“Kristoffer!” The syllable that was always missing from his name cut through the air. ‘RRR!’ His father was leaning over him. He had terribly dark circles under his eyes and a red nose, but he must have been sober. He only smelled of sweat and coffee, not alcohol. “You little rascal, damned dimwit!”

When he spoke like that, his voice shone — just like when he sang — not drunk — then it was as clear as the winter air.

He shook him until Kristoff's teeth chattered.

“Why didn't you knock?!” When he finally managed to focus, he noticed that his father had no shoes, only soaked socks. No sense. “ Fy faen , Kristoffer, half the village has been looking for you — for  t h r e e  d a y s  now, do you understand?!” He said something else, but somewhere more into his hair, so Kristoff didn't quite understand. His father never hugged him, showing emotion was for women, that's what he said — and Kristoff was definitely not a woman — but now he was drowning in his embrace.  Nothing made sense. Even a little.

Well, maybe Auntie Astrid.

“Holy Mother of God!” she called from the doorway. Unlike his father, she was wearing both boots and a sheepskin coat, so that's probably why she appeared only now. “Have you gone completely mad, Leif?”

She grabbed Kristoff's hand and he finally really felt that something was wrong. As if his bones were dancing under his skin.

…

“I'm telling you, woman, that I was sure he was sitting in that fucking sled, why the hell would I check every now and then.” Auntie Astrid and father were talking in hushed tones — or arguing (Sven rightly believed that with them, one could never know). “I tell him: ‘That's why you have an ass, so you can sit on it — I'm not even making it hard for you to do so, although sometimes it makes my hand fucking itch — and don't fall off, if you please’,, but God knows that the dog listens to me more than this kid…”

Kristoff stood in front of the fireplace, trying to bend his wrist the other way like a troll. They’d said the arm was broken, so what difference would it make? — but when he touched the swollen skin this time, a new, swooning pain appeared to cover up the old one. This calmed him down a bit.

“…I would even ask that Russian carter, what’shisname, Anatoly or another Sasha — who lives here nearby, but he always tells me something in that language of his, I can't understand him for shit, so fuck it, I'd rather go to Ivar…”

“Oh, yes, you and your Havik!” (She talked about Jens the same way. But she actually liked both Ivar and Jens. All Haviks in general. When auntie didn't like someone, one could feel it immediately. Then she spoke completely differently.) “Is he even able to wipe his ass if Stine doesn't tell him to do it?” She shook her head and a few strands of hair escaped from her messy bun. “Besides, the Grovens live nearer, you can go there first thing in the morning, it'll be the same. Magne will definitely lend you a horse — if he hasn't heard how you’ve broken that poor nag of yours…”

“Every horse under saddle is ‘broken, Astrid,” grumbled father, and then added that he didn't believe that they came from the same home (and probably something about a wife, but that Kristoff didn't fully hear). Either way, the conversation was clearly over, because auntie had always had the last word. (Besides, Stine was at her mother's, and when Stine wasn't home, Ivar only allowed himself vodka. He was still afraid to make any decisions.)

Kristoff blinked away the tears that were welling in his eyes. He watched as the cracks between the floorboards filled with brown stuff and wondered if he should explain to them that he’d only got off the sled for a moment because his sash had fallen off, and the ice was such a beautiful color, it wasn't just transparent, he’d never seen it like that before — and it seemed to him that he was gone for such a short time. And that his cousins ​​certainly didn't want to look for him, because they didn't care about him. Well, at least Lino and Kalle. They were too old and had too many children of their own.

And, of course, Viggo and Anders were such  forpulte hestkuker******* that Kristoff would rather have his arm cut off than have anything borrowed from their father.

He sniffed and grimaced. He felt a snot in his throat, and his right hand felt like snot now, too, and it was so extremely disgusting that it made him feel sick. He quickly wiped his nose with his sleeve. 

“I saw trolls,” he said after a moment's thought.

“ T r o l l s , ”  Auntie Astrid repeated; each letter sounded like a separate word. “Well, maybe your mother was among them?”

“No, I… b–but they… they wanted to keep me.” Kristoff searched his mind frantically. Names have great power. They had to know. “And their name is… this one — probably the oldest one, the big one — his name is Blágrýti.” Neither replied, so Kristoff looked at them seriously (he hoped) and said louder, “You'd better remember.”

Auntie raised her eyes to the ceiling as if she saw a nisse ******** there, and wrung her hands.

“ Pappa ?”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard, Balder–Barabbas.” Father tapped him on the forehead with his finger and muttered something about going to church on Sunday.

Yeah, righ. They definitely wouldn’t go.

They never did.

…

Father fell asleep at the table, with his face buried in Kaleva and his chin in spilled coffee. Maybe the ink would show up on his cheek the way lip marks sometimes did (which was even grosser than snots). He’d said everyone had been looking for him for over three days (and “not a fucking word to grandpa”), Auntie Astrid said he’d been gone for five days — and he looked like he hadn't slept in a year.

“Why did you ask about eadni ?” Kristoff asked as Auntie Astrid sat on the edge of the bed with a poultice for him — made of nettles, he was sure of it. It was burning like hell, but he wasn't some kind of girl to complain.

“You can't say that!” auntie reminded him and sighed. She had sharp features and tight skin, but there was a little more of it on her cheeks, making her look both stern and gentle. She didn't want to answer at all. Her hands worked quickly and agilely; colorful embroidery on the blouse blurred into rainbows. She pressed the skin just a little too hard as she added, “But you can say… ‘ mamma ’,” with an expression as if she wanted to spit.

Kristoff pursed his lips; a scab was forming on the lower one. He couldn't do that at all, because he remembered that his mother had told him to call herself ‘ eadni ’ and even though ‘ mamma ’ was an equally foreign word to him, he’d heard it in too many mouths for it to fit her. Kind of like ‘ pappa ’ when he had to speak directly to his father, but they both handled it like men.

“Do you remember the troll's name?” he made sure.

Auntie nodded.

Kristoff fell asleep as soon as he felt warm again.

…

“Fucking rubbish,” Jens said, because that's what Aino’s fiancé said, and although they laughed at her a little, Dag was older, and that was Jens’ favorite word now.

He carefully measured a piece of yeast cake Stine had given them and divided it into three pieces. He picked the crumble from one of them and then moved it towards Kristoff (the piece; he took the crumble for himself). Kristoff gave him his flatbreads.

They even picked up some brown cheese, because Jens always liked the story about how Askeladden competed with a troll at eating and outsmarted it (he liked all food stories in general) — he said they could try it, too — but they probably didn't have any cheese left.

Jens had almond–shaped eyes and maybe that was why he was always hungry.

“No,  s e r i o u s l y , ”  Kristoff insisted, although he was filled with doubts by the drops he had started drinking, from a bottle that looked a bit like cod liver oil but had no taste, like water. It had been prescribed for him by a doctor who came all the way from Olden, and even earlier from the Southern Isles (which made him a bit difficult to understand; he probably didn't understand father calling him a quack either), put his hand together and said a horse must have stepped on it. “You don't believe me?”

Kristoff sometimes thought that thoughtlessness was actually very useful. Especially not thinking about death, pain and danger.

It was January, and they were sitting in a circle made of mushrooms, in the May green grass, only in their shirts. It was like in Natasha Helland's fairy–tale about the months, spring, violets and wild strawberries in the middle of winter. Beneath them pulsated hot springs pulsated and magic which existence was hard to deny in such a place.

Only the trolls didn't want to show up, even though they’d been waiting from dark until dawn, and would probably wait until the next dusk.

At least this time everyone knew where they went: to Flekke, to grandpa. It might take some time, after all, and it was far enough from home and close to the Valley.

“I know!” Jens assured him with a mouth full of pie and hands full of flatbreads. (After a moment's thought, he discreetly scooped the crumbs and a piece of plum from Kristoff's side onto his own.) “If the tfolls hafn't ekfisted, they wouldn't haf gifen mamma tfat stfupid Liv, would thfey?”

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

The memory changes.

He stands in Queen Elsa's ice palace, at the foot of a grand spiral staircase.

“You won’t keep her safe,” the queen says, her voice colder than a winter morning. Kristoff feels frost coming from her. Her eyes burn, the frozen river of her dress spills down the steps and reaches the soles of his shoes, puddles crunching beneath them.

The wind outside carries a soft, longing melody that breaks his heart. Tryllabundinn — the walls answer him.

You won’t keep her safe. That’s a challenge. A curse.

Kristoff wants to disagree, but he can't.

Tryllabundinn.

He searches for better words, but only finds these: “But I will,” he assures. That's an answer.  A promise.

Tryllabundinn An accusation. A prophecy.

The queen's eyes are like a thin layer of ice on dark water.

“Get out.” Her voice is more insistent, quivering. In the same way, the invisible floorboards tremble under his shoes as he inevitably approaches her.

The air thickens as Queen Elsa raises her hand.

Even the snowflakes around them freeze, as if they, too, are waiting — and a cold, real and as deep as anything he has ever felt before, seeps through Kristoff's blood. His knees crack with the next step, but when he looks down, he sees no ice coffin, only an inverted avalanche of stones — basalt and gravel. They creep up his pants’ legs, embrace his wrists, invade his mouth until he can't breathe.

He feels the mountains approaching around him, sees them in all their glory — they have their own weight — they turn his insides upside down until he starts vomiting them; then ice seeps into his throat, choking him, freezing his lungs in searing pain and bursting them from the inside.

He grabs his neck, but it's not his hands.

He has a troll's hands.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

The room was cold — Irina had heard mister Baird’s stories from the Big World about ‘carbonic acid’ and the possibility of suffocation in one's bedroom, and began to insist on opening every window possible at night — but Kristoff could feel beads of sweat gathering just at his hairline; they rolled from his neck to back like a broken necklace.

“It was just a dream,” he muttered to himself, trying to calm his breathing. “Just a damn dream.”

He didn't sleep anymore that night.

_______________

* Áinnádat (Northern Sámi) — when there is snow on the tracks, but there is so little of it that they can still be distinguished.

** Mulkku (Finnish) — dick.

*** Julegrøt — a type of Norwegian pudding served at Christmas. There is an almond hidden inside. Whoever finds it will thrive in the next year.

**** Skava (Northern Sámi) — a very thin layer of frozen snow.

***** Dáhppat (Northern Sámi) — treading through weak ice or in deep snow.

****** Stuorraniibi (Northern Sámi) — ‘large knife’, one of two knives traditionally used by the Sámi.

******* Forpulte hestkuk (Norwegian) — ‘overfucked horse dick’ (can have both a positive and a negative meaning).

******** Nisse — an elf, in Norwegian and Danish folklore, a spirit taking care of the household in exchange for food (and playing tricks if it doesn’t get the food).

Chapter Text

Chapter 26

Play of shadows

Gray's Anatomy book, smelling of newness and mystery, stood on one of the lower shelves in the library, exactly where the alphabetical order suggested, not too hidden, because no one probably expected that one of the princesses would reach for it; their access to the novel was much more carefully protected.

And Elsa had always liked listening to Dr. Foss's stories about his studies in Leipzig and the anatomical theater that was inaccessible to her. She’d dreamed that if she were a man and if she didn't have to inherit the throne, she would also become a doctor. She’d imagined the development of medicine that would make it possible to cut out the curse like a tumor.

She bled every month, her hands bled just like the ice harvester’s wounds; there was no difference between royal blood and other people's blood — so maybe the curse was deeper, somewhere in the head, not in the fingers.

She learned Latin words, traced the ink lines with her eyes, and made incisions in telencephalon with pen nib, and searched.

“The head can be persuaded,” the same troll whose fingers were now moving over her mind like surgical instruments, had said thirteen years earlier. Elsa had a feeling that he’d talked to her very differently back then, and that for some reason she understood so much more — anything — than she did now, when she was struggling every day.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

The past is not what it seems.

The fog that binds them flows in strands from the troll's crystal fingers, reaching to the very roots of the mountains — tearing apart the tissues, tearing deeper, layer by layer, peeling away memories like chocolate in rustling paper, until the world begins to form from nothingness; she is out there too, without shape or color, in a wind–blown void.

It floats in the primordial waters, the trunk of the cosmic tree grows from them; carries the whole world on its branches. She's part of it too, because everything is oneness here .

Elsa. Powers, magic and curses. Megnið and fápmu — because what's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet * .

The elements unleash under the troll's fingernails.

“Air, fire, water, earth … ” Elsa recites, her heart beating differently to the rhythm of each syllable: light, burning, fast, hard.

I see no future.

She doesn’t see anything anymore.

Her head is a flat disc, chaos, beginning and Word, an island in a frozen river that cracks and splits beneath her feet as soon as she takes her first step towards the edge. She wants to regain her sight, so she tries to reach the edge of the shimmering gray fog.

(Maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all — if she fell now. She would probably feel pain, but then a blessed, unfeeling darkness — forever.)

AH! AH! AH! AH! — As soon as she stands at the edge, the whole space resounds with this song.

But this river … the river that sings is not Gjöll, she will not die at all when she crosses it; this is …

“When I was little, my mother would sing a song about a special river called Ahtohallan that was said to hold all the answers about the past. About what we are a part of.”

“ … Ahtohallan.”

Above her, her grandfather's dam spreads like a rainbow — like the Tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah.

Til að allir rísi — the troll blows; his voice is an avalanche and thunder in her ears — verður einn að falla.

Around her the walls rise and the ruins of Jericho fall; Elsa continues to make her way through Nivlheim, and her death turns out to be longer and more painful than she imagined.

You must find the truth.

Something is changing.

Follow Her voice.

Suddenly the colors return, the universe explodes inside her eyelids with aurora: turquoise, heather, aquamarine and crimson. Elsa chokes on them and feels the pain of transformation.

She struggles, the fog's puppet strings snap, and she falls.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

“You all right?”

When she opened her eyes — no, she didn't  o p e n  them at all;  they had been open the whole time, but she simply couldn't see anything — she saw the ice harvester looming over her, a shadow in the pale morning light. She sat crouched on the plowed earth, with dirty crescents of soil under her fingernails.

Her lungs fought for air, her throat burned and her cheeks were on fire.

Did he slap her?  H o w  h e  d a r e d  —  Elsa opened her mouth to — to … — she felt the taste of salt on her tongue and realized that tears were drying on her lips.

She pursed her lips.

She cried quietly, without wailing or sobbing — dignity, dignity, you are a queen, Elisabet — and the internal pain didn't get any better. It had torn a hole in her chest and was stuck there, making it difficult to breathe freely. She felt like her heart was about to burn, too; it was beating so fast.

When the tears ended, she was left with her own Ginnungagap in her bleeding hands.

Nothing was all right.

Maybe nothing would ever be all right again.

“Of course,” the Queen replied. The man cleared his throat, straightened, and held out his hand. “What about Anna … ?” Elsa mumbled, trying to ignore it.

“She's fine.” It took him too long to answer. She saw his Adam's apple move as he swallowed. She shouldn't see this. He should have been wearing a jacket — he was before. Where was it? Why did he take it off? “But … she — she doesn't remember anything.”

Not rolling her eyes proved painful.

“Oh, I  k n o w . ”  Elsa was tired to the bone, every fiber of her being trembling with fear and exhaustion. She had no room for his condescension — for this passive persistence. She dug her fingers into the rock and stood up on her own. “And it's because of me that she doesn't. There's no need to remind me of that.”

“No, fuck.” The ice harvester shook his head impatiently. When he took a deep breath, the air suddenly felt sticky and heavy to Elsa. “She doesn't remember that … ” He made a circle with his hand, and she realized that this was only their sixth longer conversation. “What’s just … well,  t h i s . ”

Elsa felt like this gesture made the night disappear. When the sun emerged from behind the mountains and its rays colored the fog with blood–gold streaks, snow began to fall around them in wet sheets.

“I don't understand,” she said weakly, because it took her a while to understand exactly what his words were implying — but she  d i d ,  all too well.

I recommend we remove all magic.

The snow began to shimmer, painting the valley in brilliant whites.

The man clenched his jaw; Elsa heard him grind his teeth, but she didn't dare to let go of the rock she was leaning against, let alone look at him.

Only now did she look at all the gaps, the growths, and the sharp edges that looked like curved claws. Swirls of moss climbed across the stone with geometric symbols and runes.

Could it have been a troll?

Y e s ,  it was a troll, the ice harvester replied to her. A troll had erased her sister's memory again.

“She said that … if they had to do it again … that it might break Anna. Another … rummaging in her mind, even the memory of it. Maybe that's why she hasn’t remembered everything?” Elsa couldn't focus on each of his words in turn, because there were too many of them, and his lips were trembling strangely. “She should stay away from the Valley. To be safe …”

Even memories of magic. To be safe.

Maybe trolls couldn't give as easily as they could take, and if Anna's memories — of their power, of their transformation — had already been stolen once … could restoring them be worse than living in ignorance?

Her mind might not be able to take any more, he’d said. And then all their efforts would be in vain. It was for her own good, after all.

Elsa had heard it before.

The troll elder had promised in the past that they would leave the fun. He’d said that magic, like everything else, was governed by certain rules. That even it had its limits.

Only her father didn't understand.

“No,  e v e r y t h i n g , ”  he’d insisted. Maybe he’d been too used to giving orders. But there was no place for rulers in this forest; nature reigned here. “You have to take everything. Take every memory, every thought.”

"No," Elsa gasped.

She thought she could ask Bjorgman a lot of why ’ s , but she suspected that the only answer to any of these questions would be her sister's name.

No, she decided she didn't want to know at all, because the world wasn't fair and his feelings — whatever they were — couldn't be enough. They gave him no right.

“It's not your place to decide what …”

“But you weren't there!” he interrupted her. He wasn't screaming at all; he still spoke in a hushed voice, but there was something wild about him again. Elsa saw the same strange gleam in his eyes that had appeared in the wagon when she’d asked him about his mother, and his words felt like a stab. “Your Majesty,” he muttered hastily, which did nothing to alleviate the previous impression.

A moment passed and he didn't take his eyes off her.

“What the hell was I supposed to say?!” The gleam in his eyes was obscured by something sad and dark.

Elsa knew where it came from: a surge of fear.

Fear will be your enemy.

“She went weak and cold … ” The ice harvester said something else, somehow desperately — about blue fingers and blue lips — but Elsa couldn't listen to him if she didn't want to hear someone else in his voice: her skin was ice, her hair turned white …

The trolls had tried to remove the cold from her blood and the frost from her bones before, but they had failed, that's what Anna had told her — was that why they didn't even want to try with Elsa?

She saw only red spots everywhere, lively and bloody. On the ice beneath their feet. On the blond hair of the ice harvester. On his crumpled shirt and pants with wet spots on the knees.

“Shut up!” she yelled. The words escaped her before she had time to think about them — all she knew was that she had to stop listening,  i m m e d i a t e l y  — and she covered her mouth.

She was fed up with all of Anna's suitors, Uncle Sigurd's innuendos, biting even on paper, and the insolent Prince Magnus with a jagged scar above his upper lip that brutally accentuated his otherwise elegant features.

She was tired of men who assumed she would obey them instinctively — for the same reason she’d been trying to be good, as she’d promised her father, and why she’d let Peterssen lead her by the hand, as regent, and later — because in her narrow world there was no room for disobedience to them.

“I … ” she started again, but this time no words came. An invisible ring of the crown tightened around her temples. She felt like her skull was about to burst.

The ice harvester didn't seem particularly outraged by her reaction, though, rather surprised — but only a little. He fell silent.

Well  o f  c o u r s e  he did if she’d told him to, she was  a  q u e e n  after all, and the fact where they were couldn't change that. (Right. Right … ?)

He raised his eyebrows and his hands at the same time, and Elsa saw the flicker again. She’d thought it was a knife blade before, but now …

There was a pale mark on the inside of his right hand — a scar — almost completely transparent, as if there was a piece of ice under his skin.

And that wasn't possible.

Elsa instinctively hugged her hands to her chest. She never touched him without gloves, she almost didn't touch him at all, she couldn't touch  a n y o n e ;   the same troll who had the nerve to tell her not to be afraid now had predicted that her greatest enemy would be fear, and she was afraid — afraid that the ice harvester would see her fear, the war of emotions written in her features, and that he would hear how fast her heart was beating …

It took forever for him to speak again: “ Eiðbundinn ,” as if that explained everything.

Elsa tried to go back to the lessons where she’d been taught about runes, the Nine Worlds, and Iðunn’s apples of eternal youth. Her mind persisted in thoughts of Ragnarök being the end of everything and swirled around the word ‘Nivlheim’: land of mists.

Was this what being Anna was like? The darkness of childhood, holes where memories lie, blundering around? Did it hurt?

Could they …  H o w   could they decide for her?

“Blood oath.” Eiðbundinn — he was bound by an  o a t h .  She remembered that Loki had made a blood oath with Odin. Fóstbræðralag *** . Is that how he knew … ?

“Is that what you meant when you said you'd pay?”

But there were no gods! Neither now nor ever. There was only one …

“It's hard to say.”

Difficult — Elsa had a hard time restraining herself from correcting him.  It's  d i f f i c u l t  to say.

“It's not like I had any say in the matter. I was a kid when I first met them, then they wanted nothing more. And later … then not either, actually.” There was a weight in those words, something he hadn't revealed to her. “But all magic has its price, that's what I’ve been t … what I’ve heard.”

When he fell silent again, Elsa cast an uncertain glance in his direction and noticed that he was watching her with an unreadable expression.

She felt challenged by this. As if he was looking for some balance between them, because he decided he’d said too much and now it was her turn.

He couldn't force her to do anything, Elsa thought — but the words came out: “And you were willing to pay it? No matter what they may demand?” As she’d expected, he didn't answer her. “Except … this wasn’t  y o u r  price. We paid them … father … you and I — we … paid the troll … in Anna's memory?” For some reason it sounded like a question. She swallowed a mouthful of nothing.

She had an impression that something had disappeared, some extenuating circumstances — as if someone had pulled back the curtain behind which all the corruption of the world was hidden. It was as if she had only now seen it as it truly was, and as it had always been.

Part of her wanted to delude herself that it wasn't true, that she was just watching everything in a distorting mirror — but the troll had disappeared, taking all the shards with him, and she had put herself back together into a broken, off–balance whole.

They stood in the middle of the valley — no longer a clearing — with the old troll's hill rising behind her and surrounded by the rocks of the others. And there was only one Elsa left.

“But why … ?”

“For shit,” the man growled. “How could I …” He shrugged. This is hard for him, she realized. Admitting his own weakness. “I have no idea.”

The sun flowed like honey into the twisted branches above them, creating an illusion of warmth she would never feel.

She shuddered as sweat trickled down her spine.

“But Bulda — I know she didn't do it for … whatever reasons trolls do things for. She just … ”

“Of course.” Elsa didn't even try to sound as if she believed him. She didn't know him well enough to know if he was sincere, but then again, in this place where stones came to life, anything seemed possible.

His blood. Anna's memories.

What price would she have to pay for the trolls’ help?

Had she already agreed to it?

She looked at her hands, worn and wounded, rough and cracked from the frost, just like the ice harvester’s hands. But these hands were able to endure terrible things.  She was able to. She did.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

“Anna!”

Anna sat in the clouds of steam from the geyser, her back pressed against Sven's side and a handkerchief the ice harvester must have given her pressed her nose — Elsa remembered the initials K. L. B. her sister had embroidered on it well, after each stitch she’d ask if they didn't look crooked — so dirty that she wouldn't even wipe her hands with it.

“It's the pressure,” the man assured.

His right hand, which Anna squeezed, turned so pale as if there was no blood in it at all. The scar shone silver like the moon, its shadow had not yet disappeared from the sky.

The red against the white looked even more ghastly.

“Yez, I’m gompledely vine,” Anna assured and blew her nose in a particularly … graphic way. She did it so abruptly that her shawl slipped from her shoulders. Elsa reached out to grab it; it was like air and water between her fingers. “Bulda helped. Mr. Kristoffer Odin–Sent–Me–Here–To–Watch–Anna–And–Not–Let–Her–Do–Anything Bjorgman was furious, obviously, but she cured him, too — just look at his face!”

_______________

* William Shakespeare — Romeo and Juliet.

*** Fóstbræðralag (Icelandic) — blood brotherhood.

Chapter Text

Chapter 27

Price of silence

Dried flowers and herbs, their fresh scent of life long since disappeared, hung from the stove . A different smell, one of decay and old age, tickled his nose now. The stale smell of old death lingered in the air and turned his stomach.

In the middle of the table stood two golden mountains: bread on a lace napkin and a bowl of butter next to it. They looked fresh and filling, but the pain, weariness and nausea were greater than the hunger.

“Good food,” Hans remarked, although he’d barely tasted it.

The cadaverous whiteness of the parsley roots alternately emerged and sank in the quivering waves of the soup. He had to let go of the edges of the bowl that was warming his hands to stop the seasickness attack. It was their touch that made the soup shake.

“Any food is good,” Tor said.

“Yes, maybe,” agreed Crumb, “but not everyone can make such lapskaus * like Astrid Setälä, eh?” She smiled innocently at her portion and informed Hans: “She makes a real, thick stew, and this here is the peak of my abilities — but I can't convince father to get the recipe from her, because apparently... Ugh!” She swore under her breath as the spoon slipped from her fingers and landed under the table. “ Pappa ! Did you just kick me?”

“Aye. You're talking nonsense," Tor muttered. “It's probably the cat.”

“You weren't supposed to let him in!”

“And you were supposed to leave him alone.”

They were bantering as if he wasn't there, and Hans was surprised to see that it didn't bother him — because if their attention was on him, the questions might lead to conversations he didn't want to have.

In that moment he realized the value of silence.

At home, silence was a punishment.

He remembered the last evening before his exile at the Oh – No – Only – Not – Hans association, which had suddenly been renamed the United Front Against Hans because everything had already been decided under his absence — the remarks that might be exchanged and the way he would be treated.

Everyone had masks on their faces and smiles from portraits, painted and unreal. This was their favorite family game: pretending.

Here, silence was a privilege, a strategy, a kind friend.

So Hans stayed quiet and counted his breathing as the seconds passed, just as he did in the shadow of c hère maman’ s favorite clock in the library.

“Works for you, Loki?”

The counting faded into nothingness when he heard the new name. He didn't even know what they wanted from him. Which one of them.

He raised a hand to the tangled hair that had fallen into his face again and grimaced. His whole skull hurt. Loki — he thought as the pain slowly began to subside. God of deception and fire. Although sarcastic, it was much more accurate than Hans — ‘God is gracious’.

Only one thing was wrong. Loki was the father of monsters, not their son.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

They said he could stay as long as he wanted — until he recovered and his wounds healed. But Hans knew that no kindness could last that long, and the worst wounds were those that didn't bleed.

They also suggested other help because, although neither of them had asked, he could see that they did not believe what he’ad assured them: that nothing that big had happened. In truth, Hans didn't believe it himself, but the doctor, although he lived in Olden, a few miles away, was from the South Isles, like most doctors here, and he couldn't risk being recognized.

Instead, Crumb promised that she would take care of him — provided he bathed first. Without it, he wouldn’t be able to go to the sauna and he wouldn’t get fresh clothes.

So he waited patiently for her to hand him a bar of soap and a towel, but she placed two tin buckets in front of him.

He felt her gaze on him the whole time. He saw thoughts moving behind her brown eyes.

“About six or seven should be enough for you,” she said. The tone of a person trying to figure out a puzzle was not reflected in her words.

During the two months on Nasturia, Hans became stronger than ever, but there he struggled with havið solely out of boredom and desperation, because even though he might not be a prince anymore, he was still a harri , a sire to whom mail was delivered and for whom water was carried.

But that wasn't something he should complain about. In this world, hard work was not an insult.

He lifted the buckets because he had to bend under the weight of her gaze. The handles were still warm with the warmth of Crumb’s hands. His fingers reluctantly closed around them.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

On the way to the river, his numb mind was going over plans, ideas, and details. He was trying to come up with plots and schemes that required far too much plotting for him to be able to handle without sleep. He knew that the best option would be to disappear at the first opportunity — but now he also knew that he couldn't leave anything to chance.

It was a calm, windless day. There was silence around him; it smelled of spruce and clean water — so cold that when he dipped it into the river, his fingers instinctively curled into claws. Every time he took a sip, his mouth felt like it was being cut open.

He didn't understand how he’d been able to undress there before, but he didn't move until his muscles were completely stiff from the cold.

He finally straightened up. He carried the full buckets with difficulty; they bumped against his sides with every step. He wondered if he was more tired than he thought, or if they were bigger and heavier than he had previously thought.

Pathetic.

At the doorstep of the cabin, he had to put them aside for a moment to catch his breath.

Absolutely deplorable.

“You're acting like some kind of prince.” Crumb nudged him with her hip as she went to take it from him. The water splashed and a few drops soaked his pants. “Like you've never had to lift anything in your life.”

Hans grimaced. She had no idea how close to the truth she was.

Previously, he’d only carried a pitchfork full of dirty straw and horse dung — because he wanted to, not because he had to. But he wasn't going to think about Sitron right now.

He grabbed the cloth – wrapped handles again.

As he filled his seventh and final bucket, the sun, still bright, was setting lazily and unhurriedly. Warm, soft light streamed down his arms, gilding his skin.

By the time he made it back to the cabin, the sky had turned gray.

His arms felt ready to fall off, his back hurt from constantly bending and lifting, but his pride wouldn't let him give the bucket to Crumb.

He lifted it one last time and poured water into a pot on the stove. It hissed and began to steam as it touched the hot metal, and he noticed that the sound made the girl flinch.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

It was quiet. It smelled of hay.

The water in the tub rose, hot and thick, with each bucket he poured into it.

Crumb didn't offer him any more help, and he didn't ask for it. She only brought him a jug of water, a kerosene lamp and fresh clothes.

“Geir — that is, my brother — is taller than you, but much slimmer than father,” she said thoughtfully, as if to herself. “I think his clothes should fit you better.”

“You must miss him very much,” Hans blurted out.

“I do. He is my brother,” she repeated with a hint of irritation in her voice, as if she had to explain something completely obvious to him.

Princess Anna, in the same tone, had assured him that her sister would never hurt her — as if the fact of being related was enough.

Crumb could just as easily have said, ‘He's my best friend,’ it would have sounded exactly the same.

Hans tried to recall a spark of longing for any of his brothers — he didn't even remember Daisy — but all he could think of was Sitron.

He shook his head to clear it and noticed that Crumb had left but hadn’t closed the door behind her. Cold air rushed into the muggy interior of the barn and washed over him with sweet relief.

He undressed and carefully positioned the Bible and the revolver on the floor, covering them with folds of fabric.

Until he dipped into the tub, he had no idea it could feel so good. This was no longer his reality. Moments like this were meant to be more for practicality than pleasure — yet Hans wanted to bask in the warmth and weightlessness until he was shriveled and boneless, all his muscles melting away like never before in the castle.

Father tried to raise them as he had been raised — military bunks and short, icy baths once a day — but he was about as good at caring for his sons as he was at being faithful.

Hans reached for the soap, took a deep breath, and dove in to wet his hair.

The water gurgled in his ears, the wind rustled behind the thin wooden walls, spreading the intense scent of coniferous forests. Beneath the surface, the pain seemed milder, almost imperceptible.

But Hans couldn't hold his breath forever. Finally he had to surface and catch his breath.

He ran the bar of soap along his hairline, trying to scrape off the mud, dust and blood as thoroughly as possible. The water turned cloudy even before he took care of the body.

As he ran his fingers over it, he noticed that it was thinner than before. There was less of it than before — the width of the shoulders, the muscles of the thighs, the flesh hugging the ribs. The bones on his back became sharper, perfectly palpable under careful, probing hands. The light of the lamp flickering in the corner only sharpened these differences and exposed his fragility.

The change turned out to be unexpected and shocking.

Perhaps no one will recognize him anymore. Even his family. Especially his family. The thought comforted and worried him in equal measure.

Hans shook his head and combed his wet hair back. He decided to focus solely on the rough sound of the soap rubbing against his skin and the sloshing of the water, intending to finish his bath as soon as possible so he could get dressed again and forget about it.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

The dream opened up to him like a well, and he threw himself into it without hesitation.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

When he woke up, the trees were filtering the last rays of sunlight. Evening birds sat on the barren branches and chanted soothingly.

The peat roofs made the buildings blend in with nature, and Hans’ head was a chaos of pain and emptiness, and it took him forever to reach the door.

Tor wasn't there, but questions begged questions, so Hans ignored his absence, pretending he hadn't even noticed.

“You're awake,” Crumb said as he stood in the kitchen doorway, but she didn't get up to greet him. Her hands moved over the hem of her brown skirt she trimmed with thin lace. She didn't even look at what she was doing. “You slept practically all day long. Are you hungry now?”

It wasn't a question he’d expected, and although he felt his stomach churn at her words, he had to think about his answer.

“Mainly thirsty,” he replied carefully. His voice was hoarse and cracked a little, as if to prove he wasn't lying.

“My mother used to say that a hot meal is a privilege that should never be given up. But maybe I won't force you to eat anymore lapskaus — I don't like mine either,” she laughed. “How about oatmeal? I promise that I can make it really tasty.”

“For now, something to drink will do.” Disgust tugged at the corners of Hans’ mouth. He quickly suppressed it with a smile. “And maybe a piece of bread.”

Crumb caught his eye in the lamplight; her gaze moved across his face and stopped at his eyes.

“I'll put on some coffee then. Oh, and then you have to cut your hair.” She reached out her hand as if she wanted to touch him. Maybe it was the magical light of the golden hour, or maybe it was the warmth of the cabin — but Hans could have sworn he saw her blush. “Otherwise it will be difficult … ” She touched her temple. Hans frowned and immediately realized what she was talking about. “May I ask who did this to you and why?”

“Of course. And may I not answer?”

Her own smile was hesitant as she nodded.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

He managed to notice that Crumb was swearing and singing in Russian. She added that she could pray as well, but that's what she did least often.

“Mom was Russian,” she explained, placing a steaming mug in front of him. Hans hadn't noticed the past tense before. “I don't know much else, but Geir can speak quite fluently. And you?” she asked. “Do you know any languages?”

Six — Hans thought. Seven, if he counted the hypocritical language of the court.

“Not much,” he replied.

There was a smile even in her voice. “Well, anyway, you're pretty okay at Norwegian.”

Hans, who had previously believed he was doing more than okay, tried to hide his surprise. After all, he spoke to most Arendellians in their language. All the guards understood him; the lost people with whom he’d exchanged pleasantries and thick clothes, too. Dead of winter — almost no light, almost no heat, and they only looked at  h i m ;  it was great …

“Earlier — you know, when you first spoke to me — I thought you had such a strange dialect, but maybe you were drunk, or someone knocked your teeth out — but you just come from the Isles, right?”

He remained stubbornly silent, and she didn't ask anymore, didn't press; secrets simply remained secrets. It was for the best.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

He’d never cut his own hair, and a task that would have been a challenge with two good hands was now virtually impossible with his gunpowder – burned right hand, trembling fingers, and the shrinking light.

This was something completely different from tin buckets.

He couldn't even properly grasp the heavy scissors — the same ones that had been lying next to her on the table. They were intended for women, for sewing, fabric and thread — not hair. Strands of them slipped between his fingers, still wet and smelling of a birch sauna.

“I can help you,” Crumb offered quietly. Hans tried not to notice the kisses of fire lingering on her skin as she held out her hand. “Will you let me help you now?”

“I guess — yeah, I don't think I can reach the back by myself,” he admitted when he’d realized that his pride was the price he had to pay for tending to his wounds. His voice sounded nonchalant and confident, completely different from how Hans felt.

She posed no threat to him. Still, he flinched like a horse when she came around the chair and stood behind him.

“Don't worry, I know what I'm doing.” And she, as if sensing it, spoke to him exactly as she would to a frightened animal. “You can trust me. Just don't move.”

Maybe it would be easier if she did. Then Hans would know what to do.

He felt the moist warmth of her breath on the back of his neck. You can trust me. He looked at his hands, crisscrossed with red scratches of hair that fell from Crumb’s fingers.

You can trust me.

Even though her movements were gentle, slow and soft, he could still feel every tug. Right now the pain was pleasant for him, it offered a distraction. It was easier to focus on the wounds and bruises than this strange, forced closeness.

Crumb, with her perky little nose dotted with freckles, still had a bit of something innocent and childish about her, even though she was already twenty.

Hans was convinced that he absolutely should not trust her.

And he absolutely didn't intend to.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

When she started humming to herself, he listened to the melody of her voice; it was so deep and pure.

“What is it about?”

“What?”

“What you’re singing.”

“Oh,” Crumb replied, as if she was surprised that he was asking about it. Her mind must have been somewhere far away. “It's an old folk song about the leader of a Cossack uprising, Stenka Razin. No bullets could reach him, and he once escaped from prison by drawing a boat on the wall, he sailed away in it. And then he had a dream and he got killed.” She didn't reach for another strand of hair for a long moment. “Do you think that when you die in a dream, you really die? I dreamed about this once.”

“But.” There had to be some.

He thought she smiled again; he couldn't be sure because he felt bitterness in her voice.

“But this is one of those things  I  a m  not going to talk to you about.”

Hans felt the kiss of bone and metal on his temple as Crumb moved to cut another strand of hair. The comb tugged a little too hard, the scissors flashing as she sang the last verse again, soft and quiet.

“Off will it come,” she simply translated. “Off will come that wild head of yours.”

_______________

* Lapskaus — a Norwegian one–pot dish, prepared from leftovers from the previous dinner or fresh ingredients. Depending on the recipe, it may have the consistency of a thin soup or a thick stew.

Chapter Text

Chapter 28

Kissed by a troll

“It’s getting cold.”

The further north one went, the shorter the heat lasted; the plants always had to rush. But here, among sporadically smoking geysers, there was no sign of autumn. The Valley of the Living Rock, eternally trapped in midsummer, was now silent and dark.

Kristoff never really liked the name. Trolls and rocks were completely different.

He unbuttoned his jacket and looked at their frozen figures — although at that moment they were not much different from the moss and lichen on the trees and stones surrounding them, they were not  t h e m  — and then at the Princess sitting next to him, whose face was close.

“Well, we're on Helvegen. It's only going to get colder from here.” The further from Arendal, hunkered down on the southern coast, the closer to November, the later. But he didn't feel it at all. He only felt himself starting to sweat.

Trolls.

The Princess.

Fuck.

He thought about his life. He’d always just wanted it to be simple, uncomplicated. Full of a treadmill of winters spent cutting ice out of the lake, summers spent doing odd jobs and hoping to get by on his last salary until the next season.

No magical queens, shapeshifting creatures, or too many thoughts.

That would be a good life.

He raised his hand, cool where Anna had held it, and ran it across his face.

“I think I'll unharness Sven,” he said hastily.

“Okay,” she agreed. So close.

“Okay,” he echoed and stood up.

By the time he reached the wagon — a whole few feet away — he was exhausted, as if he had just made it through guobla * , and didn't just trample on a few tufts of moss. What time could it be?

The last few days — a constant, restless rush — were just starting to take their toll on him. Sometimes he felt as if the valley, trembling with energy, was sucking it out of those who visited it. Even the moon above them looked pale and tired.

This place, a carpet of navy blue and green, was as dangerous as the beautiful, poisonous red toadstools.

Sven’s ears twitched anxiously as Kristoff reached to undo the girth.

“Easy, lávvi ** ,” he said, wishing he knew more words in the language that seemed to calm him the most. At most, he could recite all the names of the snow to him.

The reindeer's nostrils quivered as Kristoff ran his index finger along them. He felt the restless gallop of his heart; Sven almost stepped on his foot, trying to tuck his head under his arm.

He gently but firmly pushed him away and half – heartedly patted his empty pockets with his other hand.

“Well,” he muttered. Sven's ears flapped against the palm of his hand like butterfly wings as he reached up to scratch them. “I guess you'll have to wait for the brown sugar until you see Ninni. Do you think … ”

He stopped when he felt warmth building around his sternum. He put his hand inside the collar of his shirt and pulled out a thong with a lump of quartz. Usually it looked like an ordinary rock crystal, but now, in the Valley of the Living Rock, it burned like a small sun.

He dropped the thong back around his collar when he saw some abrupt movement out of the corner of his eye.

Suddenly, Anna screamed. Something in her voice filled him with dread.

He turned around just in time to see the buttons on her blouse starting to fall out from under her trembling fingers.

“W – what are you doing. … why … ”

It didn't take him a moment to close the space between them.

Sven followed him. It didn't take long to realize that the reindeer wasn't the only one who’d done this.

Kristoff found it hard to ignore the quiet hum of the trolls’ presence, their eternal shanty, damn hard, but he tried.

He knelt in the silver – shimmering grass and rested his arms on the edge of the rock Anna sat on, just next to her thigh, and then he was struck by how small she was among the animated rock formations rising around them.

That he himself was not that much bigger compared to them.

Everyone here was small, fragile and too defenselessly human.

“Anna … ” he began, not really knowing what he wanted to say.

“Oh no!” But Anna didn't listen to him at all. The fabric of her blouse crackled in her hands, and he fought with himself not to accidentally look down, a battle he almost lost. “Nonono …”

“W – what's going on? What are you doing?”

Anna held the end of her braid under his nose.

“What color is it?!” she asked urgently.

He looked at her, struggling with her corset, disheveled, eyes unseeing, and ran his hand through her hair, instinctively trying to fix the mess she’d made.

“You are … ” Blue in the face. For a moment, all he could see was her blue – tinted lips and he couldn't focus. “You have red hair, right? Is that what it's about?”

He knew it wasn't.

Anna took the braid.

“Have … have I gone crazy?”

When their knees touched, her teeth chattered.

