Chapter 9: Royal pursuit.
Anna stood outside the throne room, staring at the great double doors. Never before did these two doors seemed so daunting. After the incident with the bandits, the throne room had been intolerable. Ten years later, it wasn't much better. She seldom spent more than a few minutes in it, only passing through when absolutely necessary- most of the time it was to find her uncle for something or other.
She was here for her uncle again, perhaps for the last time. Hesitantly, she knocked; the hollow ringing of the wood sending chills down her spine. Silence greeted her knocks, not a soul stirred to answer the door. Anna frowned: this was unusual. She knocked again and heard her knocking echo out into silence on the other side. Usually a guard would have opened the door by now. Anna waited, but as the seconds ticked by, she found her patience wearing thin. As trepid as she felt, there was urgency to her agenda; there was also the growing fear that Hans would come charging into the scene, so she pressed her hand to the door and swung it wide open.
The room was empty.
"Ma'am?" inquired a voice behind her. Anna nearly jumped out of her shoes. Turning around like a stung bear, Anna found herself face to face with one of the palace guards. He was a young fellow who looked to be barely older than she was; wood brown eyes looked at her respectfully from under a fringe of sandy brown hair. He smoothed down imaginary crinkles on a meticulously clean uniform; it appeared that he was just as shocked to see her as she was to see him.
"Uh…hi…" She said.
"Ma'am, may I inquire as to why you are here and not your room as the king instructed?"
"Oh…" Anna grasped for her response. "Well, thing is, I just so happen to be looking for my uncle...the King, who is my uncle."
The guard said nothing, allowing Anna to pull herself together.
"There is something urgent I must discuss with him- immediately. If I may ask a favor: would you be so kind as to take me to him?"
"Oh…" The guard seemed to be at a loss for words. "Um, unfortunately ma'am, I won't be able to do that. The King is not currently within the castle walls."
Anna raised an inquisitive eyebrow and leaned in.
"Where is he?"
The guard stepped back hurriedly, hoping to at least preserve some sort of personal space.
"A dangerous prisoner has escaped the King's dungeons. It appeared that the prisoner had friends inside the castle staff- they attempted a coup and the prisoner was freed in the process."
"A coup?" Anna could scarcely believe her ears.
"Yes ma'am. Though the coup has been contained, the prisoner is still at large. It isn't safe for you to be out here, ma'am. If you'll allow me, I will escort you back to your room where you will be safe until the situation is resolved."
As if to punctuate the guard's explanation, a clattering of hooves burst into the courtyard outside the throne room. Anna turned and saw half a dozen royal guards in full armor- swords at their sides and crossbows slung over their back- ride in and circle the fountain. Anna's eyes got just a bit larger when she saw her uncle among them. The king's crown gleamed gold, along with the floral engravings on his armor. Instead of the crossbow, he had himself a great war-bow strapped to his back and a mighty quiver of arrows. The King turned to his men and barked an order, and then all at once they were thundering out of the courtyard, out through the gates, and straight towards the mountains.
The guard turned to escort Anna back to her room, but she was no longer there. Looking down the corridors did not help him- she was already running across the rooftops for the stables.
Elsa didn't know if she could run much longer. Her legs felt like the iron wrapped around her hands. Her knees ached and strained with every step. Behind her, the noise was dying down; around her the trees were growing taller; in front of her, the light grew smaller.
Still, the girl with the iron gloves pressed on, ever upwards.
...
Elsa stared at the floor of her iron cage as it rattled with the plodding of hooves. The sun's gaze upon its iron sides had turned the walls of the carriage uncomfortably hot, forcing her awake. Elsa did not complain about being woken up, if anything it was a blessing. Her dreams had become confused and lurid with the heat of the walls. Her father had featured prominently in them for some unfathomable reason. Anna was there too, small and still eight years old.
They were still there.
Elsa started and rubbed her eyes roughly with a gloved hand. Blinking once, twice, three times, Elsa stared at the opposing wall.
There was no one there.
She heaved a sigh as her heart pounded away with fright. There was a very good reason why she hated carriages, and she was remembering that reason now.
...
