"Anna!"
The cough that greeted the princess upon her entrance to the infirmary was one of joy - adulterated only slightly by the sleepy dryness of Elsa's throat.
Anna instantly brightened when she heard the noise. Her sister really was awake.
"Hello to you, too, sleepyhead," the princess responded with a grin. She darted over to Elsa's bedside and held out the glass of water. "Kai brought you this."
Bound firmly by her bandages, the queen only eyed it desperately.
"Oh, sorry, sorry," Anna said quickly. She put the cup to her sister's lips and tipped it until it was completely emptied by pained gulps. Once it had been, she set the glass on a nearby table. "It's so good to see you. Well, I guess technically I have been seeing you a lot, but I mean it's good to see you when you're, uh, awake."
Elsa giggled a little. It hurt, but she was not about to show it.
"It's good to see you when you're awake, too," she said. The queen's voice was still a shadow of its former self, however it sounded much better than it had the night before, repaired partially by her morning nap and the much-needed water.
"How are you feeling?"
Elsa hesitated a moment before answering. "Fine."
"I wouldn't call it fine," the resident doctor piped up in his office, apparently overhearing the conversation from his desk. "With those burns, I don't think you will be moving for a few more days, Queen Elsa. Not to mention the shape that your right leg is in..."
Elsa frowned. She knew that it was the man's job, but he could have at least been a bit less blunt in his frantic diagnosis.
"Anna?"
"Yeah?"
"Could you get us some privacy?" Elsa's eyes went to the open doorway to the doctor's conjoined office as she whispered.
Inside, there was the embarrassed shuffle of an eavesdropping doctor.
Anna hurried over to the door and, after giving the flushed physician a quick smile, shut the door.
The princess returned to her sister's bedside, now taking her usual seat at the weathered (and quite uncomfortable) visitors' chair.
"It'll be good for you to get a few days of rest, anyway," optimism flowed from Anna to the queen. "Just call it a vacation from royal duties."
While she appreciated the sentiment, Elsa had trouble seeing how her current state of affairs was much of a vacation. The appearance of the Dark Mage, the damage to the castle, the deaths of two men and the injury of another - she could practically feel the work piling up around her even with her sister's help.
Worse yet, she was in no shape to even begin fixing the problems. Not only could the queen barely move or talk, but she also found herself knowing tragically little of the festival's aftermath.
"Is Arendelle okay?" Elsa decided to start with the most important question.
"Arendelle is fine," Anna assured her sister. "The repairs to the castle should be done tomorrow or the next day. Of course, some of your personal touches melted, so we'll need your help once you're better, but other than that everything's in tip-top shape," the princess grinned. Elsa still looked at her expectantly, so she continued. "The town wasn't damaged at all."
"And the people?"
Anna's peppiness clearly stalled, her shoulders dropping.
"Well, I..." the princess trailed off. She did not want to worry her sister, however her mind quickly went back to the festival itself. She was not about to hide the truth from Elsa again. "None of the townspeople were hurt," Anna breathed out, "but a lot of them are afraid."
"Afraid of magic," the queen shuddered.
As difficult as it was for her to see her sister's reaction, Anna merely nodded.
Elsa remembered the Dark Mage's words. As he had foretold, it was doubtless that her subjects had been reminded of her own powers by the attack. The queen knew that her magic, too, had to have been a part of Arendelle's revived fears.
"I'm sorry, Elsa, it's just that no one quite knows what to think of the Dark Mage's attack yet," Anna said helplessly.
"So you haven't found out anything about him?" Elsa asked.
"No," Anna shook her head sadly. "I tried, but no one in town even saw the guy before he climbed up onto that stage. Kristoff is on his way to the Valley right now to talk to Grand Pabbie. Until he comes back, we don't really have any leads."
"I see," Elsa said. After a few moments of contemplative silence, she continued with a question. "Are you afraid?"
"What?" Anna's head jerked backwards. "No, no. I'm not. Why would I be?"
"I'm afraid," the queen admitted. Again, her mind was drawn back to what the mage's words during their encounter; her eyes to something invisible and faraway. "The Dark Mage said that our powers were destructive. He said that I had forgotten what magic truly was. He could have been right, you know, considering..."
Anna immediately knew what her sister was referring to. "Elsa, about William Daleon," the princess began carefully, seeming to think about each word before she spoke it. "I didn't tell you at first because I knew that you would blame yourself if you heard about what happened. I didn't want you thinking like that."
Elsa did not respond, still half-lost in her own cyclical thoughts. Were her powers really like the Dark Mage's own? No, she could control them now. Surely they could not harm anyone now that she could control them.
"I know that I shouldn't have kept it from you," the younger sister's shoulder fell forward. "I was just trying to avoid... well, this. I'm sorry, Elsa."
Still, the queen's face was just as motionless as the rest of her injured body. Even if she had a grasp on the magic now, was there not always the danger of it slipping back out of control? No matter how hard she tried, there would always be the possibility-
"Please, please don't be mad."