“No …?” She didn't look at him again, and he thought maybe he should be glad about that, because he had no idea how he would manage to muster all the words he needed if she did. “I mean, this place itself is …”

“I know, weird,” Anna interrupted. “As if everything here was so … illusory. Not true.”

“Uhm.”

Kristoff felt weird himself. As if all his thoughts were also frozen under an invisible mass of snow. Everything was so unreal. It was as if he had been swept away by an avalanche.

“But — okay, but … I … listen, I'll show you something … okay? Just … you won't stare?” she asked quietly, as if she hadn't just started undressing in front of him. How long could a person actually survive under the snow? Two or three quarters of an hour? He couldn't remember and couldn't think clearly. After a moment's thought, he fixed his gaze on Anna's skirt, covered with a shawl with Nordhuldrian embroidery. “I mean, well, I know you  w i l l ,  that's what I want, but … you won't be looking at … ” She stopped and bit her lip, perhaps searching for some elegant French word to say the same thing as ‘tits’, only politely.

“Anna,  w h a t  t h e … ”

Again, it was as if she hadn't heard him. Even her blushes didn't have a warm tinge.

“Well, give me your hand,” she whispered.

When Kristoff didn't move, she reached for it herself and placed it on her bare skin — somewhere between her breasts, right next to her heart. Kristoff tried not to analyze where exactly his fingers were at that moment, which didn't prove to be too difficult: as soon as skin touched skin, he felt the cold spread from his fingertips to his heels.

“And this? You … you feel it, too?”

He swallowed hard, fighting the urge to pull away.

If he reacted like that, what must Anna have felt?

H o w  l o n g  did Anna feel this?

“And you see it, right?”

“I thought I wasn't supposed to look?”

He didn't want to look because he didn't want to see anything. He didn't want to be reminded of how she practically  d i e d  in front of him. He didn't want to remember how she turned to ice or what she looked like when she wasn't breathing.

Just fucking no.

“No, no, but you  h a v e  to look, but only at … at — is that a scar? I need to know if I'm the only one who sees it. It seemed to look like one to me once, but I thought I just dreamed, normally when I'm cold I get dressed, not … well, undressed, so you understand … ”

“Fuck, t – this … this isn't the first time?!”

“Well, no, actually, but when I checked later, it wasn't there anymore. So I guess it doesn't count?”

The pain in her eyes seemed to bring him back to reality.

Anna had sobered up too quickly from her fascination with her golden prince, had forgotten her frozen heart too quickly — and it was far too easy for him to look past all the glaring holes in her story.

Until now, he had mostly managed to just let her be happy, to ignore his past and not ask about hers, but now …

Faen .

How could he be such an idiot?

The curses poured out of his mouth like an avalanche.

“Scar,” Anna had said, and he finally looked. Her eyes, lips and hands were the color of blueberries. And then at the dangerous, sickly glow seeping from between her fingers. It outlined all the veins with jagged, sharp lines, branched out, creeping along the neck and disappearing under a tear in the fabric of her blouse, somewhere around the breastbone, maybe even lower.

Scar. It resembled the traces left by a lightning strike. He'd seen these on a few lumberjacks; maps of lungs imprinted on the back and dark curves of nerves crawling across the skin.

But in Anna's chest … In Anna's chest they looked more like snowflakes.

They even acted like them — when he carefully put two fingers to the place where he felt her heartbeat, where the blue glow was most intense, he saw the fractals melt under his touch and disappear into the warmth.

They came back immediately when he withdrew his hand.

He leaned closer towards her to get a better look and saw the same thing happening where his breath hit her skin. As if he was breathing on the glass.

Panic settled in his chest, hard and cold.

Anna's hand slid down the back of his neck, brushed the shell of his ear, and stopped just above the pulse in his neck. Kristoff thought she must have seen the desire to kiss her clearly written on his face.

He wanted to ignore the piercing cold, as if shards of ice had suddenly started circulating in his veins too — to let her cling to him and never let go.

But the kisses weren't worth shit. She, of all people, should know it. He shook his head, taking off his jacket and unceremoniously throwing it over her shoulders.

He didn't say anything, just turned towards the silent troll theater behind him. “Bulda!” He didn't like how high his voice sounded. “Bulda, do fucking something!”

Anna sniffled and tucked it into the fabric of his jacket. Then she reached for the shawl as if to hand it to him.

“Keep it.” She lowered her hand. Kristoff caught it. A spark jumped between their fingers. “I … I'm used to the cold.”

It wasn't entirely a lie, but it wasn't entirely true either.

He’d never felt anything so cold in his life.

As if he embraced winter itself.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Spring was also painful.

An invisible hand struck her heart, shattering the ice. Winter was leaving, but it still clung to her skin, tearing out the blue veins and hidden frostbites. Thunder rolled across the sky, taking away the traces of lightning reflected on her bones.

Anna choked as flowers began to sprout from her breasts; where there was ice before, rivers now flowed.

She sniffled, and then again, and then again, but when she finally wiped her nose with the back of her hand in irritation, she saw blood.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Bulda opened her stony, moss – filled mouth. A joik got out of it, endless, without breaks, not even to take a breath.

“No,” Kristoff snapped; it was all he managed to choke out before he felt the air around them grow colder. The strange warmth of a stone body loomed over his skin; invisible stitches pierced his eyebrow and lip, caressed his cheek.

His face was burning, as if he had come too close to the stove. The living flesh of the right hand was on fire. All the while he felt as if stone fingers were slipping under his skin. If he still had the pendant, it would probably get so hot that it would leave a red mark on it.

“You could have at least warned me before you got into my head!”

“Heart.” Bulda's face, carved in stone, smoothed out with gentle weariness, full of understanding. “And I read her heart, too.”

Kristoff didn't want to know.

He already did.

He saw it in Anna's eyes, felt it in her touch …

“A love like hers could hold up the world.”

He felt like he was tripping over the word. The sound of it alone burned like poison.

Kristoff had been loved before and it had never ended well.

He felt a sudden urge to punch something, but around them there was only a chain of trolls stretching like a clenched fist; the valley was ready to eat them alive.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Anna was still trembling, and the trembling still  h u r t  — somewhere deep inside, dully. Ever since … that happened, she was more sensitive to the cold, as if there was a shard stuck in her heart.

“And now? You cold?”

Kristoff had just finished telling her about how some ice harvesters still believed that frostbites were best rubbed with snow because it drew the cold out of the skin. One just had to believe in it.

Anna thought it was nonsense, but quite funny. She would probably like it a lot more if only she didn't feel like she was going to get sick. She wouldn't want to get sick in front of Kristoff. That would be rude.

… was that a question?

“Are you cold?” he repeated, and Anna felt him shaking her. Even with the fabrics piling up on her — her coat, his jacket, who – knows – whose shawl — she could still feel his fingers on her skin.

“No, I'm … warm.” But speaking was difficult, as if her mouth was full of honey. She had to swim to every thought — and Anna couldn't swim — and they were slippery, and everything around her seemed to be splashing out. “You know, I … haven't felt warm in a long time.”

“What does ‘for a long time’ mean?”

“Weeel,” she yawned. “It's been like this since summer.”

“Just don't sleep now, Anna.”

She buried her face in the crook between his neck and shoulder. The arm that was wrapped protectively around her and held her close must have gone numb.

How romantic — Anna thought. This would probably all be incredibly romantic, if only she didn't feel like vomiting.

"I'm not sleeping," she mumbled.

“ S i n c e  s u m m e r ? ”

“More of what?”

“No, what did you mean — how come you haven't felt warm since summer?”

She felt the need to start whispering, so she whispered, right into his ear: “You can't tell Elsa.” She nuzzled his temple and saw Kristoff tremble.

“I won't.”

“You promise? Pinky promise?”

“How old are you, huh?” he muttered, but when she reached out her hand, he grabbed her little finger. Anna watched the line of his arm shake. Maybe he was cold too? “I promise.

“Since Elsa … there, in her palace … since then … like … you know, on the fjord, I've been cold.” She yawned again. “But not now. With you, I’m somehow not.”

“  A n n a … “

“Quiiiet, silly,” she sighed, closing her eyes. Just for a moment. “Shhh. I’m warm.”

_______________

* Guobla (Northern Sámi) — wall of snow.

** Lávvi (Northern Sámi) — buddy.

Chapter Text

Chapter 29

Hit the table…

Kristoff and Elsa were more silent than the mountains surrounding them, now struggling against the morning mist. The Valley of the Living Rock seemed to cut them open — successive levels of rusty hills and forests arranged themselves in zigzags in front of them, like reflections in a broken mirror — which only intensified the impression that everything in this world was based solely on falsehood and illusion.

But at least the body heat in the front of the wagon was real.

Well, one body for sure anyway.

Even though the ride was long, they didn't talk at all about what had happened that night. In fact, they hadn't talked at all since the wagon started moving, and it wasn't for lack of topics. Anna's questions literally overflowed.

What had actually happened with the trolls? They both looked agitated; Kristoff had yelled at Bulda, and Elsa… where had Elsa been all this time, exactly? She supposed Kristoff had kept his promise and didn't tell her anything when he went after her? The Queen might get angry, her sister might get worried, and Elsa would most likely just close the door again, and that would probably be the worst of all.

Or maybe Kristoff found her — Anna's, not Elsa's — behavior vulgar and now he thought that she was… well, like  t h i s ,  because — there was something pappa had said about reputation … no, Lord Peterssen? Or Fräulein Hahn, come to think of it, it could have been her.

What else did she not remember?

Her fingertips tingled, feeling returning to them as she absentmindedly ran them along the table of contents of the poems book, none of which interested her much at the moment — not that she even knew what she was looking for — until she found herself staring at Kristoff’s back, both hoping that he would turn to her and that he wouldn't, and she felt her cheeks grow warm.

She wondered about his current detachment, especially considering… had this really happened? She remembered her boldness, her panic, her need — but their reason escaped her.

“Are you two angry with me?” she took a risk, because the silence was eating her up.

“No,” Elsa and Kristoff replied in unison and they exchanged surprised, annoyed looks, eyes full of ice and fire, and she had to look away because neither of them were meant for her.

Just like the night of the coronation — and the next one that it seemed to stretch into — when they were both silent with her rather than talking, and only spoke when absolutely necessary.

She sighed and stared at the fading morning light, warm and soft. She felt the warmth seep into her skin — but it did nothing to soothe the deep cold inside — and she suddenly thought that Elsa's neck must be very cold — cool to the point that Anna felt like resting her hot forehead against it.

She closed her eyes — and must have fallen asleep, because she jumped when a root broke under wagon wheels and she was thrown to the side. She grabbed onto the bench to keep her balance, and when she opened her eyes, she saw the jagged branches of the trees stop moving overhead.

Kristoff clicked his tongue and the wagon stopped in front of a small inn, tucked into a narrow passage that looked like it was trying to hide from the travelers.

Anna said it looked like someone had kicked it.

“Mhm. It's a pretty lousy place,” Kristoff said, “but there's nothing better around. In fact, there is nothing at all. And — well, company at Hilde's is lousy, too.” Elsa raised her eyebrows (even though she couldn't see her face, Anna could have sworn she  h e a r d  it), so he explained, “Mostly lumberjacks, miners… ice harvesters.”

He jumped to the ground, dust rising from the rutted road. Elsa eyed him suspiciously for a moment until he walked over to Anna to help her get off. Only then did she decide to get off the wagon herself.

“Are ice harvesters supposed to be an inappropriate company?” Anna asked teasingly, trying to find out if he had been lying and was actually angry. She regretfully slipped out of the embrace of his jacket, which reached below her knees and made the morning chill almost imperceptible, and which she had to finally give back to him.

“Sure.” Kristoff winked at her from beneath the hair falling across his forehead. He was still as tired and a little more unshaven than before they’d left Arendal, but there was nothing painful about his face now. “The worst possible.”

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

“…they leave the brothel. The King spits and says, ‘My wife is better,’ and Peterssen says, ‘You're right, my friend, your wife is so much better!’”

The cackle was silenced by a warped door, groaning loudly as Kristoff pushed it open.

The interior of the inn was wooden, cramped, not entirely clean and filled with dust particles and the smell of digested alcohol and tobacco.

“Good morning, Kristoffer!” exclaimed a boy sitting under the window. “I mean, that is, Mr. Bjorgman,” he corrected himself quickly, stood up just as quickly, and glided like a shadow towards the door behind the two others, one with a face so blue with bruises that it looked as if he’d been doused with ink, and the other with a crooked nose that must have been broken definitely too many times.

Kristoff ignored him, let Anna and Elsa pass in front of him, and headed towards the counter.

“Hilde.” He nodded to the innkeeper.

“Is that you, Leif?” The older woman brushed off her apron and leaned over the counter. The look in her bright eyes hardened as they slid over his clothes and finally settled on his face, as if searching for any clues. Kristoff moved slightly, revealing the sisters standing behind him. “Is that your bae?” she asked and then started looking at them.

She had a doubtful look on her face that clearly said something that Anna was sure she wouldn't like — and which Elsa obviously didn't like either — because the innkeeper held Anna's gaze, but under the weight of the Queen's look, full of superiority, judgment, and with her mouth twitching,, she lowered her head and started wiping mugs.

“Uh,” Kristoff replied, running his hand over the back of his neck, ignoring her question and not even correcting her. “So what? Will you have a place for us?”

“Aye. There are just two rooms left,” the woman sniffed, put down one mug with a clink and reached for another one, “but I'm sure you’ll sort it out somehow.”

“Okay,” Kristoff replied. It didn't sound like it was okay at all. “Well, then…”

“Thank you,” Elsa said. “Me and Princess Anna will take one of the rooms. You can take the second one.”

Me and Princess Anna — Anna repeated in her mind, and the distance these words conveyed became almost palpable in her chest. She tried to console herself that they were only supposed to keep her sister away from the sturdy innkeeper with tawny, slightly gray hair braided into a thick à la reine braid — but even in her head it didn't sound convincing.

Elsa asked where exactly the rooms were and whether she would get the key, and when the woman grumbled something, she immediately headed towards the stairs.

Each step her sister took on the creaky steps sounded like a gunshot to Anna's ears — or was it the crackling of ice?

Would she hear if she called her now and asked her to wait? Was she also running away from Anna's company?

She guessed — probably not, since she wanted to sleep in the same room as her?

“I'll be right back,” Kristoff said quietly. “Will you wait here?” And she didn't even have time to react. She stood in the exact same place where she had stood just after entering the inn and wondered if it was even possible that she, too, would someday learn this — that she could just get up and leave instead of remaining so idiotically pathetic stuck in place.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

When Anna stepped back at the sound of the door opening, her back collided with something solid.

“You lost, tulla *?”

The voice came from behind her ear, unexpected, strange and close.

“ Pardon? ”

A rough hand grabbed her arm and tugged as if to stop her from falling, and she froze, almost as outraged as she was shocked. One of the braids hit her teeth.

She shot him a quick glance and saw that the man she had bumped into was quite young, with a handsome face, tanned by the summer, and violet eyes with with wrinkles as delicate as a spider's web at the corners, but she quickly thought better of it, and when she did — she also began to hesitate. The hand on her shoulder was heavier than the troll's.

She looked down at the man's chest, just tommer away from the tip of her nose, then began to examine her fingers. The closeness sent a deep, uncomfortable warmth to her stomach.

She took a breath and straightened herself. She brushed her skirt with her right hand, but the left one remained trapped in his grip.

“I… no, I — we're with Kristoff.”

The man loosened his grip, but still didn't let go of her.

“Oh, with  B j o r g m a n ? ”  There was a smile on his lips, warm and sharp. “What a small world! I think we’ve just passed each other.”

“Yes, Kristoff went…” Anna started and trailed off when she realized she had no idea where Kristoff had actually gone. “He… will be back soon.”

“Well, maybe pretty little miss will join us while she’s waiting?” the man suggested, pushing her slightly towards the table in the corner. Several men were already crowded on the bench on one side — a mixture of disheveled hair, breath sour from alcohol, and drab, patched clothes. On the other side there were two stools, only one of them was free — until her companion grabbed it and sat on it.

Anna wanted to say that no, pretty little miss wouldn't join anyone, but this word completely flustered her. Pretty.

“I… thank you, that's very… very kind of you,” she muttered the first thing that came to her mind, “but I see there's no room for me anymore, so I guess I'll just…”

“Well, you can sit on my lap then!” roared another man with hair so light it looked almost silver, slapping his thighs. Anna felt like the entire room burst into laughter at that.

In fact, the ‘entire room’ consisted only of the men at the table they were currently standing at, Inkface and Crooked–Nose by the window, and some sleeping figure in the opposite corner of the room — but the sound was still deafening.

The prankster's hair color almost blended with his skin, giving him a ghastly appearance, especially compared to his small, piercing eyes, as dark as two holes.

Anna tried her best not to cringe, but the way he reached out for her made her want to writhe like an eel and scream.

“Ey, Hilde, pass us some kilju **!” exclaimed another, with eyebrows crawling across his forehead like caterpillars. “Sweet as the miss!”

Pretty little miss. Sweet.

Had anyone said that to her before?

She felt herself blushing. She hoped that in the dim light neither of them would notice.

Pretty. Could she be pretty, red–haired, freckled, with a nose sticking out at a strange angle? Could she even be pretty as Elsa's sister?

“No — really, I…” The more she thought about what she should do now, the more her head hurt.

“Did you fall on your head, Bjarne?! She's a princess after all, and you want her to drink beer?!” Anna smiled shyly at the man who said that. He returned a favor, showing a clearing of rotten tooth stumps. “Ladies like her need to commune with art! There you go!”

He hit the mug he was holding on the table. A crooked, wet circle appeared on the wood, and the sudden movement caught Anna's eye.

And there was no room for laughter anymore.

Her face fell as she started to look at the drawings — no, engravings — covering the tabletop. Someone had carved them in pine wood with surprising artistry and precision, paying attention to the smallest details.

They must have been there since the Winter of the Century, she thought, and she felt a wave of cold, disbelieving panic sink into her stomach. How many people had already seen them?

Was that the only reason they’d invited her to the table? Maybe Kristoff wasn't joking when he'd mentioned lousy company. Maybe he had not yet known it wasn’t a joke.

Anna leafed through erotica, hidden in the darkest corners of the library, carefully listening out. She often read illustrated novels smuggled from Corona — the kind that required a provision in the penal code stating that ‘if anyone insults decency and modesty in a printed document, they may be fined or imprisoned’. She even saw her grandfather's and Lord Peterssen's postcard collection, which she’d been told not to tell anyone about.

But — but it… it wasn't obscene. It wasn't even vulgar.

It was  o b s c e n e .

And it showed her sister, whose face, even contorted in lustful ecstasy, was instantly recognizable. Every part of her body was so disturbingly corporeal, the grooves in all the curves were deeper, more pampered.

Anna felt sick at such an unfortunate choice of words. Her stomach felt like it weighed ten thousand stones, and maybe that was the only reason she didn't vomit — because it was simply too heavy to turn over.

She would never have even imagined something like this.

The demon accompanying the Queen resembled some distorted, nightmarish version of a snowman; it consisted practically of only icicles — and clawed fingers, and tongue, and… and…

When Anna had frozen, it was similar. She’d been rooted to the ground like Yggdrasil, the world tree of old, immovable, impossible and seeing everything. Now all she could do was look, watch, and just  s t a r e  until each stroke of the knife was imprinted in her mind as deeply as it was in the tabletop.

The letters ran along the queen's bare breasts, forming a caricature of a halo above her head: This Satan’s whore will take us all to hell — and then they trembled and disappeared for a moment.

“Are you out of your fucking minds?!” Someone hit the table and it shook like a mountain rising from the ground.

Kristoff. When had he even come inside?

He had large hands, but not enough to cover everything. Anna stared at the warning slipping from under his fingers, which she hadn't noticed before: Beware of the Ice Witch until she couldn't see anything, because there were only splinters under her eyelids.

“I–I…”

It took her a moment to realize that Kristoff wasn't talking to her at all.

She turned to look at him, saw his face harden, and thought of bears. Then she looked at the ice harvesters sitting at the table and wolves appeared before her eyes.

Now she understood.

If they were wolves, she was the quarry.

She took a step back.

“Come on, our Princess just doesn’t understand a joke.” The man she’d bumped into spread his arms. Teeth flashed in his dark beard as he leaned back on the stool and tilted his head. “You've always had a problem with that yourself, too.”

Anna didn't understand his words, they must have gone somewhere deeper; she only felt that they were biting.

“Listen, Groven,” Kristoff drawled. The tone of his voice was casting curses. “Why don't you come outside with me and we’ll solve  y o u r  problems once and for all?”

“Why?” The man stood up, knocking the stool over. “Your trap healed too quickly?”

There was thunder in the room.

“I can’t believe it! How many of my tables have you ruined?!” Despite her age, the innkeeper was still a strong woman; tall and strong. When she approached the table and put her hands on her hips, she looked little different from the mountains visible outside the window, and Anna guessed she wasn't the only one who thought so, because everyone gathered there humbly fell silent. “You will plan one after the other, you sons of bitches!”

She gave them a contemptuous look and left, stomping loudly.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Reality began to fully sink in for Anna again on the landing of the narrow staircase leading to the second floor.

“I'm sorry,” she blurted out, rushing to fill the silence.

“Wait, what?” Kristoff shook his head in disbelief and irritation. “For what now?”

“For downstairs? I… He just… well, he seemed… nice. Do you think that…”

“Anna…” he sighed, cutting her off before she could even think about how she was actually planning to finish that sentence. “I assure you, you don't want to know what I'm thinking right now.”

In a defensive gesture, she crossed her arms over her chest, preparing to repel a possible attack.

“I… I'm sorry you saw it, but it's not your fault.” Except he didn't accuse her of anything. His face seemed sincere, yet tense. “An… no, hey — look at me.”

He gently lifted her chin with two fingers. He withdrew his hand as soon as Anna reluctantly looked up at him with tearful eyes. Her nose felt like it was going to run again; just what she needed.

“You didn't do anything, okay? Anders is a dick, that's all. I mean, I wanted to say d… uhm. Dumb. Yeah.”

She didn't even know how much she needed to hear that (well, not literally  t h a t ) .  She realized she was on the verge of fainting from lack of breath, because by the time she spoke, she was barely breathing. Now the lump in her throat began to dissolve, making Anna shiver with relief.

“You know, it’s not like I’ve never heard you swear.” She managed a weak smile. He returned it, but his was even weaker, as if Kristoff didn’t have the strength to lift the corners of his mouth higher.

She felt lost under his gaze.

“I shouldn't have left you,” he said suddenly. She wasn’t sure if he meant the inn or something else — it sounded like something else entirely — but he didn't explain.

Time passed and she rocked unsteadily on her toes.

“I know it's still early, but… Anyway, you should get some sleep.” He ran his hand over the back of his neck again. At the moment, he seemed much more embarrassed by the whole incident than she was herself — but she couldn't be sure, because in the dimness of the narrow corridor she couldn't see his face very clearly and couldn't quite distinguish the colors. Had she imagined his previous words? “Apparently Hilde will have bedding for you, but when I come back I'll bring some blankets from the wagon.”

“And where are you going?”

“To Sven.”

“Ah, yes.” She nodded, her head suddenly too heavy on her too thin neck. “Yeah.”

Kristoff took three steps in one step and stopped as if he remembered something. Now they were almost the same height. Anna, a little taller, could look down at him, and it was such a rare kind of advantage…

“Hey, sinnatagg ?”

“Hm?”

“But don't do anything stupid again, will you?”

“Like what, for example?”

“Oh no,” he laughed, though the mirth glowed in his laughter like cigarette butts; it was almost gone. When he leaned forward to kiss her nose, Anna wasn't sure if it was his lips that were cold or her skin that was burning. “I'm not going to prompt you.”

_______________

* Tulle (Norwegian) — little girl.

** Kilju — sugar beer, a strong home–made alcohol popular in Finland.

Chapter Text

Chapter 30

Weight of the mountain

Elsa hanged her coat on one of the two pegs put into the wall, right next to the door — so close that when it was open, it was completely hidden from view.

Anna hung hers on the left side and looked at the green and purple sleeves that were almost touching  for a moment. They looked like the flag of Arendelle and like arms reaching out to each other.

She remembered how in childhood, back in Before, they’d agreed that when Elsa became queen, Anna would be her right hand. They’d planned long journeys and were convinced people would love them — because why wouldn't they?

But that was back in the days when they didn't take into account that one king could only be crowned when the other died, when the prime minister (what was his name again?) was just a hearty uncle who’d always had in his pockets stuffed with colorful hard candies for them, princes didn’t turn into wolves, and loyal subjects didn’t create disgusting caricatures.

Before Then there was another short period of limbo, filled with magic of the aurora and whispers of the stones, which Elsa had told her about on the first night after the Great Thaw. She’d later fallen asleep curled up on Anna's lap, exhausted by convulsive sobbing, while her younger sister had awkwardly stroked her back, intimidated by the sudden closeness, just like when she was a child — only this time she tried to be more of an elder sister and mamma at the same time, not herself.

There was nothing like that between Then and Now, life just changed — snap! — because wind brought change, and with it came a draft that perhaps slammed a certain door too tightly, and now it could no longer be opened.

“Have you settled in yet?” she joked, pointing to the shawl Elsa had used to cover the chest under the window like a tablecloth. Next to it, in a perfect row, were the hairbrush and the pins she’d pulled out. On the other side — some papers.

Anna wrapped her arms around herself as she looked down and noticed a bit of blood had dried on the button placket and cuff of her blouse. Elsa was probably even bleeding so symmetrically that if she had a nosebleed and stained her clothes, she could claim it was embroidered poppies.

“I hope you don't mind,” she began, because when her sister turned from her seat by the window, Anna felt that she, too, had noticed the stains. “I didn't want to scare you or anything, because really, nothing happened — in the summer my nose bled, too, when we were somewhere in the mountains, Kristoff said it was normal,” he actually snorted: ‘You're such a city girl’ , but it didn't sound the least bit reassuring for her to repeat it, “and — well! As for me and Kristoff, if you're wondering, nothing happened either, because nothing…” She trailed off, remembering the cold, invisible fingers running between her ribs in the Living Rock Valley, windless and seemingly dead — in its silence she could still hear clearly that they were not alone. “I mean, well, we didn't do anything,” she concluded half–heartedly.

Reprimand in three, two …

“Oh, Anna, I know,” Elsa replied, with no sign of the Queen. Anna sat down in surprise. “I know. But… just for the future record — remember that with open gates comes a certain responsibility. There is no ‘just you’ anymore. You have to remember this.”

“I'd rather I didn’t have to.”

“Me, too.”

Outside the window, the sun was getting stronger and stronger, rolling across the sky, and Anna was sitting on the hard bed and didn't know what to feel.

“You think life would be simpler if… if mamma and pappa were alive?”

She watched as her sister looked down at her bare hands.

“I don't think it would be any better,” she whispered.

Her pale skin only highlighted the blueness of her lips.

“I miss them,” Anna blurted out on a sudden impulse.

Her words were followed by a long, drawn out silence that made Elsa sink in, and she began to squirm in her own skin, wanting to run away, jump out the window, do  a n y t h i n g  but look at Elsa, who didn't look sad at all — rather empty — and her not being sad made Anna feel sad. It was terribly complicated, Elsa was, and she started to get lost in it.

She hurriedly tried to direct her thoughts to something else, but then she remembered the writing on the table, perhaps more cruel than the rest — Ice Witch — which suddenly seemed terribly out of place for a whole new reason.

The name Winter Maiden was much more fitting for the Elsa she knew, as she could wield ice, but was apparently unable to tame it. And above all, she was delicate and beautiful, not dangerous or cruel — maybe only to herself.

And apparently some people called her that.

Something like that.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Her last visit in the Valley of the Living Rock was the beginning of the end — her parents stood over her like silent sentinels, watching visions of magic turn into a nightmare. And Anna, still and silent, almost exactly as she is now.

Elsa tried to fight the memories, but they were faster, stronger. They fell on her like an avalanche. She suspected that what had happened that night, whatever it was, was also her fault. In some strange, roundabout way — nonetheless, it was her fault.

Conceal, don't feel. Don’t let them know no one know …

Someone hit the frame instead of the door several times, without feeling.

“I'll open,” she said to get rid of the aftertaste of Anna’s unspoken ‘What about you?’ from her tongue. In moments like these, Elsa wished that her answers could be as simple as her sister's questions.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

“It's… uh, it's me,” Kristoff's voice said. He sounded like he had no idea how to introduce himself. Because was he Baron of Grimstad now? Lord Bjorgman? Royal Ice Master? Or just Kristoff? Anna didn't know that either; she most often mentioned his name in conversations with Olaf and letters to Rapunzel, in which it was hidden under the short ‘K.’, she didn't talk about him too often with others, because she didn't talk to others very often, they were always busier than she was. “I brought…” he omitted the word ‘your’, “things.”

The rusting hasp growled as Elsa struggled to move it. Anna wondered if her sister had recognized Kristoff from the way he knocked or by the awkwardness.

And Kristoff stood in the doorway, leaning one arm against the door frame to maintain a safe distance. He held the traveling trunk at chest level; the pile of bedding on top of it reached almost to his chin.

“Hilde had apple pie and some gløgg left,” he added. The corridor was still dark, even now that someone had lit a few sconces, and Anna only noticed the clay jug when he slightly raised his left hand. She held out her hands; just the thought of mulled wine made her tongue tickle. “She makes the best one around.”

“I don't think there's much competition here,” Elsa pointed out, raising her eyebrows.

“No,” Kristoff admitted. The corners of his mouth twitched. “I don't think there is.”

Elsa showed him a place to put the trunk down, and he did so without a word. He didn't reach for a single pillow or a single blanket.

“And you…?” Anna asked. She wanted to know what Kristoff's room looked like. Wouldn’t he be cold? Had he eaten anything and was he planning to? Had he ever met those men downstairs again? But he chose the safest answer and patted his jacket pocket with a crooked smile; the metal of the canteen made a soft, hollow sound, like a heartbeat.

“Don't worry about me so much.”

She'd heard it somewhere before.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

A small stearine candle glowed faintly from a candlestick Elsa had placed on the windowsill, just above the makeshift table. She brushed the crumbs from her shawl and wiped away a lone drop of gløgg from the spout of the jug.

The autumn sky outside was beginning to ripen; it turned the color of plums and she could have counted all the constellations — but before she actually could, the northern lights appeared. A wave of green glow moved over the lake and the forest, towards the mountains and the Ice Harvester’s Village below — a quiet, sleepy hamlet nestled in their crooked arms.

She rubbed her hands as if to warm them, but they remained as cold as ever. It didn't matter.

The peaks of Dovre, even covered with snow, were still much sharper than the gentle contours of the Northern Mountains.

Her wrong hand twitched involuntarily. She had enough cold to last her a lifetime — she wouldn't be free from it before then — and yet, there she didn't feel so…

Limited.

Ah — ah — ah — ah …

Elsa took a step back. She turned her back to the mountains and the cold.

“I'm ready,” she said hastily, smoothing the edges of her nightgown. Crumbs scattered on the floor and she no longer had the strength to bend down. Her head was pounding and her eyelids were heavy with sleep.

“So I can turn around now, right?” Anna made sure.

“Yes.” Elsa avoided the crumbs, the skirt she would have to fold later, and slowly, carefully climbed onto the bed next to her sister. They lay side by side for a moment, staring at the wooden ceiling. Elsa remembered the canopy in her bedroom, which she hated more by the day, and the times when they had done this much more often — when they were together.

“Oh, look, it's probably a crossed beam.” Anna stretched out her hand, as if she wanted to show her a star or a strangely shaped cloud. “A beam supporting the ceiling. Kristoff told me, it's like this at his house, too.”

“A crossbeam,” Elsa yawned. “Oh, really.”

“How much have you been sleeping lately?” Anna asked. “And don't tell me you're the Queen, first of all you're also  h u m a n .  Which means you have to sleep too.” She dropped her hand and rolled over. It was like they could be little children again, and it was so strange and foreign and… “Just lie down and get some rest, okay? Should I put your papers away somewhere so you can stop staring at them and thinking about them?”

“No.” Elsa shook her head, almost amused. It would be best if the mountains could be hidden. “And… Anna?”

Anna stopped halfway from the bed to the floor. “Yeah?”

“Can you just — can you…”

She looked at her sideways. Her sister. She was there, so close, and nothing separated them, and they could be children again, if only everything Elsa wanted wasn't too complicated and simply impossible, because there was no way to get these thirteen years back. She'd already broken too much to fix it.

“When… when you get changed, blow out the candle, okay?”

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

When Anna took off her chemise, the feeling of an invisible fist hitting her sternum reappeared. She felt a piercing heat, as if someone had splashed boiling water on her, as a small lump of quartz suspended from a thong fell between her breasts.

Where did it come from?

She carefully took it between her fingers, and a faint orange glow began to seep from between them.

“A troll crystal?” she whispered, but only the shallow, steady breathing of sleeping Elsa answered her.

She slowly opened her hand and ran her finger along the edge. Her skin tickled where it touched it and the inside of the crystal glowed like a chandelier, like a whole galaxy of suns, and she felt as if she’d stepped into a sauna, and the last remnants of pain began to melt away. She felt like she was holding the pulse of life in her hand.

She remembered the crystals glittering on the trolls' necks: pink, blue — Pápi’s face was illuminated by a chain of green ones. But she didn't see any orange ones. After all, trolls lived from sunset to sunrise and were made of stone — they needed neither heat nor light.

She hissed as she squeezed her hand too hard and the sharp edges dug into her skin, something sizzling in her mind, and she let go of the crystal.

Before she buttoned her nightgown at the neck, she could still see the glow creeping out from behind the fabric.

She tiptoed closer to the bed. Elsa slept with her hands folded under her head, her lips slightly parted. Her hair scattered on the pillow, fell on her forehead and neck, silver and thick, casting strange shadows on her jaw and eyelashes, they looked as if they were covered with frost. Anna's fingers itched to touch her shoulder, to brush away a strand of hair that was about to fall into her mouth, to be  c l o s e .

She carefully sat down on the edge of the bed — slowly,  c a r e f u l l y  — trying very hard not to wake her. She was moving tomme after tomme until she was within arm's reach of her. She just wanted to be close, but she knew that was impossible with her sister awake and alert. She’d seen it in her face as she pulled away from her. The walls were back again, but now — Elsa looked so young again.

It wasn't that she was  o l d ,  ice had no age, but she wasn't an ice sculpture. She wasn't just a queen, just like she’d told her — she was human. She was a girl, she was a sister…

Anna curled up on her side. They were separated by exactly one beam, the one running through the center of the ceiling, with the date engraved on it — when she squinted, she managed to read the numbers: 1839 , the year of the completion of King Rúnar's Dam and the death of their grandfather — and see a ribbon of spider's web with a particularly fat spider swinging at the end.

“Hey,” she whispered, never taking her eyes off the dense forest of limbs. Because what if the spider decided to sit on her nose while she fell asleep? “Psst, Elsa! Oh my God,  E l s a . ”

"Aaanna," Elsa finally moaned into the pillow and turned her back to her. “Go away and let me sleep.”

Just like the last time they’d built a snowman. If this was a real memory.

Only this time Anna had nowhere to go.

Or did she?

She imagined herself walking down a corridor full of shadows and cold but empty of cobwebs, easily finding the door to Kristoff's room, and knocking — but no one, two, three–four, five — an ordinary knock, knock. He would only open it after a while, because after that he wouldn't have expected that it was Anna standing on the threshold.

When she went inside, she would inadvertently stand in front of a candle, and he would tell her to move away from the light because he could see her legs through the fabric. It would be distracting —  s h e  would be distracting.

And she, dressed only in her nightgown and moonlight, emboldened by wine, would be brave. And she would just walk up to him and take his lips.

Maybe he would just be shaving? And she would stop him and as a reward she would feel like Hel with two faces; on one side the roughness of his stubble, on the other the smell of soap. And he would kiss her like he’d always wanted to kiss her, ever since that first night when she’d run into the barn where he and Sven had been staying — then, he would say, just to make her leave him alone. And now, because when he didn't kiss her, his heart ached and — oh, how could it not have known Anna before?

He would probably have his sleeves rolled up, and even though their hands would be separated by the fabric of Anna's nightgown, it would feel like her body was on fire.

Layer by layer — kiss by kiss — her ideas of what love could be would be reduced to ash by the burning pads of his fingers.

Oh, and then…

Then…

Well. She couldn't imagine an any more detailed ‘then’.

She slipped deeper under the covers and wrapped the heavy blanket tightly around her. Kristoff's scent clung to the wool — a mixture of soap, fur and leather, and smoke.

She sighed heavily and closed her eyes. She knew she needed sleep — but the more she tried to ignore its presence, the fatter and more predatory the spider seemed.

The darkness sounded like it was breathing — completely different than in the castle, deeper.

Anna thought that she’d like to go home and fall asleep  t h e r e ,  and when she woke up, she would have all the people she loved around her.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Elsa pulled her sleeves over her wrists to keep her hands busy and to stop herself from rubbing the lid of the trunk, pale and naked since she’d collected the things on top of it. Everything was ready to leave except Anna, the ice harvester was waiting outside the door, and the date was stuck in the wood: … July 1868 , perfectly palpable under her fingertips — she just couldn't decipher the day.

Her coronation took place on the 6th. She remembered the crown — a symphony of diamonds, blue topaz, and sharp patterns that reminded her of mountain peaks and the curse in her bones — the weight of which still loomed through the fog that encompassed the Dovre Range she turned her back again to.

She remembered the tiaras they had been shown. They were theirs, but they weren't allowed to put them on. They hadn’t had any opportunity to do so anyway; it was almost as if their parents wanted them both to be forgotten.

It would be better — if, just as Anna did not have a ball at which she would be introduced to the society, because her sixteenth birthday fell during the period of deep mourning (she was only allowed to start wearing her hair up), Elsa did not have a ball to celebrate her coronation.

The coronation itself.

She could still sit at the Royal Council meetings as she did when her father had been in charge, watching the ministers and changing prime ministers from her place in the corner, her gloved hands clasped tightly in her lap, hoping no one would notice her.

She wrapped her arms around herself, crushed by the knowledge that three months earlier there must have been other people crowding into this place, trapped in the blizzard of her own fear, confused and trembling.

Similar people — there was even a list of names in her bureau’s drawer, which she hadn’t done anything with yet — accompanied Prince Hans on his expedition to the North Mountain. How many ice harvesters were among them? How many would she meet in the Ice Fields? She probably wouldn’t find out anyway, because they would recognize her and she wouldn’t recognize them.

Winter was still inside — and even when it did sneak outside, it wasn't at her will; Elsa felt like it was standing right behind her at that moment, and she felt her own defeat.

Ah — ah — ah …

But now she was a queen, the Queen, and people could look at her. They  s h o u l d  look at her. Instinctively, she straightened up, holding back the breath of snow lurking in her fingertips.

There was no concealing anymore. She was  t h e  Q u e e n . She was no longer allowed to hide.

She reached for the staple. She heard the ice crackle.

Ah—ah—

“Yep!” Anna exclaimed, hastily tying her hair with a ribbon. “I'm ready now.”

She was the one who moved the hasp away. She held the door for her while Elsa crossed the threshold like a condemned man, her hands pressed tightly to her sides. What a pity, she thought, that none of her carefully selected teachers had taught her how to properly deal with them when they were open.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Elsa immediately moved towards the counter, her eyes fixed straight ahead, her head held high above her shoulder blades, so tense that they were about to burst and tear the fabric of her jacket.

“Can I have a glass of water, please?” she said to Hilde as if she had to put out a fire.

Her clothes, fitted and the color of weariness, would only become a bag for all those too visible bones if she fell apart along the way. Anna didn't understand why her sister didn't choose colors other than those resembling bruises. If she looked as good in pink as Elsa, she wouldn’t wear anything else.

“He!” the innkeeper huffed. “Water makes you rust. I’ll give you tea.”

When Elsa, resigned, took her seat at the table, she sat on the very edge of the stool, as if to avoid non–existent hot coals scattered on the seat. In any case, she definitely wanted to avoid anyone getting to her.

“Don't sit in the corner, or you'll end up being a spinster,” warned Anna, passing the table that was a little less in the corner this morning than last time, among the scattered pieces that no one had cleared up yet or simply hadn't noticed. She briefly brushed her hand against the table top and felt only slight scratches; the surface was, as Hilde had announced, smoothly planed and smelling of forest.

If Kristoff, who was walking next to her, hadn’t squinted to get a better look at the surface of the counter, she might have thought that everything that had happened the previous day had just been a terrible, bizarre dream.

Like what she was thinking about that evening.

She was responsible for her ideas — but not for her dreams, right?

(And he actually  d i d  shave!)

She felt the crystal trembling between her breasts begin to burn. She busied herself by drawing slow, crooked circles in the palm of her hand, chewing the inside of her cheek. Even her fingers turned red with embarrassment.

Elsa dismissed her folk wisdom with a very inelegant snort — and seemed to only shift further in that direction. What a stinker.

Anna cleared her throat, testing the silence.

“Well, we'll be back soon,” she said quickly, taking advantage of the opportunity that no one else was speaking and, for example, inviting her to the table. She had to forget about the kisses and the wolves at the inn and the reasons why she didn't want to stay there alone — even with Elsa, without Kristoff, she would still feel alone there — because if she started thinking about them, one of them —  h e r  s i s t e r  — would definitely see it in her face — and if  s h e  had to hide something like Elsa, half of Europe would probably find out about it the next day. “I’ll just help Kristoff — carry the things, you know.”

“You will?” Kristoff repeated, raising an eyebrow.