Elsa tripped on a tree root and crumpled to the ground. She didn't bother getting up, choosing instead to simply roll over and face the sky. The towering trees gazed down at her, silhouetted by the bright midday sky. Her chest heaved as she gasped for air- the life preserving stuff here was languid and tasted faintly bitter. Her lips were parched and her eyelids were heavy with slumber. For a moment, Elsa entertained the thought of simply closing her eyes and drifting off- how ironic it would be for Kai to go so far for her release only to have her be caught napping.
Her lips pressed into a thin line. She refused to die like this. Sitting up, the prisoner willed herself back onto her feet. She had a mountain to climb.
...
The carriage was growing uncomfortably hot. Elsa wondered if this had been her uncle's design all along: to leave her inside some iron cage and roast her alive in the sun. She doubted he was into actual cannibalism, but remembering the way he looked at her, Elsa realised that he would have roasted her on a spit if he could get away with it.
And all this for what?
"Oh Anna, I guess saying sorry now won't fix anything."
Anna shook her little head.
"No…" said Elsa. "I guess not."
...
Elsa didn't lean on the tree so much as cling to it. She looked down; her left foot throbbed with pain. It was bleeding as she held it off the ground; blood trickled down between her toes to drip onto the pine needles that covered the forest floor like a prickly mattress. Weakly, Elsa looked back at the rock that had hated her so- it was a small sharp thing that jutted out through the pine needles so subtly, Elsa hadn't realised it was there till she stepped on it. She paid a price in blood for that mistake as the jagged edge of the rock tore a gash on the underside of her foot.
The prisoner grimaced as she examined the cut- luckily it was shallow, but it was long. Dirt crusted black with drying blood on the edges of the frayed skin. Alas, she could not stare at her wounded foot forever. There was a mountain to climb. Putting her foot down, Elsa stifled a whimper as the pain came shooting up like fire in her veins. Gritting her teeth, she limped on.
...
Elsa felt dizzy. The air was hot and stuffy and the incessant rattling of the carriage was grinding her nerves to a pulp. Suddenly, she felt the carriage begin to crawl up an incline. That wasn't right- the castle and the town were pretty much on the same level, if not lower. Under no circumstances should they be climbing any sort of slope.
Then Elsa realised: they weren't going back to the castle. The cage was rattling more than normal- they were traveling on gravel.
...
Elsa didn't want to take another step. She had hobbled halfway up a mountain- how she had managed such a feat, even she had no idea. She almost wanted to smile- she wanted to live. Life, outside and not in some dungeon; life, free and spent as she pleased instead of rotting away outside of living memory. She wanted to live. It was contrary to everything that was expected of her. She was a prisoner at large, a wanted felon whom the King had personally sentenced to life imprisonment. She was dangerous; her gloves masked a pair of hands that had already shed blood, some innocent, some not so much. And yet, though the weight of her sins was heavy and the chances of her redemption were nigh impossible, she wanted to live.
She could see the mountain ridge now. Just out of reach, where the line of trees broke and the sunlight came pouring in. She could see the sky beyond it, blue and vibrant. She could see the clouds, like white foam in the sky; drifting lazily and without care; and beyond that, beyond all of that, towered the North Mountain.
Elsa stumbled on.
...
Elsa stared at the floor, panting. Beads of sweat trickled down her face to splatter the wooden floor- the air was oppressively hot, almost as oppressive as the look her father was giving her. The iron cage shook this way and that, and Elsa shook with it.
Suddenly, the carriage rattled to a stop. Elsa hoped they would end her quickly- being cooked to death inside a metal box was not something on her bucket list.
There was a commotion outside; startled voices were raised before a sudden outbreak of clanging metal. Elsa couldn't tell whether it was all part of her nightmare or whether it was happening for real. The shouting grew closer to the carriage- the metal box jerked and rattled with the unsettled horses. The prisoner hunkered down and hoped her father would stop looking at her.
The door opened and the cold came roaring back into the hot metal box. Elsa looked up, startled, as the chill wind blew her phantoms away. Gloved hands caught her by the wrist and dragged her out of her slumber. Disorientated and still recuperating, the prisoner sank into the grass at the feet of the carriage.
"Your majesty."
Elsa looked up. It was Kai. Strong hands pulled her to her feet. Metal clashed against metal. Kai was talking to her. Elsa stared dumbly at the butler she hadn't seen in years. A man fell to the ground next to her with a thud, a palace guard standing over him.
