Prologue: Ileana's dark prophecy
In the final days of her life, Ileana grew more and more agitated. As her vision began to fade, her Sight grew ever stronger, much as Isen's had in the world they had left behind. There was no solace in sleep, for her dreams only grew to haunt her as nightmares. With her lover harried and driven mad by the endless stories and legends Branna was making her record, and with Ava and Kaya traveling so often, she had none to voice her anguish to. All of them were anxious, all of them feared the next stage, whatever it may be. Branna was certain all her knowledge of the stories from their home realm would be lost, just as Isen was sure her Sight would fade with Ileana's life. But where Branna could hope to preserve her knowledge by making Erin fill every book in their library, Isen had no such outlet. Ileana would sit for hours in a tiny room in the most secluded wing of the temple, her ice expanding and contracting endlessly as she fought the onslaught of visions tormenting her, her blinding eyes staring at nothing. She had nothing to safeguard her power, she never had. In the past, she would have gone to Erin without hesitation, begging her to ease her visions by recording them for future meditations. But the things she saw now, she could not bear to let her love know of. Her visions were of the end of days, of their Mother crying out in pain and their people suffering in their absence. She saw the Great Tree die again and again, as if an entire forest had been cut by her sister's sword. She saw the dust from the Great Tree as if it were a plague, eating away at the realm they had landed in, and Verdener glowing maliciously from its hidden lair. She saw the missing Shard of Evigsmerte spinning endlessly, its power untethered and loose upon the world. And at the end of it all, there was always one thing. Great Darkness. And her soul would cry out, yearning to join that Darkness, to give herself over to its great power and vanish within its embrace…
She could not let such a blasphemous thought be known to her sisters.
But on some nights, when the visions became too much to bear, she would stumble to the library, grope in the darkness for whatever book Erin had left out from her days of furious scribbling and blindly scrawl her thoughts across the page…
And in one such book, detailing the lost legend of how the spirits fell to Earth, she wrote her Dark Prophecy.
-from the writings of Sophie, the great Fire Goddess incarnate, Kingdom of Arendelle, Mid-Winter, 1821
Province of Weselton, 1814
He'd always hated winter.
Snow crunched under his boots as he crossed the divide between hemlock forest and pine woods that most would not have distinguished. The tough old boots gripped the snow mercilessly, cutting into the thin layer of ice above the powder, leaving cracked footprints behind him. The landscape rose gently under his feet, sloping into a gradual incline that made him lean forwards slightly as he walked. The crossbow slung across his back and the twin short swords at his waist thumped out counter melodies to his footsteps as he climbed, the wood of his bolts creaking off key.
Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled, calling his brothers to the hunt. He acknowledged the sound and shifted his course slightly to the east, aiming to now trek around the valley rather than through it. The wolves were hunting. But they would not be hunting him.
His Sami clothes held back the cold effortlessly; his moist breath filled the scarf across his face and warmed the air before he breathed it. Snow caked into the folds of the leather and ice dripped from the front of his scarf. He'd been walking non-stop for days, pausing only for a few sips from open streams to quench his thirst. He'd not slept or eaten at all during that time. His job was too important for such trivial things.
The parcel tapping his thigh with every step pulsed with a heartbeat of its own, racing his so that he felt as if he were being hunted; chased and teased by some devil just over his shoulder. But he would not let himself succumb to that superstition. He had been chosen for this mission specifically because of his abilities to keep a level head and not panic.
He held no more fear towards the blade of his enemy, the supernatural forces, or his funeral pyre than he did the leaf fluttering mutely to the snow before him. If death came for him now, so be it. He was at peace with his gods.
A furry form burst through the brush ahead. It was a handsome, low-running lone wolf, split off from the pack to search out possible prey. Before it even registered his presence among the trees, he had his crossbow loaded and at his shoulder.
The hunter skidded to a halt, panting on the ice, his deep green eyes burning into the human's.
The human lifted his bow, his heart steady. It was kill or be killed out here. As the wolf drew breath to summon his pack, the human fired. The bolt tore straight through the beast's throat and embedded itself in the tree beyond. The silenced hunter collapsed on the snow, bleeding profusely and whining silently. The human crossed to him and placed a gentle hand on the beast's head. He waited with the hunter until the light dimmed from his eyes, the green fire fading into the air around him and passing on. He gently closed the wolf's eyes and continued on his way, plucking the bolt from the tree as he passed.