“Sure. Like… well, I'll open the door for you.” And she did pull the handle, but the door was too old and too heavy, and Kristoff had to push on it with his arm trembling with suppressed laughter to fit in with the trunk he carried, so Anna stuck her tongue out at him.

“Your help isn’t worth shit,” he commented when they were outside. She stuck her tongue out at him again, because he obviously hadn't noticed it the first time.

There were no puddles on the ground, but the clouds hung over the trees like wet wool, and the air around them was permeated with a dank light. Anna raised her hand to shield her eyes.

In the north there was an immensity of mountains.

“Do you know the names of all the peaks?” she asked, pushing the conversation back on the right track. It was almost as heavy as the warped door, but this time Anna had more determination.

In reality, she wasn't anywhere near as brave as she was in her dream. (Because it was a  d r e a m ,  she wouldn't have imagined such things!)

“Yes.”

“Prove it!”

He did.

“And which one is the highest?”

She heard Kristoff swallow.

“The Crumb,” he said. It was such an ironically small word, but it barely passed his lips; its weight had to match the weight of the mountain itself.

Chapter Text

Chapter 31

Good–night, sweet prince

Pieces of bread, swallowed too hastily, looked like teeth in the flood of strong black coffee that Crumb had offered him and which he’d vomited right outside the door. Here in the North they added a spoonful of butter to it, which made it oily, warm and easy to slide down the throat.

On Nasturia, coffee was brewed for the second time — and each subsequent time — from the grounds left after drinking the first one, and until now Hans had thought that this was the worst variant he had ever encountered.

Maybe he should have started from drinking milk after all. He tried to remember when he'd actually eaten something last — three, five days earlier? What day was it anyway? — he couldn't — he definitely should have started with milk.

As the world slowly began to slip beyond its contours, Hans realized that he’ad done the right thing not to accept medical help. He was able to diagnose himself just as accurately: thanks to Felix's duels, Rasmus and Karl's fists, and his father's hotheaded stallions.

“Concussion,” he muttered; the darkness began to pull him deeper and deeper until he felt the sweet, tickling bite of the earth on his nose, “I think I have a concussion.”

And he fainted, without any awareness of whether he was falling on the girl who had just appeared in the doorway, or on the grass — it was so soft — and whose was the voice shouting a name that might be his, now he didn't even know that.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Red and black, like on a chessboard.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

What had they actually done to him?

He didn't remember; he only knew that there had been something too calm in Paaluk's expression when Hans had hit him for the first time, clumsily, with the back of his hand. Dark blood had dripped onto his chin, and his gaze striking sparks that illuminated the darkness in a completely new way.

Then he’d realized that his money alone was no longer enough for them.

Red.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Black.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

1849

Espen the Stablehand laughed that little Margrethe was called Daisy because she’d got begotten by the gardener in the daisies at the edge of the garden.

Hans, although he didn't understand all the words, laughed with him. He had already noticed that people really liked it when someone laughed at their jokes.

He was particularly concerned that Espen the Stablehand was happy, because when Espen the Stablehand was in a good mood, he would let him pet all the horses, and sometimes he would help him climb on the backs of those he couldn't even reach himself.

On his father's shining chestnut thoroughbred he was more than a king. He was a living illustration from a history textbook, another portrait from the gallery, but it wasn't enough for him. He wanted to feel like a copy of Napoleon crossing the Alps — so he raised his right hand, pulled the horse's mane — the bridle was missing — and the animal did exactly what he wanted: it reared up.

And that's when Hans, calm on his fiery horse, simply fell.

…

“Hans,” chère maman was whispering , her voice pained and hoarse and rough like gravel that scraped his knees, but he knew it was her because she was the only one who said his name in French — and she was the only one who never said the ‘h’, even when speaking Danish. Ahnz. “My poor boy.”

Hans woke up from a restless sleep filled with her sobs, fervent prayers that God would not, in his kindness, take away her beloved child, and wet kisses pressing his eyelids to the eyeballs.

He thought that even if the horse didn't break his arm, she probably would, because she was squeezing it so hard that he lost all feeling in it. She was as white as a herring in cream.

Yesterday she was still angry, she hadn’t say a word when he gave her watercolors with a bouquet of flowers that she ordered from the French Riviera — although she kissed ‘dear Frederik’ on both cheeks — and now he didn't even have to ask to know that chère maman had spent the entire night by his bed.

She had dark circles under her eyes and her hair was a mess, but she had to leave for a moment before the servants showed up to apply powder and give her skin an even paler, sicker shade, in case anyone doubted her motherly dedication.

The light of dawn was seeping through a crack in the curtains and flooding in chère maman , brightening her face and making it look the way she liked best — like a marble sculpture of a saint who died young.

…

“Daisy,” Hans sang later, when chère maman’s attention had already melted and disappeared, just like the blood and pain from his swollen head. “Daisydaisydaisy,” beating a rhythm on her arm with his bruises.

Margrethe looked like a porcelain doll, like the ones she got from chère maman , but which she couldn't touch because her hands were dirty, because she would lose their shoes, because they were too expensive, because she wasn't allowed to reach the top shelf, because her brothers would take them away from her.

Apparently, when she came to the Islands at the age of just seventeen to marry father, chère maman brought with her her favorite doll, still more of a girl than a woman.

And they, too, were her dolls (“Maybe that's why Frederik is so effeminate,” Aunt Sigrid speculated, and then she smiled brightly at Hans, convinced he hadn't heard even though he was drawing a tactical map for his soldiers right next to the tips of her shoes.)

And then Margrethe, the Only Child, had appeared — just to be raised by chère maman , because she was the only one she could have had a real impact on.

Margrethe had golden hair and freckled cheeks that only blushed when someone pinched them. Hans — with the Corona Borealis constellation burned into his nose — often did this because it made her seem more alive. He hoped that when Margrethe finally got angry, he would see her as his own sister — she had to be there somewhere, deep down, beneath all the layers of porcelain and lace — less worth breaking.

But she just kept crying, which irritated him even more.

…

At the funeral, Hans was the only one who showed more emotion than chère maman . He let out a sob that he’d seen from her, but which he didn't even have to imitate. He ignored his father's disdainful, judgmental look; he didn't know if his brothers were crying, too.

He wanted to run after the coffin and stay there, so that they would cover him with dirt like Daisy.

Because she had been his shield.

Fred and Erik might as well have been non–existent.

Now Hans was left alone with the she–wolf.

…

1850

For chère maman, grandfather's death was only an opportunity to prolong mourning.

After the funeral services in Ebeltoft, she asked them to come to her boudoir in Egeskov Castle, which was so cold that its marble floors made his feet freeze even in the middle of summer.

Niels, only one week old heir to the throne, was pale as chalk. He opened the procession, walked unsteadily, as if he was just learning to do so, and clutched his youngest brothers' trembling hands. Even Lars and Søren were holding hands.

Chère maman’s eyes were red from crying and her lips red from wine when she said: “I could give you all up for her.”

…

1859

Chère maman resented the chess match with Madame again. Hans had lost because he lost to her every time, but still, chère maman was used to his failures. She’d always predicted them for him, and later she wandered through his thoughts like Fatum and remained silent, ‘I told you so’.

And Madame always won, except maybe in one case: the Which–One–Of–Us–Will–Bear–More–Children race, but even from this defeat she’d come out unscathed. She’d looked the same for as long as Hans remembered her, with sharp peaks of cheeks and waist of a debutante, while chère maman was gaining weight rapidly, and then losing it even more rapidly, so he couldn't tell whether her face was actually round or long, like his.

“You are very much like me,” she would say, however, because she must have really wanted to think so. Hans shared her love of French and her constantly fueled resentment towards father, but apart from that it was much easier for him to imagine that he was Madame's son.

Albert was only a year older than him, quiet and melancholic, a perfect fit for chère maman’s puppet, if only swapping places were possible.

“It's simply not appropriate,” she insisted tearfully, the wife of an unfaithful husband who had recognized six of his bastards, five of whom had the title of prince, and who loved Bordeaux wine to an exaggeration.

Hans remembered what Madame had taught him about life — that he should trust no one, rise to the top at all costs, always have a plan B and never reveal his thoughts to others.

And Hans thought that it was inappropriate to be weak at best — and to do many other things that made him despise chère maman at the same time  he felt sorry for her and, above all, he wanted to shake her.

So he just smiled and nodded, exactly as she wanted him to.

…

1862

“Harlots and reckless women only disgust men and bring children no one wants into the world,” chère maman used to say.

Even father seemed to agree with her on this one point. After all, it was he who’d introduced the division of women into two categories at home: wives and whores; with the teetering Madame, a lover–wife, whom he’d married to the Duke of Westensee, protecting her from loss of her reputation, but not from the gossip and hatred of the Queen.

…

It wasn't Felix's fault that he’d made a maid a bastard. God forbid!

If the girl was decent, she wouldn't spread her legs for any reason, she wouldn't get pregnant, and more importantly – she wouldn't come to complain — about the Prince!  — and would not dare claim any rights.

…

“Hans is in the stable almost all the time,” Felix pointed out. “He can confirm that she wallowed in the hay with anyone. I suspect she has no idea who the father might be.”

The smell of horses and dirty straw was the closest thing to safety Hans knew. In his opinion, there wasn't enough time in the stable; certainly not enough to devote it to being interested in servant’s trysts that never even took place.

But he did confirm; they were brothers after all. (“You are siblings after all,” chère maman used to argue.)

Or maybe it had something to do with the intensity of Felix's glare, which made him feel like someone had hit him again.

…

When Espen the Stablehand got fired, Hans learned that his real name was Espen Møller and that he had six children — all with his own wife, whose health was failing.

The disgraced girl was sent back to her family on the continent. Hans, probably like Espen, didn't even know what she looked like.

…

1865

Hans was delighted with the freedom offered to him by the invitation to Dagmar's christening. Even c hère maman’s eternal comparing London to Paris couldn't make it disgusting to him.

This was effectively done by Prince Manus, who, in all his impudence, believed that all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances *, had to always appear wherever Hans happened to be and want exactly what he wanted.

And so it had always been, even after Dieter had realized that he had no chance with the king of Weselton's daughter and their paths seemingly diverged.

“Do you think the Arendellian princess will have me?” Manus asked in a conversational tone, the embodiment of innocence.

“I don't think it's the right time to propose,” replied politely Hans, who had prudently sent his cousin a letter of condolence, waiting tactfully after the news of the interregnum had left the South Isles.

“Oh, yes, the death of parents? Terrible,” Manus agreed, but neither his tone nor facial expression indicated that he really thought so. If anything, he seemed rather impatient. Even when he spoke Swedish, he sounded a bit French — with a nasal, almost buzzing pronunciation of the long vowels. And like a snob (which he was). “Oh well.” He waved his hand. “I've already written to her anyway.”

…

He saw her running into a dead end, a place he should never have been, limp and lithe, her skin the shade of rosebuds. Girl–shadow.

He hadn't intended to look for her, but he found her when the last lights in the royal box went out and the show began.

…

Hans did not refuse an invitation to one of the opium dens in the East End — because apparently Siggy the Scandalmonger visited there.

Flynn Rider, Lord Herbert's well–mannered bastard,  c e r t a i n l y  did visit there.  He even ordered a fez especially for these occasions.

He blended perfectly with the squalid neighborhood, with all its narrow, dark streets filled with the heavy smell of dirt and drugs.

Born half a century too late, in a time devoid of True Romantics, he had a taste for women's finery and claimed to have a lock of Lord Byron's hair in his locket, as if his unnatural tendencies had not already been gossiped about enough, and when he posed for photos — and he posed often — he always covered his nose because, in his opinion, no photographer could capture it from a good angle. (Manus, as well versed in demi – monde ** scandals as anyone, claimed that a certain lady had once told him that he had a ‘Jewish profile’, whatever that meant, and that was why.)

He was annoying enough on his own, but he reached new heights when he started calling Hans by his name, which he persistently distorted even though Hans had never offered him becoming on a first–name terms.

“Hands,” he said, patting him on the shoulder, placing a hand on his back, leaning far too low, blowing smoke into his face.

…

The evening was falling on the rooftops of the capital.

Siggy suggested a game she called Kiss Guessing. She slipped a mantilla embroidered with red roses from her white shoulders. She’d received it from a Spanish ambassador, who was  a b s o l u t e l y  d e l i g h t e d  with her, even more than with Empress Eugenie herself, she chattered, sifting the fringes between her fingers.

Manus, of course, joined in. Apparently he didn't mind that she had previously been his elder brother's lover (and, according to rumors, possibly his father's as well). Hans wanted Siggy, so he had no choice, poor guy. He must have wanted her, too.

“The rules are very simple. Now someone is going to kiss you,” her tongue brushed against Hans’ earlobe as she sat on his lap to cover his eyes with the cloth,”‘and you have to guess who.”

There was her scent on the fabric: perfume, powder, flowers, wine.

Hans heard girls giggling, he recognized them mainly as backgrounds in the theater or as decorations stuck to the arms of wealthy sponsors, hanging from them like eyeglass chains.

The rest of his thoughts were still clouded by the bitter fog of opium. He couldn't get the smell out of his nose, even as buildings with chipped walls had turned into blackened tenement houses that looked like rotting bones. He smelled ammonia everywhere.

Siggy slowly slid off his lap.

…

The bodies around him loomed in the twilight like heavy obelisks; the faces were indistinguishable.

The kiss smelled of lilac and almond hand oil. It was overwhelming. It sucked the air from his lungs, from the space around them, and his chest began to burn as he moved slightly and felt roughness of stubble instead of softness of lips.

“I fooled you, Hands,” Rider whispered in his ear. Hans felt Siggy's mantilla running down his neck.

The opium fumes slid off him along with the fabric. He saw Rider’s turquoise vest with an orchid pinned to the chest, and a moment later Manus's lips moved silently. They said the same thing: “I fooled you.”

Siggy tried to hide her flushed laughing face behind a fan, her amused friends were much less discreetly doubled over, Rider’s face was as purple as his crookedly buttoned gold–patterned jacket, and the pockmarked corner of Manus's mouth was twitching as if he was trying to hold back a snort or a snarky comment.

Hans felt caged by their laughter. He clenched his fists in his lap. A trickle of blood was visible on the line between skin and nail.

“Fool me you did,” he repeated, and his tone shattered their cheerfulness like a bomb. He held his head high, his face a mask, but they had probably already seen it in his eyes — a desperate, seething rage that he couldn't give vent to because nobility hadn’t been murdered in England in two centuries.

That's why he was laughing a moment later, swallowing the humiliation, because it was only a joke and everyone liked it when people laughed at their jokes.

…

June 1868

“Good–night, sweet prince,” Pernille giggled, running her finger across his cheek, tracing the still invisible stubble. Her blond hair tickled his mouth and chest at the same time.

Hans grabbed her wrist and pressed her hand back to the pillow it had raised from, then sat down on the edge of the bed, a little too abruptly. He didn't like it when whores allowed themselves such familiarity. But he really liked it when they tried to please him, as if he was worth the effort.

“‘And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest’***, he finished reflexively, pulling on his pants.

The stupid girl thought she could keep him around with an inappropriate quote from Hamlet , most likely the only one she knew. Her giggle proving that she hadn’t understood him at all mixed with the jingle of his belt buckle; it irritated his ears.

Dawn and the sounds of the harbor penetrated through the high windows of the tenement house. Hans felt like he knew exactly which jets of steam were coming out of his ship's funnels.

On the other side of the North Sea, where the July sun never faded, a world of new possibilities awaited him, and he had no intention of dying. In fact, he couldn't remember the last time he felt so deliciously alive.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

The moonlight filtered through the shutters and brightened the darkness in the kitchen a bit. The Hellands leaned over him and were part of that light and, at the same time, part of the darkness that covered the forest.

“You’re giving tragic testimony to my culinary talents.”

Hans opened his eyes straight to Crumb’s pale smile; it was like the rising sun. She touched his forehead with the back of her hand — but he felt no skin, only thick rolls of fabric wrapped around his temples. A bandage — she said she'd put it on once she got his hair cut. Single lashes of hair still pricked at him beneath the fabric of his shirt.

He wrapped his fingers around the hard edges of the kitchen bench he was lying on — one at a time, counting to ten — and carefully pushed himself up on his elbows.

“How long was I unconscious?” he asked.

“About fifteen minutes,” Tor estimated. “You fainted just when I came back, so you chose the perfect moment, I must admit. Mari wouldn't have dragged you here on her own. You are heavier than you look.” He put his hands on his shoulders. “But if I were you, I wouldn't get up yet.”

Hans looked at the man's hands, damaged by frost and hard work, and wondered how old he really was, and whether his age could be calculated by the number of ice blocks he’d harvested.

He suspected he must be younger than his father — the only thing he had ever had to lift in his life was his cock — maybe even a lot younger, although he didn't look like it.

But he didn't ask.

If he didn't want to answer himself, he had to save his questions.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

He stayed with them, half–conscious on the kitchen bench — almost as comfortable as his bed — until the yarn of dawn spread across the sky.

“Well, time to hit the road…” said Tor then, pushing the coffee mug away from him. He slapped his knees with his hands and stood up from the chair. “The Queen herself will be visiting us today,” he explained to Hans. “We've had some problems at work lately because of her, and Kris… I mean, uh.”

He trailed off, as if talking about the Queen in front of Hans wasn't the best idea.

“I know very well who Kristoffer is now, pappa ,” Crumb growled.

Tor cleared his throat, scratched his head and hurried to the hall, towards the coat rack to take off his jacket.

“Behave, eh?” He shuffled his shoes excessively loudly.

He bent down in the doorway to pet the cat that was under his feet, cleared his throat once more and said: “And Kissel**** stays at home.”

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

“Kristoffer,” Hans repeated.

Crumb was silent; with each syllable the nickname seemed to fit her more and more.

“Is this the boy whose heart you broke?” The look she gave him — still smaller and smaller — made it clear that it was none of his business, but it was too late to back out. “Or was he the one who broke yours?”

_______________

* William Shakespeare — As you like it .

** Demimonde (French) — the fringes of respectable society.

*** William Shakespeare — Hamlet .

**** Kissel — a Slavic dessert with the consistency of a thick gel, made of sweet fruit, berry, grains or peas.

Chapter Text

Chapter 32

Old wounds

“And which one is the highest?”

Kristoff looked up. The pale jagged crags resembled a series of sharp teeth; the peaks scratched the clouds like claws.

Auntie Astrid had told him a legend that the Dovre Mountains were crumbs from the gods' feast — that's what they looked like, a pile of rocky shards that inexplicably held together as if by magic.

Maybe that's why everyone always spoke so dismissively of them.

His father had introduced him to the Crumb when Kristoff was five years old — perhaps he’d known it before, but this one time he remembered because it was the last sober day before a long alcoholic binge, and probably his first conscious memory.

“Have you come onto Crumb yet?” Jens had asked when Kristoff was nine. He hadn’t; then it sounded like an invitation.

Shortly after, they started calling Mari Crumb; as a kid, Jens had always been wider than longer, and Kristoff had just been skinny, which made him seem smaller than he really was — and over the course of the summer, she had grown in height and, for a time, towered over both of them. The nickname stuck to her like a second skin.

And because of this, when he was seventeen, Kristoff first punched a boy in the teeth because he’d asked him the same question, because this time it wasn't about mountain climbing.

“The Crumb.” Now the word danced on his lips a moment after it had left them. It hung on an invisible spider's web between them and the mountaintop.

He realized that he had said it for the first time in almost two years.

It was easier to just say ‘Mari’, just as it was easier not to think — in his mind she had forever turned into Merete – Margit, because almost no one called her by her full name, which made it sound more formal, and she seemed almost unreal; it was so much easier to imagine she didn't exist and forget about the pain.

Anna's face visibly fell after his answer. Perhaps it was also a matter of — whatever had happened between her and the Queen after he had left them alone — but, even if unconsciously, she was the one reopening old wounds; Kristoff didn't have the strength to comfort her now.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

She didn't speak to him until they had to say goodbye.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

When the young King Agnarr visited the Ice Fields in 1844, a road was being built there. On the occasion of his visit, someone had placed a plaque next to it with the inscription ‘King Agnarr's Road’, and he was so pleased that he wrote his name on the mountain wall.

“ Pisspreik * ,” Kristoff commented, looking at the shadows cast on the path by the rowan trees.

The Helvegen was at least as old as the lakes it led to, if not older, and no one had ever called it King Agnarr's Road — except perhaps in Peterssen's anecdotes with which he regaled Queen Elsa in a low voice.

Now the Lord looked up at him from his seat, his dark eyes narrowing: “Watch your tongue, boy,” sharp words and a polite smile — before turning back to the Queen.

Kristoff pushed his hair out of his face in frustration. If he didn't want it to come to blows, he had to focus on the road.

The foothills and smaller peaks were still lost in the morning fog, but they were getting closer every moment. He almost felt like he wanted to be there already.

Almost.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

During the next poronkusema full of tension, Kristoff advised them to prepare to say goodbye to autumn.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

They soon left it.

The hard earth under the wheels was hidden by a thin layer of soarrečahci ** . Kristoff pulled back on the reins a little more abruptly than necessary. The wagon jerked and Peterssen made a move as if to grab onto his arm, but halfway through the gesture he came to his senses.

“Is it always like this?” asked the Queen with strange delight.

“What do you mean?”

“As if … you were crossing the boundaries of the seasons.” Kristoff didn't understand her. “As if you had the power to change the weather with your mind.”

Above the Crumb, beyond the border of eternal snow, there was a wind–driven blizzard, resembling smoke in the distance. They stood on spoanas *** , in frozen mud.

“That's, uh … not how your magic works, Your Highness?” he remarked.

The hint of winter below did not compare to the Queen's lace work. It was dirty and dangerous.

“Yes,” she admitted; the excitement suddenly completely evaporated from her voice. “Like my magic.”

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

“And after that visit, Agnarr proposed to Iduna,” Peterssen finished, looking around at the faces in the crowd. If he was looking for people from Vernet, Kristoff could point him to at least three people right away. “If you want to know my opinion …”

The Queen's visit meant that entire families gathered in the Ice Fields. As mister Baird had said — an event of this caliber would be remembered by the people of the North for years to come, after all.

Those from Vernet — with the wings of their hats casting great shadows on their faces — fit in with the rest of the company like an ox in a carriage.

“No one fucking asked you about it,” Kristoff grumbled under his breath, but Peterssen probably didn't hear it because he didn't comment on it in any way. He just gave him a makeshift knowing look, silently scolding him for — lack of respect? lack of enthusiasm? lack of belief in his version of history? possible swear word? — and it was for the best, for Kristoff was literally one ‘young man’ away from punching him in that Roman nose of his.

And he really didn't think Peterssen should have said that, because before he even finished the sentence, there was an uproar among the crowd, as if he had given them some kind of signal.

“Since it's such a tradition, why don't you marry me, Your Highness?”

“I'm single, too!”

“And I‘m not, but I'll be happy to change it for you!”

Kristoff saw the pale, trembling stain of the Queen's hand on the dark wood and missed Anna's chatter. She was much better at all this, at ignoring the tension, talking, smiling, and keeping her sister from accidentally freezing everything she could get her hands on …

The Nordland district was one of those places where nothing happened for months. Christenings, weddings and funerals were the main topic of local news; when Kristoff had failed the pastor's exam in the fall, they were gossiping about it until the following spring.

The Queen obviously didn't like this one bit. Neither did he. He didn't like people that much to begin with, but he liked them even less when they brought kids to work or when they  w e r e  kids.

What if one drowned? Or started playing with an ice saw? Or just got underfoot, interfered with their work and pissed everyone off?

He started visiting the Ice Fields when he was just eight years old, so he was well aware of the dangers involved.

He thought of the trolls, Anna and the barony.

If he hadn't gotten lost then, how much simpler would his life have been?

He thought of his father, Merete – Margit, and Ragna with Ninni.

How much simpler could it actually be?

Fuck.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Two policemen separated the crowd and silence fell upon it. Queen Elsa stood proudly in the wagon and looked down at those gathered one last time before she got out and lost that advantage.

“I've been informed that the ice harvesters are having … some difficulties,” she began, addressing no one in particular. When she found his gaze — because she was obviously looking for him — Kristoff realized that she had no idea who she should talk to.

Perhaps she forgot that she’d made him the Royal Ice Master. Maybe she remembered that he was completely unsuitable for this.

“Will you update the Queen on this situation?” Peterssen asked, as if he were seeing him for the first time in his life.

Kristoff glared at several of the guys who swallowed their snickers and fought the urge to roll his eyes.

“Aye!” a familiar voice chimed in. “Screwed up.”

Tor was only wearing a sweater with the sleeves rolled up; his jacket hung crookedly from Mus’ back, she followed him obediently. The onlookers made room for them.

The sky above them was a bright promise of almost – blue, and he looked as if, despite what he had just said, he expected to exert himself at any moment. Kristoff envied his faith in the queen's abilities.

He saw several kids hold their breath, men take off their hats and bow their heads, and women curtsey to her.

But he’d also seen the Queen gorging herself on cheese, sobbing at the bottom of the Valley of the Living Rock like a baby, and fucking a demonic snowman in a caricature carved into the table.

And most of all, he’d seen the frozen top of the desk in her study and the frosty trail winding under Sven's hooves.

The mysterious aura of haughtiness surrounding her had no effect on him.

“Tor Geirsson Helland, Your Highness.” No title, no function, because he didn’t have one.

The Queen held out her hand as if she was expecting Tor to kiss it, but instead of taking it, he simply knelt in front of her. The bones creaked like unoiled hinges, and Kristoff's first instinct was to stop him and tell him not to be silly, it was just …

Just …

T h e  Q u e e n .

Fy faen.

It suddenly struck him that he’d never introduced himself like that — by his full name — either to the Queen or the Princess. He hadn’t introduced himself to anyone at court at all; Anna had simply asked what she could call him and then introduced him to her sister, most likely in an equally informal way. That was enough for everyone else to start recognizing him.

“So, Mr. Helland …”

“No need to call me ‘Mr.’,”. The old harvester’s face wrinkled into a soft smile. There wasn't a single sharp edge to this man. “I’m not old or rich enough for that.”

Even if the Queen was surprised by his reaction, she didn't show it.

Kristoff put his hands in his pockets; the fingers of the right one closed around the metal. He imagined the silver shining sharply in the pale sunlight. The weight of duty lingered long after he’d let go of the medal.

He looked at the wall of dusky ghosts of men looming behind Tor's back. They stood on the opposite bank and were no different from him.

Then he met his gaze, saw the hesitation and hope flickering there. He immediately regretted not giving him the medal back when he had the chance. He regretted taking it at all. He regretted that …

He swallowed, looked away and noticed Jens' familiar figure. He waved at him from a spot near the main ice house, where the other harvesters were gathered, like a ghost from the past.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

“You look like shit, Mr. Baron,” his friend greeted him, polite as ever.

“Thanks.”

Jens was the only person who had the right to speak to him this way, and he was happy to take advantage of it — but this time, Kristoff didn't have the strength to respond to the taunt with anything other than a tired smile.

“I was talking to Sven, but it's nice to see you, too.”

The reindeer twitched his ears, the traitor.

Kristoff, too tired even to make fun of Jens' new facial hair properly — for some reason the mustache stood out against the beard and made even his black eyebrows pale next to it. He looked as if something had died above his upper lip — he just said, “How's it going?”

“The guys,” Jens jerked his chin at a few rookies Kristoff didn't know, huddled together in a tight group. Normally they would have started work in late December or early January, when they would have been forced to buy all the senior harvesters a round, “were just wondering if you’re fucking the Princess. But I believe in your virtue with all my heart, so I hope you don't care about that.”

“No, why the fuck would I?”

“Come on, they're just jealous.” Jens patted him on the shoulder. “You’ve caught the third best match in Arendelle after all.”

“Oh yeah, right.” He was silent long enough for Kristoff to realize that he would have to ask who was more desirable than the Princess. “Because the Queen comes first, and … ?”

“The Queen is  s e c o n d , ”  Jens interrupted. “The first one is my Tove. Well, nevermind.” He shrugged. “Want to smoke?”

He held out a half – empty cigarette case towards him. The engraved patterns slowly began to wear away, but the letters J. H. were still visible. The fact that he continued to use it was … nice — and at the same time, not at all. Kristoff couldn't quite put his finger on how he felt about all the memories seeing it brought back.

If only every moment could be as simple as this one. When there was no urgent need to run away — because there was nowhere to run to. As he stood in the crowd but was completely invisible to everyone.

He thought that, after all, he was just one of them, another nameless ice harvester. People like them didn't cast shadows.

“Thanks, I've got mine.”

“Fuck yours, mine are from Tor.” The cigarettes bounced as Jens shook them in his face. He waited until Kristoff had chosen one, then pulled out two for himself; he stuck one behind his ear and the other in his mouth. “Do you already have any plans for the summer?” he asked suddenly. The match hissed, the tip of the cigarette glowed between his fingers. “Wouldn't you like to be a godfather?”

“Wait, what?”

Kristoff clenched his teeth too tightly around the cigarette; the tobacco spilled on his tongue and he choked.

Jens politely repeated, handing him a second one, as if he’d expected it.

“Is Tove … ? Oh. But I guess that was before you grew a mustache?” Kristoff leaned forward before his friend's hand collided with the back of his head and muttered awkwardly, “Uh, congratulations?” — because he didn't really know Tove very well. So much so that he’d probably recognize her on the street and would recognize if she was no good for Jens. He hoped. “Well, be sure to, uh, tell her I say hello.”

“You can do it yourself, she came with me. And by the way, you can also support me in the name matter.”

Kristoff exhaled sharply. Everything tasted of tobacco. The Hellands rolled damn strong cigarettes. “You want to name the baby Jens, right?” He spat and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

“Mhm, or Jensinne — because Tove insists it will be a girl — after me, anyway.”

“What did that poor kid do to you?” Kristoff broke the tissue – thin ice on the lake shore with the tip of his boot. He took water in his hands and drank. It was full of bubbles and tasted of death. “Besides, Jens, I wasn't even confirmed, you forgot?”

As he clenched his wet fists, he noticed that his hands were shaking. A chill spread throughout his body and he remembered that he wasn't wearing a jacket.

He got cold. He was just fucking cold.

“What a problem, the boys from Olden are going to be confirmed at the end of October, you’ll be able to join in — unless you prefer to go with the girls in the spring. Either way, you probably shouldn't stand out too much.” Jens laughed and nudged him in the ribs, but then turned serious.

Kristoff wiped his fingers on his pants and finally reached for the cigarette his friend still held out in his hand. The match flame shook under his breath. Only the third one did not go out.

“Liv will be the godmother, if that worries you, I’ve already promised her. I didn't even ask Mari — she couldn't do it anyway, since she's Orthodox, right?”

Jens had the bright, clear and sharp look of a man who spent a lot of time in the mountains. “But … you’ve already gotten over her?”

And even though they didn't talk as much as they used to lately, he still knew way too much about him.

“Sure. Haven't you heard the guys?” The corners of Kristoff's mouth felt like they were cast from lead, a smile too heavy for such a bad joke to carry it. “Now I'm fucking the Princess.”

_______________

* Pisspreik (Norwegian) — bullshit.

** Soarrečahci (Northern Sámi) — water mixed with snow, slush.

*** Spoanas (Northern Sámi) — a place covered with a thin layer of snow.

Chapter Text

Chapter 33

Merete and the merman

“You’d better dress yourself,” Crumb sighed, and Hans instinctively looked down at his bare chest. His mind jumped from one thought to the next so quickly that he felt dizzy. “You puked all over your shirt,” she explained laconically. She didn't have to; he really didn't need another reason to be embarrassed.

She didn't look at him as she placed the cup on the table. “If you also want to throw up the milk, please, at least  t r y  to get to the outhouse this time.”

She didn't speak to him again, and he didn't have time to think about it.

The buzzing in his head hadn't gone away yet; the pain in his arms was exactly the same as the day before, if not worse, but this world didn't stop because of the pain. It never slowed down from its brutal pace, and the water in the pot on the stove almost completely evaporated; he had another seven buckets to fetch and a quarter of a mile to walk in each direction.

The buckets were already waiting for him at the door.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

He might not have noticed the twilight, but he came to his senses immediately when Crumb’s silhouette appeared against the background of the curtain in the upstairs window. She looked like she was wiping her eyes. And then the light went out.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

“She's painfully haughty,” Hans blurted out at the sight of Queen Elsa's face, tense and serious even on the crumpled page of the diary that Tor had left on the table. He put down the last buckets and noticed a carrying pole leaning against the wall. (It couldn't have been there all the time … could it? Not for the first time, his pride would have prevented him from seeing something.) “She looks like it,” he corrected himself.

“Haughty,” Crumb repeated. He didn't expect that she would treat his comment as an offer of reconciliation. She looked like she was considering it, her head slightly tilted as she looked at something on the other side of the room. “Well, I don't know, I guess I like her. She’d always seemed a little … sad to me.”

Hans thought about the Arendellian throne, felt a sudden urge to tear the newspaper into shreds, and suddenly clenched his too empty hands into fists.

He thought that Queen Elsa did not know what sadness was, just as she did not know what greater necessity meant. In the end, she got the open gates and he got an empty island.

Before he could answer, the cat jumped up and ran to the door.

“All good, pappa ?” Crumb asked, letting her father inside and taking his jacket.

“With me? Yeah. But young Groven broke his arm,” Tor said, closing the door behind him. He let the cat climb up his pants leg and onto his shoulder. “Poor thing.”

He didn't say a word about the Queen.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

“Would you like some tea? It’s true Ceylonese.”

Hans had no idea where people like them could get Ceylon tea, when people like  h i m  on Nasturia were only treated to the washings.

He was about to refuse when Tor said hurriedly: “Don't make it for me.”

“Would you leave home on Sunday, pappa ?” Crumb asked. “So dressed up! This isn't for the church, is it?” From where he sat, Hans couldn't tell whether the flat, dark circle under Tor's arm was a chapeau claque or just a play of shadows. “I'd say there's a … I don't know … Astrid's lemon cake waiting for you? Like, with ten yolks?”

“How do I know how many,” Tor grumbled. “You're the one baking here.”

As he tried to escape, Hans looked at the girl questioningly.

“Oh yeah, you don't understand. You probably ate this every day at home, right?”

“Cookies, cream and bacon,” Hans laughed and shook his head. “I'm not a prince.”

If he had said it three months earlier, it would have been too obvious a lie.

“You don't normally use that many eggs; in general, sponge cakes are rare here,” she explained. “And lemons are bloody expensive.”

That's what he knew; finally, after Marengo had broken his leg — fortunately, according to Flynn Rider, who’d significantly thinned the British stud farms — he bought Sitron from a man who apparently valued these fruits so much that he thought that naming a mare after them was a great idea .

Crumb lit a few pieces of wood and put them into the samovar * . The flames flickered, gilding her hands and neck.

“Uncle Steinar brought it to us recently,” she explained, reaching for the box of tea. “He's … a sailor. You could say so.”

“Not an ice harvester?”

“Why the hell would he be an ice harvester?”

"I thought it was … a tradition around here.” Hans thought of all the Perssons and Pålssons who had accompanied him on his expedition to the North Mountain; how, when he’d asked them their names, they’d also told him the name of each of their great – grandparents.

“And when there’s a, let's say, a king — do you think each of his sons becomes the heir to the throne, or only the first one, and the rest have to look for other jobs?”

“ Touché .” He raised his empty cup to her. She smiled; his lips were a mirror image of her own.

“Grandpa was a marine pilot. My father also spent his youth on ships, but it was only after he’d come ashore that he ‘anchored’ himself — that's what they say, it's their favorite pun. Ugh, awful, huh? Anyway, my uncle is still sailing.”

“He's just like one of my brothers.”

“Brothers! So how many of them do you actually have?”

“Seven,” Hans replied. How flexible his family tree was; it was so easy to adjust its size to the situation. There were as many as twelve of them for Princess Anna.

“Wait, what? I'm just a simple girl, I can't count in Danish and I think I misunderstood something.” Crumb leaned towards him and put her hand to her ear.  “ H o w  m a n y  brothers do you have?”

“Seven.” He laughed, amused by the irony. “But my father … is not known for his faithfulness.” He'd never put it so simply before. “So there's also Axel. He is the sailor.”

It would be easy to ignore him, like all the Westensees, to replace him with Søren, whose merits he could diminish, as he’d always dreamed about during his childhood games of If I Were the Only Son and If I Were Only Born First — but it was Axel he’d thought of first.

That strange laugh died in his throat almost as quickly as it was born. Like Daisy — so thin and sickly during these few years of her life, as if she’d never come to earth for good.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

The girl hummed to the rhythm of the sound of the water.

He knew this one. The melody of the waves.

“Aye,” she smiled. “I thought you might recognize it, after all, it’s from the Isles. Uncle Steinar sang it to me when I was little. Merete and the merman .”

“Agnete,” Hans corrected her reflexively.

“But it was a song for  m e ,  and I'm Merete. Well, almost, but otherwise it wouldn't rhyme and he wouldn't be able to tease me.” Hans noticed that when she laughed, her nose wrinkled. That was suspiciously, dangerously sweet of her. “And you? If you're from the Isles, it's almost like you're from the sea, right? Maybe I should have named you Njord instead of Loki.”

The sea, he thought. Sand, sky melting with water — a landscape of misty pastels that looked as if it was about to dissolve.

And its opposite: the open sea. That's where he should have been now.

“Maybe I still remember a little,” said Crumb, without waiting for answer, which she most likely stopped counting on anyway, and began to sing quietly:

Merete stands on Highland Bridge

And up from the blue waves came the merman

“And … nope, I still don't remember.”

“And hear me, Merete, so fair and noble!

And will you be my dearest one?”

Hans never expected that anyone other than his music teacher would force him to sing, but the words came by themselves, obvious and unforced, because Crumb, unlike Princess Anna, did not expect anything from him.

The words of the song were still just words.

‘Words, words, words’ … *

His hair was like the purest gold

His eyes were so delightful

Watching her reaction, he noted further details in his mind. A fair – haired Kristoffer who had close ties to the Queen. He didn't remember anyone like that, but it didn't matter because he shouldn't care.

“Oh yes, truthfully, I will be so,

If you take me with you beneath the blue waves.”

He listened to his own voice, strange and deep, which didn’t fit this small cabin at all; it filled it, expanded it — there was no room for it there.

Crumb sang cleanly and clearly, also in Norwegian. The words rose with each syllable, as if they wanted to fly away. Hans’ Danish sounded gibberish and clunky in comparison. Did she hear him as he heard the villagers in Nasturia?

“And what happened next?” she asked. “I remember something about kissing. Drinking, kissing and swearing — these are the parts my uncle likes best.”

Hans shook his head. “The merman is a water spirit.”

They weren't kisses, and if they were, that was the way he knew how to kiss.

He stopped her ears, he closed her mouth

Then he led her to the bottom of the sea.

He had a strange feeling that the old folk song was touching on something important in his life.

But that was impossible.

He looked around anxiously; Tor had not returned yet, the brown cat was basking in the sun on the windowsill, and only Crumb was staring at him, but her gaze weighed more than the mountains visible outside the window.

“I didn't know this version,” she choked out.

Hans smiled at her with one of his best smiles.

“The song's from the Southern Isles, after all,” he pointed out. It couldn't have ended any other way.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

When he heard a knock on the door, his heart jumped into his throat like a fist. He thought of Malik, chère maman , to whose desperate letter with great satisfaction he hadn’t answered, the castle guards (“You are the only hope of Arendelle,” Captain Enger had repeated after Bellerose, too dramatically even for Hans' taste) and the faceless inhabitant of the house in which the light had been put on, while he wallowed in what was left of Paaluk's face.

Neither of these options was good, but Crumb took the cat in her arms and walked to the door as if nothing dangerous could be lurking behind the threshold.

Hans thought he could stop her. Warn her. Hide.

But again he thought too long; there was nothing that could be done when the girl opened the door and the large tomcat fled into the crisp mountain air.

The man standing in the doorway was not wearing any uniform, which was enough to make Hans relax. Well, at least it was true until Crumb turned and gave him a look that said he'd best be careful.

Hans didn't trust her.

He was careful.

“Good morning, Mr. L e n s m a n n * * ,” she said, opening the door wider. The word made him feel hot from head to toe. She was right about the nickname she gave him: it fit perfectly now.

“I'm sorry to bother you so much on Sunday, but I was just nearby …”

Hans moved Crumb’s mug to the portrait face of Queen Elsa, because he felt as if he could feel her painted eyes looking at him.

“Unfortunately, I don't have any cake, but maybe I can at least offer you some coffee?”

“It's okay, I won't stay long,” the Lensmann assured, walking inside and taking the place at the table where Tor usually sat. He was disproportionately tall and stocky, with a huge belly clearly visible under the fabric of his shirt. Hans' legs were so stiff under the table that he could barely bend them to move. “And who is that?”

The mouth suddenly forgot what languages ​​it knew. The muscles in Crumb’s face twitched a little, and Hans felt as if she had pulled the curtain aside for a moment and, just this once, he was able to hear her thoughts.

She thought: I'd like to know that myself .

Not letting go of the cup and not running until his legs gave out and his lungs screamed for air cost him everything.

He shouldn't still be here.

But the Lensmann didn't know him, he had no reason to know him — but if he did …

“Oh, Mr. Lensmann knows how it is with me,” Crumb said lightly. “Everyone's talking about it.”

“I don't listen to gossip,” the man muttered, wiping sweat from his forehead with a lace handkerchief.

He didn't ask many questions after that, leaving Hans to sit on his hands, relegated to the sidelines of their conversation with Queen Elsa's thinly pressed lips as his only companion — waiting for him to leave — because all he had were answers.