"Go, Elsa!"
The cool breeze blew around her and she was back. Elsa blinked and realised Kai was talking to her.
"Run! To the North Mountain, where your Uncle cannot follow!"
The butler gave Elsa a push and she stumbled back- out of the way of a falling blade.
"Go, now!"
Elsa turned and ran.
...
With the last of her strength, Elsa lowered herself against the trunk of an ancient pine tree, its rough bark digging into her back. She didn't mind. Before her was a clearing, and a stone's throw away was the ridge of the mountain. It was a low lying ridge, one that stretched all the way from within the castle walls right to the peak of the North Mountain. Elsa followed its winding ascent with her eyes; the way it curled and curved reminded her of the back of some giant serpent, lying dormant in the brown rock and tussock.
Her foot hurt horribly. She didn't have the heart to inspect the wound; it would not be pretty after such a long and bitter hike. At the very least, the bleeding had stopped. Elsa looked skyward, the blue and the white, now unbound from the frame of towering trees, stretched its vast expanse across her vision. Hope blossomed within her, stretched its wings to fly into the endless blue. But moments before it was airborne, it crumbled and turned to ash. The sound of hooves echoed through the forest, joined soon by the bark of dogs.
Slowly, stiffly, painfully, Elsa stood; foot on fire and drained to the bone. They had found her, but she would not die sitting down.
Anna clattered over the tiles of her castle. A left, a vault to another roof, a drop, then a left again, and she dropped silently onto the stables. It was not yet time for the horses to be fed, nor was it time for their daily run- they had just come back from their morning stretch after all. There was also no getting around the coup that was supposedly happening inside the castle walls- Anna doubted she'd see any of the stable boys for a while.
She didn't have a while- she was leaving now.
Dropping down from the stable roof, Anna looked round for Sitron, her horse.
"I thought you'd come here," said a familiar voice.
Anna's stomach churned as Hans emerged from the stables. Behind him trotted Sitron, saddled and chewing on barley. Anna wasn't sure what to make of it all, eyes darting from Hans, to the horse, to the saddle.
"Hans...I…"
But before Anna could apologize, Hans had closed the distance between them and enveloped her in a hug.
"I'm sorry about before." He said, breaking out of the hug before it could get awkward. Anna was left scrambling after her wits.
"Oh, uh, no, don't be sorry about before- you mean before as in you invading my room, if you mean that…" Anna stopped herself before her ramble could get any longer. Looking up at Hans, she realised she wasn't angry with him at all. She smiled- he was forgiven.
"I'm sorry for that too." She said, her tone dropping along with her gaze. She hugged him back.
"What does this mean?" Anna said, releasing Hans from her arms. She gestured to her horse- her fully saddled horse- who was looking quite eager to go for another run. She looked at Hans and saw that his trademark smile was back on his face.
"It means," suddenly Hans lifted her up and put her on Sitron's back. "I love you, Anna."
Anna felt her cheeks go scarlet.
Hans swung himself onto the horse after her.
"It also means I'm coming with you."
"I thought you weren't supportive of my stupid ideas."
"I'm here to keep you out of trouble. I don't think you know what trouble looks like when you see it."
"Wherever did you get that idea?" Anna laughed, rolling her eyes at the sentiment. Taking the reins, she gave them an enthusiastic flick. Sitron snorted and leapt into fast canter.
"Come on," Anna said. "We're going to run my Uncle down."
Hans responded by wrapping his arms around Anna's waist. He's been riding with her before and he knew just how fast she liked to go. Meanwhile Anna reached up and scratched her horse behind the ear.
"Sitron."
The horse whinnied.
"Let's go for a run!"
Anna dug her heels into the horse's' sides and they were off, tearing through the courtyard and out through the open gates. Their quarry wasn't far ahead- Anna could hear the dogs barking.
Author's note: Hey guys, my apologies for the short chapter. The good news is that, the next chapter will be posted within a day or so. However, there's a balance to that: I need to go on another hiatus and I don't know how long this one will be (again). Not only am I having real difficulty cranking out the rest of the story, I have assignments that need writing. So posting from me will come in unpredictable bursts.
Other than that, I've been loving the reviews. I'm practically swimming in butter. Honestly, I'm so thankful you guys like the story I'm writing.
Peace out.