In his employer's' circles, he was known only as the Mercenary.
The next few hours of his journey were uneventful and he soon found himself gazing upon the walled city of Benton, the capitol of the Weselton Province and home of his most recent employer. The gates were closed for the night, but he had never entered the city through a gate.
Loading the same bolt that had killed the wolf, he took aim and fired, watching as the rope tied to his shot whipped in the air behind it. The bolt struck less than a foot below the crest of the wall, the rope dangling two feet above the ground.
He swiftly climbed the wall and dropped onto the parapet, pulling his bolt from the stone and winding the rope around a guard post to assist his drop onto the nearby roofs. The thatch and tiles under his feet were icier than the forest floor but it was no challenge for him. He darted through the city like a shadow, climbing higher as the rooftops rose until the palace came into view. Another perfect shot and rope climb later, he was at his employer's window.
He offered only three short taps before he slid one of his finest blades between the windows, tripping the latch and allowing the window to swing open.
He dropped silently to the floor and rose with his head bowed. Warmth slowly seeped into him from a fire burning across the chamber.
His employer glanced up from a large chair by the fire. "Ah, my Mercenary has returned." The small man rose, hurrying to stand before the man. He placed his small, warm hands on the younger man's head. "Excellent, my boy. How did the journey agree with you?"
The Mercenary raised his head and offered his employer the smallest of smiles. "Most well, my Lord." He was a man of few words but the Duke seemed to love him all the more for it.
The Duke's eyes gleamed in the firelight, clearly picking up on his employees' triumphant air. "Were you successful?" He whispered, the corners of his moustache twitching, his warm hands trembling against his face. The cold air coming in the window was fogging up the oversized glasses the little man wore.
The Mercenary reached behind him and carefully untied the parcel from its resting place. He presented it to the Duke with his head bowed low. "I have found it, my Lord."
He could hear the Duke breathing fast and shallow, overjoyed and just a little frightened of what he was being offered. "Excellent work…"
The Mercenary did not reply. He had only followed orders. Nothing less was to be expected.
The Duke softly plucked the parcel from his Mercenary's hands, hurriedly placing it on a side table next to the fire. The little man turned back to his employee, rubbing his hands as if to remove something unpleasant from them.
"And your master? He has agreed to our terms?"
The Mercenary blinked but allowed no shift in his emotion to show on his face. "My master will do his part. But he wishes to make it clear that he does not follow your orders."
The Duke sniffed in disapproval but he did not voice his disdain for the Mercenary's Master.
"Very well. How long until you can go out again?"
He could have left immediately if he really wanted to. "I can leave at dawn, my lord."
The Duke nodded his approval. "Good…good." He turned to the wall, where an enormous map detailed countries and trade routes. Many of the routes had been violently erased and the names of countries scratched away until the wall behind showed. The Duke lowered his voice, a darkness seeping into his generally bouncy demeanor. "After all this time, we will finally have our revenge on Arendelle…and Queen Elsa will fall…"
The Mercenary was still but he watched his employer through narrowed eyes, his shadow wavering in the light.
Fingers shaking, the Duke reached for the edges of the package. He unwrapped the parcel carefully to reveal a single metallic shard that shimmered wickedly in the flickering firelight.
"The Winter is coming to an end…and Summer shall reign once more."
Far away, in a temple hidden so deep in the mountains that no human had ever laid eyes on it, a young woman was preparing to end her life.
The instant before she plunged the blade into her heart, she heard a soft voice call her name.
As they always had, the seasons continued to turn amidst life, death, darkness, and change.
A.N. Yep! I'm baaaaacccckkk!
Special thanks to cinnamonpearl for editing and dragonheart77 for spawning some of the ideas I will be lovingly appropriating into this sequel! As with the original, my updates will most likely be painfully slow. But this story will hopefully be shorter and therefore take less time to publish! I have an outline and I'm going to stick to it dammit! Right now, it's got me at ten chapters (which probably means this will be 13 when all's said and done…).
Anyway, thank you for reading and I look forward to continuing the adventures of Elsa and the Goddesses!