They crowded one another on his tongue, but he couldn't share any of them with him, although in this wooden, too cramped kitchen filled with the noise of the samovar , he wanted to tell him everything.

He wanted to tell him who he really was, what he had done — what human guts and one’s own fall taste like — tell him all the things he would never dare reveal to the Hellands, but he didn't. He just watched his cup empty and thought about the nickname he couldn't introduce himself with (or could he?) and the new names he didn't have to come up with because of it.

The Lensmann cleared his throat. He seemed pleasant enough, although he was a poor conversationalist at best.

“And where's Tor? I wanted to talk to him.”

“He was supposed to come down to Granly, and to be honest, I don't really know when we can expect him.” Crumb winked at Hans, but her look under heavy eyelashes was not at all mischievous. “Maybe a refill?”

“Don't bother, dear Merete-Margit, really.” The man shook his head. “Then tell him … just that old Hjørdis Mathisen complained his horse was in front of her house again. Maybe you could take care of that? I'll talk to him about the rest myself. Speaking of which, Jorunn asked me to invite you two to dinner next Sunday.”

In a week.

Hans decided that he would have disappeared by then.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

When the door closed behind the Lensmann, Hans breathed a sigh of relief.

He looked at Crumb for an answer. Her mouth was still open, she looked shocked, and he didn't understand. Why was she looking at him like that?

“Will you go to the barn with me?” she asked pointedly. Then he understood. He was supposed to go outside with her, because no one should accidentally hear what she wanted to tell him. “We'll check on Mus. If what the Lensmann said was true, I guess you're going to have to help me.”

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

By the time they reached the barn, Crumb was shaking more than he was.

“I'll only say it once and I won't say it again.”

She grabbed his hands and pulled him into the familiar warmth of the hay and the smell of horse. The speed she did it with was terrifying; Hans hit his head against the door, which closed under the weight of his body.

Shadows began to creep up the edge of his consciousness. He blinked hard to keep them away until they turned into shadows of his eyelashes.

“Anders Groven is the Lensmann’s son – in – law.” This time she spat out his name. “He generously married his daughter after she’d become pregnant — no one knows with whom, although Anders likes to pretend that he is the father of her children. Another thing is that if no one wanted a girl with a bun in the oven, Dineke wouldn't even look at this svoloch **** .”

Hans immediately stopped remembering Niels, who, ever since the Prussian heir to the throne had preceded him in his bid for Queen Victoria's eldest daughter’s hand, had been wavering between Princess Alice and Tsarevna Maria, as if neither was good enough. He was more like that whoremonger Felix.

Crumb found his gaze in the twilight.

“I didn't accept him a few times either. He apparently preferred to spread the word that I was fucking with everyone around me rather than admit that I didn't want to do this with him, and word spreads quickly around here.”

The only light came from where the sun shone through the cracks in the boards, but Hans couldn't mistake the urgency he saw in her eyes for anything else.

He was to accept the explanation she offered and not ask for more.

“But pappa doesn't know.”

In the tight space between the door and Crumb’s chest, his thoughts flashed back to the last time he’d been this close to another body. He wrapped his arms around himself to create some distance and fight the cold that was gathering at the base of his spine and thought about leaving.

Wives and whores — he reminded himself, pitifullydesperatelyimploringly.

Because he looked at Crumb and didn't see her as wife material. But what was worse, he saw no trace of a whore in her.

_______________

* Samovar — a metal container of Russian origin, traditionally used to heat and boil water.

** William Shakespeare — Hamlet.

*** Lensmann — sheriff, the leader of a rural police district in Norway.

**** Svoloch (Russian) — asshole.

Chapter Text

Chapter 34

Songs of ice and snow

“Tobias! Crampons!”

The fair – haired, freckled boy, maybe ten or twelve, who had been standing a few feet away, ran up to her, accompanied by Bjorgman, two other men — an ice harvester and someone else — and a girl of similar age.

Elsa tried to remember if Anna had ever mentioned anything about Bjorgman's family.

He could have … brothers? A sister? Maybe some cousins? He had no children; always well – informed, Peterssen would have made sure she knew about it if that was the case.

“What's your name?” she asked gently — because she wasn't sure if she heard correctly and what else she could say. The boy watching her turned almost purple from holding his breath, and Elsa wondered if it was possible that he was bluer than her right now, and who was more impressed with whom. After all, she thought, the Northerners were to them, the people of the court, like strange mythical creatures: quiet, tough, interesting.

“ T o b i a s . ”

As he crouched down to help her attach a pair of crampons to her shoes, he narrowed his eyes and said reprimandingly, no longer showing any trace of his earlier shyness: “ Y o u  h a v e  w r o n g  s h o e s  t h e y ‘ l l  g e t  s o a k e d  m a ‘ a m . ”

Although he spoke Norwegian, the way he pronounced the words was completely devoid of melody, and the pauses between each word were the length of the pauses between syllables.

“ T h e  g e n t l e m a n  w h o  c a m e  w i t h  y o u  i s  n o  b e t t e r .  I  m e a n  n o t  K r i s t o f f e r  t h e  o t h e r  o n e .  K r i s t o f f e r  k n o w s  w h a t  h e ’ s  d o i n g .  Y o u  n e e d  t o  u s e  t a r  o n  y o u r  s h o e s  b u t  i t ’ s  b e t t e r  t o  w e a r  k o m m a g a r *   r i g h t   a w a y .  D a n g  h a v e n ’ t  y o u’ve  g o t  a  p a i r  o r  w h a t . ”

There was definitely something Bjorgman about him.

She looked up at the old Lord just as Tobias crouched down in front of him, reaching for the second pair of crampons.

“Wait a minute, ah,” Peterssen began, stretching out his hands as if to stop him. “How many tommer did you say we had there?” he called to Bjorgman.

The ice harvesters standing closest burst into laughter.

Bjorgman shouted back something Elsa couldn't hear, raising his hand with his thumb bent; Peterssen muttered something about a ‘danger zone’.

“It's not that bad, you know. You can still stand on four. You could even catch fish,” a man said, his accent almost as heavy as the beard that pulled his chin toward his chest and hid the mocking smile that whispered in his words. “But one person is lighter than two, right? So maybe you'll let the Queen go alone? She's big enough now, isn't she?”

“Well, yes, but,” Peterssen stammered, “it would be imprudent to leave Her Majesty alone in such a dangerous environment, wouldn't it?”

Elsa understood perfectly well what he was doing. He was much more comfortable than cowardly.

“Let me be frank, Your Majesty,” he had told her when she dared to open the door after having slammed it shut again. “People tend to think that someone who is hiding has something to hide as well. You've been hiding your whole life, hiding your powers — which almost ruined the country when they finally came to light.”

Elsa could only grimace at this. She knew he was right. If she went into hiding again, she would feed the rumors — stories about the witch Queen who lurks in her castle, doing God – knows – how – unholy things with her magic — and those who spread them and those who believed in them would turn against her.

“We cannot allow this to happen, Your Majesty,” Peterssen whispered now. They couldn't, she knew. The gates were opened, her power laid bare, and gloves handed out. She’d lectured Anna about it herself. Words should be kept. Peterssen stared at her until she stopped fidgeting and looked into his eyes. Then he added louder, “Shouldn't one of your men accompany the Queen?”

Bjorgman looked at Elsa with an ‘Oh, so that's  m y  people now,' as if he was hoping she would say she could freeze the lake without a man's help, but that wouldn't be true. There were always men in her life who knew better than her how she should deal with it.

She remained silent, raising her eyebrows until he moved his gaze to the others.

“Have you had a bath this week, Jens?”

“Don't even look at me, I'm too fat for that,” laughed the ice harvester standing next to him, whose size definitely couldn't pose a problem in the industry.

She remembered the stories her ladies – in – waiting told about ice harvesters. These men were big and strong, full of ‘vigor’ as they called it, dressed only in furs and leather, and had hundreds of children. “True Jötuns,” Elsa commented wryly. Then she was just being ironic. Now she thought that there really was something to it, that every one seemed to be made of rock and ice.

And her? She was just ice and glass. What could she offer them? A magic trick show?

She shook her head.

She could ask Tobias to accompany her. She had an impression that he alone would follow her with a smile on his face, even into the depths of hell, if she expressed such a wish. Plus, he was bony just like herself, which was the perfect combination with thin ice. But Tobias was just a boy.

With a sigh, Tor Geirsson bent down to reach for the second pair of crampons. “Well, unlike you boys, I trust the Queen to keep my ass dry.”

It wasn't fair .

Elsa couldn't guarantee anything to anyone.

She slowly followed Tor Geirsson, his weather – beaten forearms swinging rhythmically at his sides, the dark ribbon of a tattoo on his left one blurring in front of her eyes. Intricate Russian letters — the ones she always wanted to write — reflected in the fading ink, color blending with veins.

She had to focus on something else.

Foot by foot, she mentally counted down all the pairs of shoes they passed along the way — one hundred and sixty kommagar of eighty ice harvesters; a dozen or so of them had taken part in Prince Hans’ expedition — no names, no faces — that was almost 20% — and …

No, she didn't need to know that.

Seventy – nine pairs of shoes in uneven rows on either side of the lake — and an eighty – eighth right next to it. Her high – top shoes with rows of buttons and blue flowers blooming under them.

Conceal, don't feel, put on a show.

Elsa was forming an imaginary ball in her hands. She could taste blood in her mouth.

The wind was like a melody, like singing voices. It covered shoulders and heads of the people gathered in the Ice Fields with handfuls of firn, as if to protect them from whatever was lurking inside of her.

Ah — ah — ah …

“I didn't know you had to be  o n  the lake to do your magic,” said Tor Geirsson.

“Actually, I don't have to.” She actually had no idea what she was doing.

She experimented with her curse the whole way, imagining summoning it and stopping alternately.

Nothing happened, and she realized that something had changed. She had always (or at least for as long as she could remember) been unable to control it when she got angry. But she was able to conjure frost and make it disappear, choose between snow and ice when she played with Anna.

Now — heart pounding, breathing shallow —   n o t h i n g  h a p p e n e d .

She thought of Olaf — pure, wonderful, in whom there was no trace of the fear that her other creations evoked — of the smiling face of her sister, for whom the sky was waking up.

Even snowflakes.

Ah — ah — ah — ah …

“You're not my pappa !” a girl screamed.

Elsa turned her head in the direction the voice came from. It was the one Bjorgman was talking to earlier.

The girl kicked, he released her and staggered back as if she had hit him, and bluish – white vines of light and frost grew between Elsa's fingers. They were as thin as gossamer, like intricate knitting, but she had never had the patience for this type of activity; she pulled too hard and the thin and unstable shell cracked.

She had already started screaming in her head.

Ah — ah — ah — ah!

The melody of the song was getting louder and stronger — as if it contained all the wildness of the mountains, forests and glaciers covering the kingdom.

No, no, Elsa had to turn her back to where they had come from, the crowd gathered behind Peterssen and the ice harvesting crew on the shore — but even when she did, she could still feel their expectant stares; she could imagine parents struggling to keep their excited children from running onto the translucent surface of ice crackling ominously beneath their feet.

She had to  f o c u s ,  get it together, tame it, don't – feel – anything, don'tfeelanything, don'tfeel …

Then she slipped.

She never slipped.  N e v e r ,  except …

Never — but she did it again.

AH — AH — AH!

And then everything happened too fast again. The ice exploded, the lake burst into blue flames, a sudden flow of energy climbed up her shoes — and even Tor Geirsson, standing next to her, shuddered.

She felt as if all the veins and tendons were being ripped out of her hand along with the curse. The last blast hit her chest so hard it took her breath away; she couldn't even scream. But something screamed for her.

AH!

AH!

AH!

AH!

AH!

It all took just a second.

It seemed like an eternity.

Tor Geirsson grabbed her elbow — the unbearable warmth of his hand seeped through the fabric of her dress — but Elsa still felt like she was sinking deeper into his grip.

She couldn't bring herself to look at the other harvesters.

There was only frost, ice and snow everywhere, for which she could not find the right names, and which each of them would name with the same ease they breathed with. Her eyelashes stuck together and her vision was covered with frost.

Even the sleeves of her dress were no longer purple, but cyan.

“I straightened up … too quickly,” she muttered. “I – I got dizzy, that's … that's all.”

There was thunderous applause, and ice harvesters rushed towards her with drills and measure sticks. But Elsa didn't join them. For a moment she just looked at everything from her place in the middle of the thick surface.

Was it Lake Mjøsa? She didn't know. In her head she could recite the names of all the major bodies of water in Arendelle in alphabetical order — until recently she even knew the surface and depth of each of them — but she wouldn't recognize any of them beyond the pages of a textbook.

Because this was the real life and she wasn't ready for it and she didn't even know who was actually to blame for that.

She felt a sudden, uncontrollable surge of panic. She crossed her arms over her chest, hiding her hands, and looked at what they had done. The faces around her were flushed and smiling; several still – no – more – than – boys were laughing so hard that she wondered how they could breathe.

Fear rose as the excited voices rose; the ice was spreading beneath her again, rushing across the surface of the lake, grinding beneath her, climbing up the banks. It started snowing.

A pale snake slithered along the end of her braid, and she saw a mirror image of the blood that flowed down her face in it — white on red, red on white.

She put her fingers to her ear and felt moist warmth. At least her blood wasn't frozen, unlike the heart pumping it. Plus, she had to fix her hair. Yes — she was fixing her hair. That's what she did, even as she wiped the back of her hand on her jacket.

Tor Geirsson was saying something to her with his highlander lilt, emphasizing the first syllable of each word. At the same time, the tone of voice was rough and warm, calm and focused on the topic. This man evoked her trust — and something else, but that was another thing she couldn't name.

“You heard it, too, sir.” This time it wasn't a question; it wasn't supposed to be.

He didn't seem the least bit surprised — maybe only that she had addressed him as ‘sir’ again.

“Aye, of course,” he nodded, trying to look into her face, but Elsa waved his concern away with a wave of her free hand. The other one was still resting on his bicep. “It's the ice singing.”

_______________

* Kommagar — Sámi boots made of tanned leather, used mainly in summer.

Chapter Text

Chapter 35

Diamond Devourers

Mrs. Madsen. Anna tested the words on her tongue. Mrs. Captain Madsen. Gro Anita Amundsdatter Hillestad–Lehn — because for some reason she introduced herself with her maiden name. Full one.

But none fit as well as Madame Globus — mainly because the first words she said were: “Viljar, water.”

And she only introduced herself after that, mixing a cloudy powder in a chipped glass. She didn't even go inside (just asked for the glass), which made Anna wonder if she would even fit through the doorway given the diameter of her skirt.

The French newspapers Elsa subscribed to predicted the decline of the crinoline as well as of the Second Empire, but in Arendelle — not for the first time, as if frozen in time — it was still an extravagant novelty (Anna herself had only worn it once so far).

Captain Madsen's mouth twitched.

“It's almost like a second honeymoon,” he said dryly, to no one in particular.

The carriage — was it a cab? Elsa would have known, because for some reason she knew such things — but Anna was offended at her, just as Kristoff was obviously offended at  A n n a  (and likewise!) — because even though they insisted that they had already told her about it, Anna was sure that no one had bothered to inform her before that he was going home instead of visiting the Ice Fields, and only Lord Peterssen was charming as usual — at least the carriage was waiting.

Inside, Anna had to sit next to Captain Madsen, facing backwards, because there wasn't much room left on the couch next to his wife, her skirt, her nausea and her migraine.

She wondered if it wasn't appropriate. After all, his wife had come with him just to serve as a chaperone, although no one said it out loud, of course. And Captain Madsen was handsome in his dry, stiff way — just a little old.

She glanced at the woman across from her and instinctively tucked her legs in, as if the swarm of lace at the hem of her skirt were about to bite her ankles. She seemed older than her husband, with a pale, angular face on a long, wiry neck, and a few gray streaks in her smoothly combed hair.

“Do you think they'll stop at Kristoff's barony on the way back?” Anna asked in a low voice. “Because I doubt they'll come back to this inn again — and if so, it's probably unlikely fair that I will miss it. The visit to Grimstad, I mean. Not that Kristoff would mind, of course. I'm starting to suspect he doesn't want to invite me there because he has a mad wife in the attic, like Mr. Rochester.”

“Well,” Captain Madsen sighed loudly, glancing at him Madame Globus hidden behind a bottle of smelling salts and suggested, “or several murdered ones in the basement.”

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

“Your Royal Highness?”

Anna closed the book.

A moment later, cursing under her breath, she opened it again, trying to find the page she was reading before she was rudely interrupted.

“Yes, yes, come in!” she called towards the door, randomly sticking the bookmark between the pages.

Gerda entered the room. She brought a tray with tea and toasted bread, so Anna immediately forgave her for any wrongdoing. For example, that strange look of relief that came over her face when she asked her for some tea for les règles .

“Thank God, you look healthier than this morning when you came back, Princess,” the maid said. “You’ve even regained the color on your face!”

“Well, you can work miracles,” Anna muttered, fully aware that herbs and opium were nothing compared to her literary choices when it came to making people blush.

She reached for the cup, enjoying the warmth of porcelain in her hands and on her stomach. She waited to take the first sip because, even though she’d asked Gerda to add more honey this time, she suspected it would still be terribly bitter.

“ Madame Glo… I mean Gro — I mean Mrs. Madsen — gave me some bromine powder on the trip, but it didn't help. In fact, I have an impression that she carries an entire pharmacy with her.”

Gerda made a gesture as if she wanted to cross herself.

“Poor woman,” she sighed.

“Why?” Mamma warned that one shouldn't gossip with the servants because it would make one feel impertinent and lose respect. Anna knew full well that she wouldn't be happy with her now. “Is she that much sick?”

Gerda's face darkened.

“With a husband like hers, I'd be surprised if she wasn't,” she said, this time so quietly that Anna had to put the cup on the bedside table and move closer to her on the bed.

She was supposed to ask no more questions, but she didn't stick to this decision for long. After all, her life wasn't full of fun. Usually, when she was no longer studying and had just finished writing a letter to Rapunzel or riding Kjekk, she was left with books and gossip with the servants.

“She was the sole heiress of quite a fortune, shares in ships, land, a house, and God knows what else,” Gerda explained succinctly. “And he, the son of a bankrupt, was obviously able to turn her head and take advantage of it.”

Anna, who had just taken her first test sip of tea, choked. The hot drink spilled down her chin and neck and she shivered.

“Are you saying that… Captain Madsen married for money?”

It seemed… calculated. But then again, what did Anna know about love? She was beginning to suspect it was nothing at all. Perhaps that was the case. Nothing at all.

The only example of love she’d ever seen was her parents, but they…

She had never wondered if they were in love, and had never thought to ask. Now she had so many questions that would forever remain unanswered.

Was it love at first sight? Was pappa’s position important for mamma ? Did pappa know the names of her best friends? How often did they actually sit at the table together — because they wanted to, not because it was appropriate? Did they even know their favorite dishes?

She felt as if a troll was perched on her chest.

“Yes, yes, princess. In all times, both men and women have married for money. Besides, it's not always about large sums, sometimes about a sense of security. Few choose poverty willingly.”

Anna thought about Kristoff.

She certainly hadn’t noticed her parents acting on each other the way he did on her. That she felt dizzy. Frustration. Warmth. Disorientation. In fact, she hadn't even seen them touch each other — except in that portrait where mamma was standing in arm with pappa .

“But love can be so great that everything else loses importance?” she asked.

Gerda smiled gently. “I know that for someone who is young and in love, such words may seem too sober, but…” She fell silent and just looked at her for a moment. She shook her head eventually. “The ladies are playing cards in the gazebo. Maybe you will join them? The company will be good for you.”

She could drink some tea, wait for the contractions to pass, and do something productive. But cards?

“I… no, you know. That's enough excitement for today.”

The sun, still bright, was just setting, lazily and unhurriedly, as if it had no desire to leave the world. In its rays the mountain peaks must have looked coppery.

“I think I'll go to sleep now.”

She pretended to yawn and stretched, knocking her cup onto the floor in the process.

What was wrong with her?

She spent the rest of the evening trying to figure it out.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

The next afternoon, like every Monday, she had a lot of lessons to finish, but for some reason Olaf chasing fireflies in the forgotten end of the garden seemed more important to her. She noticed him through the window, in a place from which everyone in the castle silently stayed away.

Grandmother Rita's rosarium.

“Would you like another lesson?” she asked Olaf. Reading or philosophy; she wasn't sure anymore, so she decided it was better not to go into details. “I think we stopped at ‘H’ somewhere.”

The roses surrounding them belonged only to her, to the dead Queen. They still seemed to be whispering about death.

“Eh,” the snowman corrected her, slipping his stick fingers into her own. “You’re seriously asking?”

The old gate creaked. After all, no one used it anymore.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

In the library, at the foot of the table they had recently occupied, she found a crumpled piece of paper that she’d written herself. She picked it up and threw it into the fireplace without even looking at it.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Later, Elsa's Diamond Devourers came along — that is, the  l a d i e s – i n – w a i t i n g ,  Elsa didn't allow them to be called that — but Elsa, unlike Anna, didn't even know their names.

Anna simply couldn't not confuse them, because all three of them looked practically identical: Miss Giggle, Miss Twinkle and Miss Idiot.

“Your Royal Highness!” they chirped in unison, curtsying at the same time. “Olaf!”

They exchanged glances and burst into laughter.

Anna quickly pushed A Tale of Love and Lust , which — fortunately — ended at a rather boring moment, away, and reached for the first notebook with the assignment for the next day’s lessons.

Geometry. Wonderful.

It could only be worse if the Diamond Devourers started knitting.

Please, don't knit — she prayed hastily in her mind.

“Cecilie got a poetry album,” Miss Twinkle allayed her fears, drumming her ringed fingers on the red velvet cover of the book they had brought with them. Her rings clicked against her teeth as she not–so–discreetly stifled a yawn that made it clear how she felt about it. “Maybe we'll find another one here from which we could take some poems.”

“A book in the library? It's very possible,” Olaf said, not taking his eyes off the letters Anna had written for him and had him copy. She tried not to laugh so hard that her stomach hurt again.

“Yes, I thought I could collect entries from my friends,” added Miss… — which one could it be? — pushing the book to her. “You should write down your wishes and psalms there, but I guess you can also collect your friends’ entries?”

Anna felt very good.

“You could even collect photos of suitors!” interjected with a coquettish laugh the last of the ladies–in–waiting, whose identity Anna had not yet figured out. “I do.”

Giggle. It must have been Miss Giggle.

“The first page is reserved for the Queen!” said Miss Idiot. “And Briette and Dorete haven't written anything in yet.”

Anna immediately stopped feeling so good. She accepted the pen book with a wry smile.

Dear … — she began, before it dawned on her that she had already forgotten which of them owned the album — … Friend!

She looked through the books and notebooks on the table. She could have written anything, after all, the Diamond Devourers had plenty of friends, her entry would get lost somewhere along the way, maybe one of them would flip through the pages too quickly and the ink would get blurry…

A prayer would have been a safe option, but before she could find or remember one, Miss Idiot bent down to pick up a book of poetry that must have fallen to the floor.

“I can recite something!” she cheered up.

Olaf stopped writing and clapped.

“A ballad!” he asked. “I love ballads!”

Miss Idiot flipped through a few pages. She cleared her throat and blurted out:

Silent and pensive, idle, restless, slow,

His home deserted for the lonely wood,

Tormented with a wound he could not know,

His, like all deep grief, punched in solitude * .

“ P l u n g e d ! ”  Anna corrected irritably. “Gee.”

Miss Giggle poked Miss Twinkle, it jingled.

“Sounds like someone we know,” said the latter.

“But we don't know any Lord Byron,” said Miss Idiot. (Olaf nodded thoughtfully.)

“But we know Lord  B j o r g m a n ! ”

Anna was silent. She decided to follow Olaf's example and take up the geometry assignment. At that moment, mathematics seemed to her as the lesser evil. Maybe only drinking cod liver oil could beat the not–taking taking part in the Diamond Devourer’s conversation.

“He hasn't visited us for a long time.”

Well, of course he hasn’t visited  y o u .

Stupid geese. She could tell them how she’d almost let get herself undressed on a deserted forest path at the end of summer, when winter was just a distant memory. She wondered what they would say then.

Her cheeks were sizzling. Mamma was probably right about the rumors.

“Shame!” Miss Giggle said dreamily. “He's so sweet!”

Even though Anna had felt excluded from their conversation for quite a long time, she had to look up from the triangle she was probably supposed to calculate something for, but instead she drew a few tufts of grass and a cap of snow on the top, making it look like a mountain. But not some stupid Crumb. Kilimanjaro.”

Kristoff was as sweet as dark chocolate. Even Elsa's ‘nice’ would suit him better.

“And as strong as an oxe!”

“Very strong?”

The voices, like their owners, slowly faded away; the Diamond Devourers apparently found what they were looking for — or, on the contrary, they got tired of searching and decided to go back to their business.

“Yes, I heard that an ice harvester can lift a thousand pounds of ice** — as average, of course. But that's the data.”

“Oh, I forgot!” groaned one of them and went back to the table to take the album she’d left next to it, not caring that Anna hadn’t finished the entry. “Is this all true?” she asked Anna in a confidential whisper, as if she didn’t want to share this knowledge with the other two.

Miss Idiot.

“Of course,” Anna assured. “Kristoff can also ride bears, walk through rocks, and hold his breath for ten hours.”

The girl's eyes widened and she ran back to the others.

Poor Elsa.

“If Kristoff can walk through rocks,” Olaf asked, “why didn't he do it in Elsa's palace? It would be easier.”

“‘Coz back then he couldn’t,” Anna blurted out, trying to draw a chamois on the top of the mountain, but it was too big — or her Kilimanjaro was too small. She hoped that the topic would die after this.

“Oh! Do you think he could teach me?”

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

“I'm tired of all these letters,” Olaf said suddenly. He jumped off the chair and slid it across the floor with a squeak. Anna felt this grinding noise throughout her body.

At the stage when Olaf began filling the fifth page with a small ‘e’, she moved herself to the floor. With her arms and legs spread, she lay in front of the fireplace. There was a clock on the cornice, strikingly similar to the one in the Great Hall. She watched the hands move unbearably slowly, not even trying to guess the time, and she felt like she was nine years old again. All she could do was wait. And wait, wait, waitwaitwait.

“You're so smart that you know them all so well,” the snowman sighed. Anna tried to remember the last time someone complimented her on something. This proved depressingly difficult — but maybe that was because she had so much trouble remembering anything. “Aren't you tired?”

“Yes. No. You know, I… I'll stay here for a while.”

“Are you going to do any forbidden things?”

“No,” yes , “I'll just… help Elsa a little. I know she's the Queen, but that doesn't mean I can't help her, right? I can do lots of things! I can… well, I can, for example…”

“For example, slide down a mountain!” Olaf suggested helpfully. “Or rather, tumble. You can also read.”

“Well… yes.”

“And thaw the ice!”

She smiled at him.

“Or, you know. Find the pungent reindeer kings.”

“Exactly,” she sighed, so heavily that her bangs flapped like a sail in the wind and flew out of sight. “You understand me, don’t you?” she moaned, dramatically covering her eyes with her hand. “I just want to help!”

It sounded like an excuse, but forbidden things weren't all  b a d  things. Locked in the castle, she’d dreamed of a world full of friends and clear answers. Meanwhile, even in Now she was surrounded by dissonances and secrets.

And the easiest way to get rid of secrets was to discover them.

Olaf stopped in the doorway as if he remembered something. “So you won't do any forbidden things?” he made sure. “Too bad.”

“Olaf?”

For a moment, Anna wanted to run after him and tell him not to mention anything to Elsa, but she changed her mind. Telling Olaf to keep quiet would be tantamount to begging him to reveal everything.

“Goodnight” she finished awkwardly, in case he still heard her.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

How can you? — her parents in the painting asked as she tiptoed into the study. Anna wanted to ask, “How could  y o u ? ”  but she had to be as quiet as the falling snow.

And there she was — opening and closing another door behind her, shielding the trembling candle flame with stiffened fingers — at least until a horse figurine from the shelf fell on her foot, but she almost didn't notice it, because the draft from the door brought with it the smell of rot and ruin, and the flapping of bird wings.

When she looked up, she noticed a bird hanging from the ceiling. A dead raven with glass eyes and spread wings. They moved slightly, as if it could still fly. It hung above her, neither alive nor dead, forever frozen in flight.

Harbinger of death. How had she not noticed it the last time?

But it was too loud then, they were all here together after all — she, Elsa, Olaf, even Captain Madsen for a moment. Then the darkness seemed less, and the fear was only a subcutaneous tingling.

She started to freeze. It all started with a quiet rustle in her bones.

The raven's feathers fluttered as if they were rippling under the touch of an invisible hand. Anna felt as if she was left completely alone in the castle with someone who could create the illusion of life.

There were antlers sticking out of every wall in my grandfather's hunting cabin, but none of the dead animals there looked alive.

She looked around the room one last time, trying to imagine pappa leaning over the table, occupied with objects on the shelves, mamma with a shawl on her shoulders, translating symbols into words.

But her imagination only gave her the idea that the walls had hundreds of eyes and that some quick shadows were moving around her.

No, she was absolutely  n o t  a l l o w e d  to think about her parents, the Southern Isles, trolls and magic right now.

She had to be quiet.

She had to focus on breathing.

And she could… she could think about Elsa. Elsa might get really upset if she found out what Anna had been up to while she was gone — but wasn't she already upset enough now?

It would be worth it, Anna reminded herself, once they fixed everything. When she fixed everything.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

She thought she should go, this was a bad idea, before she looked inside, she could still back out — it would be almost as if she’d never come here alone.

But she did look.

At the bottom of the trunk, among something she probably didn't even want to imagine, were shackles.

And although she didn't understand the symbols on the shawl she’d found there a week earlier, she recognized those embossed on them immediately.

They looked just like snowflakes.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

She rested her trembling arms on the table, straight, palms up. The sleeves of her nightgown rolled up a little, revealing her freckled forearms.

She stared at them until she began to feel that it wasn't her sitting there at all, and that it wasn't her hands. They seemed longer, slimmer, with larger hands — not as pale as Elsa's, too masculine to fit mamma , too smooth for Kristoff.

Pappa .

Pappa had often done this — it was a gesture of surrender.

She remembered how once… How…

A memory began to take shape, as if she had erased pencil marks and revealed the paper beneath them.

She is twelve years old. She sits on the Petitioner Side of pappa’s desk. His hands are spread out between them, and next to him is an open notebook with counts. Anna's fingers are freckled with ink, and the blots look like bullet holes. The nib broke twice.

When Kai said he was ‘just helping her’ with her counts, and ‘just this one time’, he really wasn't lying. Mamma is praying again — probably — Elsa won't help her anyway, and no one else will probably be able to, Herr Støylen has had enough of her, anyway, so all she's left with is angry, too – busy pappa .

“Damn it, Anna!” he bursts out, slapping his hands on the desk and standing up. He almost never swears. Now Anna breaks the nib herself, for the third time. “Stop blubbering and buckle down at once! One day you’re going to be Queen!”

Anna blinks. Doesn't understand. Blots spread across the pages as they mix with her tears.

Pappa clears his throat.

“Well, now.” He reaches for tissue paper to dry the notebook and repair the irreversible damage. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper. Maybe now we’ll try to solve it in a different way.”

He will pretend nothing happened, just like when once, during afternoon tea she announced that she was going to be a trollop one day because she liked the way the word sounded and no one wanted to tell her what it meant and only Aunt Gertrude seemed amused.

Anna will forget, too.

Life must have been going on outside, while in the Secret Room the only sounds were the cawing of ravens; the candle flame flickered, and Anna began to tremble — no, not to tremble. To daunder.

She felt as if she were suddenly covered with a thick layer of cold snow, as if she would never feel warm again.

_______________

* George Gordon Byron — Don Juan.

** 1000 Norwegian pounds — approximately 500 kg (or 1.102 lbs).

Chapter Text

Chapter 36

Dumskalle

Kristoff had known that Ninni was little shit ever since she could talk.

Tobias looked like a scarecrow, lanky, with hair sticking out in all directions, giving him a few tommer extra. She must have grown a lot, because now she was practically his height.

When was the last time Kristoff saw her? Sometime in the summer, that's for sure — at Midsommar? And summer had only just ended; it couldn't have been more than two months, maybe a little more. It was not that long at all.

“ Walpurgis Night. ” Sven was ruthless. “ It was April. ”

“Almost May.”

The reindeer chomped accusingly as he scooped several lumps of brown sugar from the girl's outstretched hands.

Fuck.

“Who did you come with? Not with Juhani, I suppose?”

Come to think of it, Kristoff hadn’t seen him in quite a long time either. Probably since July — because he wasn't there when the ice was first harvested that fall, and around July life as he knew it had ended.

He thought he couldn't focus on this because it would drive him crazy.

His cousin shook his head. He looked at them as if he were seeing them for the first time in his life.

“They fucking came on their own.” He spread his hands, worried and helpless. “I don't know what Kalle and Ragna will think about this, but I can promise you that if mother finds out, she’ll rip out our…” he glanced quickly at the kids, “tongues. This advice probably won't be of much use to you anymore,” he said to Jens, “but my experience with these bastards tells me that it's better not to make yourself children and, consequently, problems. You agree with me on that, Kristoffer?”

“Mm,” Kristoff murmured.

Flocks of hungry clouds rolled over the mountains. Water was black and full of pieces of ice he’d broken.

Ninni put her finger to her lips. “But you don't know anything, Juhani. We’re here in secret.”

“Maybe you are,” Tobias protested. (“Don't sass, Tobi.”). “I'll be confirmed soon and then I'll start working, so I should get used to it. And you even then will be too small, because you are a girl.”

“My birthday is in two weeks, and then it'll be like I'm a year older, my dear. Besides, I've never seen anyone get confirmed at the age of eleven. And  b e s i d e s  besides, I'm technically your aunt, so like I said, don't sass.

“You're not my aunt at all, dumskalle *.”

“I'm rubber, you're glue; whatever you say, does you–know–very–well–what, åndssvak ** . ” Ninni rolled her eyes and turned her full attention to Kristoff. “Hey, do you know who has a new boyfriend?” Tobias elbowed her in the side so hard that it took her breath away for a moment, which was unusual for her. “Oh, right. Auntie Astrid said not to tell you that . ”

Kristoff rubbed his ribs reflexively, as if the blow had hurt him too. He had a feeling he knew who it was anyway.

“But she didn't forbid us to talk about the lemon cake!”

“She asked about you,” Jens interjected. “Astrid,” he added, as if anyone else had the right to ask him about him again. Merete–Margit had never done that.

“Aye!” Kristoff's mouth was one big blister that burst every time he smiled. “For all I know, Astrid usually asks about Tor.”

“Yeah. I have to disappoint you, kids,” Juhani added with a look of absolute innocence, “this cake is probably not for you.”

Just like this place.

Kristoff should be mad at them for coming here. He should make their stay in the Ice Fields seem boring and unattractive so that…

“Tobias!” roared someone from the other bank, Karl or Kaspar. “Crampons!”

Juhani narrowed his eyes.

“You're here in secret, right?” He pulled his hat lower on his forehead and muttered a curse under his breath. “I think I'd better go with him. Will you take care of the little one?”

Kristoff stared after Tobias for a moment until his figure faded and became a shadow, a grayish wisp of mist, cold and distant — just like the memory of an eleven–year–old boy he once was.

Then he looked at Ninni and glared at her. He oscillated somewhere between the desire to tear her apart and the sincere need to care for her.

No. No matter how happy he was to see her, the Ice Fields were no place for children.

“Tobias is just saying that,” Ninni explained, as if she was telling him a big secret, “because he's jealous, because if I could, I'd be a better ice harvester than him. Maybe even from you. Because I could carry… oh, so much ice. So much. You see? Look, Kristoffer — sooo much ice!”

(Jens tactfully muttered something about his ‘trouble’ calling him, and that he would be back in a moment.)

Ninni was still talking, but Kristoff wasn't listening. He tried to find a way to explain to her why this might all be a bad idea, but the words wouldn't come.

“So... you’re upset?” she probed eventually.

“ U p s e t ? ”

“Okay, I see you are, Jesus! But why getting so angry? I know well how old you were when you started…”

“That's why!” When he grabbed her arm, it felt like the fragile bones were shifting in his hand. “Ninni, for fuck's sake, it's not…”

His sister kicked.

“You're not my pappa !” she screamed before he could finish his sentence, and a strange feeling of irreversible loss came over him. He let her go; at the same moment the ice beneath the Queen's feet crumbled with a terrible sound like fingernails scratching on glass. As if the shadows of the drowned people wanted to break free from underneath.

Everything around was just silent snow and time that had stopped.

“No.” He didn't recognize his own voice. “I am your brother and I am responsible for you.” ‘Because your pappa is dead’ was on his mind, but he didn't say it. “You're going home.”

With a fierce expression, she pushed his hand away, it suddenly felt so cold in the frosty mountain air that he began to regret every syllable.

She looked at him with his own eyes. With the eyes of their father. They were wide open, too big for her small face. There were too many things on it already — freckles quivering as if they were about to fall down — anxiety, anger, bitterness.

For a moment, Kristoff felt like it was yesterday. As if father had died for the second time.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Tor knelt in the middle of the lake. The drill had difficulty breaking through the ice coating. The audience counted down each turn with loud shouts.

“ONE! TWO! THREE!”

Ninni was still fidgeting, and he hoped it was because she felt as uncomfortable as he did. But it was hard to tell for sure, because her main coping mechanism for all kinds of emotions was talking.

“I could see everything better if someone gave me a piggyback ride or something,” she muttered now. Kristoff just raised an eyebrow. “Come on, Kristoffer, it's very rude when someone misses you and you just yell at them to go home right away. Didn't you miss me or something?”

“Don't butter me up.” He just realized that he’d missed her like hell. All of them. “I'm just worried.”

“You don't have to be!” Ninni seemed genuinely astonished. “I can be as big and as strong as you are.”' She lifted her chin. “I mean, strong. I am strong. I'm not that big yet. But I will be. Well, maybe not  b i g ,  but definitely tall. You know I'm already taller than mamma ?”

“Okay, come here,” Kristoff sighed. She was as good at apologizing as anyone in this family.

“SIX! SEVEN! EIGHT!”

“Will be fifteen!”

“Bullshit, eighteen!”

“I'm telling you, it's over two tenners!”

“Don't tempt fate, at fifteen we'll frazzle like crazy!”

“ELEVEN! TWELVE! THIRTEEN!”

“Don't you want to bet?” Peterssen asked.

“No,” Kristoff grumbled.

“I do! Fifteen,” Ninni said hastily. “Or not. On the second thought, twenty.”

“EIGHTEEN! NINETEEN! TWENTY!”

Kristoff rolled his eyes. “Four,” he muttered.

The Queen snorted and he caught her starting to count with the rest of the crowd.

“TWENTY–ONE! TWENTY–TWO! TWENTY–THREE!”

Tor took a break to rest his hands. He laughed.

“How hard that thing is!”

“Need an extra hand, old man?” Jens offered, coming closer.

“You'd better put that hand up your ass, son!” Tor advised him good-naturedly. Then he looked up at his face and became serious. “ Herregud , what happened to your mug?”

“Ask your daughter,” Jens said, withdrawing his hand.

"Twenty–fo… fuck me!” The drill slid through the hole up to the handle (a sign that it had reached the other side of the ice cap, as Peterssen eagerly explained to all concerned), and Tor, red in the face with the effort, staggered back and fell.

The Queen smiled faintly.

“Congratulations. You won,” she noted, but Kristoff shook his head.

“Not at all.” He glanced at her, and when he noticed the confused look on her face, he jerked his chin at Tobias, who was leaning over the hole with a tape measure in his hands. Juhani was standing right behind him, just in case, but he still looked like he was about to shit himself with happiness. “Each turn of the drill is a little over a tomme .

Tor laughed again.

“That gives us five and twenty, boys!”

Almost ten times more than they needed.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Hup! Ho! Watch your step!

The men shivered with cooling sweat.

The wind turned the shanty sound into a poem without rhythm. Kristoff had never liked it anyway, even without it.

Cut through the heart, cold and clear

Blocks of ice moved sluggishly in the murky brown water. They looked like an uneven set of sea monster teeth.

Born of cold and winter air

And mountain rain combining

This icy force both foul and fair

Has a frozen heart worth mining

He didn't want to imagine it all again.

He wanted nothing but reality.

Beware the frozen heart …

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

“Is the Queen a huldra?” Ninni whispered almost reverently.

“I don't know, I've never looked up her skirt… Fuck, no. That's not what I wanted to say.”

“Eww, Kristoffer!”

“That's not what I meant — what I meant was… huldras have… a tail… or something.”

“Eww!” she repeated decisively, but then added, “And they are blue. She's a little blue too. And magical! Are you perhaps a huldra, Your Queenliness?” she cried to the Queen. “Because you're as pretty as a huldra!”

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

The Queen accepted the invitation Peterssen had most likely made up himself, to dine at a nearby canteen. Kristoff wasn’t thrilled to join them and the other ice harvesters, but being left alone with his thoughts would be even worse.

“Kristoffer is apparently getting old, Tobi,” Ninni remarked as he took a seat at the table, between her and Tobias, next to Juhani and across from Jens and Tove, whom his sister bombarded with embarrassingly detailed questions about her pregnancy. “Well, since I can't be an ice harvester — it's a stupid job, by the way — I guess I'll become a midwife,” she said. “Dr. Vogt himself said that I was such a smart cookie that I would be suitable for this. There are even special schools for midwives in the Southern Isles, one in Holm, I think…”

“Holm is in Weselton, dumskalle ,” Tobias corrected.

