SEVEN
Part 4
"Please raise your right hand and state your name."
"Elsa of Arendelle, Queen of Arendelle."
Her reply was automatic. What her mouth said and what was going through her mind at that particular moment rested on two completely different sides of the spectrum. She felt as in a sort of trance. A sort of overload of information was short-circuiting her brain. She could hardly think clearly through the fog of thoughts that clouded her mind.
"Queen Elsa of Arendelle, do you swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth?"
Elsa didn't reply. She hardly blinked, unable to tear her eyes from the cause of this tornado of confusion she had been tossed into.
And he stared right back, unperturbed—calm in his certainty that he understood all the questions she was sure were etched on her face; questions that she screamed in her mind and only he could hear.
"Queen Elsa," Prince Josef said again. He stood in the space between her and Hans, interrupting their contact. "Do you swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth?"
The truth? Elsa didn't know what the truth was anymore. Once a thing of solidity, it now expanded, like water spreading over dirt, absorbing all in its path and turning gray. Who was to say what truth was and what wasn't? Who on this earth could possess the jurisdiction to sort out through the tangled mess of life and pick out what was truth and what was a lie, what was acceptable and what was unforgivable?
What makes a saint and what makes a sinner?
Why, when finally untangled, life was just one long string fading in parts from black to gray to white.
"Queen Elsa?"
Prince Josef's voice was a far and distant echo. From where she sat, only the sound of her breathing was real.
And those eyes. Those unyielding, unfathomable green eyes.