“Well, in Havn then! So I could practice before I start taking care of your children, Kristoffer, what do you think?”

“In Havn,” Kristoff repeated tartly. “And who will pay you for it?”

“Maybe you?”

“But I thought I wasn’t your pappa ?”

“I had a feeling it was in your best interest too. Yours, your wife's, and your dozen children. Oh, right! How many would the Princess want…”

Kristoff choked.

“Ninni, please, shut up.”

“Okay! We can come back to this later. Either way, it's not good when people have too little money and too many children. Do you think that's why?”

“That’s why what?”

“That's why it's just you and me,” she lowered her voice and practically climbed onto his lap. “Because our parents had more sense than money.”

“No, it's probably because your pappa…” Died. “Yeah. Well, there's something to it.”

“Why do you always say ‘your pappa ’? It’s  y o u r  pappa , too, after all.”

“Do you ever shut up?”

“I don't know, but you can give me a candy so we can check.”

Kristoff cleared his throat, remembering how unfair the world could be, and threw at her a stray lump of brown sugar he’d picked from the table top near her plate.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

It became even more fun when Tobias and Ninni came up with a new game. Behind Peterssen’s proudly straight back a crooked inscription was peeking out on the opposite wall. PETERSSEN IS AN A… The idea was to make him turn around, so that he would reveal the whole thing, and see it for himself.

“Asshole,” Queen Elsa said quietly, as if to herself, and they all turned towards her, as if on command, “is spelled with an 'e’ at the end.”

When she raised her head, there was something of a scared deer in her eyes. She quickly looked around and looked down at her hands. Blood, soup fat — or maybe just light — gleamed on the fingertips; between them stood a mug, foaming like a volcano and completely untouched.

“Speaking of which,” Tobias interjected and pointed to the far corner of the room, “isn't that Anders Groan’in?”

Ninni leaned towards Kristoff, wrapped her arms around his neck and asked in what was probably intended to be a whisper, “Are you going to punch him in the face?”

Juhani, once he had snorted into his beer and wiped the tears from his eyes, placed his hand on Tobias's back. “Why don't you take your plates and eat outside? Just so we can see you.”

“Are you going to talk about something for adults only?” asked the boy alertly.

“About something that doesn't concern you,” Juhani explained and winked at him. “But I guarantee you that this fish soup will taste just as bad outside as it does here.”

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

“I'm sorry for them,” Kristoff muttered. “Mainly for Ninni — Janne, that is.”

She latched on like a leech, but he had too much ice to harvest, a report to finish, and Peterssen to not–whack to worry about his sister bothering the Queen. At least then she was on solid ground and relatively safe.

“No need to be sorry.” The Queen's smile was like a spark; it glowed and went out. “She reminds me of little Anna.”

Kristoff rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

“She reminds me a bit of… current Anna.”

The Queen blinked. Her knuckles were painfully white on the edge of the wagon. Too white — as light as the snow lying on both sides of the road. He saw surprise in her eyes. A bit of pain.

“Eighteen years,” she said, her voice strained, “and I still don't know my sister.”

Kristoff didn't know how to ask what she meant. Should he even?

The castle was cut off from the world for so long… What was happening behind the closed doors? What would he say to that? People. He didn't know.

Peterssen was better at carrying the weight of the conversation, and the silence seemed to weigh more heavily with each bump in the road, even though the landscape was now completely flat, it just dragged on. There was movement only above. Kristoff looked at the birds as they took flight; it looked as if they had split the autumn sky.

“I guess you didn't finish that story about the proposal,” he muttered.

_______________

* Dumskalle (Norwegian.) — idiot, ‘dumbhead’.

** Åndssvak (Norwegian) — moron, ‘weak of spirit'.

Chapter Text

Chapter 37

Elf dance

A moment later Hans stood in the open door, blinking against the bright light. The air was strangely clear; the smell of autumn became more and more suffocating.

He was thinking about leaving. His body hadn't healed yet, but he couldn't let bruises leave his face any faster than he could leave this place — it was time. He had to leave.

The days were getting shorter as October took root, and when the snow came, Hans would be stuck in this little cabin with a peat roof, a few rooms, no books or everything he missed, at least until spring. He had no idea how many months winter could last in the Arendellian provinces.

He had to leave. For the good of the Hellands as much as for his own. If anyone found him now…

He needed to leave.

Then he followed Crumb as she looked around before entering the house, sun and honey, and his thoughts began to blur.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

The blood–red interior of the furnace looked like a gaping mouth. Crumb said something about fire — that apart from herself and the cat, it was often the only living thing in the house. That even three rooms and a kitchen were sometimes too much.

Hans knew the solitude of each of the royal castles, one larger than the other. It had always seemed to him that away from the oceans of glances colder than Queen Elsa's magic, he would no longer feel it, but on the ultima thule * of Nasturia, fear of the same painful, cold alienation that threatened to consume him, prevented him from closing the door even to peasant women and witches.

“Haven’t you considered…” running away “leaving?”

The fire was bright, and they sat by it, each with a needle in their hand. Crumb’s hands, although not at all delicate, were marked with some inexperience. The more Hans looked at her, the more he became convinced that she was as good at sewing as she was at cooking: barely good enough.

“Like Geir,” she neither asked nor stated. The reflection of the fire flickered on her face. “Of course I have. I love the mountains, but if I could, I would choose the sea. Except there was always something that kept me here.”

For a moment she looked ahead, her eyes fixed somewhere on the ridges whose outlines loomed outside the window. They were cold, bleak and inhospitable — and surprisingly beautiful in the autumn sun.

“I’ve always missed it,” Hans confessed.

“Roots?” He didn't deny it. “You know, it's not that simple. On the one hand, they support you, but on the other, they keep you stuck. You won't move forward even if you want to.”

“And you want to?”

He hoped she would nod.

He hoped she would deny it.

He had no idea what answer he expected from her.

Crumb’s lips curved into a smile, but the distance tempered her mirth.

“It's a good life, Loki.”

She was pretty — really pretty — but Hans didn't let himself notice it, busy picking splinters from his fingers. The feel of metal against his skin was familiar, and he let his thoughts wander. His eyes soon did the same.

“Yes,” he repeated slowly, trying to believe it. “Yes, it's a good life.”

Crumb’s hair turned golden in the firelight; light oozed from them like honey. Strange symbols on the scarf that tied them flashed with an unnatural brightness around her slim neck.

Hans' gaze lingered longer on the column of her throat, where it connected to her shoulder, and he began to wonder if Crumb would taste the same as she looked: the absence of pain.

But this thought didn't stay in his mind, because when the needle pierced his nail, he had to take his eyes off Crumb and focus on his task again. He didn't dare to be distracted again for the rest of the afternoon.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

When there was another knock on the door, she was sweeping. He was trying to be of some use and sharpen a knife. They both froze at the sound, but, Hans was sure, for two completely different reasons.

His heart felt like a hard lump in his throat.

What this time?

“Peace to this home!” a man's voice called from the doorway; the door opened before Crumb could put down the broom, letting in the sickly sweet smell of rotting meat. A powerful silhouette loomed against the door frame. “Hello, Doorknob Kisser!”

“It was  a  p a d l o c k ,  since you've been reminding me about it for fourteen years, you might have learned by now.”

“History is written by the victors.” He waved her off. “By the way, what the fuck is that smell? Were you cooking something?”

“That’s carcass, durak **.” Crumb rolled her eyes, brushed her skirt and smiled at someone standing behind him. “Hello, Liv. What happened that made you two come together?”

A girl half a height shorter walked in, with the grace of a cat, steely eyes, and hair so dark that the sun's rays brought out navy blue glints from it. It looked like winter. With her, it was easy to forget about the new summer Crumb’s presence promised.

Her eyes went where they shouldn't: towards Hans.

Panic bubbled in his chest. He wanted to get up and leave and stay at the same time to know what would happen. He didn't have much choice, so he just looked from one guest to the other.

They must have been siblings. The man had the same facial features as the Cat Girl: almond–shaped eyes and full lips; an alert nature and a strong figure — but where she was plump, Hans saw only muscles in him.

It wasn't a foreign posture.

“Liv didn't get her letter, so she probably wants to gossip about yours.” The voice was low, rough and strangely familiar. The man glanced at Hans out of the corner of his eye, but in no way gave him any indication that he had noticed his presence. “Which, by the way, I have for you. I've been getting mail lately anyway, so I figured I'd spare you the trouble.”

“That's not true! Cat Girl denied and punched him in the chest. “Geir wrote to me, too!”

The man smacked his lips. Crumb placed her hand on his wrist with disturbing familiarity. “Leave her alone,” she said half–heartedly, laughing, and held out her hand for the letter.

“Not so fast!” The man raised his hand above his head and patted his cheek with the middle and index fingers of the other. “First, a kiss and the quarter of a crown you owe me.” The silence pulsated before he added, “A bet. I won it. Does that ring any bells?”

“I can't believe Tove hasn't kicked you out of bed for this yet,” Crumb laughed, her lips to his face and the coin in her hand.

“He was given an ultimatum,” Cat Girl interjected. “He either shaves or grows a beard to match his mustache — but he was afraid that then he would look like our father, and he couldn't totally shave because his greed wouldn't let him.”

“Pride,” the man corrected. “Listen, Liv, why don't you sit down and stop interfering when adults are talking? Can you introduce me to your friend?” he said to Crumb, lowering his voice.

“Maybe he should introduce himself to you himself, as he didn't bother to do it when he met me.”

They walked away, the man with his hand on Crumb’s back, and turned away from his place at the table. Hans stared at them for a moment longer, trying to hear what they were saying — who was speaking and why — and felt invisible again until Cat Girl took the seat across from him. She rested her chin on her joined hands and narrowed her slanted eyes. “I think I know you from somewhere.”

Her gaze stopped him in his tracks. It was too deep and piercing, perhaps even a little too steely for him to be able to look away.

He didn't realize he was clenching his fists until a bite of the blade sliced ​​his hand open.

Cat Girl stared at him as if she were reading him. Her thoughtful silence was as unsettling as it was comforting. Somewhere between her searching gaze and whispers of Crumb and the strange man, Hans discovered that silence was easy. He embraced it; he was surprised by how simple it was.

At least until the man leaned against the table. A dark sheet of tea quivered between another pair of hands, older than the man they belonged to. “Mari mentioned that you’re apparently good with horses.”

Hans felt like it had been an eternity since he last heard Merete–Margit's real name. He was convinced that it suited her as much as the man's statement suited him.

He didn't know anything about horses; he just liked them, just like the taste of power. Like practically everything that belonged to his father.

“I grew up with them.” He tried to force a smile, even though he was telling the truth. He found that this made subtle lies come easier.

The man smiled back and shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Well, it'll have to do.”

Hans rested his sweaty palms on the cup and winced as it burned him. The heat stung the raw flesh, but a shiver ran down his spine nonetheless. He flexed his fingers and thought about blood.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

By the time they left the cabin, the sky had turned the color of a good bruise and was only getting darker. The man looked around the area. “Have you heard that this forest has eyes?”

Hans felt his skin prick at this irrational thought. Who could be watching — why? And if they were watching, why had they never bothered them before?

He had no reason to be afraid. The man just wanted him to go outside with him. There were wolves in the area, there was a carcass smell coming from the forest, and on the way to the Helland’s house he’d seen the horse the Lensmann had mentioned, but he didn't want to approach it. Crumb knew this man and obviously trusted him (but Hans couldn't trust Crumb!); she walked them to the door and stopped on the threshold, just beyond the safety perimeter.

“Stop scaring him.” She handed the man a lantern. Her hand squeezed his shoulder in a way that was far from reassuring to Hans.

“You never know who's watching,” the man insisted.

Crumb looked at him with the same attention Hans was accustomed to receiving, but he didn't move away. He envied him this. He had too much to hide.

“Witches?” he said with exaggerated lightness, trying not to shrink at the realization. “Trolls?”

“Here’s neither one nor the other.”

H e r e .

The stranger's consonants seemed sharp enough to cut, just like the color of his eyes; they were steel gray. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but suddenly he looked up and froze.

Hans felt it, too. The smell of death hung in the air. He didn't say anything, just raised a trembling finger and pointed to a stain on the ground.

The revolver he’d hastily taken from his pocket sat in his hand, cold and pitifully small.

“The tracks lead to the river.” He nodded towards the north. “This way.”

“I know the way din skrulling ***,” the man laughed, but for some reason it didn't sound cruel. “Some of us grew up with these woods, you know.”

“Sorry.”

“Are you so sorry for everything? If anyone ever wondered if you were ours, this would be proof that you're not.” His eyes gleamed like the metal of a gun barrel. The look he gave him seemed to have a story behind it. “Now, you'd better give me that gun before you hurt yourself.”

Hans didn't have time to think before the man grabbed the revolver from his hand; he saw a gleam of a wedding ring on his ring finger.

Hans felt his heartbeat in his throat, ears, and fingertips. He felt as if the uneven beats were flowing along his skin along with the sweat. The man's gaze was hard, focused on the road ahead, and his steps were quiet and measured. How could someone his size move so easily? Under Hans' feet, thin, rotten branches snapped like matches.

“And how are things between you and our little Mari?”

“I'm afraid I don't understand.”

The sky faded along the edge as they passed through a cleared field and stopped before a thick grove of trees. The man turned around.

“You can just  s t a r t  to be afraid.”

Hans raised his eyebrows, politely, bravely, trying not to think that even though he was a measly few tommer taller than him, the man is still about twice as wide in the shoulders, has a lifetime of hard work behind him, and is more skilled at using both weapons and fists.

“Was that supposed to be a threat?”

“No, just a warning.” The man smiled crookedly. “Not that Crumb can't take of herself,” he threw the revolver in the air, “but don't forget that she's Tor's daughter. Damn, I wish you could see how he fucked up this guy's arm yesterday! Of course, Bjorgman was already gone, because he always misses the best fun — but maybe that's a good thing, because if he heard all this bullshit, he would… Anyway, nevermind. So, Tor approaches him, riffle in hand, and he says to him: ‘What, Tor, are you crazy?’ Nothing, a straight face, he just flips the riffle, as if a little awkwardly, and grabs the barrel. The guy and his friends are already starting to laugh — and then he bangs the butt on the table! The bones are splintered, I tell you. And he tells him: ‘I’ll give you advice, son. Stop snapping your tongue or I'll fucking shoot it off the next time’.”

“But Tor doesn't…”

“Yeah. Did she tell you that? You know, Crumb doesn't always have to know everything either.” The man's face was gray in the moonlight. The shadows seemed to thicken around them. “Besides, when Groven swings, it's hard not to hear him. Think what would happen if he actually  d i d  something, not just talked like now.”

“Is that what happened with the previous one?” Why did he even care?

“What the fuck do you mean with ‘the previous one’? Kristoff? What was there to happen? Tor loves him. Where have you been hiding?”

Hans smiled in a way that he hoped looked confident, but he felt lost. His companion's smirk made his stomach turn.

“At times I feel that it was very far away.”

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

The fog, sticking to the hills and hills, flowed in gray streaks between the trees.

Once it had hit the road, it wasn't long before Hans lost his balance and bumped into something he couldn't recognize in the darkness and panic.

The shapeless carcass of a wild animal was cooling in a ditch; the entrails scattered around looked like dark jewels in the dark.

Hans landed right next to it, under the dead weight of the enormous mass, trying not to feel around him as his imagination persistently presented images of soft, decaying flesh and memories of brains dripping onto his face and leaking through his fingers.

The mass neighed painfully and resentfully.

“What the…”

The light from the lantern brought out silvery reflections from the fur as the man came closer. Hans drew in a shaky breath. He felt everything at once: the cold scent of fir trees, the hot scent of fire, and the blood–spotted back of the horse beneath his shaking hands.

The horse tried to run away, but stumbled on the smooth road and headed towards Hans again, with its head hanging down.

“Sitron,” he whispered frantically until the litany of words blurred into one and meant nothing. There was also a mist in his eyes; from behind her curtain, the trembling mare looked as if someone had splashed wine on her. The long wound on her left side was clearly visible in the regenerated light of the lantern.

Crimson rivers flowed through the elbows and knees, and Hans felt as if the fingers that instinctively began to tear his shirt into strips did not belong to him, just like the shirt itself.

The path beneath the fog was the color of rain and blood, and all he could think about were dead bodies, real, planned, and imagined. Father, Marengo, Queen Elsa, Tikaan, Sitron…

The forest stood still under the indifferent moon. It still seemed thick with watching eyes. The breathing of the people and the horse was excessively loud.

The man was saying something to him, but Hans wasn't listening. The only sound that reached him was the sound of tearing fabric. He couldn't see what the mare was running from, but the stench was thickening around them; it was the fetid smell of a carcass rotting in the heat.

Fiording was not a prince's dream horse, but the Prince had once had a better one, and he had failed him just as Hans had failed him. He’d also left Sitron once, he wasn't going to do it again…

“Calm down!” He felt someone grab his arm. Give it a yank. Let go of it. “She’s not bleeding that much. She probably kicked something or someone and split their skull. I told you it's full of wolves around here.”

(Dead wolves.)

Hans was about to protest, but the expression on the man's face forced him to remain silent. He reminded him that he had no power here.

(Dead wolves everywhere.)

“Fuck it, just tell her to move!” At that moment, the hardness that had clung to the man's edges gave way. His voice was softer than words. He leaned down to hug the horse's neck. “Come on, little rip. You have to help me a little.”

Hans, unsure whether the last words were addressed to him or the mare, reached out and stroked the horse's velvet nostrils. There was something in Sitron's eyes that he didn't understand — she had no words for him in response; only fear expressed with her whole body — but she obediently moved away from the tree trunk she was leaning against — or against which Hans had pushed her — threw her head and took her first wavering step, like a newborn foal.

“An extremely stupid name, by the way.” The man nodded his head at the mare. The lantern cast dark shadows under his eyes. “I guess only old Syversen has such a fantasy, apart from Mari. ‘Lemon’. Fucking hell.”

“I already bought her like this. I would probably call her Svadilfari.”

“Loki and Svadilfari.” Back then, Hans was still as far from being Loki as he was from all his greatest failures. Now the irony was downright suspicious. “He made her — him — with him — was he a stallion? — I think he made it a baby? Don't you think that's quite an unfortunate combination? Can I call you something else? I'm no mythology expert, but gods and horses… you get the idea.”

“H…” he began reflexively, but quickly corrected himself, “Johannes.” That was probably the closest thing he’d said since he left Nasturia.

“Looks like we have the same name,” the man replied with a wink and a smile. “But what the fuck, Hans.”

At these words, a floodgate opened in Hans' head.

Of course he knew him. Hair as black as his sense of humor, a cheeky look, a voice like tinder rubbing against granite.

He’d talked to him in the store he and Enger had entered to obtain information. On the way, they’d tried to recruit people who knew something about mountain climbing for the expedition to the North Mountain, and he’d looked like one. They’d promised them gold and green forests. Some had been encouraged by this, but he’d looked at him with the same pitying amusement as he did now. “What the fuck, Hans,” he’d said. "I have mountains behind my house, and if I wanted to see the Queen, I would go to Arendal instead of sitting here."

The man transferred the lantern to his left hand and extended his right hand to him.

“Jens Havik,” they said at the same time; Hans had already remembered. He hesitantly squeezed the waiting hand.

The man had been playing with him from the very beginning. Hans lost in a game he didn't even know he was playing.

An ocean of words choked in his throat. Litanies of requests and explanations came faster than he could say them. He wanted to tell him why he couldn't talk to anyone about it, why Crumb shouldn't find out why he couldn't just leave, but why he couldn't stay; that his heart was pounding just as furiously and inexorably at the sound of each step as at the very idea of ​​leaving this place — the words forced themselves into his mouth until there was no room left for his tongue.

“You'd be surprised what secrets I can keep.”

For some reason, Hans believed him, but Jens Havik's carelessness only increased his fears.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

When Crumb tried to touch her, Sitron flattened her ears in warning and moved away. Jens Havik smothered the spark with his boot as she kicked the lamp and the hay began to smolder under their feet.

“Wounded or not, your lemon is still dangerous,” he remarked sarcastically.

Hans snorted. The mare's ears were still flat on her head as she stood next to him, warm and trembling, bleeding gold. She seemed exhausted too; finally, when Crumb ran her hand from her shoulder to her knee, she just flinched.

“You mustn't kick,” the girl warned the mare.

Together, they managed to get the mare to stand still while Crumb stitched up her wound, although by the time she was done, Hans had acquired several new bruises.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Mus was sleeping; next to her, Sitron was dozing, cuddled by her side. The familiar, musky smell of hay hung in the air.

In some other reality, this is what his life might have looked like. It would be simple. Easy. It would be the perfect opposite of what he set out to do. It would be a mistake.

He sat down on his makeshift bed and instinctively reached up to brush his sweat–soaked hair out of his face — but it was too short, cut exactly as it should be. His clothes were dry from the heat of the mare's body and the stuffy confines of the barn. It was still dark; the evening had only recently turned into night, even though it seemed like hours had passed since the Haviks had arrived.

Suddenly he felt his eyes were wet and his lips were salty. He touched the tears in amazement and said the first true thing that came to his mind: “The last time I cried was when I was six.”

He’d realized that this was also the first truth he had willingly given her in exchange for all the truths she had shared with him. He felt a shiver run down his spine; he’d never told anyone about it.

“Eighteen years,” Crumb whispered, and Hans couldn't even remember the moment he’d told her his age. “You must have been choking.”

“All my life.” He swallowed saliva, nodded. He couldn't say more.

This time her smile was like a sunset; going out.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

He sat in the dark barn long after the lamp went out, watching the wisps of fog dance outside. Älvdans .

Elf dance. Elf circles.

There was a war going on inside him between what he could have and what he couldn't.

He regretted that Crumb was probably already asleep in her attic room, because maybe she could warn him about the unearthly beings that dance, leaving no traces on the damp earth. They dance and dance, making one want more than what is good for them.

_______________

* Ultima thule (Latin) – the last known place, the end of the known world.

** Durak (Russian) — fool, idiot.

*** Skrulling (Norwegian) — crazy, weirdo.

Chapter Text

Chapter 38

Two sisters

The manor house in Rosendal was bright and open. Big windows. White wooden frames, clean windows, thick mullions. Bathed in light, the house exposed itself to the eyes of travelers. The last rays of sunlight warmed Elsa's face, but did not illuminate her clouded thoughts.

Bjorgman stood right next to her, too tall, too gloomy for her to understand Anna's reasons for choosing this place. What had made her agree to it? The man stared at the upstairs window, as if his eyesight penetrated much beyond the pathetic curtain of lace curtains and glass.

This was not a house for an ice harvester, with a view over the mountains — over anxiety, over all dreams. Even from the canteen where Elsa had (not) eaten lunch, she could see towering, icy and snow–covered peaks that brought comfort, the promise of adventure and stories that never ended.

If only Anna could see the barony…

But she can't — a small, venomous voice reminded her in the back of her head. Because you didn't let her come here.

Never mind.

She looked at Peterssen, who was already walking briskly towards the porch. The edge of a white handkerchief stuck out between the clenched fingers of his right hand.

Tor Geirsson had stated that some people could only live in the world they control because nature scares them. People like Peterssen — he didn't add, although she knew he meant him — who came from a world where palaces were taller than trees, nature ate them alive. Stone and brick houses were built for such people.

What about wild men like Bjorgman?

She took a deep breath; the ice harvester stank of sweat, but Elsa didn't really mind the smell — it reminded her of work and effort: things she respected.

“You… you don't like it here, do you?”

“It's a nice place.” He lied smoothly and completely unconvincingly. Elsa had to look away from him because she began to doubt her own existence. She was pretty sure she hadn't imagined it. Resentment radiated from him. She could feel it seething inside him, hidden beneath the cool, indulgent surface, just as she felt her own frayed nerves.

A lot could happen in three months. She should have known that. Three months were enough to turn a daughter into an orphan and an heir to the throne into a queen. Within three months, an ice harvester could become a lord. But perhaps even three years would not be enough to break the rebellious spirit, to convince the love of a princess to replace the love of the open space — how could they, when even  t h i r t e e n  was not enough for so many much smaller things?

She remembered all the lies herr Moen had fed Anna, hunched over the map: the purest water, the purest air, unfettered freedom.

There was suddenly a lack of air in the undulating vidda landscape. The bare autumn rose bushes surrounding them, which must have given the place its name, reminded them of death always lurking somewhere close. Elsa would never dream of trembling before it. Her greatest fear was spending another year of her life locked up.

The barony was too small to be swallowed whole like in the castle. But then the life of the ice harvester that had come there with her was bigger than her own; too big to fit within these whitewashed walls without them wrapping around him like a hug with every step.

“Why…” she began and stopped as she felt the ice shiver beneath her feet. The thought of returning to the overwhelming boredom and misery of the castle made her stomach churn. She couldn't say what more than half of her life had been spent on — but for her sister's sake, she could sacrifice the other…

“Yeah,” Bjorgman muttered and repeated the words she must have said aloud: “Because of a sister.”

Elsa fixed her eyes on his face. She felt like too many frosty days had taken their toll on her.

“And all of this is for Anna?”

He didn't look back, and she thought she had just revealed everything that should have been hidden.

“Anna?” Did he blush? Did she? Why did she even ask? She didn't have to talk to him. But if she didn't talk to him, she would most likely have to talk to the other men, much more predatory ones. “No, I… it's — I meant Janne.”

For a moment the entire world went black, then flashed crimson red.

“ Y o u r  sister.” Not hers. Reality trembled like the air around a fire. He was talking about this big–eyed, thin girl whose fascination with her magic lacked fear. He said her name the way Elsa thought of Anna; she had never felt this type of closeness to another human being. This made her feel uncomfortable. Her mind was practically screaming: Danger! . But it was irrational, Elsa realized. It was just chemicals in her brain. “It's her… because - she's…”

Bjorgman looked up at her just as the ice changed color. “Half–sister,” he specified. “And the word you're looking for is ‘bastard’, Your Highness.”

“Ask him about his mother,” Peterssen had said. Could he have meant his stepmother? Why did that old vulture never bother to put out the fire he started?

In Elsa's world, when his father died, the boy became king. At least formally, because only a man could be crowned.

In Bjorgman's world, after the death of his father, a boy, regardless of age, became a man and took over all responsibility and the role of the head of the family. There was no postponement.

She pushed away the feeling of danger and forced herself to ask: “How old are you, exactly?”

He held her gaze.

“Two and twenty.”

She almost smiled when she heard he was using the old number system. In Arendal, no one counted like that anymore. But that was the only reason to be happy. He was twenty–two years old. So young — she thought. Too young to bear the weight she felt in his mind, the weight of the choices that clung to those broad shoulders.

“I guess we're peers, Your Highness.”

Suddenly twenty–two seemed at least an era.

Had this burden always been so heavy?

Elsa remained silent for eons, stubbornly avoiding his gaze. She had to reach into her hair and tuck it behind her ear. When she touched it, a delicate crust of clotted blood settled on her fingers. She tried not to think about how Bjorgman saw her now: pale, dirty face and dark circles under her eyes.

“Your Majesty!” exclaimed an elegant man, the kind that would probably make Anna swoon with delight as he came rushing towards them, before… She glanced at Bjorgman, who rolled his eyes. Yes,  b e f o r e .  The dandy, late to help her out of the wagon, bowed low with sweeping and elaborate gestures, as if to make up for this indiscretion. “I am delighted to welcome you to this humble…”

“It’s mister Baird,” Bjorgman explained in a low voice. “A diamond geezer.”

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

“There's probably nothing more beautiful than Arendelle at this time of year!” mister Baird concluded his argument by saying that in autumn nature reaches its peak of beauty, which is saved for its grand finale all year round.

“Uh, I don't know,” Kristoff said when he realized the man was obviously expecting an answer. “I haven't traveled much in my life.”

“But Your Majesty will certainly…”

The way he talked  a b o u t  the Queen could only be rivaled by the way he talked to her.

“Oh, I assure you, I have seen even less of the world than Mr. Bjorgman,” Her Majesty replied tartly, clearly sharing Kristoff's opinion of his exuberant sentences and flowery personality.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

From the kitchen came a sound of clinking glass, a sound of cutlery hitting plates, and a bustle of conversation.

Elsa painted patterns in the sauce with a piece of roast meat. If she had simply put down her fork, the meal would have ended for the men at the table as well, but that would have been tantamount to running away.

She tried not to admit that she felt offended because Bjorgman — even after a long day of work and thin fish soup in the canteen — had chosen a measly portion of groats in the kitchen over a sumptuous dinner during which she was the main attraction.

And Elsa didn't like her own company (Peterssen's tactful silence and mister Baird’s intrusive staring was hardly someone's tangible presence), she didn't like her thoughts.

But she was the Queen. Her place was among the porcelain and silverware. By the stove it would be too hot, too stuffy, too crowded…

In the dining room it was just sad.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Peterssen glanced casually at the face of his pocket watch.

“I must admit that there are strange customs here,” he said to mister Baird.

“What do you mean?”

“The fact that the Baron eats at the same table with the servants. It's not appropriate…”

Bjorgman stopped mid–step. “I don't think I understand.” He stared at him and asked calmly, “What's inappropriate?  E a t i n g ? ”

“No, no,” Peterssen laughed, somehow jovially and mockingly at the same time. “I just don't think the chimney corner is an inappropriate place for a lord.”

“No? So where do you think there is a place for me, sir?”

There was challenge in his eyes, pride in his tone.

He was not the poor simpleton Peterssen wanted him to be.

Elsa tried to gauge what she thought of him. ‘Nice’, the random, meaningless adjective that had served as a shield against Anna's further questioning, was the last word she should have used to describe him. He had a certain primal wildness and intuition about him — and perhaps also a good reason to dislike Peterssen. After all, ‘Peterssen is an asshole’, everyone knew it.

“Oh, come on now!” the housekeeper huffed, opening the dining room door wider with her foot. There was a pile of dirty plates in her arms, some still more than full, and Elsa felt a pang of guilt at the sight of them. “The Lord Jesus also ate with his disciples, and we are all created in His image.”

“Well, Irina doesn't give a damn,” commented a man's voice from behind the opposite door, a farmhand or a stable boy. (If Bjorgman hadn't been standing right next to her, Elsa would have suspected him.) He was accompanied by a stream of warm, smoky air, filled with kitchen smells.

Peterssen knitted his eyebrows but ignored the remark.

Elsa thought of the empty seats in the dining room, the trays of food waiting for her at the door, and all the kitchen staff whose names Anna could recite like poems.

“I think it's a nice custom,” she said.

“Oh, definitely!” mister Baird supported her zealously before she could even close her mouth. “As the kind mistress said, even in Bible …”

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

She caught up with Bjorgman at the foot of the stairs leading up. She waited for a moment for him to offer her his arm, which she wouldn't have dared to accept anyway after everything that had happened that day, but he didn't. After all, he had already shown her what she could expect from him. But at least he was the first one to set his foot on the step.

“I don't think he likes you.”

“It’s mutual.”

He didn't even ask who she was talking about.

Elsa wanted to sarcastically remark that he seemed to have a lot of enemies, but in his typical fashion, he would probably say something like, ‘It looks like we're in the same boat, Your Highness’, and she couldn't say anything about it because he would be right.

An insufferable man.

“What happened?” She tried to sound carefree and brash, but inside she felt only cold and trembling. “Has he had any comments about your manners before?”

Bjorgman shrugged.

“It is not proper for a gentleman to talk about certain things.”

Something in the way he said it told her these weren't his own words.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Kristoff moved the bed so that the headboard faced the wall, the open window, and the entire world that this rotten reflection of the house had cut him off from. With one wave of his hand, he swept all the trinkets from the chest of drawers into the drawer, and for a moment it seemed to him that there was more space in the bedroom than before.

But that wasn't true. There was just as much of it, if not less, because in his damn barony even breathing took up space.

From its perspective, the mountains were so distant that they blended in with the sky.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

The well froze. He might have expected it; the Ice Maiden was sleeping a few rooms away, and every window he’d passed on the way down was covered with ice flowers, making him even more uncomfortable as he slipped through the dark corridors like a thief.

He’d had to break a hole with an axe. The water in the bucket was black and full of pieces of ice, but the truth was that even if someone poisoned it, Kristoff would drink just as greedily, because dreams were the real poison for him at the moment.

He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and only then noticed a girl standing by the well. This wasn’t the one the other two sent for inquiries, was it? Or maybe she was, he wouldn't have recognized her even if there had been light. What time could it be?

He raised his head, but he couldn't read anything in the sky. The night was blue in color, sticking to the fog and low–hanging clouds like his shirt to his body.

“Stand back a little or I'll splash you,” he said to the girl, but she didn't move.

Kristoff shrugged and lifted the bucket to wash away the sticky sweat and remnants of the nightmare — he flinched when he caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the quivering surface of the water — and poured the entire contents onto himself. The girl squealed as a few drops hit her.

The barony building stood white and motionless behind him. To him, it was still just an empty skeleton. Kristoff briefly imagined a cabin warmed by fire and laughter, closeness of his family, Auntie Astrid's animals grazing nearby under the stars.

But what he was thinking about was Ragna and Ninni’s home now, not his own.

In Grimstad, it was also them — the sense of responsibility for both — that held him in place; after all, he hadn’t come here for the Queen or the Princess. He himself wouldn't need anything except his grandfather's old house, which he didn’t visit more often than not.

Maybe one day…

He stood under the icy water for a few more minutes, betting himself on how many more nightmares he could endure before he got pneumonia.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

As he pushed open the stable door, the lamplight cast red flashes on Queen Elsa's moon–white hair.

She looked beautiful and strangely vulnerable as she sat there, and maybe that was what all those guys whose admiration he couldn't understand saw in her.

She resembled Anna.

She was even dressed like her that night at Oaken's — a woolen skirt, navy blue like a winter twilight, a blouse with a stand–up collar and rosemåling bleeding on her chest.

He was definitely thinking too much about Anna.

“I think Sven likes me,” the Queen said shyly, as if it was something unusual. Sven liked almost everyone.

Kristoff wasn't sure what he should think about her knowing the name of his reindeer, which no one had ever introduced to her, even though she had been having trouble with his own for the last three months.

“ She smells nice, too, ” said Sven. “ Nicer than you. A bit like Anna, but somehow less lively. ”

“Er…” Should he leave or should he say something? He didn't feel like doing either.

“Bad dream?” the Queen asked him instead. He shrugged. “Too much thoughts,” she replied to his questioning look. “And… mister Baird.”

Kristoff wondered if her ass was starting to hurt; mister Baird was licking it so hard.

“‘Ah, yes, Queen Elisabet is as gorgeous and as sharp as a riding crop!’”

The younger sister, who tried to engage him in her ridiculous games of 'Guess How Princess Anna Escaped Her Guards' and 'Guess How Queen Elsa Sent Another Suitor Away This Time', would have burst out laughing at this.

The older one looked like she was about to cry.

She looked worse than in the Ice Fields. Her lips were tense in a specific way, as if a storm was raging beneath her calm façade. The bags under her eyes looked like blue thumbprints.

Kristoff cleared his throat. He brushed his wet hair from his face. Finally he sat down on an overturned crate by the door and patted his pockets.

He found his unna niibaš and a few crumpled, slightly damp cigarettes.

He offered her one, purely out of politeness, and the Queen, most likely out of politeness as well, accepted it — but since he didn't give her the matches and she didn't ask for them, she just sat there stupidly, turning the paper between her fingers and with her fingernail, picking off the remnants of tobacco that stuck to it.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

The knife reflected the light from the lamp. Bjorgman's golden hair turned silver–gray.

“ E. B. ?” Elsa read with difficulty, leaning over the handle.

“Eyvind Bjorgman. My grandfather.”

“I've seen one like this before. My father had a similar one.” He kept it in a drawer in his bureau, the one he reached so often and therefore closed too rarely. Elsa knew all too well the flowers carved into the wooden handle, so vivid that when she’d traced them with her fingers, they made her believe in spring. The letters woven between them reminded her of vast forests and Viking ghosts. A blade that entered flesh with the lightness of a sigh. “Did your grandfather make knives?”

“Only the handles. He was a carpenter.” He smiled crookedly. “When the very young King Agnarr visited the Icefields in eighteen forty–four, he bought one of these from him.”

“You are mocking me.”

“No — well, a little, but it's true. This is how he later advertised himself.”

"Then our families have a lot in common," Elsa whispered, looking at the drops of water on his hands.

There were many more stories that no one told her.

When his aunt was getting married at the age of sixteen, she needed the consent of the king — then Rúnar — which he personally signed, adding good wishes for the newlyweds and a blessing for the unborn child because whom the wedding was to take place.

Young Iduna Peterssen could sometimes be met on market days in Olden. Leif Bjorgman had laughed that if she had only ever looked up at him from that basket of hers, she would never have become Queen of Arendelle.

Why would anyone tell Elsa about this?

Who were the people in his family to the members of her own?

Dust, faces in the crowd, one of thousands of anecdotes.

“Too many coincidences, huh?” Bjorgman picked up a piece of wood from the ground, rubbed it against his pants leg, and cut a thin, spiraling strip as if to test it. He didn't look up.

His aunt and her grandfather.

His grandfather and her father.

His father and her mother.

Himself and her sister.

For a moment, Elsa felt like she wasn't looking at an ice harvester’s hands. Large, slim, with long fingers and calluses from playing an instrument. They might as well have been a musician's hands.

But then she looked at them closer, in a way she had never had the need to look at his face, and saw so much more than two and twenty : waving greenish mounds of veins, tense tendons. Weathered, rough skin full of calluses, red on the knuckles. All broken capillaries.

These  w e r e  the hands of an ice harvester, so worn out that they were older than him. The lifeline on the inside of the right one disappeared under a thick scar that looked as if it had been frozen in place by ice. She had heard somewhere that an ice harvester would only live as many years as his hands looked like.

Much and little at the same time.

Was this what Anna was trying to do? Snatch him from this life that knew no youth and immortalize him with the title of a lord?

She realized that she had just learned the answers to questions she hadn't asked. This made her chest hurt. So she just sat next to him, as stiff and stoic as he was, and hid her tears as best as she could.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Kristoff saw the Queen run her little finger over Sven's nostrils as he placed his head trustingly in her lap, and he blurted out something he immediately regretted: “My mother used to do that.”

Not to him, of course. She stroked Kull while he crouched in the barn doorway and pressed his fingers to his cheek; he felt like his heart had moved because that's where he felt it pulsating. She then taught him that he should not scare horses or beg for her closeness.

He straightened up abruptly, shoulders pulled back and tense, but relaxed when he saw the Queen's face. She sat in the corner, tall, pale, scared of life.

“Mine, too.” She weighed her answer again, as she probably used to, but this time something was different. “Long ago.”

How ‘long ago’ could something have happened from the perspective of a girl who was his age?

“Funny… All these coincidences. You would think that our mothers have a lot in common.”

"The only difference is," Kristoff replied, grimly and sincerely, "that yours wanted you, Your Highness. Mine me — not necessarily so.”

And she looked into his eyes, old as winter, young as freshly fallen snow.

Kristoff felt the stable walls begin to suffocate him, as if the long, airless years of Queen Elsa's life were taking on a shape and a scent he could smell.

“You'd be surprised.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 39

Taste of honey

They went to the room, because the kitchen was not an appropriate place for an event as important as reading letters from America. Hans instinctively called the room ‘living room’, to which Crumb responded with a snort and wrinkled her nose charmingly again.

He sat down in a rocking chair by the fireplace to give her some privacy she hadn't asked for.

The fire was still crackling with flaming fingers when the empty eyes of thick, squat figures began to stare at him from the fireplace mantel — were they supposed to be trolls? Suddenly the forest outside the window seemed thick with watching eyes again. The shadows on the wall behind him seemed to swell, as if they were about to burst out of the wood.

Hans involuntarily shuddered. Why would anyone keep something so spooky at home?

If only he hadn't deprived himself of the right to ask questions with his silence.

“Your… friend?” he began awkwardly, with no idea of ​​how to end.

“Liv is not my friend,” Crumb denied. The knife she’d used to cut the envelope reflected light. Someone carved trees into the handle; the paper rustled as if the leaves were whispering to each other. “I mean, I like her, but Jens and I are friends. The truth is that Liv likes my brother — you know, he writes poetry, plays balalaika *… If ever a girl wanted to be friends with me, it's because of him.” She shrugged. “Maybe that's why I’ve always preferred hanging out with boys. Everyone's talking about it.”

Dead silence hung in the room.

Hans looked at the knife lying innocently next to the streamers of words, sharp as winter.

Crumb’s skin was still golden from the summer, her freckles looked like drops of honey. His muscles ached from trying to pull himself together as everything about her — her hair the color of burnished brown, her eyes like amber — whispered that every wound could heal.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Crumb’s fingers loomed over the signature, although her shining eyes no longer moved along the text; she’d finished reading.

Letters. Hans had even exchanged a few with Erik before he joined the navy after Søren. Hans had been convinced that he would continue his studies at the University of Havn, but apparently he did not know this brother at all.

“He's obviously not as smart as you, ma mie ** ”, chère maman concluded. She didn't praise him often, and above all, she didn't praise him without reason — and yet Hans felt more irritated and offended than pleasantly flattered by her attention. It was one of the last bursts of that strange, brotherly solidarity that had always embarrassed him.

They did not write to each other, sometimes even a simple ‘good morning’ exchanged in the bowels of the castle corridors turned out to be beyond their strength, so Geir Helland's several–page letter to his sister also turned out to be quite an event for him — but not because of the place it was sent from.

Hans reached out to catch an envelope swinging on the edge of the table — someone had stamped it right on the stamp man's face, making his eyes look gouged out — and his eyes fell on the end of the letter, visible above Crumb’s fingers.

Devoted to you with all my heart, soul and body (except my ass, of course)

Гaйр

Hans suppressed a smile with his fist, which he quickly pressed to his mouth. He tried to pretend he hadn't read anything, but she caught his gaze across the table.

“That was our code when we were younger,” she explained, slowly folding a stack of papers and tying them with a piece of string. “ Pappa doesn't know Russian, and for my mother, Norwegian written in Cyrillic was probably even worse than plain Norwegian for some reason — and somehow we signed our names that way.

( Code , noted some part of Hans's mind, somewhere far away, too busy at the moment to understand why maybe this should be important to him.)

The firelight mercilessly illuminated Crumb’s scar. It seemed larger than the slender hand, it was eating away from the wrist to the elbow, and it didn't look like an ordinary burn.

“Maybe I was petting the firebird,” she’d suggested, the first time she caught him looking at her. “Haven't you ever heard that you shouldn't play with fire?”

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Crumb had a lot of stories inside of her: about Baba Yaga, three heroes and Koschei the Immortal. But what interested him most was the ones she hadn’t shared with him.

Mysteries filled her as much as fairy–tales.

Kristoffer. Kisses of fire. Dreams about death. The hurt pride of a rejected suitor. Beloved brother–poet, brother–traveler.

Why was he so fascinated by similar girls?

Princess Anna, who, considering his luck, only somehow hadn’t fallen victim to a different curse than her sister and turned into a swan or another troll before she managed to get back to the castle.

Queen Elsa — she was a story herself.

Lükka from the land of monsters and sorcerers.

Merete–Margit with two different names that meant exactly the same.

When she touched Hans' face, her skin burned — but in a pleasant way, like the rays of the summer sun. He raised his hand to hers with an overwhelming feeling that he had been thrown into the wrong fairy–tale.

In the Southern Isles, everyone tried to be perfect, assumed roles and forms, and in the Ice Harvester’s Village, the people were more like nature — without any specific structure, unique, impulsive and full of understatements.

Southern Isles.

Something that had once been his whole world now seemed small to him.

Westergård, spelled with ‘w’ and ‘å’, could not be brought to justice, but what about the ex–prince, ex–count, who had only a ‘v’ and a double ‘a’ left? Why come back? Why try to prove to them something they won't understand anyway?

But perhaps Hans was a beggar whose reflection he’d seen in his own. Maybe he actually liked scraping at people's doors, with no illusions that he would be let in; that's what they’d taught him, that's what he’d gotten used to.

When he kissed Crumb, he found that the touch of her lips also resembled the caress of the sun, delicate and soothing. It tasted like balm: the absence of the pain he’d wanted to taste so bad.

And he did it again; he didn't even know why. After all, he wasn't thinking about Crumb seriously; not a whore, but also not a wife — that had no future.

But it didn't matter either (not when the taste of honey settled on his tongue), as usual.

Hans probably just had to poke and shake people from time to time just to make someone aware of his existence and to answer him something.

Crumb stood stunned for a moment, her hands still, but her eyes darting over the lines of his body. Within a heartbeat, Hans was so sure he saw desire in her face — but what if it was just a reflection of his own?

It was all just the result of loneliness and closeness.

It was always easier to take off one’s clothes than to strip oneself of all the lies and fears. Only by revealing the truth about himself would he truly feel naked.

“Your wound has opened,” the girl finally gasped.

It was only when she said this that Hans felt blood seeping from under his hairline, caressing her fingertips like another ghostly kiss. He didn't dare for it anymore.

He just grabbed her wrist and held her like an anchor keeping the boat from floating away; he preferred not to think about his own wounds. Just below the surface of consciousness lurked pain, memories of death and violence that he didn't want to see written on his skin.

Crumb’s hands were dry and warm. Hans took a deep breath. She didn't comment on the kiss. Maybe she wouldn’t do it again. Maybe they could just go back to being the way they always were, but that thought made everything hurt more.

_______________

* Balalaika — Russian triangular wooden stringed musical instrument.

** Ma mie (French) — ‘my love’.

Chapter Text

Chapter 40

In smoke and fog

“There you are!”

Light flooded into the stable: bright, blinding, and at the same time giving a strange sense of security. Elsa started and looked straight into the housekeeper's eyes, grateful for her presence, because she felt like she was immersing herself in memories, some of which she shouldn't share with anyone.

The stones whispered and sometimes even came to life — then they spoke to her. But ice?

Ice sings.

There was no song; the only sound, apart from the human noise, that reached her during her stay in the Ice Fields was a melody without rhythm or rhyme, the persistent hum of migraine behind her eyes.

Ice couldn't sing. It could only cast curses that then flowed through her veins like mercury.

She wanted to ask Bjorgman about it. She also wanted to ask him about the map of Arendelle she’d taken with her, to run her finger from the Northern Mountains to Dovre — the length of half the country. She just didn't know how to phrase it. Would the views be the same here? Would I see something different or the same? What if I’d chosen Crumb instead of the North Mountain?

These thoughts flowed into her mouth and congealed on her lips.

Don't be stupid — she scolded herself.

Of course, the views would be different, better, because she would be in higher mountains, she would see Arendelle from a completely different perspective. If she could even see the capital from there, the distance would turn the lights of the castle's towers into torches.

What did she actually want to hear from him? Poor little rich girl. His pity would be even worse than mockery.

She already regretted that she hadn't dared. That she hadn’t run away.

“Here I am, running from room to room to ask you to come for breakfast, and you and the Queen are rolling in the straw like some country lads!”

With relief, Elsa melted back into the order to which she felt summoned by this stern, warm woman.

Country lads. Bjorgman, not a gentleman, it did actually fit. But her? She was the Queen. If it were taken away from her, who would she become? Only Elsa? Unthinkable.

She got up immediately. She told herself that the whole world would slip away from under her feet again and that her responsibilities would overwhelm her like an avalanche if she continued sitting like this.

Enough adventures; she had to go home.

“It's not…” Bjorgman denied.

“Yes, of course not!” The woman's gaze softened. “After all, everyone knows that you’re smitten with our Princess.”

He grunted in response and bent down to grab the knife, which suddenly slipped from his hand. Elsa instinctively glanced at the softer skin on the inside of her elbow. Although the constellations of stab marks had quickly faded, there was a mark of another knife with initials E. B., it was still like a pink ribbon on her skin.

“Oh, I’ve just mentioned her and you're already happy in the face.”

Elsa hurriedly pulled down her rolled–up sleeve and glanced at Bjorgman. She noticed it too: when he heard her sister's name, his face visibly softened, as if someone had run a hand across the tablecloth and smoothed out all the wrinkles.

She passed him, took a deep breath, and crossed the threshold. She stepped out into the courtyard and looked at the mountain peaks looming in the distance — more of a premonition than an actual sight at the moment.

Frost crystals crackled under her shoes as she walked.

It was still not too late. She could still run away, hide among them. But the tree line, where the farmhand went to collect moss and animal feed, seemed even further than the mountains themselves — the vidda took up all the free space. Above it, endless ranges and chains ran in all directions. Everything was so big and quiet that no one would find her. She would be erased.

Elsa shook her head. The pain was like a frozen bullet in her mouth. This was crazy.

What would she do alone in such a wilderness?

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

“That's what I thought.” One of the chits was standing in the doorway, peering at him from under her eyelashes. “I was afraid it was some nisser , but it's only Mr. Baron.”

Kristoff snorted and quickly grabbed the cigarette that fell from his mouth.

“Disappointed?”

She giggled.

“No! I definitely prefer Mr. Baron's company.”

Kristoff sighed and gestured towards the door; he wanted her to close it because mister Baird’s hymns of praise to the Queen were still pouring in from inside, but the girl took a step forward and only then pulled the handle.

He looked at her, surprised. That was not what he meant. He didn't want her to stay with him. There was nothing for her to do on the porch, and certainly not with him.

“Are you done with your duties?” he asked sharply. Which one was it anyway? The kitchenmaid? The servant, the maid?

“I've already taken care of them.”

She looked around and sat down on a bench leaning against the whitewashed wall, mumbling something about how it was the most comfortable place. Kristoff glanced at her briefly and flinched; he saw bare skin under the unbuttoned button of her blouse. He turned sideways to her and wrapped his hand around the match. The striker strip made an unpleasant sound.

“You know what?” The chit flipped her braids from her back to her chest and started nibbling on the end of one of them. Her tone was defiant. “They say a man is getting weird when he lives alone in the mountains.”

Kristoff shook his head in disbelief. A girl not much older than his sister sat opposite him and tried to flirt with him, tempting him with her flat chest.

She didn't impress him.

To impress him, in addition to her big mouth, she would also have to have freckles like brown sugar crumbs that marked the paths of her mouth, and eyes that were just a little too green to be called just blue, and stop thinking about her .

Kristoff rested his head against one of the poles supporting the roof. It smelled of tar. It smelled of wood.

“Button up that blouse and get the fuck out,” he growled.

The little chit’s face - a child's face, still round despite its general thinness — showed disappointment.

She was  a  g i r l  in a completely different sense of the word than Anna. She would probably become one of those he knew from St. John's parties — because if she was her friend's age, she wasn't even fifteen yet.

“I won't tell anyone anything if that's what you're afraid of.”

She didn't have a father? Brothers?

He couldn't imagine what poverty would have forced Ninni, big–eyed and proud, to behave like this. He thought about what he would do if some fool allowed himself to do something that the girl was clearly counting on. What would he do if he found out his sister was behaving like this?

“Get out,” Kristoff repeated. “And then I won't tell anyone what you're doing.”

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Elsa liked the smell of tobacco — it was like the smell of another, past life, long ago. But when mister Baird and Peterssen went into the drawing room for a cigar, she saw her profile the artist was far too gentle with the wrapper, and she had to leave.

Bjorgman stood on the porch with a cigarette between his teeth and seemed defiantly alive to her. His breath hung mist in the cool air.

Elsa took a seat on the bench by the window, praying that he wouldn't accidentally think of sitting next to her, and looked around at the desolate, lonely and hostile space to which she and Anna had condemned him.

“There's no way to escape, huh?”

He sounded like he knew something about it.

It sounded like they shared some secret.

Sisters, parents, responsibilities beyond measure — exactly the same size as pride.

The pulling power of mountains in solitude. Their weight.

There was something moving about this landscape. It awakened something that had been dormant in Elsa before. Longing.

Ah — ah — ah — ah …  

“Where to?” she said. Her voice barely trembled .

“Even as far as Weselton,” he muttered, and Elsa instinctively looked towards the north. If she crossed the tripoint somewhere in Dovre, she could reach both the western reaches of Weselton and Nordhuldra territory, but he didn't mention it. Go and go until she found what she was looking for — or, in the latter case, until the land one day merged with water and cut off her further path. “Except there’s winter there, too.”

The October wind murmured around them and sang secrets of old and new. It carried with it the scent of frost that washed over her like a promise .

Ah — ah — ah …  

She remembered huge chunks of ice floes floating on the surface of the lake. They pulsated pure blue inside and at their base, and Elsa tried unsuccessfully to read the notes and explanations from them. What if she came closer…?

But she knew that when she jumped off the edge this time, there would be no one down there to catch her.

She touched the cigarette through the fabric of her skirt and slipped it into her pocket. She tightened her fingers around it and asked, “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Bjorgman replied reluctantly. He shrugged. He did even this in a specific way; his shoulders moved forward rather than up. “If you have to run away, it's better to do it when the sun is warm.”

The pit inside her was growing.

Objects began to lose their outline, colors became blurred, but Elsa couldn't cry; she felt like she had no more tears left.

“Well, I don't think I'm needed here,” Peterssen remarked with a smile covered by a grizzled patch of mustache. He stood against the warped rectangle of the door, his watch chain rattling.

“You said that,” Bjorgman said and stubbed out the cigarette butt with the tip of his boot.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Kristoff glanced toward the strip of tall trees. He felt like they were laughing at him. Mr. Baron — they mocked, swaying in the cool morning wind. Lord. Royal Ice Master.

But there was no other option. As he told the Queen, he had nowhere to run.

The best he could do was find enough to do, just enough to kill the time — until Peterssen would talk to the Queen and maybe give him another reprimand, and mister Baird would stop licking everyone's ass — before leaving, and not to allow himself to think.

“He probably thinks he’s someone now, but he comes from an even worse family than me. A crazy mother, a drunk father…”

“Besides, he's not all that handsome.”

“Well, I heard he's of Nordhuldrian descent. Anyway, I guess it's visible.”

He pushed the open door wider. There was an immediate silence in the kitchen. It reigned for a moment, undisturbed, until one of the chits, blushing fiery, hurried out into the corridor. The servant or the maid — the one who’d accosted him outside, but not the one the others had sent to question him at the well.

The other one, probably the kitchenmaid, was still sitting on the bench and looking out the window.

“You don't have anything to do either?”

“Now you tell me what to do.”

He frowned — all three of them were as stupid as cotton — fuck me …

“So if I don't say anything, you'll just sit here?”

The chit shrugged, as if she wasn't sure how it worked herself.

Kristoff moved past her and reached into the drawer under the window where Irina had hidden the whetstone after he’d sharpened her knife. He thought about the unfinished figurine from the stable, which he hadn't even managed to shape yet, the dull blade of unna niibaš and how the raspy, monotonous sound soothes his nerves.

Finally he ran his thumb over the blade and felt the burn as the skin began to crack under the pressure of the blade, but he stopped at the last moment before the edge sank into flesh.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Reindeer hooves pounded hard on the ground. The open landscape began to close in.

The silence of the meadows was interrupted by the noise of villages. Bells ringing, sheep bleating. In little faluröd * houses lived people whose faces were darkened by the sun that bled red in the sky.

Miles away, the sea shimmered in the sun like a promise or an escape route.

Elsa could leave. Besides, she could also drown, as her parents did.

The Queen looked away and smiled at the guards who opened the gate.

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all **.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

When the wagon stopped, Peterssen's hands rose like birds of prey, arced over his head and came dangerously close to Kristoff's face.

“For God's sake, boy, you're carrying the Queen of Arendelle in this wagon, not a sack of potatoes!”

There must have been something to what Ninni had said about him. He really looked like an old spinning wheel now, as he stood there with his eyes wide open, his nose sticking out, and his chin receding.

Kristoff cleared his throat. He politely shook hands with the Queen and rudely declined an invitation to dinner. He wanted to see Anna, but that could wait, because when she was around, summers turned to winters and ice men lived in palaces. Nothing stuck to Anna as tightly as chaos, and he needed a break from it for a while.

With relief, he sank into the fog that hid everything that existed beyond the castle's quadrangle.

“ You're running away again ,” Sven pointed out as Kristoff grabbed him by the bridle and dragged him into the narrow street leading off Kongeligplass.

“Not at all, we'll come back tomorrow.” He even agreed to leave the wagon in the carriage house. In pledge, otherwise he wouldn't believe what he’d just said. “It's just that this time I'd rather sleep in an inn than in a barn.”

“ You know exactly what I mean. ”

Kristoff touched the reindeer under the mane, where the fur was softest and warmest.

If only.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

“Oh my! Have you really met Kristoff's sister?!”

“Half–sister,” Elsa corrected, looking at her hands that Anna had grabbed. Skin became warm from skin. As if she could be human.

She thought that maybe Anna could also visit Grimstad someday. After all, even in this gloomy, barren landscape, spring had to come.

But first, Elsa would have a lot of explaining to do. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. For behaving this way. That she couldn't and wasn’t able to.

She felt the words crowding her lips, trying to escape — ‘it wasn't the fault of…’ — Bjorgman? Lord? sir? or by name? what would she call him? — but she didn't even really know if it was true. She remembered their silent agreement. Maybe he wouldn't want Anna to accompany them anyway.

The thought of the Ice Fields began to hurt her again. She breathed a few times, through her nose, concealdon’tfeel , and she pulled herself together.

“But a sister is a sister, right?” Anna's face was bright with a smile, and although those words couldn't change the past or remove the loneliness and fear from it — Elsa felt that some wound inside her, one of the ones she had carried for far too long, hurt a little less.

_______________

* Faluröd (Swedish) — Falun red; dye from copper ore mixed with flour and linseed oil, used to preserve wooden houses.

** William Shakespeare — Hamlet.

Chapter Text

Chapter 41

Tragic flaw

The fox had lost his sense of smell. He didn't sense the opportunity that was presented to him on a silver platter, practically right under his nose.

Or maybe he just wasn't a fox anymore.

Who was he then?

The thirteenth failure his father was aware of.

Hans Vestergaard, not a lion, not a wolf, but apparently not a fox either.

He buried his face in Sitron's mane, which was ragged and had no trace of its distinctive cut. For a moment he even managed to forget about the smell of blood, mud and metal.

Snow–colored blankets were swirling under his feet, with a Bible cover sticking out from under them. A brown–gray mass, barren and doubtful — the mare, the book, himself in another too–loose shirt. Hans had an impression that he had only the ashes of someone else's life around him.

In Nasturia's frozen inaction he’d leafed through the Bible ad nauseam, until the pages began to fall like snow, and he’d looked at the meaningless verses without book names written in the margins: 4:33, 4:32, 4:34, 4:47, 4:182, 4:62–63, 4:164, 4:142, 4:45, 4:82, 4:111, 4:175, 4:13, 4:72, 4:44, 4:11.

The longest fourth chapter — the one in The Book of Maccabees — ended at verse 61. Hans couldn't find any other ones — 82, 111 — for one simple reason: they just didn't exist.

32 Fill them with cowardice; melt the boldness of their strength; let them tremble in their destruction. 33 Strike them down with the sword of those who love you, and let all who know your name praise you with hymns. 34 Then both sides attacked, and there fell of the army of Lysias five thousand men; they fell before them.

47 Then they took unhewn stones, as the law directs, and built a new altar like the former one.*

And even there, the markings seemed spotty — at best; at worst, completely accidental.

Stacks of paper turned into silent mountains.

For God's sake, The Book of Maccabees was apocryphal after all!

Hans remained convinced that it was all just a sublime, but not entirely successful joke — especially after the concise statement that exile was still better than the executioner's axe and the suggestion to ‘find solace in the Lord’.

They should have given the task of twisting the knife in the wound to Josef, he would have done a better job.

Nobody took Gustav seriously. He had married, fathered three useless daughters, and wandered the Scottish moors behind his wife's family estate, playing anonymous scribbler.

Hans didn't take him seriously either. In his place, he would have kept his finger on the pulse and his eyes on the throne, from which he was only one childless, still unmarried life away. Like every Westergård. Even in his own place, that's what he did.

After all, everyone in his family followed a specific code that…

This was our code when we were younger.

He froze.

Code.

C I P H E R .

He’d gotten the Bible after all…

Only Gustav could have put the cipher and its key in the same envelope. Only Hans would consider the riddle too naïve to solve it.

He hurriedly picked up the book. He leafed through it.

4 – 3 – 3 | 4 – 3 – 2 | 4 – 3 – 4

4 – 4 – 7 | 4 – 18 – 2 | 4 – 5 – 2 | 4 – 6 – 2 | 4 – 6 – 3 | 4 – 16 – 4 | 4 – 14 – 2 | 4 – 4 – 5 | 4 – 8 – 2 | 4 – 11 – 1  ||   4 – 17 – 5 | 4 – 1 – 3 | 4 – 7 – 2 | 4 – 4 – 4 | 4 – 1 – 1

Book cipher.

How was it?

Line–word–letter…

Without the page number, which he already knew, he’d returned to it so often, the most bent one, where the Bible opened itself. The end of Madame's ribbon served as a bookmark there.

There was this damn symbolism everywhere.

4 Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord.

Havið had copied this part of the Obadiah’s Prophecy for Queen Elsa without Hans’ participation. He had long ceased to be a player and was tormenting himself with fatalistic thoughts from the position of a pawn.

After all, everything that went up had to come down, that's how gravity worked.

He consoled himself with the thought that his words, his thoughts, the blood in his veins and the heart that pumped them, still belonged to him — even though he himself remained a subject of His Majesty.

Because all this time he’d thought they were mocking — Madame, Gustav, perhaps father who was always pulling all the strings; the entire Universe — his hopeless attempt to break away from the position holding him in place on the Isles. That this time he had bitten off more than he could chew.

Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord.

The words he’d just written were like dark bird tracks on the white snow.

A – X – L

F – I – S – H – E – R – M – E – N – S   ||  C – O – A – S – T

Verses 10 and 17 marked in pencil circles.

10   For thy violence against thy brother Jacob shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off for ever.

17  But upon mount Zion shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness; and the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.

Strands of thoughts stretched across Hans' brain like ribbons of thinning fog.

10. 17.

When he laughed, his laughter sounded like the sound of stones rolling through water. Just think that it would be enough if he did what he did best one more time and waited a little longer…

But hubris** had always been the real heroine of his drama.

He felt as if everything around him was freezing, as if he were looking at a postcard from a distant place among the mountains, with a house, a beaten road, a row of birch trees as white as dead fingers. There was a napkin with red and gold flowers drying on the fence rails, which he had most likely stained.

Axel Krogh. Fishermen's Peninsula. October 17th.

In a week.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Behind the suddenly opened barn door, a fresh and unreal dawn was breaking, in which everything was already bright.

Tor approached Mus. Crumb was walking behind him, saying something to him — perhaps she was explaining where the second horse came from.

Hans thought of the postcards he had once started collecting in Boulogne–sur–Mer. During their walk, his governess had bought him one of the Opal Coast, although he had no one to send it to.

He then stared for a long time at the painted water, which seemed to be a suitable background for the land, and wondered what it would be like to sail further, through the straits, to the open sea. Flow and flow until he lost sight of the land, became smaller and smaller, dissolved, turned into water and shells and stones and seaweed, and they all wouldn’t notice it.

Someone touched him.

Everything undulated, the lines began to writhe like poisonous snakes, like the embankment of the French Riviera made of lacy sea waves.

Father and daughter no longer spoke.

Hans blinked and realized that Tor and Mus were gone.

He had an impression that Crumb felt the tension rising within him. It must have traveled from his hand to her arm — where he dug his fingers into her skin.

“Rend mig i røven***,” he choked out. His knees felt suspiciously soft. He looked at his hands, as if from a distance, and saw that they were shaking. Corners of the Bible oppressed him like an obligation beyond his strength.

“I guess that's not very polite,” Crumb said. She smiled a lazy, enigmatic smile. There was a hint of a laugh at the corner of her mouth that he had never seen from her before, and he felt exposed again. "Tell the Prince to go fuck himself."

_______________

* The Book of Maccabees quoted after New Revised Standard Version.

** Hubris (Greek) — arrogance, ancestral pride preventing the hero from accurately understanding the situation they are in. It’s seen as a challenge to the gods and often results in punishment, leading to heroe’s downfall.

** Rend mig i røven (Danish) — fuck, fuck me (literally translated to ‘fuck me in the ass’).

Chapter Text

Chapter 42

Behind closed doors

When Anna closed the stable door behind her and leaned her back against it to catch her breath, single chrysanthemums from the pink, orange and gold wreath flowed down to her feet.

“What kind of devil is chasing you?”

Sven roared softly at the sight of her. Kristoff patted the reindeer's side, and Anna watched the ruffled fur smooth out under his hand.

“What? No, I — none, just…” She blushed shamefully. Since July, the cold had been creeping under her skin, seeping into the marrow of her bones, seeping into every thought and dream — and right now she was simply hot.

At breakfast Fraülein Hahn gave her just one long, careful look — and she looked a little less like a disgruntled bat than usual — satisfied, perhaps, that Her Royal Highness had chosen to don morally and financially modest attire.

She didn't need to know about the less than modest things Anna had done in those clothes as the summer slowly faded away.

It was a conscious choice — a skirt in the color of blood and passion and a blouse made of undyed linen. Anna had worn them on Kristoff's birthday and hoped he would remember them too, even if the October afternoon required her to put on a sweater, a few extra petticoats, and thicker stockings and drawers.

Not that he would see the latter, of course.

But she didn't expect that she would run into him just now.

She’d expected him first thing in the morning, before classes, when her hair was still neatly combed, or at lunchtime, when she still looked quite neat — definitely not after tea, when, out of boredom, she’d decided to teach Olaf how to weave wreaths and, when asked by him, she’d checked the meaning of chrysanthemums in the language of flowers (condolences), and they’d picked whole flower beds of them, which had upset her so much that she couldn't decide whether she'd rather ride or read for the rest of the afternoon, so she’d just slipped into the stables with her book.

“Err…”

She tried to focus, first on the movement of Kristoff's hand, then on the soft murmur of his voice as he whispered something into the reindeer's ear, but the moment he tugged on the reindeer's girth, she blocked his path.

“You know, maybe it's better not to go in there for now.”

Kristoff raised his eyebrows.

“Because?”

“‘Beauseee… I wanted to go to Kjekk and read some more,” she held the book tighter to her chest, like a shield, until she felt the boning of her corset scratching the cover through the fabric, “but I came across Sander and Ingrid, who…”

“Who what?”

“You know.”

“I don't know!”

“Well, they kissed, among other things, and…”

“And what?”

“And  y o u  k n o w  w h a t . . . ”

A moment too late, she realized that Kristoff was mocking her.

“Don't laugh at me!” she bristled. “Kristoffer!”

“Did you yell at them, too?”

Anna punched his arm,  shaking with suppressed laughter, with Little women .

“I'm still a little mad at you,” she said, picking at the corner of the cover with her fingernail. It bent. “Why did you come only now?”

The ground seemed warm from the autumn sun, although since Anna had left the castle its rays had already moved a little to the left. The smell of worn leather, hay and horses wafted through the cracks in the stable walls.

“Your sister made two feet of ice on Limingen.”

“Whoa.”

“Do you even know how much two feet is?”

Anna snorted. Of course she knew.  A  l o t .

She quickly made the necessary calculations. She was over five herself, so, logically, two feet was less than half of her height. That was… well, that was around Olaf.

“Is that bad?”

“We were talking about seventeen tommer .” Kristoff measured the distance, completely different from Anna's calculations, with his fingers. They were stained with wood dust. “Fuck, she's completely out of control now, isn't she?”

“E–Elsa?” She wanted to deny it so much. She couldn't, but she could at least change the subject. “Is that why it took so long? I mean, well, ice harvesting. I thought you came back with her.”

There was a moment of strange vulnerability in Kristoff's gaze before he looked down at his boots.

“Yes, but… I… well, when I was still in town, I wanted to… buy… this…” he muttered the last word.

“A doll?” Anna repeated, not sure if she understood correctly.

“But not for me!”

She wrinkled her nose.

She frowned.

“Oh, of course!” She slapped her forehead with her hand and giggled awkwardly because she still had the book in her hand. The corner of the cover scratched her temple. “For your sister! Jane, right? No, wait, you call her something else. Something starting with an ‘n’?”

Kristoff rubbed the back of his neck.

“Ninni.”

“And she was there too? In the Ice Fields, that is.”

“Well, you could say so.”

“And… your cousins?” Anna continued to ask, because even if she hadn't had the opportunity to meet them yet, she wanted to learn as much as possible about all the members of his family.

“My cousins?”

“Well, those who are also ice harvesters.”

“Wait, what? No — only Juhani is.”

“Why? I thought it… runs in the family.”

“Maybe if you don't have five kids. Everyone wouldn't make a living from it.”

Anna pursed her lips. She thought about the man she’d bumped into at Hilde's and the rest of the faceless inn guests, and all the things they might do next if they had the chance. No one in this group looked like they could barely make ends meet. At most, maybe like they could barely lift their hands with the mug to their mouths.

Memories of their wolfish smiles danced before her eyes.

She glanced at Kristoff over Sven's floppy ears and immediately regretted it, because her face must have been like an open book.

“They're — you know — they're — I mean, ice harvesters…” Kristoff cleared his throat, almost apologetically. “Not everyone is such an asshole. Some are — different. They can — they are… okay.”

“Yes? So who is your best friend?”

“Umm, Sv…”

“Sven doesn't count. I mean, of course you do count, Sven,” Anna assured quickly, stroking the reindeer's neck conciliatingly, “but I'm asking about people. Some okay ice harvester, maybe?”

“Jens.” Kristoff didn't seem to need to think about it, but it took a while before he answered; the three movements it took him to adjust Sven's harness, and some more silence. “You know, once… we were…”

"Close," Anna finished, feeling that he wouldn't do it.

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “But things have changed. He got married recently,” he added, avoiding the intensity of her gaze.

“Oh, so it was about a girl?”

“What? No!”

“It's always about some girl.”

“You really read too much.” Kristoff rapped his knuckles on the cover of the book she held to her chest. The woolen sweater suddenly felt so thin that she was afraid he might be able to see her heartbeat through the fabric. “Are these your  f a i r y – t a l e s  again?” he said sarcastically.

Anna wanted to be outraged and — even in the context of his friend's marriage — say that she didn't understand what difference it was supposed to make, but he knocked the next question out of her hand, asking his own again, “And who is  y o u r  best friend?”

She wasn't prepared for this.

Because she had lots of friends. Literally the whole great castle of friends. A whole gallery of friends' paintings.

Because she didn't have any.

‘Elsa’, she was going to say, but that would be too obvious a lie. Elsa had her own affairs and didn't want to be her friend anymore.

‘You’, she hoped to ask, but she was too afraid. Besides, Kristoff had already named his best friends. She didn't want to find out that there was no place for her on the podium.

‘Olaf’, she didn't want to say, because even though she was the one he spent most of his time with, he liked literally everyone. And — hadn’t he mentioned that Captain Madsen was his best friend? And besides, he was a snowman, she couldn't name him.

She couldn't find her breath.

“Rapunzel,” she finally decided. She remembered her from her childhood, she’d met her again during Elsa's coronation ball, where Rapunzel had promised that they would exchange letters — and she kept her word; she’d said she always did. And she wasn't just cheerful, funny and with similar interests — there was also something stable about her, something that was missing in Anna's entire life. “She's my cousin — you know, from Corona — and her real name isn't Rapunzel, but her real name is pretty nasty, because she got it from her great… great–grandmother — yes, I think so, two ‘greats’.” She looked down at the crack in Sven's hoof. “Me and Elsa are also named after our great–grandmother. One. The same one, anyway. I've heard that this is a tradition throughout Arendelle. That children are named after deceased relatives. Were you named after someone, too?”

“After Saint Christopher, you forgot?”

Anna wondered if his smile — or at least that smirk — would ever stop looking like he was secretly mocking her.

She bent down to pick up a handful of hay that had emerged from the stacks that had piled up in front of the door and were waiting for Sander.

“What the f…” and she threw it in Kristoff's face.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Kristoff gently nudged her in response, and Anna pushed him much harder — and he really didn't know what she’d expected to accomplish with that, because she squealed in surprise when he grabbed her hand before she could shove another handful of hay into his eyes.

Clouds of flowers fell around them, and he instinctively bent down to pick up the broken wreath that had stopped on the tip of his boot. He froze because Anna moved too, the hem of her skirt brushing his nose.

The hem was embroidered with flowers green as moss and orange as the sun. He thought of cloudberries.

Fy faen.

Anna blushed so much that freckles disappeared from her cheeks. She seemed small and fragile and too warm.

She was out of breath from laughing so hard.

He was simply breathless.

“Hey, look, now there’s two.” She took the pieces of the wreath from him. Kristoff felt the steady pulse of the fire crystal move along his sternum as she stood on her tiptoes and pressed herself against him. A bright crown of golden stars. “Long live King Kristoffer and Queen Anna!”

Her laugh was almost childish, light and fluttering. She seemed so happy and had such openness in her eyes when she looked at him.

But he didn't laugh.

He didn't say anything.

Even the imaginary title of Royal Ice Master was beyond him, and once again the thought manifested itself before him in the form of a short, sharp jerk somewhere inside.

Anna immediately became serious. She looked away, suddenly startled.

“It bothers you, doesn't it?” she whispered. She untangled a few stray of pyrethrums from her hair and began tearing off the petals. “That I am…?”

“What, nuts?” he said without much conviction.

“A  p r i n c e s s . ”

Kristoff shook his head. Did it  b o t h e r  him? She had been a princess the moment he met her — and long before that. She had been a princess the night he met her at Oaken's and that dusk when he’d put his hand up her skirt.

She was a princess, that was all. That was  e v e r y t h i n g .

“Anna…”

He looked at his hands, where pyrethrums were scattered. He couldn't look her in the face yet. Not now, when he could feel his heart beating in his fingertips.

The stable door opened and he was still searching for words (any would do). He would like to spit them all out because they turned to gravel in his mouth, but the feelings were simply… too big for that. Too difficult.

“Your Royal Highness!”

The quiet hum of conversation.

“Mr. Bjorgman.”

The stable boy, with a straw in his mouth and his shirt buttoned crookedly and not tucked into his pants, was looking at him with an expression that clearly said: I won't say anything if you won’t . Kristoff thought he could rest assured about that.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

“Hey, Anna!” When Olaf trotted in, Anna silently thanked herself a few minutes earlier for sending him to find blades of grass long enough to tie wreaths together — or whatever excuse she’d given him. And he must have found some, because they flew up into the air as he waved his arms happily. “Can a duck drown?”

“Wait,  w h a t ? ”

But he had already turned his attention to Sven, whose neck he’d hung on, and Kristoff he’d asked to touch the wall.

Kristoff raised his eyebrows and placed his hand against the stable wall. Sander gave them all a dubious look, backed out of the snowman's cloud reach, and reached for the two nearest stacks of hay.

“Hmm, I didn't expect that,” Olaf said. “What if you ran into it? But with momentum!”

“Are you feeling okay?” Kristoff turned to Anna and asked in a low voice, “What is he on about again?”

Anna tore a loose thread from the sleeve of her sweater and used the tip of her slipper to rub one of the chrysanthemums into a luminous streak, and when there was nothing else left for her to do, she finally replied, “I don’t have the slightest idea.” She also had no idea how to tell Kristoff about the conversation with the Diamond Devourers that the snowman had witnessed, nor any particular desire to do so. “Listen, Olaf, didn't you have some idea how to get more carrots for Sven? Do I remember correctly?”

“Oooh! Right! You’d like some carrot cake, right, Sven?” He barely had time to move out of reach of the reindeer's teeth. “Oh, what a poor reindeer, you are so hungry!”

Kristoff rolled his eyes: Don't talk to him like that .

“Then maybe you'd like to show me your hidden abilities later?” Olaf suggested, pointing his nose at him, he had to stick out so that Sven wouldn't reach it.

He didn't wait for an answer. They hurried away, the snowman and the reindeer, and Anna breathed a sigh of relief.

“You know, because if it does bother you — à propos that I'm a princess, I mean,” she started carelessly, but a sudden panic made her speak louder, faster, more with each word, “so maybe I'll timidly remind you that since you have a title, you also belong to the upper class in a sense?”

Kristoff snorted. “Which title exactly? I've already collected a few.”

No ellipses, no hesitation, and the conversation became light again. It was easy to tease Kristoff, easy to be with him like this. Anna blinked away the tears that had come from who knows where before he could notice them and nudged him. “We won't discuss it again, but Royal Ice Master  i s  a real function.”

It occurred to her that maybe it was a good thing they’d been interrupted.

Because if Kristoff had answered her question, he might feel exactly as she felt when she’d asked it: exposed.

Maybe it was better when all that should exist only in the dark, in the solitude of the mountains and the sound of the wind, or, if in the castle — always behind closed doors — was not said aloud.

Or maybe not at all.

Anna inhaled the crisp air. The sky was finally clear. The wind was blowing, the sun was shining, and that was what she should focus on. She should also have clear thoughts, leave the rest alone for a moment and not worry about it, because when they’d enter the castle, even this heaviness disguised as lightness would disappear.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

They needed to talk, not even because he owed her that, but the opportunities to do so were rare because there were no more moments alone to steal. When she’d said this, Kristoff was still a little too confused, as he was after every encounter with Olaf, to try to protest.

Anna smiled at him in the doorway. The remnants of daylight streaming through the narrow windows danced on her hair, making it similar in color to the fiery crystal around her neck.

She pushed open the door leading to the kitchen and made a parody of a bow, gesturing for him to come inside. He shook his head, but stepped over the threshold. The door made no sound as it closed behind her.

As if they were never there.

But all the servants couldn't just  d i s a p p e a r .  This couldn't work. He was too old to fall for that again.

Anna led him through rows of corridors filled with paintings and armor that blended into one when he blinked, and he wondered how he’d find his way out of this maze of wooden paneling and carpets later.

He seemed to understand what she meant when she talked about the emptiness, the loneliness that echoed in every hall, and the musty smell that came whenever someone tried to open the curtains.

“Uh–oh.”

They stopped at the bottom of the next staircase.

“What is it? Why aren't you going?” Kristoff asked, but before she answered him, he noticed. Kai stopped at the end of the upstairs corridor, his gaze on them.

Anna modestly brushed her skirt. She glanced at the man, who clearly had nothing better to do.

“Yes, I will be happy to show you the way to the  l i b r a r y ,  Lord Bjorgman! Olaf, who will immediately report any indecent behavior, is already waiting there, so we will definitely not be alone for a second! Although if someone wanted something from me, they probably wouldn't find me easily — it's such a big library after all! Ugh, Kai is such a stickler for rules.” Anna lowered her voice and muttered, “A lady shouldn't go up the stairs first.”

“I see.” Kristoff hadn't heard that before. It seemed to him that women had priority in everything. Doors, carriages, chairs, so why not staircases? “Because?”

“Well, because… agentlemancouldthenlookather derrière *.”

“At what again?”

“Well, at…” She made a vague gesture.

“Oh, at her ass?”

As if he’d never looked.

“Kristoffer!”

"You're lucky I'm not a gentleman," he said, but as he set foot on the step first, Kai seemed to remember that he did have a job. “Come on now.”

On the floor upstairs, on either side of the carpet, ice gleamed smoothly, but in many places snow was beginning to melt, revealing the stone, gray and flat and distinct.

Kristoff had never thought about it, but now he felt how long winter had lasted in this place.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

“We're not actually going to the library.”

“I figured it out somehow. Anna…” But Anna didn't let him finish because she couldn't bear another ‘no’. Her whole life had been one big ‘no’ lately.

Didn't he understand that the words might finally burst out of her?

And Elsa had unusually gone to bed, just after tea; frost still silvered its trail to her bedroom. There were stretches of white snow in front of the door — one of the few clean things left in the castle. Anna had knocked, no one had answered, and she’d tried to explain to herself that the door was simply frozen, and she felt like a little girl again, staring hungrily at her sister and wishing she could perform miracles, too.

On the second floor, all that remained of Elsa were single icicles melting on the ceiling.

“Don't be so nervous, I'm not inviting you to my room this time either.”

Besides, no one saw. Nobody would know.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

They made it to the study door — Anna had repeated this several times, but if there was any place in this castle that Kristoff could find his way to on his own, it would definitely be the study.

He would go there even blindfolded and drunk, just like in the Valley of the Living Rock, because it was another place that had taken from him more than it had given.

The door was quite nice — probably — as nice as a door can be — decorated in green and blue rosemåling , so high that it had caught his attention already during the first audience, because he didn't have to bend down when passing through the threshold.

Gray–green wallpaper flashed before his eyes, and in a short draft he smelled frost, ink and a faint whiff of some distinctly feminine perfume.

Even though there was no one else in the room except him and Anna, Kristoff felt like he could still feel the cold presence of the Queen behind him.

If he hadn't seen her breathing with his own eyes, he would have sworn she was frozen solid. Was this even possible? Could she freeze the same way she’d frozen Anna?

Perhaps it was best not to think about it now, when the distant hum of the Queen's curse still echoed in the icy stalactites that covered the ceiling like mushrooms.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Kristoff took the horse figurine she pointed out to him from the shelf.

“Is this Nøkken?” he asked, weighing it in his fingers. Anna wanted to answer truthfully that she didn't know, a figurine as a figurine, she was the least interested in it all, but she didn't have time because the bowels of the castle opened up to them. “What the…”

Kristoff froze. Dust billowed into the air and the bookcase the horse was on opened to reveal an arched door.

“What is this?”

She watched impatiently as Kristoff ran his hand along the hinges, stepping inside, and then turned back to the shelf where he’d taken the figurine from, as if he was trying to put the mechanisms together in his head.

She’d already told him about several other, maybe not so secret, but definitely less frequented passages, useful in case he ever needed to sneak unnoticed to another part of the castle (but Kristoff was clearly not interested in that).

“The Secret Room,” she replied slowly, because it was new even to her. “You know, the same one where I found that strange book about trolls, for example. Remember? The one that Elsa forbade me to enter — but since she did it for the same reason that  s h e  doesn't want to enter it herself, I know that we’ll be able to talk peacefully here. And apart from her and me, no one knows about it. And maybe Olaf. And now you.”

When Anna held out a trembling hand, Kristoff offered her his, and she felt the weight of his trust.

In the Secret Room, the outside world ceased to exist again. When she crossed the threshold, she didn't feel the floor under her feet, and the distant conversations of maids and servants wandering around the nearby corridors stopped.

Anna shook her head, trying to clear it, but it felt like a fog had seeped into her lungs, clogged her throat and stung her eyes.

Because before, the only real secret in her life had been Elsa's magic. She thought that was the end of it, it was just one secret to keep her safe. (Why was everyone in her life so obsessed with her safety?)

But… why wouldn't they lie to her — to them — about other things, too? Once again, her parents had been hiding something so important that she wondered if they had ever told her the truth.

She thought she heard the flapping of wings above her, as if a bird had suddenly taken flight. And she shuddered. It was one of those brutal, weird chills that ran down the inside of her spine.

“Hey,” Kristoff asked in a gentle voice, “are you still cold?”

“No, I think someone just walked over my grave or something.”

“Did  w h a t ? ”

“Don't you know this? That's just a saying,” or at least that's what mister Willard had told her in English class, someone just walked over your grave , because there were no fireplaces in the classrooms and most often between September and April she was simply freezing there, and although it was not physically cold enough for the ink to freeze in the inkwells, lately she’d been having trouble holding the pen in her clumsy fingers and she thought to herself that maybe she already had her grave, there, in the fjord, “you know, that feeling when you suddenly shiver.”

“Damn it, don't scare me.” Kristoff nudged her.

“Speaking of which…” Anna looked up and remembered the presence of the black bird that hung over the table like a warning. “Could you please take it from here?”

But even he couldn't reach it without standing on the desk. The pale light of the kerosene lamp danced on the blade of his knife as Kristoff cut the bonds holding the bird and winced as the dead weight slid rustling into the palm of his hand. A black arrow with a sharp beak tip. It sounded like a scream to Anna's ears.

“But you hunt yourself, too,” she commented on his expression, just to say something, because she was paying too much attention in English and she also knew that a swarm of crows was called murder , like  m u r d e r ,  which she’d always found disturbing. Only Elsa liked it, because for some reason she liked macabre.

And even if it was a raven hovering near the ceiling, it wasn't any better, because the raven was a harbinger of death.

For a moment, a fraction of a moment actually, she felt a flash of something like guilt. She knew they were in the Secret Room, at least a little bit, because of Elsa. Because she’d been cut off from her elder sister's life, because Elsa was the Queen and she was, well, completely ordinary — and simply because Anna  c o u l d  and, at least that evening, Elsa couldn't.

“Not for sports,” Kristoff replied, jumping down to the floor.

After that there was complete silence, the room was small and at the same time huge, empty, the light of the lamp falling on the floorboards and walls, revealing layers of dust on the shelves with rows of old books and a framed nautical chart.

“Kristoff?” Outside, time was passing inexorably, Elsa was probably measuring it with drops of laudanum or the next grip of a migraine, clocks were ticking all over the castle, inside Anna too, and suddenly everything became indistinguishable, all those years of cold, darkness and lies. “Can you promise me something first?”

“Sure.”

He answered too quickly. All these falsehoods, built on the foundation of other falsehoods like some crazy house of cards ready to collapse at the slightest breath of wind, required something more.

“Or — no, not promise. You have to  s w e a r . ”

He followed her gaze down to the knife tucked into her sash, then back up to her face.

“Are you crazy?!” The metal shimmered silver and white for a moment, like a mountaintop, before disappearing under Kristoff's hand. The gesture was immediate, instinctive, defensive. “ Fóstbræðralag is black magic.”

“There's no such thing,” Anna replied, completely unconvinced.

“There are trolls, that's enough.”

With stiff fingers, Anna took off her sweater and slipped her hand under her blouse to touch the troll crystal. Trolls. She closed her eyes and imagined spring climbing up her fingers, down her skirt, and blooming with embroidered flowers at the bottom.

When she opened them again, her vision was blurred by streaks of black fog.

The wound in the palm of Kristoff's hand is deep, a crescent of bone whitening in the sea of ​​red, his hand feels numb as she grips it, and the blood flows, blessing the valley floor.

“I can swear whatever you want, but we will not take a blood oath. Anna? Anna! Can you even hear me?”

“Oh! Yes, I just…” For thirteen years she had remembered absolutely nothing that was true, and this week was the second time a memory had come back to her? “Yes.” She probably shouldn't be thinking about trolls when what was growing in her chest could be so dangerous to everyone. “I mean, no, we won't.”

But she had no idea what to ask him. To put his hand on a Bible she didn't even have here. To mention a name.

“Just swear on something important that — enough secrets. That there will never be any secrets between us. That you won't lie to me.”

He held out his hand to her.

“I swear on my father's grave. How about that?”

Anna looked at the frayed cuff of her shirt sticking out from under the sleeve of his jacket and his windswept fingers. His hand was large and rough, just the opposite of pappa’s hands. Her own seemed well–groomed and pale next to it, without a trace of veins or scars, as small as a child's hand.

In her case, such an oath would have no force. Her parents had died at sea and had no graves. All that remains of them were monuments on the frozen ground, empty inside.

“Of course.” It sounded serious enough. Almost solemn for him. “And — one more thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Will you tell me exactly what happened in the Valley of the Living Rock? In July. But lately, too.”

“Not today.” He sighed. There was a certain helplessness written in his serious eyes and pursed lips. “We wouldn't have enough time for this tonight,” he added hastily, seeing the look on her face. “Should I swear it to you, too?”

Anna shook her head. It was different with him than with Elsa, with whom she had been having ‘not ever’ over and over again for years. With Kristoff it was only ‘not today’, but that didn't particularly bother her, because after ‘todays’ there were always ‘tomorrows’.

She shook his hand and accepted what he was offering.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

The crack in Kristoff's chest was growing. It was different from all the other scars life had left on him, and he saw another one, a much bigger one, growing in Anna's eyes.

He felt hopelessly helpless because the only support he could offer her was to listen. He couldn't find any sweet untruths to feed her.

He wrapped his arms around her waist, feeling the restless beating of her heart under the fabric of her blouse and the skin of his thumb as he held her. His grip wasn't strong, she could have pulled away, but instead she sat on his lap, in the only chair at the desk, low and rickety, wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her head on his chest.

In a way, in all her talkativeness, she was more silent than usual. A little more anxious. After each finished thought, she would stutter and quickly fall silent.

What was the point of her leaving the trolls alone if almost everything she’d told him was somehow connected to them?

The shawl they’d talked about on the way to the Valley of the Living Rock — strikingly similar to the one his mother had left behind, with almost Nordhuldrian embroidery: crystals with no symbols of the elements.

Shackles from the depths of the chest, forged long before the Winter of the Century, when they had first been used because fear will be you enemy .

A memory that had been lost and now suddenly came back to her.

If it were possible to choose a monarch, Kristoff would never have voted for Queen Elsa, thoughtful and silent, who even in photographs seemed uncertain, almost lost, as if everything was crushing her.

But only for Anna, greedy for life and wanting nothing more than freedom, any crown heavier than a flower wreath — even a possible and imaginary one — could turn out to be a real asshole move. Most of the things she’d told him were like that.

Kristoff murmured comfort with his lips against her neck, which felt like a kiss; she shuddered and he tightened his grip on the hem of her summer skirt he tried not to remember, and he thought that right now he would rather not have a body.

“Kristoff…?”

He was sure that he hadn't moved, even more than that she hadn't moved, and yet they were even closer to each other.

“Hmm?”

“And your parents, did they love each other?”

“Well, sometimes they surely did.” Anna didn't understand the innuendo. He cleared his throat. “You know, I… I used to think that my father was really in love with my mother.” He could never tell whether his mother loved his father or hated him. It looked the same. “But then he met Ragna.”

“Oh,” she sighed before accusing him, “I thought you didn't believe in Great Love.”

“I never said that.” Kristoff didn't believe in many things — God or marriage — but love wasn't one of them. It existed, just like magic. Anna inhaled sharply at his words. “I don't believe…”

“In my version of love?”

Well.

Anna's first infatuation was nothing more than misplaced longing, while true love, as he knew it, consisted of years of hard work and then more of unhealed, festering wounds.

Kristoff still felt a faint pang of loneliness in his chest every time he tried to remember the last time he’d touched Merete–Margit's skin. He felt like he was tempting fate by even thinking about her. He remembered how she had burned herself; her scar was a reminder that he had played with fire before.

“…in easy love.”

“Like the one at first sight?”

“And Sven doesn't count, right?” he replied, not to delve into the feelings he had towards Anna.

“Be serious!” Anna rolled her eyes and ran her fingers through her hair, hellish red in the twilight, like a dying fire. “Ugh, I might have to do my hair again,” she groaned and blinked back tears. “I hate it. It's good that Øydis likes it — and how nicely she does it!”

She stood up and began walking around the room, although she could only take about eight steps before she was forced to turn around and start over.

“Actually, sometimes I wish I had short hair,” she finally said in an exaggeratedly cheerful tone, a perfect princess, but Kristoff couldn't see what it made her look like. “I almost cut it off once — before the measles, I was probably thirteen and I was angry because Elsa didn't want to pose next to me for a portrait, and besides, I didn't like the painter — but in the end I chickened out because mamma would probably be upset. She could be very principled, even more than pappa . And maybe that's a good thing, because later, when I was sick, I looked like a little fat boy for a few weeks.”

“Sounds like Jens most of his life.” Kristoff's voice was like an ice saw, struggling to cut through the tension between them like it was in Limingen at the height of the season. Anna giggled and he had to bite his tongue to keep from asking about things she clearly wanted to leave unanswered for now. “But it's quite convenient. Short hair, I mean.”

“That's why  y o u  cut it so often, huh?”

He almost laughed at that.

“I like your hair,” he said, also standing up and picking up a few loose red strands in his fingers. His hand went up, Anna's cheek soft and warm in the palm of his hand.

The truth was that he would like any hairstyle on her, even if she was bald, but she didn’t necessarily need to know about it.

“Really?!” The way she responded to compliments… no one had ever told her any before? Kristoff held her for three more breaths, four, five sniffles — he couldn't bring himself to let her go yet. “I like yours, too!”

"Uh, thanks?" On the other hand, he didn't seem to get many compliments either.

He hung his jacket on the back of the chair and lit a few candles he’d found in the desk drawer. He watched as Anna wrung her fingers nervously, wishing that the light could banish the dark thoughts.

“So, err, what now?”

“Well, I guess we only have books left.” She grabbed the button at the neck and turned it a few times. It fell away when she finally let go, revealing red spots on her neck and the fire crystal shimmering there, bloody and jagged like an entry wound, and she walked to the bookcase and ran her tiny fingers over the thick covers. “If they hid them here, there must be something important in one of them.”

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

“What are we looking for, exactly?”

This question was perfectly appropriate, but Anna wasn't sure. She knew what she  w a n t e d  to find, but she had no idea if that was what was actually in the Secret Room.

“Answers,” she murmured. She pulled out another thick volume, with no title on the cover. Third? Fourth? What would happen when she reached for the tenth and the possibilities ran out?

There were many more books in the library. Many. Many–many. Had she touched even a quarter of them in her entire life? One third?

These here were only a fragment of the entire castle collection, a drop of ink and a scrap of parchment, which in its own way made everything more difficult, because parents were dead and all the answers had gone with them. She found only loose fragments that made no sense, in languages foreign ​​even to her, and without helpful mustachioed warriors in the illustrations.

Anna had already taken the ones from the shelf Elsa had spotted last time, and the contents of the shelf opposite to the desk didn't look impressive either, although she couldn't see the top rows very well from below, which made her feel moderately optimistic.

She opened the book she was holding to see if there was at least something printed inside. The cover crunched under her nails. Mahogany leather, such a warm color, felt cold to the touch. Below it, on the first page, she found a dedication in elegant scribbles:

For my sweet Iduna

To remind that life is a grim tale — Uncle Birger, Crown Prince of the Southern Isles

‘Baden’, 1845

It wasn't even a book, it seemed, more like a journal or a sketchbook or one of those stupid poetry albums the Diamond Devourers were so excited about. Beautiful calligraphy, agreed — but why keep something like that in the Secret Room? What was that supposed to be? A richer version of a postcard from the baths? It made no sense.

Although, on the other hand, if one of  h e r  uncles addressed her like that, Anna would probably try to forget about it as soon as possible.

She dropped the album, deciding to put it back later. Sometimes she took things that she shouldn't have, just to see if anyone would notice. No one noticed or simply said nothing. What difference did it make.

Dust tickled her nose as she stood on the lowest shelf to reach higher, for a book with gold decorations glittering in the lamplight — a little higher, she stood on tiptoes, tried to jump, touched the spine with her fingertips — until the shelves wobbled.

Anna saw a sudden movement out of the corner of her eye, turned around as Kristoff reached out to hold the shelf, and almost collided with his collarbone.

“He–ey!” she stammered.

The ribbon she’d hastily and crookedly tied her hair into a ponytail with became tangled between his fingers and slid to the floor in a long spiral of red. Kristoff's right hand was still extended upwards, stopped mid–movement to grab the book Anna couldn't reach.

“Everything’s okay?”

“Err, no — yes.” She stood in the cage of his arms, still and safe, watching his chest rise and fall with each breath. She wanted to make a hole in it and bury herself in there, right next to his heart, and stay there, disappear into his embrace until she forgot where he ended and where she began. “I mean, no, no, everything's fine, yes.”

A spark of remembered fire in his eyes — men definitely shouldn't be allowed to have eyes like that — and Anna's cheeks burst into flames.  K r i s t o f f  should not be allowed to have eyes like that, because he evoked similar feelings in her with disturbing ease.

He slowly traced the index finger of his left hand across her cheek, along her chin, but stopped before he reached her breast.

This closeness only fueled the fire within her. The troll crystal around her neck was so hot that it could melt into the fabric of Anna's blouse and her skin at any moment.

She quickly found Kristoff's eyes. His vision was slightly blurry and… and…

He was looking at her lips!

For a moment she imagined herself in his arms, in the Secret Room, among the cobwebs and thick layers of dust. Fainting body flowing through his fingers like warm, melting darkness. She felt a pulse pounding in her ears, but she wasn't sure whose. Her heart burned in her chest, in her throat, in the pit of her stomach.

She sighed wistfully, aware of every hair, every freckle on her skin. Did that mean he would… would be willing if she wanted to? If she let him?

He had strong, steady fingers and cracked, slightly parted lips and fresh stubble; three–day? — because the last time he’d shaved was probably on Friday. Anna felt the warmth and sweet scent of tobacco in his breath on her cheek. Why didn't he stop staring at her lips? She closed her eyes. All she had to do was turn her head a little to the left, lean forward a little and…

THUD!

She flinched, startled by the sudden noise. The book slipped out from between Kristoff's fingers and he caught it right next to Anna's hip, but even if all the volumes had fallen off the shelves, they couldn't have made such a noise.

Kristoff's hands fell back to his sides. The moment between them was gone forever, and Anna realized she was shaking.

Kristoff's hands were shaking as well, as was the rest of his body, but certainly not because of her; the entire Secret Room was shaking as if a storm had broken out inside.

What have you done? — because he was so close, so, so close, and what other ice harvester could care about melting this ice — and with Kristoff, even under the surface of the ice, Anna could hear a faint sound of water, and it all had to be his fault — her lips formed into the shape of words, but there was no air left in her lungs to make any sound as a void opened up behind her and devoured them both in one bite.

_______________

* Derrière (French) — back; bottom.

Chapter Text

Chapter 43

Dollhouse

Anna needed a moment to find her body in the tangle of limbs and petticoats. Kristoff's knee between her legs. Her chest rising just below his own.

They breathed in the black darkness pressing in on them from all sides.

“Are you okay?” Kristoff mumbled into the crook between her neck and shoulder. His mouth was hot, his breathing shallow.

He stretched his arms out in front of him in an attempt to break her fall, wrapped his arms around her neck and back — a very gallant gesture — so Anna hadn’t hit herself that hard, but she still couldn't utter a word. She just shook her head, silent and mute, as if she had no mouth or throat.

She felt all the contours of his body as he moved over her and carefully began to untangle his fingers from her hair, goosebumps covering the entire surface of her skin. His other hand brushed her thigh, on the lace border of her drawers and stockings.

Or maybe it was all just a figment of her imagination? In fact, he’d probably touched her completely by accident.

Had she also seen the look he’d given her in the Secret Room just because she  w a n t e d  to see it so badly? Her imagination often played tricks on her. She saw things that didn't exist. It had always been like this. Sometimes she couldn't tell the difference between dreams and reality.

It was nonsense, she decided, to think about such things.

Kristoff stood up, relieving her of his weight, and she felt the crushing weight of the movement.

Something rattled, something hissed. A spark lit up.

“Damn, that's steep.”

Anna strained her eyes and saw Kristoff running his fingers along the rough rock that must have torn his skin and bruised his elbows. The corridor dropped abruptly into a stone basin, where she sat for a while, unable to get up, smoothing her petticoats, layer by layer. Strips of faint light crept between the stone slabs, trembling on the wall that had closed behind them, high above.

“Where exactly are we now?”

In the halo of match light, she could only see the cuff of Kristoff's sleeve, the fire reached to his wrist, the rest of his body was darkened.

“We are … in some secret passage, it seems.” Anna bit her lip. She had no idea. She only knew that they had to leave this strange place. And since they couldn't go back, the only thing left for them was to move forward.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

“His family is burdened with secrets that don't stand up to the light of day,” Lord Peterssen had warned her, but those words had no meaning in the darkness, both terrifying and tempting.

And ours is not? she thought bitterly.

Besides, Kristoff had sworn on his father's grave. It had to mean something. If she asked, he would be forced to tell her everything — but if she asked, she would also question her faith in him, and she didn't trust anyone else in the world as much.

And what would she do if he answered? She could barely imagine what she would do if she  a s k e d .

So she remained silent, running her fingers along the rough stone wall. To get to the exit, they should head in the direction where the air was coming from. It sounded logical.

They must have been under the fjord; Anna thought she heard the gentle lapping of waves on the other side. They did not pant as menacingly as those in the open sea, nor could they be as cold, but everywhere, in every sea, there was the same water.

Her stomach lurched uncomfortably as she imagined the harbor and then the rolling surface of the Southern Sea (‘Come back quickly!’, ‘two weeks’, ‘Do you have to go?’, ‘two weeks … ’).

She felt its icy presence even as the tunnel twisted and narrowed until it became impossible not to bump into Kristoff with every step; his back felt like a warm rock beneath her hands.

The whole world dwindled to sporadically struck matches that burned until they reached his fingers. The vault began to get lower and lower, she just had to bend down; he walked hunched to half his height.

“ Øre for your thoughts?” he asked as the pale halo of the tunnel exit loomed in the distance. In the darkness it looked like a gaping mouth of an animal.

Anna had never before realized that she, too, had secrets, just as much as Elsa — because she’d been given no other choice. She felt them cling to her in the dark, as strongly as the scent of tobacco smoke and melting snow clinged to the clothes of the man walking in front of her.

But the more they moved away from the castle — the heart of all these mysteries — the more she felt the closeness of July, of that herself who dreamed of great love, because she hadn’t yet known how much feelings could hurt. As if summer was a place one could get to.

“I was wondering where we’ll go out,” she said, recalling all the districts of Arendal she knew. Certainly not around the castle, in Frogner. They were just passing Nyhavn. The market seemed the most likely to her. “Probably somewhere in Bryggen?”

“No, I don't think so,” Kristoff replied, as if he had an opinion on the matter that he chose not to express. “We've been going too long.”

“Well, then we'll have a surprise. It's incredibly exciting, isn't it?!”

“ E x c i t i n g , ”  he repeated dully.

“Well, no matter how you look at it, we're on a small rendez-vous right now .”

“Anna! Don't use such words in front of me, or I'll blush.”

She burst out laughing. The idea of ​​Kristoff blushing like a schoolgirl was absurd.

“It means ‘a meeting’,” she said, just in case. When matches weren't burning, the darkness was split only into navy blues and blues. She couldn't tell exactly what his face looked like now, even when he turned to look at her over his shoulder. “A … romantic one.”

“I don't believe you. I know you well enough to be sure it must be something naughty.”

She nudged him and he staggered. He could barely keep his balance on the slippery and wet stones.

“It's just French.” Anna liked to speak foreign languages, because sometimes she was at a loss for words in Norwegian. She was good at it, after all, she’d spent hours scribbling letters to imaginary suitors abroad, flirting with paper and ink in case the opportunity to do it again in real life ever came up.

"Sure," Kristoff muttered sarcastically. “Will you say something else?”

“ Tais-toi * !”

He whistled through his teeth. “That definitely was crude.”

Anna didn't correct him, mainly because he wasn't so wrong this time.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

She wasn't sure how far they went, but it felt like they had made their way through oceans of slippery, loose stones before the tunnel began to climb upwards, leaving them with only a series of stone steps to climb, so high that they made Anna’s knees ache.

Something shimmered, flat and wide, a few feet above their heads. The world became more humid and muggy with every step.

When Kristoff reached for the hatch handle and pressed his hand against the hatch, instead of it giving way, it simply broke in his fingers. Rotten wood, dirt, and pine needles rained down on them as the tight tunnel opened into a wide space.

“And?” Anna asked, because even though she could finally straighten up, she still couldn't see where they were. “Where are we? What do you see?”

Even as Kristoff pulled himself up on his arms with irritating ease and exited the tunnel, the only things at her eye level were piles of rotting leaves that seemed to move when she looked at them out of the corner of her eye, but immediately went still as soon as she turned away towards them.

“Kristoff?” She felt a cold breeze and a strange smell, just like from a dug up grave. “Please tell me this isn't a cemetery!”

She heard a few steps, a snap of twigs breaking under the soles of high dark leather shoes disappearing somewhere in the darkness.

She wondered for a moment if she should jump, but then remembered that the inside of the tunnel was as slippery as the outside, and much steeper, and decided that maybe it wasn't a good idea after all. She wouldn't want to go back to the underwater darkness they’d come from for anything.

“Some huldra kidnapped you and that’s why you’re not answering me?”

The numbing sound of the wind suddenly sounded like something disturbing and menacing.

“Watch out, or she’ll kidnap you instead," Kristoff muttered straight into her ear. Anna didn't scream only because her heart was in her throat. “Wait, hold on,” he laughed as she swung at him, but couldn't reach him. He crouched down in the wet gravel behind her, leaning forward to catch her under the arms and helped her out of the tunnel.

“That wasn't funny! And besides, it doesn't make sense, huldras are only into young men …”

She was just about to get really angry, but she saw his smile, strangely boyish, not malicious, carefree and as delicate as the butterflies in her stomach. She had almost forgotten what he could be like when the castle seemed a lifetime away.

She felt herself blush and turned away from him, pretending to look around.

They didn’t end up at a cemetery, although the building, torn to pieces, gave a similar impression. It was just a dreary ruin, with not even half a wall that was more than a hole with an occasional stone. Sinked in the earth and peat, empty, lonely and desolate, it resembled a Stone Giant that crouched at the foot of the moon – painted silver hill.

Perhaps there had been something important there once, long ago, when Arendelle had been just a distant land, a kingdom of fog and hunting eagles.

“Is this Laugen?” Anna said half – heartedly, but Kristoff nodded. In the end, she guessed right. “Oh.”

The river stretched out before them like a bar of silver.

Another giant towered above it — it must have been Grünerløkka, the richest and most important, with houses like palaces, whitewashed, decorated, with large gardens with gazebos. Only its lights kept the impenetrable darkness slightly in the distance.

There lay a piece of the world Anna knew. But Arendal was hundreds of different worlds.

“So we’re in Vestli?”

“In Stovner.”

On the other side of the river. The worse side, if she was to believe what she'd heard about this district. Øydis liked to respond to the farmhands' taunts that they should be careful because her fiancé came from Stovner. And they were; it had to mean something.

Kristoff looked at her for a moment, as if searching for something.

“Where's your sweater?”

Anna looked down. The gleam of crystal seeped through the buttonholes of her blouse, making them look like little discs of suns. The hem of her skirt was heavy with moisture and dirt from the swamps.

She looked up. Kristoff made a move as if he wanted to undress. The damp blue shirt gleamed in the darkness like river water.

“Probably where your jacket is.”

“Oh no.”

“Are you more worried about me being cold, or about the fact that you left behind evidence of the crime?”

“And are you cold?” She didn't answer — the cold had been with her for so long that sometimes it was hard to notice that it was getting worse — she just leaned against him. As a wisp of the moon peeked out from behind the clouds, Kristoff put his arm around her.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

The city watchman’s light stood out on the dark side of the road, a lone firefly flickering just outside the old city gate. Kristoff's shadow grew on the door in front of her.

Heavy footsteps turned into the sound of thumping as the watchman raised a long pole with a spiked ball at the end and rapped it on the pavement.

Hey, gentlemen, the hour’s late,

It’s already ten o’clock, stay alert!

Guard the fire and thieves beware,

Praise God, in Him we place our prayer.

“It's already ten o'clock?!” Anna squealed. That meant five hours had passed since afternoon tea. Since she took Kristoff to the Secret Room — probably not much less. How much time had they actually spent there? How long had it taken them to get there? “It'll probably be past midnight by the time we get back to the castle!” she moaned, although she knew that she couldn't just come back like that, in the middle of the night, dirty and cold, in the company of a  m a n .  Nobody knew they had sneaked out.

She thought she could wait until the official change of guard and then try to sneak in, but it was only at one o'clock, too late to make it to lunch, let alone classes.

The guards who were already at the post were replaced every two hours. All she had to do was bump into those who hadn’t let Kristoff into the castle, and she'd quickly come up with something she hadn't yet thought of why she was on the other side of the gate and tell it in a convincing way.

Of course, already in the morning, at least after sunrise.

“Now you have no choice,” she said happily, “you have to invite me to your place.”

“My place where?”

“Well, where are you renting a room? You had to rent it because, trust me, I  a l w a y s  know when you’re sleeping in the stables, you can't get all the straw out of your hair.” Somewhere deep in her soul she felt a piercing cold. She shuddered and continued, hoping he wouldn’t notice: “By the way, isn't it expensive? To overnight in the city? I mean, I don't know how much something like that costs — not that you can't afford it, that's not what I meant — I thought that … you know, since you spend so much time in the castle, you might as well just spend the night there sometime, and, um.”

She just wanted to say that then it would be easier for them to meet again in the Secret Room — maybe this time without any secret passages — and he could give her a piece of the past, like he had promised, but she felt stupid.

“You've already planned it all through, huh?” Kristoff's incredulous words were followed by a harsh silence. “I don't mind sleeping in an inn,” he finally said. “It's close and it's, uhm … close.”

Anna snorted.

“So  w h e r e  is it?”

“By Dynevoll,” he grumbled.

“Impossible! Could that be in Vestli? Exactly where we’re headed now?”

“You're crazy,” Kristoff decided.

Anna bit her lip. She glanced at him. He smiled, or was it just her imagination? No, he was completely serious, so much so that she started to get nervous.

He tilted his head back and ran a hand down his face, down to his rough throat, and groaned.

“Thefuckgoddammit," he blurted out as if it were one word, but he didn't add anything else because he clearly didn't have a better idea or arguments strong enough.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Rapunzel, who was allowed to do much more, including wandering around the city accompanied by her fiancé (and most likely a chaperone, but if she included her in her stories, it wouldn't be so romantic) — because nothing could cause a bigger scandal in Corona than indecent the behavior of his half-brother, whose existence the upper classes tried to ignore — she mentioned organ grinders, lucky draws, ornate posters and caramel apples.

None of the letters mentioned gutters or garbage.

In the narrow street in front of them, one of those that still knew the darkness of the countryside, several drunk men were staggering around; one almost fell under a carriage passing by.

Anna felt insecure. She hadn’t been visiting the city at this hour. She hadn't really been anywhere at this time. She’d also never strayed far from the very center. Here even the sidewalks seemed strange, more uneven and rough than those in the castle courtyard.

In her mind she began to recite the names of the shops she passed, the windows she ran her finger over, now so dirty that it turned the color of night, black and loud.

Butcher, fish shop, shoemaker.

Kristoff remained silent, hands stuffed into his pockets, staring at the mud and water filling the holes in the pavement.

Tailoring services, pharmacy, baker.

The frosted cakes and fashionable hats she’d seen in Bryggen's shop fronts were missing. Everywhere there were only empty skeletons of stalls waiting for another day and silently decaying tenement houses without light or shadow.

Coffee house.

“I didn't know any cafés were still open at this time.” She pointed to the golden signs above the illuminated hotel entrance, because Kristoff raised his head and looked around confusedly.

“But this is a coffee house …”

“Yes, that's what I said!”

He blinked, strangely flushed, as if he were holding his breath, and the corners of his mouth twitched spasmodically.

“You … you really don't know what's going on in there?”

“What can you possibly do in a place like this? Drink coffee.”

"Well, I guess you can," Kristoff choked out, Anna said Elsa would probably like that, and then he suddenly roared with laughter.

Whatever Anna expected from him, it certainly wasn't this.

Several passers–by gave them strange glances, and someone stopped. Kristoff stopped too and put his hands on his knees to catch his breath.

"I'm sorry," he gasped when he calmed down. “Coffee house … it's just a nicer name for a brothel.” Anna felt her face and neck flush. “And a brothel, princess, is …”

“I know what a brothel is!” Now a woman shook her head, disgusted. The others just looked at them unabashedly. Kristoff put his fist to his mouth and cleared his throat. “Why is it called that?” she asked, almost in a whisper this time, because her curiosity was still not satisfied.

He shrugged.

“I'd like to know myself. Maybe so that the wives of those who come here will think the same as you when their husbands tell them where they’re going.”

He said it so briefly and brutally that Anna flinched.

“Come on, we're almost there.”

Kristoff pointed to an ivy–covered building on the corner of the street, dangerously close to the coffee house. 

“It's here.”

So he must have seen women who worked there! Were they pretty? Should she ask?

She stopped a few steps from the entrance to warm her hands over the brazier. He was silent for a long time. Too long, she decided, but she was distracted by a spotted cow grazing on a patch of lawn in the inner yard. She burst into disbelieving laughter.

“Do you think she’d let me touch her?” she wondered. “I've never petted a cow, have you?”

Kristoff looked as if it didn't bother him in the slightest. How come?

“I even milked one.” Oh, yeah. She still sometimes forgot that some people actually  l i v e d  their lives. “At my aunt's.”

“So — then, if you want, you can go inside now, I'll just check if she'll let me … Hey, how do you call a cow anyway?”

“I called her by her name,” he smiled. And even though Anna knew he was laughing at her, and even though it might have been completely idiotic, she felt lighter.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

The cow was not interested in making friends with her. The moment Anna extended her arms towards her, she lumbered towards the other side of the yard. When she tried again, the cow muttered something that sounded like a reproach, and this time moved away in a determined hurry. Anna thought that maybe she would get along better with Kristoff, they seemed to have a similar personality, and she laughed.

From across the street, she was answered by a giggle of a woman with lips as pink as hollyhocks. She sat on the steps leading to a door with a sign that read ‘No women (and Nordhuldra — wrote above, already on the wood, some idiot who obviously thought it was funny) allowed in the bar’. She thought about Fräulein Hahn and Elsa, both of them would probably be absolutely outraged at the sight. The old governess — because — Anna could literally hear her moralizing tone in her head — she did not imagine that there were people who needed to be reminded that such sinful places were not a place for self–respecting ladies; her sister — because someone had the nerve to forbid her doing something.

Anna glanced quickly over her shoulder to make sure no one was behind her and heard the door creak open.

“Gud evenin, doll,” a male, alcohol – soaked voice greeted politely. She turned around but ignored him. He was probably talking to the woman who was now smiling and waving to the coachman as he passed her? After all, he’d just left the bar.

She shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, brushed off her skirt and tried to find her cow with her eyes.

“Aren't ya goin' ta ansa me, Miss?” Hard soles clicked on the too narrow street. Glints danced in the firelight as he leaned against the stone wall that separated them. Maybe it was his buttons? The brass buttons on the guards' uniforms reflected the light perfectly, she’d checked. It was a lot easier for her to prove that than for anyone to prove it was her who was throwing breadcrumbs on their idiotic high hats and inviting pigeons over, so she’d almost never got scolded.  “I’m not gonna bite,” he laughed. “Well, unles' ya like it!”

Ha! He thought that Anna didn't know what he was talking about? She had read practically every novel she had access to — she knew everything there was to know about marriage, courtship, and romance.

"Thank you, I'd rather not get gangrene," she blurted out before she had time to think about it. Did what she said even make sense?

The man's face darkened, so whether or not she’d remembered correctly a part of one of Elsa's countless discussions with Dr. Foss, she’d certainly offended him.

Where was the cow? If she was still there, Anna should have headed directly in the direction she came from, towards the corner of the street and the entrance to the inn.

She should walk, but she shouldn't run away.

“Will ya repeet dat?” the man mumbled, and she didn't have time to do either, because he grabbed her chin in his hand and pulled her towards him. “Mayb' dis time up close?”

The pain made her eyes widen and she caught his gaze. It was a strange moment. In his face, she saw a battle between alcohol – induced stupor and recognition, horror and disbelief. She was sure her expression said something similar.

She recognized him.

She felt a heavy, unpleasant feeling settle like a rock in her stomach. She heard words that shouldn't have been said again — not from a guard whose job was to protect her.

She generally enjoyed the company of the guards, some of them — particularly pompous or exceptionally handsome — she even chatted with sometimes, and felt safer knowing that they were on guard while she slept.

It would never have occurred to her that one of them would speak to her this way.

Her hands closed in fists on the fabric of her skirt, and she wanted to disappear into nothingness.

She recognized him, and perhaps he recognized her as well.

She sprinted across the yard, hoping he would be too drunk to follow her.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

The bell above the door screamed and announced her entrance.

“Good evening,” Anna muttered. It was warm enough inside to make her cheeks burn, but the goosebumps still didn't go away. She rubbed her arms. No one seemed interested in her, and she breathed a sigh of relief. An older gentleman who was leaving just held the door for her, restoring some of her faith in men. She thanked him with a smile and a curtsy and slipped towards the counter.

“There's still some vegetable soup left. Four speciedaler ,” recited the innkeeper, giving Kristoff a look that made him slouch a little. “This is really good soup.”

“At this price, it better be,” he muttered. ‘You're my sister,’ he mouthed to Anna. She wanted to reach for him, and it took a lot for her to stop herself from doing so. “We’ll take two .”

“You didn't do anything,” he’d said at the inn in the mountains. Of course she didn't. She believed these words more now than then. It was just a pity that not every guy was like him — or at least like Lord Peterssen or the nice man at the door, just polite, princess or not. The rest were just disgusting, especially that swine from the Southern Isles.

“I shouldn't have left you.” Or maybe she shouldn't have drifted way again, because after thirteen years within the stone walls of the castle, maybe she wasn't ready for the world beyond them.

“I take it I should add this to the bill?” The innkeeper leafed through the thick guest book and ran her finger along the rows of numbers, and when she stopped at Kristoff's name, Anna saw a number so low that she wondered if she had actually read it correctly. “And miss … ?” she turned to her, a bit friendlier now.

“Miss will let you know if she needs anything else. She's good at it.” He looked resigned and extremely unhappy when he said it.

“Well, may I offer you something to drink? We have coffee with sugar for a speciedale , a cup of sweet milk for two ører , beer at the same price. Or corn moonshine, the best in the city!”

Anna glanced quickly at Kristoff.

“Moonshine!”

“Milk,” he said at the same moment.

“So what’s it going to be, then?”

“As he said. Moonshine for the lady, milk for this gentleman.” Anna smiled sweetly at the innkeeper. She silenced Kristoff with a wave of her hand and chirped, “I guess I deserve the best in the city?”

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Kristoff was lucky. The soup was not vegetable, more carrot. Anna didn't like root vegetables. They smelled of earth and tasted similar.

She drank most of the broth — fatty and so hot that she felt the skin on the roof of her mouth pop — fished out all the cauliflower florets and potatoes, and then tried to make Olaf's face from the pieces of uneaten carrot, but it only looked good on the surface of the soup, not at the bottom of the bowl.

The lamp on the table enclosed them in a ball of light in the middle of the dark room. It sparkled on the tattered napkin and made the fat eyes sparkle like edible gold wedding rings.

“You want?” she offered, moving her table setting towards Kristoff. He raised an eyebrow. “Come on, you're sharing food with Sven, don't act like it bothers you.”

Kristoff opened his mouth and closed it when the innkeeper appeared. She put a mug in front of him, and a cup in front of Anna, and then she stopped for a moment in front of the fireplace to add a few pieces of wood to it, muttering under her breath that ‘that's why, damn it, there's a spittoon so you don’t spit on the floor’ and ‘if Erlend was here, then … ’

Anna quickly made the necessary corrections, gave Kristoff the milk along with the rest of the soup, and took a long sip of the moonshine, quickly, out of irrational fear that someone was about to snatch the mug from her.

She couldn't even taste it, only fire. In her gullet, on her lips, even on her neck, where a few drops ran down. The alcohol was so strong that swallowing it was painful.

Kristoff watched her from across the table, arms crossed and a look of patient expectation on his face.

“Your reputation will reach the castle before you do, you'll see,” he said when he was sure the woman had disappeared into the kitchen.

Anna's vision was blurring a bit, she had to blink away the flames burning inside her and focus on the ones in the fireplace. They lit up the room so beautifully.

“What reputation?” she gasped.

He smiled. “Boozehound.”

“But I'm your sister now, not a princess.”

“Poor Ninni! Probably no one will want her now because of you.”

Anna pointed a trembling, sticky finger at him. “You said she didn't want to get married.”

“I'd be surprised if she did. She’s eleven years old.”

“Me, at the age of eleven … ” Anna began, decided it might not be the best idea to finish that thought, and took another sip from her mug. She regretted it. She drank another, smaller one, with a similar result. Finally, two more tiny ones, barely wetting her mouth to keep Kristoff from getting a wrong idea. “Would you like to swap? I'd love to try this milk.”

It squelched as he moved it towards her.

“Couldn't I be your wife?” she asked, trying to wrap the scum that was beginning to form on the surface around the handle of the spoon. Kristoff hadn’t even touched it.

“ W h a t . “

“Well, you said we were siblings.” She drank carefully. The milk was indeed sweet, but at the same time somewhat tart, and it smelled strange. “Why not a  m a r r i e d  c o u p l e ? ”

“Because I have a sister, but not a wife.”

“Oh!” Anna lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “You want an alibi in case the Queen's spies are following you?” She pointed with her chin at a bearded man dozing on a bench by the window. “Be careful, that gentleman over there looks extremely suspicious, as if he works for a secret service.”

It was supposed to be a joke. It was actually supposed to be … anything, really. Her tongue was tangled.

She licked her milky mustache and pushed the barely drunk moonshine towards him. She withdrew her hand a little too late, and his fingers tightened on the mug and her own at the same time.

He didn't even grimace as he downed the mug.

She could sit there for hours and look at him in this dim light.

His expression reminded her of her almost – favorite painting, the one where a man gave a woman an adoring look, and she wasn't sure if that was what he was doing right now, but it was enough for her to step back to her side of the table and press her shoulder blades firmly against the backrest. Only when she was separated from him by a few elbows of wood did she feel her heart return to its normal rhythm. She moved Picnic away from her thoughts.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

For four ører — equivalent to two mugs of beer — it was possible to sleep on the bench downstairs, and Anna wondered whether the alcohol was expensive or the accommodation cheap, as Kristoff led her to the attic room he was renting.

It seemed larger because there was almost no furniture in it. To her right, a fire burned quietly and warmly. On the opposite side, a dirty window looked out onto the street below. Below it — a stool and a single bed. The sight made her blush. Even in Knerten she couldn't see Kristoff's bedroom.

“Cozy,” she lied, and he smiled. He didn't believe her, and rightly so. The inn was completely different from Hilde's. Empty, urban, with a deserted yard instead of evergreen trees (spruces or pines?) outside the window,  i l l e g a l .

“There's water here if you need to … ” He pointed to a bowl and a tin cup on the windowsill. He wasn't one to bring up such things, and she certainly wasn't the neatest princess Arendelle had ever seen, but it was hard to ignore the fact that they were both downright dirty. “Uh, well. I'll be back when you're done, just call me.”

He tried to choose his words carefully, it was very tactful, but Anna blushed even harder at the suggestion.

“You don't have to leave. I’ll just wash my hands and face. And you?”

“I think I'll shave.”

“I mean, do you want me to leave?”

He shook his head and bent down to pick something up from the stool.

“It’s … ”

“My sweater.”

“How pretty!” He ran his hand down the back of his neck, as if the praise made him uncomfortable. “And you?”

“How many clothes do you think I have?”

“You'll be cold now,” Anna protested weakly, feeling as much guilty as she was grateful.

“It doesn't bother me.”

“Yeah, sure, Elsa,” she murmured. The wool felt prickly and heavy between her fingers. She felt like crying, could only think of one thing left to say, and her high – pitched voice carried towards the door that seemed so small when he stood there, “Thank you.”

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

The knife crackled harshly, stubble and dirt disappearing into the suds. As she listened to Kristoff shave, that funny heat the alcohol couldn't cause because it wasn't limited to her throat and stomach came back.

“Say what you will, but I'm in your bed,” said the pitiful amount of moonshine she could muster. Anna wouldn't have the courage. “I guess I could say I spent the night with a man?”

She saw Kristoff's hand twitch. He hissed and cursed under his breath. When he turned around, there was a bloody line across his cheek.

“If you look at it this way, you spent at least two nights with a man in July.”

“It doesn't count then,” she giggled. She shouldn't have tried alcohol, Kristoff knew better as usual. Maybe there was a reason why every wine she was served in the castle was watered down. Even gløgg .

“Cause?”

“Cause Sven was with us then. And then Olaf.”

Kristoff smiled softly, shyly for some reason, as if he wasn't allowed to smile like that, and reached for a small square of towel. Their eyes met for a moment, and she wanted to run to him. The wind outside the window was silent, as if it was listening with her, as if something was about to happen.

But Kristoff just wiped his face and rinsed the knife. Then he stood by the fire, resting his hands on the mantel, and Anna could have sworn the mantelpiece was crackling.

An infinity later he sat at the foot of the bed, his back against the wall. He didn't say anything, maybe he thought Anna had already fallen asleep. She thought so too, until she felt the hard mattress bend slightly under his weight. The bed was long enough that he didn't touch her as she lay curled up on the other side.

You could just lie down next to me — she thought. She still had enough presence of mind not to say it out loud.

She was uncomfortable, she should take off her corset to sleep, he should help her untie all the laces, like in romantic novels, and then cuddle her to him until her heart completely thawed.

Even this she whispered in her mind like a secret wish, because it was dangerous to wish for something so openly. She didn't remember how she knew it, but she was sure it was just the way it was.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

The young sun shone delicately through the icy scar on the inside of Kristoff's right palm, brilliant and shining. Anna swung their joined hands so energetically that she knocked a hat off the head of a man rushing past them. The man hurled a string of curses at them, which Kristoff was quick to return in kind. She didn't know at least a few words.

But this time not caring was easy. The day had started too well for some simpleton to ruin it; Kristoff ordered her rice pudding for breakfast. He’d protested, but as soon as the innkeeper was gone, Anna had fed him half of it, and although he’d shaved that evening, he’d had a mustache again. The pudding had been hot and smelled of ripe sweetness, like September, and she’d felt her lips tingle every time she’d brought the spoon to them.

And there was still so much time left until nine o'clock. On the way to the castle they had to pass through the Kongeligplass, and there, right next to Berg's pastry shop, was the kingdom of her childhood.

In the daylight, even Vestli was much more colorful, full of crimson, ash and purple — the colors of autumn, still warm and tender. The trees sparkled golden. In this weather, in Kristoff's sweater in selburoser ** whispering sweetly of a green summer, she could stand outside all day and not freeze.

Above their heads, the bells of the clock tower chimed half past eight, and it could almost be like in some silly song ( will you buy me a ring, put it on my finger — yes I will! — will we go to the pastor, get married for life — yes we will! ).

Anna had thousands of words deep inside her, but she remained silent. She just laughed at him as if she had lost her mind. She knew exactly what she could say. She knew the words by heart, running freely through her thoughts until she had to open her mouth and say them. Because then, she couldn't get a single word out. Why was this happening? Three would be enough. Why was it so hard to say them out loud?

Because then everything would collapse, because he couldn't lie to her anymore, oh anna if – only – there – was – someone –o ut – there – who – loved – you , and did she really need to hear that again? That's what last summer had brought her.

Kristoff looked at her with concern and she shook her head as if it was nothing, a leaf blowing in the wind or a fly, and asked when his sister's birthday was. October twenty – fourth, but he said it much nicer, four – and – twenty, and if only math weren't so difficult, maybe Anna would count that way, too.

“What does she look like?”

“She has brown eyes.”

“Like you?”

“Like father.”

“And do you have eyes like your father?”

“I guess so.”

“You guess or you know?”

He rolled his stupid puppy dog ​​eyes. “I know.”

“You must be very similar.”

“Well, I don't know, Ninni is a real rattlebones. And she has different hair. Like … dark. But not brown.”

“Chestnut? You know, chestnut – colored?”

“Yeah, well, maybe.”

“You are the worst shopping companion!” Anna laughed.

“Weren't these supposed to be my shopping?”

She stuck her tongue out at him and he ruffled her hair and maybe, if anyone was looking at them now, they really thought they were just brother and sister.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

He showed her a doll from the window display, with slightly parted plump lips and cheeks as rosy as apples. She wore a hat like a fruit platter and layers and layers and layers of fabric, but her beige dress seemed as light as a cloud.

She also had brown eyes and dark red hair curled in intricate curls.

“Why didn't you buy her right away?”

“I didn’t go inside.”

“Are you kidding me?” Anna leaned closer to make sure that all the details were consistent with what he’d told her, placed her hands on the glass and left her fingerprints on it. “She's perfect!”

Kristoff was clearly nervous about going into the store, which she didn't understand, because really, he could risk his life in the middle of a blizzard on a fjord without batting an eyelid, but he was afraid to buy a toy for a girl?

Halfway through his excuses, she yanked on the handle and pulled the door towards her, because if she had to wait for him to open it, she probably would still be waiting.

“Good morning!” she exclaimed, and an old man, leaning over the diary spread out on the counter, looked up at her.

“How can I be of service?”

“We would like to buy a doll, the one from the window, she’s sitting on the chaise longue.”

“ A n n a , ”  Kristoff hissed, tripping over the threshold as she dragged him into the store with her.

“Oh, our Princess's namesake!” A broad smile stretched between his sideburns. “But you’re probably younger than her, miss?”

Kristoff straightened and yanked his hand from her grasp.

“Yes, she's only fourteen.”

Anna gasped. Maybe she shouldn't brag that not only did she look suspiciously like the Princess, if someone didn't pay attention to her hairstyle and clothes, but also, strangely enough, they were the same age, but come on!  F o u r t e e n !  She had never encountered such impudence.  O n l y . By what right … !

There was a mischievous spark in the look Kristoff gave her. Of course, he was well aware that she couldn't start arguing with him in the middle of the store. She wanted to strangle him.

The shopkeeper wiped his glasses on his shirt sleeve to get a better look at her.

“Such a big lady, but she still plays with dolls?” he laughed heartily.

Kristoff, also smiling, shook his head. Anna glared furiously at the back of his neck. He must have had a great time, the jerk.

“No, no,” she said haughtily, trying to imitate the Queen's tone Elsa cut off all discussions with, because he surely couldn't tell that she still had dolls in her room? “It's a birthday present.”

“Should I pack her nicely right away?”

“No,” Kristoff said quickly. “I mean, no need to rush. Right now, I don't have the … I mean, I could come back in the afternoon … to … uh, pick it up? Then I’ll pay.”

“Of course,” the old man nodded, and Kristoff took a staggering step back as if all the air had been knocked out of him. Didn't he expect the seller to be nice? After all, it wasn't a problem — to book something for someone? They were nice too, strangely both of them. “I'll take her out of the display so she can wait for you, because I must admit that this beauty arouses a lot of interest.”

Anna put her hands on her hips. She shot Kristoff a triumphant look.

“Yes, so this will be … wait, let me see … fifteen crowns.”

The silence that followed the seller's words was almost palpable.

Fifteen crowns wasn't much, was it? Large sums of money seemed to Anna more like thousands and millions. But how much money did Kristoff actually have? He’d never told her because why would he, and she didn't feel the need to ask. He just … paid. At most, he insulted the sellers as swindlers and fraudsters.

She felt as if she could hear not only Kristoff swallowing, but even how hard his throat moved, how he licked his chapped lips.

“Of course, we also have slightly cheaper ones … ”

“For example there!” Anna first pointed at the shelf on the opposite wall, randomly, and only then looked at it herself.

Her face burned with embarrassment up to the tips of her ears. Why was she pushing him so hard? Her lungs burned with guilt. She remembered that each crown was worth twelve speciedaler , less than their dinner.

“Look, there's this beautiful blonde one, have you seen?” she asked, tugging on his sleeve. “She looks like an angel.”

The doll was smaller and had neither a hat nor an umbrella, but her dress looked like a meadow. She would be so delighted with her herself.

“I don't want an angel,” Kristoff said indignantly, and she realized that his pride had been hurt by them and that now he would definitely buy the exact doll they had come into the store with in mind, even if he had to mortgage his house. “Ninni is on her way to the opposite direction.”

“I understand,” the shopkeeper hurried to assure. “Still, I recommend looking around a bit. I just put up a caste, a real gem. You can also buy its residents.”

On the table behind Anna was a mirror image of her house, right down to the roof tiles, and there was even a life – sized snowflake stuck on the tallest spire. The whole thing was about Olaf's height and two feet wide.

“Please open it, miss, go ahead,” the shopkeeper encouraged. He offered her a wrinkled hand with a small key he’d pulled from under the counter.

Anna tentatively inserted it into the lock, and as the gates opened silently, as if it had ever been that easy, she felt that uncomfortable knot in her stomach again, like every time she came across a mention of herself in the newspaper or a picture in a place where the castle did not give permission to publish her pictures.

The layout of the rooms was not perfectly reproduced, and their number had been significantly limited — only the kitchen, something between a study and a library, a throne and ballroom, a narrow corridor. The vast space was taken up by two bedrooms, a blue one and a pink one, with dolls with empty eyes above sweet smiles trapped inside.

She touched the muslin curtains along the canopies, the wardrobes the size of matchboxes. So now every child in Arendelle could make puppets out of them. Two turns of the key in the lock were enough.

She glanced at the counter to make sure the shopkeeper wasn't looking at her and flicked the princess's green silk back. She fell over, but Anna felt nothing.

Later, she did the Queen a favor and carefully moved her from the stool next to the castle's dressing room to the nearest shelf, next to a ballerina standing on a music box, between a herd of wild horses and a gleaming locomotive. Despite everything, she still couldn't move her further away.

The other toys, the crowds crowded on the tabletop outside the castle walls, could still see her from there. Like true, faithful subjects. Joyful. Waiting.

Among them were even soldiers with uniforms in Arendelle colors, miniature crocuses on their hats, a plump cook and several maids. And Lord Peterssen! And that ball with the skimpy hair had to be Kai?

“Do you also have an ice harvester?”

The shopkeeper cleared his throat in confusion.

“An ice man?” she tried again, just in case he didn't understand.

“No, miss. Who would want one?”

“Me, of course” Anna whispered, but neither of them seemed to hear her. “I would like one.”

_______________

* Tais–toi (French) — shut up.

** Selburose — Norwegian rose knitting pattern.

Chapter Text

Chapter 44

Breath of death

1860

Although mother had stopped approaching her, she hit her when she noticed a long scratch on her wrist.

It was just a trace of the nib, the ink was frozen and Elsa's hands were too cold to melt it. She didn't want to tap the desk with her pen to avoid scratching it, so she tapped her skin and it started to crack.

"It's a sin," mother sobbed, not listening at all, she apologized and continued crying, "the worst sin!"

Then she hugged her for a long time, cuddle close, schooch in — how many Anna’s requests to build a snowman had passed since the last time? — and Elsa thought she could smell her disappointment.

She wasn't allowed to try such things anymore, she wasn't allowed to even think about them — but it wasn't until she’d said that last thing that Elsa remembered the beautiful knife lying in one of the countless drawers of the desk in her father's study.

She wouldn't be able to tell anyone anyway, because her correspondence was read before it was sent — although, she wondered grimly, maybe that would also be a good way, just mentioning it in one of the letters that would never reach either of her cousins, and watch the world of illusion crumble faster than the agreement between Weselton and the Southern Isles.

During Sunday mass, strangely enough, she heard the same thing, the bishop was scaring her with hellfire from behind the pulpit, and Elsa listened in silence, wondering why no one mentioned black magic. Maybe because it didn't count against her own sins.

“Born with powers or cursed?” asks the old troll.

“Born,” pappa replies, although she saw him hesitate.

Innate like original sin, Eve's fault. She looked at her listening mother and thought of Idunn's apples of paradise. It wasn't her idea to visit the trolls and sell them her soul.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

“Your Majesty doesn't look well,” Hedda said worriedly.

Elsa caught her gaze in the mirror on the vanity table; all the past winters were reflected in it. With her beautifully arranged skirt, she resembled a porcelain doll placed there for decoration.

"Well, no, I don't," she muttered, waving the maid away and taking a sip of her cool black coffee. A ring of sediment was bobbing at the bottom of the cup.

Her head throbbed from the lack of food and sleep, and the memory of the weight of that terrible crown. Coffee had been waiting for her since afternoon tea, and she hadn’t even touched it because dinner had completely taken away her appetite. The meat had been bloody, and when she’d pierced the skin with a fork, red liquid had begun to ooze between the fibers of the steak. She tried not to compare it to the blood Dr. Foss had let later. She couldn't think of any other blood that flowed from her — the one she saw sometimes when she woke up, big rusty stains on the sheets, or the one that had leaked from her ear in the Ice Fields. If he found out, he would refuse.

“Only so much blood can one person have, Your Majesty,” he’d laughed when she’d asked if it was really enough. He’d adjusted the bandage on her forearm, cleaned the lancet, and she knew it was over.

Elsa liked the Doctor so much that, although she knew his career path better than his date of birth, she remembered his full name. Leonard Ankersen Foss. She liked it.

Foss. Waterfall. It was like the sound of waves rolling over the white marble of her hand, the coolness of the metal, the only thing she could really feel, on her skin, and she didn't have to cut it open to feel relief.

A normal woman of her size would probably have about a quarter of skjeppe * inside her , maybe a little more. But in her case, Elsa couldn't know for sure — Dr. Foss had never agreed to let so much of her that she could see whether her blood, the deeper blood, the one that came out at the very end, would be blue, white — or wouldn’t flow at all, frozen.

He’d smiled. Elsa had also smiled and promised to follow his instructions and spend the rest of the evening in bed, but something was bothering her.

The window was the only bright spot in the darkness. The black triangles of the mullions shredded the moonlight coming into the room, so beautiful and dramatic. The trees below cast enchanted shadows. How many feet could have separated her from the ground?

Ah—ah—ah—ah …

Elsa looked down at her fingers, at the bloody cuts on the cuticles around her nails. The air felt cool — had she caused the temperature to drop? She pulled her hands to her chest and winced when skin on her left elbow tightened and burned, but she didn't straighten them, instead tucked them under her armpits.

Ah—ah—ah …

She thought that anything could happen on a night like this. A knife could have slipped from someone's hand. A pillow could have landed on someone's face.

She had to hug herself stronger, tighter, no more snowflakes.

She couldn't bear it any longer.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

The fabric of her dress rustled as she, like a naughty child, crept through the narrow gap between the door frame and the study door she didn't want to open any further for fear of it creaking.

After all, she was the Queen, it was her study, and no one else should care. Get yourself together …

Yes. She had to finally get herself together.

In the corridor, the ossified ice was already starting to show signs of aging; it wasn't present inside at all. That was good. She just had to breathe now, calmly, carefully, not to accidentally blow a breath of sno ** out of her lungs, focus on the task.

She had to do it eventually. Why not now?

There was no sweet soap bubble anymore anyway; it had broken the first night after the Great Thaw, when she’d been awakened by her own desperate screams.

She’d always known that nothing lasted forever, but then, she’d also learned that nothing good could last  l o n g .  Any peace she felt was built on a cobweb of lies and it had to come crashing down quickly because Elsa didn't deserve to be happy.

She turned on the light.

Three months had passed. It was just a piece of paper. The royal guard had long been shuffled like a deck of cards. Time for the ice harvesters.

She tapped the rolled–up Verden she’d left on the desk with her nails — what did Kai call it? — ‘the last decent daily in this country’. Was that why it had been the only newspaper her father used to read? Because it was one of the few that complied with the ban on printing any direct references to what was happening in the castle? Even now, her curse was not mentioned.

Subversive articles everyone thought Elsa had no idea about used the term ‘dark forces’, which only added to the mystery.

But when people had seen her in the Ice Fields, they’d been fascinated.

Not dangerous.

She thought about what Bjorgman had looked like back then. On the ice, he seemed calmer than he had ever been since … since they’d left the castle? Since when she’d given him the title? Since she’d met him? She wondered if the cold also brought relief to him.

Away from the ‘dark forces’ entangling the court.

Or maybe it was then that he’d stood right next to their source.

You-also-feel-the-weight-of-the-mountain, there's-nowhere-to-run, the ice-sings…

Do – you – feel – the – weight – of – the mountain – too, there’s –no–way–to–escape, the–ice–sings …

It took her a lot not to touch the handle of Bjorgman's knife, another Bjorgman’s, when she reached into the drawer. It wasn't it she was looking for; she had no sealed envelopes or sealed letters to open.

Grabbing her glasses, she touched the lenses with her finger and when she unfolded the paper, for a moment all she saw was frost, as if she were looking into the depths of her own soul.

Maybe she should have followed the example of Briette or Cecilie, the one who preferred to use lorgnette instead of handbags as accessory.

The bent corner was stiff, pressed into a list of guards she’d never met and would never meet again, so did what happened to them even matter anymore? She would go insane if she tried to find out the fate of all the people whose documents she signed.

There were only fourteen points on this list; thirteen names. A small loss compared to how many people had already been held accountable for what had happened in July, whatever they were calling it now.

Todderud suggested that it would be best to identify the instigator, to give an example. They didn't have to punish everyone, they shouldn't have. He hadn’t pressed her to take care of it earlier, when famine had been looming over Arendelle (which they hadn’t experienced in the castle; as a gesture of solidarity with the people, more potato dishes had been served, because other crops had been mostly destroyed — but so what if oranges had been served for dessert) and farmers had gone on strike.

It was not worth inciting ice harvesters against each other, the Prime Minister had agreed with her then, especially now they should put emphasis on exports — later, however, he’d agreed with Peterssen when, after returning from Grimstad, he’d begun to cry out about the lack of respect, indecent behavior and “‘it's a real slander”, and she’d listened to it on the verge of laughter. She hadn’t dared ask if the wall in the canteen above Limingen had perhaps told him the truth to his face.

The ice man may have become a baron, but that didn’t mean they could allow rebellion into the castle, she decided, and for peace of mind she’d agreed to come back to the matter once she had rested from the journey, even though she knew as well as they that Bjorgman was safe.

He was with Anna, not with  h i m ,  and even if they had no evidence of it, just word against word — it would still be the word of the Queen and Crown Princess of Arendelle.

She ran her eyes through the list.

Aasen, Bakken, Bøye, Evenstad.

Who were these men? Had she noticed any of them? She remembered the darkness and was able to recreate laughter and voices of the guards in it (“I touched the Queen’s fitte !”), she recalled  h i m ,  with eyes that looked like dewy grass — but ice harvesters?

Kirkemo. Could he have fired the shot?

No, he couldn't — she answered herself — because if it had been possible to shoot then, you would have been dead.

Why didn't that thought bring her any relief?

She shook her head.

Maybe lower down — Volden? He had such a violent name *** . No one would stop him from dreaming of assassinating the Queen, how could anyone have known that none of the weapons would fire? It was as if her curse wanted to protect her, to remind those who dared to raise a hand against her that icicles could be shattered, palaces could be torn down until no stone was left upon another, but the frost would still not let go.

She hid her face in her hands. What sense did that make? Even if one of them had actually done something, she still wouldn't be able to point him out.

Eighty pairs of kommager , that's how she remembered them. Not from the North Mountain.

Joyful, incredulous shouts, ribald jokes not made in bad faith. The crack of the ice saw and the muscles as hard — if this was what the mythical Jötuns looked like, she could be Skadi herself.

Were they all actually  m e n  already? She’d seen many boys. She thought of Tobias–who–spoke–entire–sentences–like–one–word.

Even these boys could have had children of their own.

She thought of Justnotninni (“Kristoffer gets even his own name wrong. Janne, Your Queenliness, please call me Janne, if you would be so kind”).

Darkness was creeping towards the desk, making the lamp light shine even brighter. What if …

She ran her finger down the list again to make sure she hadn't missed anything — but she hadn't;  she was relieved to find that Tor Geirsson's name wasn't on it either.

There were only some two Haviks under the ‘H’.

_______________

* Skjeppe (bushel) — an old Norwegian unit of measurement, rounded to 17.5 liters (or 4.62 gallons).

** Sno — cold Scandinavian wind causing swirling. Can lead to a significant drop in temperature in a short time.

*** Vold (Norwegian) — violence.

Chapter Text

Chapter 45

Calm before the storm

Just before the bridge leading to the castle, Anna gave Kristoff his sweater back. The bills still gnawed at his mind like hungry rats, and snatches of her chatter reached him as if through a fog.

He thought she asked about his favorite season.

“I don't have one,” he replied, because he’d never thought about it. In winter, he cut ice from the lake, selling it to earn money in the summer. In fact, he guessed he liked summer, especially during harvest time, when food was literally lying on the ground .

But he thought that maybe it was a good thing that he didn't say it, because Anna said that she actually hated summer. It was terrible, and celebrating your birthday on the solstice was not fun at all — well, maybe someday, because during midnattsola* all one had to do was not go to bed or look at the clock to continue celebrating until the next day. She thought to have made it until midnight on her fifth birthday, although she wasn't sure. And then she’d stopped enjoying it anyway, because what was supposed to be one of the best days of the year had turned into the worst — and the longest one at that, as if that wasn't enough.

But she lived through all thirteen, and maybe it wasn't such an unlucky number after all, because she finally had her sister back, and now she had him, so her birthday could be nice again, after all, he certainly remembered his own.

Of course he remembered. When he nodded, she smiled as if she had swallowed the sun, and he began to wonder if  s h e  had actually forgotten something. But so what, because even if she did, he would have to tell her about it, just as he’d promised.

He inhaled the scent of autumn and the harbor and was overcome with a strange longing for the summer that was already over. Previously, it seemed to him that he was waiting for autumn, for normality, but neither darkness, nor frost, nor hoarfrost were able to banish chaos from his life.

“Oh — hey, Kristoff?” He instinctively leaned closer to her to hear better. But whatever Anna had said earlier, she didn't say it again. She just stood up on her tiptoes to kiss him, clumsily and hastily; her lips pressed against the corner of his mouth. She pulled away even before he realized what she had just done; he reacted much later.

“Wait!” he called after her. “My … ” but Anna was already running towards the gate as if she was being chased by the devil himself. She, too, must have known, in all her giddiness, that such closeness was dangerous because it evoked all the longings. “ … jacket.”

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

The gate opened, the gate closed, and for a moment he stood with his hand idiotically raised.

He could always wander around the city a little longer until October wind blew away this strange, cold anxiety about what lay ahead. He clenched his fist reflexively, his fingers traced the outline of the scar on the inside of his right hand, carefully, gently, but he still felt the movement with his whole body.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

The golden morning disappeared as if drowned in the fjord. Kristoff glanced at the clock tower out of the corner of his eye, but it wasn't even eleven o'clock yet.

The hours were too long. He’d sat still for too long. In the Ice Fields they worked from dawn to dusk, and life in the mountains was a matter of endless work to make ends meet. In Arendal he’d learned what boredom meant.

He sighed and took a bunch of carrots from the stallholder, which Sven later just turned away from. This was quite disturbing considering what Anna had mentioned the previous day — that Olaf had some idea ‘how to get him more carrots’.

“What is it?” he asked, because all he needed now was the reindeer with an intestinal twist, but Sven shook his head.

There was nothing, it was just that the castle stables were to him what the castle itself was to Kristoff.

Kristoff had never thought about it before, but he’d never left him alone for so long either.

He stroked his fur and promised they would be out of here soon. He just had to figure out the next step. The fact that he still hadn't gotten his jacket, and therefore his money, back didn't bode well for him going back to the toy store and paying for his stay at the inn. The fact that Anna had disappeared didn't really help either.

His mouth was dry. He felt his head starting to hurt.

“Lift your leg,” he muttered, patting the reindeer's fetlock because he might as well check the hooves in the meantime. He had to do it before they went anywhere anyway.

Rays of the October sun, hanging low in the sky, streamed in through the crack in the door, revealing a grayish layer of dust and dirt covering the stable's windows.

“I thought I'd find you here, Lord Bjorgman,” said a strange voice.

The light pierced his squinted eyes, and Kristoff had to shield them with his hand to look at the girl who’d entered the stall. The door slammed shut and dust particles flew into the air.

“You don't remember me,” she stated the obvious in response to his frown. “Øydis Lovisdatter Korsmo,” she curtsied more than she said. “The Princess asked me to give this to you.”

She handed him a perfect cube, which, when unfolded, turned out to be his jacket. So at least one problem had been solved.

“Are you her … the Princess’ … maid?” Kristoff ventured. He still didn't remember her — it was some kind of game for him to avoid all the servants one by one. It was even funny. Kinda — but the name sounded familiar. Anna must have mentioned something about her, because he probably didn't know any other Øydis.

The girl nodded. She brightened visibly. She had a nicely sculpted, wide mouth, as if made for a smile like the one she was giving him now, and she curtsied far too low.

“I darned the pockets,” she added, although Kristoff didn't remember any of them being ripped open. He put on his jacket and quickly slipped his hand into the bosom. The money jingled, brushing against his fingers ( four months of work, a whole winter of ice, don't think about it that way ), and he didn't feel any stitches at the bottom. He gave her a questioning look. “Outer left. Please check carefully.”

This time his hand encountered an uneven texture of crumpled paper.

“What's that?” he asked, but he had already lifted the note to see for himself. When he did so, he smelled perfume, completely different from the scent lingering in the Queen's study, Anna's — light, sweet, like a meadow after rain.

The letters were round and slightly uneven, written in a hurry.

How about pikekysser ? Olina will definitely spare some for you — at tea time, in the kitchen. A.

“I haven't read it,” the girl replied immediately. Kristoff glanced at her over the note. Her flushed face frozen in silent laughter spoke for itself.

Anna's words didn't seem as innocent as she must have thought. What was she thinking? Besides, she cheated. How was he supposed to control himself and wait, to fight this painful need growing inside him when even her stationery smelled like that?

He crumpled the note in his fingers. The maid hurriedly curtsied again, so low that her forehead almost hit his knee, and fled.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

“ So you’re still going back there today? ”

“I don't know.”

“ Why not? ”

“Because it's probably not a good idea.”

“ W h y ? ”

“You know why.”

“ But it's probably an even worse idea not to come back. ”

“Sven …”

“ Isn't it enough that you're afraid to tell her that you're in love with her? ” The reindeer snorted angrily as Kristoff pulled on the reins sharply. “ Can you at least keep your word and give her some memories back? She'll figure out the rest herself anyway. ”

Kristoff told himself over and over that what he felt for Anna couldn't be love. How could he love her when they knew so little about each other?

“ But that could change if you finally told her what you did for her back then, ” Sven remarked.

Of course it could. But trolls could confuse people, he’d seen it himself.

In the Valley of the Living Rock, among eternal spring, healing hands and twinkling crystals, it was easy to give in to the illusion. It was easy to imagine feelings that had no right to exist in the outside world, the real one.

“ You're just afraid. You’re afraid that Anna will leave, because even if she doesn't find someone better herself, sooner or later someone else will, and you’ll end up with a broken heart. ”

The truth twisted his stomach like a guilty conscience.

“ I'm just saying. ”

“Well, then stop saying, would you? Dammit!”

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

“Fifteen crowns,” repeated the shopkeeper. This time, Kristoff wasn't any more comfortable with the amount, but it wasn't as surprising. He poured the golden profiles of Queen Elsa onto the counter and waited for the man to count them.

F i f t e e n  c r o w n s .

He might not know many things, but numbers weren't one of them. He knew exactly what he could buy for that much money. A mediocre horse or — he thought of the Princess's new friend — a good dairy heifer. A ticket to America.

“And where did you say you were from?”

“I don't think I did.”

“Oh, yes. Would you mind fixing that?”

“Vinstra.”

Kristoff chose the first name that came to his mind. Vinstra was close enough that one could get to the capital in one day, but still safely enough far away. Even the dialect didn't particularly stand out.

He thought that if the toymaker's hearing was as good as his eyesight, he would probably believe him. He saw no other reason why he shouldn't be kicked out of the store.

He remembered all the salespeople shooing him and Jens out of their windows when they had been kids and just wanted to stare at things they could never touch anyway.

“I was just thinking that you weren't local — the miss almost spoke Danish! We hear so much about these boarding schools for girls on the continent … She must be missing her toys there, right?”

“Yeah.”

Apparently he took him for someone else. Someone so rich that he wouldn't even notice if such an amount was stolen from him, someone who could, without any sacrifice, send his sister to a foreign school to learn exactly what she could learn at home.

The man winked at him over the counter.

“I added a little something, I saw that she was very interested in … oh, no, my dear sir, please don't be silly!” he objected, seeing Kristoff reach into his pocket again. “It's a gift for this lovely young lady.”

Kristoff knew what he was saying, saw the way his mouth was moving, but the only word he heard was ‘alms’. It felt like a needle prick, but he didn't say anything because his throat was suddenly too tight to even swallow.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Olina was mixing dough that didn't even look like it could be used to make meringues, singing a stupid rhyme under her breath, “ Churn the butter, churn it fast, churn it hard, churn it last. Thanks to cow, thanks to sun, thanks to God, says the tum. ”

Kristoff looked at the bags of flour and salt, pale lumps of sugar, and the baskets filled with potatoes and other roots, an amount he’d probably never eaten in his entire life.

He fidgeted restlessly at the oak table. He was too big for the castle kitchen, forced to squeeze onto the narrow bench with all his height, elbows, knees and joints that were simply too many to avoid bumping into something.

The furniture and all the furnishings were made for petite servants and a short, round cook, not for such long legs and broad shoulders, not for him.

“No, thanks, I've already eaten,” he replied when she asked again if he was sure she shouldn't make him something to eat. He didn't even lie, he’d eaten one of the carrots Sven had despised before giving him the rest to make up for the time he would wait for him. With Dynevoll, at least he had the entire yard at the back of the building at his disposal, not just a cramped stall in a closed stable.

“Nonsense! I can understand that you don't want cookies, but you won't refuse my onion soup, will you?” huffed Olina, wiping her hands on her apron. “I'll warm it up for you in a moment.”

Kristoff was afraid that his pride might not be able to handle another handout, but before he could protest and the woman could reach for the pot, there was a knock on the door.

“Could I have a word with you?”

Peterssen stood on the doorstep in all his mustachioed hypocrisy, smiling at him in such a way that it took Kristoff a lot not to answer him something he might later regret.

"With all due respect, Lord Peterssen, but you're not going to snatch the boy now, are you?” asked the cook, reaching back for the bowl she’d set aside a moment earlier. “He was supposed to cream butter with sugar for me.” She aimed a wooden baton covered in sweet paste at Kristoff. “I didn't bring you here so that I would have to do it alone. The strength in my hands is not what it used to be.”

Peterssen stood still for a moment, as if he didn't know what to answer. He tapped his fingers on the door frame in an extremely unpleasant way. The sound was like drumming rain, announcing a storm, lightning and thunder.

“So?” Kristoff wasn't sure which of them she was addressing until Olina moved past him to slam the door. The way she did it was a warning, not a question. He felt a sudden surge of sympathy for this woman.

He muttered a ‘thanks’, because every word he could say to Lord Peterssen now was more vulgar than the last, reached out for the bowl, and immediately withdrew them when Olina hit his fingers with a cloth.

“Come on, I can handle it, I just said so because I can't stand this buffoon. Did you know that he recently built a glass gazebo in the garden of his villa on Grünerløkka?” She shook her head. “And he has four living rooms in the estate in Ledaal! If anyone in the neighborhood dares to build a house with five, I'm sure Peterssen will build another wing to make it six.”

“Money to burn,” Kristoff commented stiffly, and she laughed as if it were a really good joke and said that such people didn’t seem to know what to do with it anymore. Kristoff couldn't agree with her on this, Peterssen had quite a lot of ideas for investments, but Olina seemed to finally consider the conversation over and stopped pushing him.

She placed a steaming bowl of soup in front of him, then turned to reach for what he thought was a spoon — but she brought out another portion.

He looked at the table.

“I think you overestimate me.”

Olina gave him a pitying look and moved past him to open the door, muttering to herself that someone would have to mop the floor again.

“No one said you’re going to eat alone!” Anna slid onto the bench across from him. “I missed dinner, too.”

He didn't recognize her by her voice, which sounded strange, nasal and harsh, but he saw her out of the corner of his eye. She was in the same sweater she had worn in the secret room, draped over her nightgown, a shawl wrapped around her neck, but he swallowed hard as saliva came to his mouth with each breath and he felt too embarrassed to look at her directly.

“My throat hurts a little,” she croaked, reaching for a piece of bread Olina offered her. “And you?”

“No.”

It didn't even surprise him, it seemed like a natural consequence of being exposed to the cold and germs of the city all night long. He just wondered how many more people she planned to let in on what she was up to, but she just said, “Oh right, why would you get sick too? I must have caught a chill in the library or something.”

She pulled up her sleeve slightly and ran her fingers over red dots on her forearm, as if to brush them off.

“And I think I got bitten by fleas,” she whispered, giggling. As if it were an adventure, a bed with a thin mattress stuffed with straw.

Good thing it's not bedbugs — Kristoff thought. Then Anna stomped on his foot under the table and he almost choked on his own tongue.

He was so used to them alone. He looked down at his knees digging into the table and cleared his throat. Anna began nibbling on a slice of bread, clearly trying not to breathe through her mouth.

Still, they both must have felt uncomfortable in these strange circumstances, in the kitchen, where someone was constantly moving around. Kristoff thought that Olina, who politely pretended not to notice their presence, must be able to hear his heartbeat from her place by the stove.

Something crashed in a distant corridor, accompanied by a loud burst of laughter. Anna tried to hide the fact that she’d jumped. Her hair seemed to be ablaze in the glow of the red setting sun, its rays filtering through the window behind her.

It wasn't love. He didn't just fall in love, but Anna …

He liked her. Of course he did. He’d already said that. He liked her very much, and no one could blame him for that.

But he still remembered the sermon the pastor had preached when he was going to be confirmed. He’d thundered that there were no magical beings, and those who claimed to have seen them would not be admitted to the sacrament.

He had looked at him, but Kristoff hadn’t cowered under his gaze, because he had not mentioned trolls to anyone for years, but although he did not want to believe in gloom, he had already painfully experienced the darkness that could destroy a person's mind. If he had any doubts, it was about the existence of goodness, God and his son Jesus Christ.

And Anna was too young, too trusting for him not to feel uncomfortable at the thought of having to tell her that magic might not be over with either of them yet.

_______________

* Midnattsol (Norwegian) — literally ‘midnight sun’. A phenomenon occurring during the so–called white nights — a time when the sun doesn’t hide below the horizon at all in some places, and disappears only for a short time in others.

Chapter Text

Chapter 46

The Lord has chastened me severely

They'd stopped touching each other. Hans didn't understand how he suddenly found himself so close to the door.

He gritted his teeth, clenched his jaw as if trying to form the words he should say next, but there were no more lies or half–truths left in him. Whatever he  w a n t e d  to tell Crumb — how he wanted to forget that anything had existed before the Hellands’ cottage — was impossible.

The morning cold hit his skin where he had previously felt her body heat, burning his cheeks .

Crumb looked at him in such a way that for a moment he thought she would follow him, wrap her arms around him and forget about the game they had been playing from the very beginning, but she didn't.

He felt the same constriction in his throat that his father's tirade had caused, which also sounded as if he wished that times were changing — “In the past, neither your name nor even your lineage would have saved you from the executioner's block!” — and as if Hans owed him something, anything.

He felt as if he had misheard him then, stunned by the fact that for the first time in his life he’d been so close to him — close enough that drops of the King's saliva had sprayed furiously in his face.

Chère maman hadn’t spoken at all. She’d eloquently drowned her silence in a glass of wine until, on the day of Hans' departure, she’d demonstratively moved to the west wing of the castle so as not to accidentally pass His Majesty even in the corridor, as if she had suddenly been outraged by the decision to exile him.

Hans had tried not to think about it all, at least until the first letter had arrived, words from a white world that he burned to black ashes over the hearth in roykstova in Múla.

He’d slowly approached the flames and grabbed the poker. His ears had rung as he’d weighed it in his hand. The letter had reached Nasturia so quickly that it probably had been set off at the same time as him. He’d felt a stinging sensation at the bottom of his eyes, making his vision blurry.

You are no longer a prince.

When he’d struck the first blow, drops of melted wax had broken off and formed new freckles on his cheeks. The sound of the blows had mixed with the memory of women's laughter, you – are – not – a – prince , you – -are – a – failure .

But that shouldn't have mattered on this hellish, desolate island. As he’d stood among the windswept fields, as he’d wrestled with havið , in a room filled with woolen fog — nothing had really mattered anymore. Especially his disappointment.

It shouldn't have mattered here.

A chopping block stood in the shade of the forest, absorbing the last of the sun's heat from the grass, ash–green and rough. Behind it, the cabin floated in the shade of the grass, a cat rubbing against his calves.

Hans looked at the peat roofs. All the buildings in the Ice Harvester’s Village looked like they had grown out of the ground. People had lived here for generations, men left in December and returned in March, always accompanied by the eternal breath of the mountains.

He slowly approached the stump. There were wheel tracks left on the soil, leading to a stone–strewn road. A wagon was driving away along the road, a horse was pulling it, and its mane had bells attached to the harness.

Dr. Oxe delivered all chère maman’s babies, the labours were so long and awful — at least the first eight. Because of this, she (always in the singular) had to try for Daisy for a very long time. Of course, this is not an accusation, just a statement of fact, she claimed .

How noble of you — thought Hans, who dreamed one night that everything that happens to him is a punishment for destroying something in her. I hope this effort is now paying off for you.

“So you like this mare?”

“No,” Hans interrupts, his jaw trapped in strange fingers — a painfully clear childhood memory — is unable to say more. Besides, he doesn't feel like explaining anything to him when he sees his face.

He doesn't like the Doctor because every time he sees him looking at them all, he seems shocked, maybe he feels sorry for them, maybe he thinks how terrible it is to be blamed for something like this, how terrible it is that their own mother could hold such a grudge towards them.

Now Arendelle is on everyone's lips, and although the newspapers haven't had time to get to Hans yet, there are headlines everywhere about princes and princesses ‘succumbing to the urges of the heart’ so chère maman has even more reasons to have nervous breakdowns and share her bitterness with others .

“No?” His voice is quiet and steady, his movements calm and confident, and yet something about his posture evokes concern. Just like chère maman suddenly deciding not to be hysterical. “Then why did you decide to keep her? It's just an ordinary fjord .”

“Well … maybe I like her a little bit then.”

“And have you ever wondered why you resist admitting it?”

Hans shudders at the question. There is no good answer to this .

He's four years old again. Six, nine, maybe eleven. Never older. It's just like being in chère maman’s overwhelming presence, and she never let her sons grow up any more.

He feels his cheeks burning — but not with regret or shame; they just burn .

He wonders if the Doctor talked to Great Aunt Jorid in the same way before they’d locked her up in the insane asylum ‘for her own good’ because she became inconvenient for  t h e i r  own good. She didn't set out for power — but she didn't have an estate at the miserable end of the world either .

He could pet the cat, he would probably let himself be picked up. He could have kicked him and shattered his bones, but he didn't.

All his rage concentrated in his hands.

He liked the cat. There was something charmingly vulnerable about animals, and they always needed Hans more than he needed them. That's why he liked them. He liked Marengo, later Sitron.

Feelings weren't dangerous. 

The threads groaned as he lifted the Bible by the edge of the cover, they tightened when he pulled, but did not let go.

Actions were dangerous, but feelings passed. Rough sea was dangerous. A picture of rough sea was just a picture.

When he struck the spine of the book with the axe, one thousand one hundred and sixty–two pages flew into the air.

The Book of Genesis , chapter 50, page 56: “you shall carry up my bones from here”.

Psalm 118 , page 583: “The Lord has chastened me severely, but He has not given me over to death”.

The Book of Job , chapter 1, page 495: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord”. Chapter 2, page 496: “Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?”.

The Book of Ecclesiastes , chapter 1, page 623: “vanity of vanities, all is vanity”.

The First Letter to the Corinthians , chapter 13, page 1039: “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known”.

For a moment all the threads struggled against the wind; when it caught them, they landed on the stone step of the barn, or else they floated away towards the river and settled on the waves like a flock of swans.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

A frosty fog hung over the water like a steaming blanket, and despite the cold, Hans was sweating. Steam was coming out of more than just his mouth. He was steaming as if clouds of fire were leaving him.

It was a cleansing fire of anger.

Where the river narrowed, jagged peaks lined the horizon. When he pulled the bucket out with numb hands, a scrap of paper floated on the surface. This seemed extremely ironic to him.

Psalm 121 , page 584: “I will lift up my eyes to the hills — from whence comes my help? *”.

He smirked.

On Saturday, harbour life and ships would replace the autumn–colored mountain slopes and their snow–covered crowns. The Hellands would have hated him even before the snow had even fallen.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

Apart from exchanging pleasantries, they didn't speak for the rest of the day — Hans had nothing more to say to Crumb — but this contact, in its own way, seemed much broader than he had felt for years.

“Don't wander too far off,” she said, stopping on the threshold with a basket full of herbs and those doe eyes of hers. “These forests are dark and deep.”

Hans wondered how far was too far, but those thoughts didn't make much sense, nor did wondering why he felt a strange tickling sensation on the back of his neck when he looked towards the trees. Who could be hanging around there? Could the sight of wild animals cause such a feeling?

Silly creatures like cows and chickens could stare at him all day and he wouldn't care.

Maybe forest animals were different?

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

The next few hours dragged on because after chopping firewood and fetching water, there wasn't much left for him to do except sit and heal. The wounds reminded him only of a slight tingling sensation, and only occasionally did he feel as if the back of his head were about to catch fire.

The air was sharp, clearing his thoughts and making them the ones that bothered him the most. 

He generally liked puzzles, but puzzles required solutions, and Hans couldn't come up with any right now.

This place was draining him of his strength.

◊ ◊ ❈ ◊ ◊

They ate dinner alone.

Tor wouldn't return overnight, that's what Crumb had said, and although Hans didn't know how long it might take to harvest the ice at the peak of autumn, but it must have taken long enough to prevent them from getting home before sunset. Maybe it wasn't worth going home at all. 

“Jens will take you to the harbour.”

She went on to say that the journey by wagon shouldn’t take more than a day and that it would be best if they left on Friday before dawn; it was market day, so there would probably be a lot of traffic, but he stopped listening after she’d mentioned the name.

“Jens?”

Crumb looked at him across the table, her chin resting on her hands.

“Will you finally tell me your name?” she asked without warning, as if it were simple.

Hans was redder than his hair. Everything was like the first time again.

“Is your memory failing you?”

He grimaced. As if nothing had changed since the first day he’d spent in the Helland’s cabin, although his face had healed enough that no expressions hurt anymore.

You'd be surprised what secrets I can keep.