"I'm not mad," Elsa finally said, snapped out of her trance by the princess's words. "I'm not mad at you," she repeated, whispering as if she were sharing some kind of a secret.
"You aren't?"
Elsa's eyes focused on her sister at her side. The queen had not noticed that the young woman had begun to cry.
"No, Anna, no," Elsa's voice instantly took on a caring quality. Thoughts of the Dark Mage retreated to the back of her mind instantly, forgotten in the wake of something much more important. If the queen could have reached out to her sister, she would have. In her restricted state, an attempted half-turn on the bed in the same direction would have to suffice. "Of course I'm not mad at you."
"I just thought that after..." Anna cut herself off with a sob.
"After what?"
"After what you said the other night... About me not understanding..."
"Oh, Anna," Elsa whimpered breathlessly. "I'm so sorry."
"No, that's not what I mean," the younger sister did her very best to wipe her cheeks dry with her sleeve to limited success.
"What?"
"I mean... I don't want you to be sorry. You don't have to be sorry," Anna clarified between sniffles. "You were right."
Tears cascaded down Elsa's cheeks freely now. The icy liquid stung on her sensitive skin, but she did not care.
"No," the queen murmured as the infirmary grew ever so slightly colder.
"You were, Elsa, and you don't have to try to protect me by denying it," Anna insisted, making use of her ineffective sleeve once more. "You don't have to feel bad about it. I don't."
The two women's eyes locked and the queen saw that her sister's gaze was sure despite its wetness.
"I'm not going to lie, I was upset at first," Anna continued. "I had myself convinced that you were wrong - that I knew everything," she almost cracked a smile. A confident brightness had returned to her drying face. "But then I realized how silly that was. I said to myself, 'of course you can't know everything, Anna'," the princess waved a finger, scolding her imaginary self. "And I can't. I don't. It'd be pretty weird if I did, wouldn't it?"
Elsa's own sobbing quieted, her sadness and the lowered temperature of the room melting away under Anna's radiance. She nodded her head as best as she could.
"That's not going to keep me from trying, though," the younger sister declared, almost defiant in her grin. "I realize that I might not understand you now, Elsa, but I promise that I'm never going to stop trying to. I hope you never stop trying to understand me, too."
Another tear rolled from the queen's left eye, though it was unlike the ones that preceded it. It was almost warm on her sensitive cheek - a product of happiness, not sorrow.
"Never," Elsa agreed.
Anna giggled, releasing a few joyous tears of her own.
"What?"
"I want to hug you," the princess said, "but I don't want to hurt you." She wiped her face again, her forearm now damp.
Elsa laughed. With a few grunts of effort, she forced her bandaged arms sideways as to accept an awkward embrace. "I'll just have to forgive you."
Anna carefully reached around her sister and, only touching the sheet that separated them lightly, hugged the queen.
"I love you."
"I love you, too, Anna."
There was nearly a minute of silence before Elsa finally whimpered in pain.
"Sorry."
"You're forgiven."
Anna leaned back into the visitors' chair and watched her sister readjust herself on the bed with minute, deliberate movements. Finally, Elsa's body seemed to relax all at once, comfortable in its position.
"Speaking of being forgiven," the princess began. "I just talked to Isaac in the courtyard. You know, that guard from the night of the festival? The one with the, uh, talking problem?"
"How is that 'speaking of being forgiven'?" Elsa asked, slightly concerned.
"He wanted me to be sure to let you know that he was very sorry for upsetting you by leaving his post the other night," Anna grinned now, wiping away the last of the tears that clung to her cheeks. "He thought that you were mad at him."
The queen's face loosened back up. "That's adorable."
"I thought so, too. I told him that you accepted his apology in advance. Hope you don't mind."
The princess looked around the infirmary, suddenly noticing that something was different about her surroundings than it had been the night before. She saw that the bed that the ambassador had once occupied was now empty, but recognized that that was not the change that she was sensing. Something else was missing from the sickroom.
"What's wrong?" Elsa asked.
"While we're on the subject of guardsmen, where's Martin?" Anna replied with a question of her own. The guardsman had not left the infirmary since she had personally assigned him to the post after his short stay - he even took his alleged breaks merely dozing against the wall and made use of the doctor's personal bathroom - so it was very strange for him to have disappeared altogether.
"Oh," Elsa started, quickly thinking of the best way to explain the truth which Anna was almost certain to be unhappy with. "I sent him to escort Mrs. Daleon to her home."
The younger sister nodded, remembering what Isaac had said about the prisoner being freed. It was yet another decision from Elsa that she was hopeless in understanding. "Uh, why?"
"I spoke to Mrs. Daleon on the night of the festival," the queen explained. "I would have released her then had the Dark Mage not attacked."
"Okay," Anna said slowly, "but why do you want to release her in the first place? The guards said that she was an assassin - your assassin."
"That is true," Elsa looked away from her sister, again regarding something that was not quite there. "Mrs. Daleon held me responsible for her husband's death. It was to be expected that she would try to kill me."
"It was?"
"If you thought that one thing was responsible for all of your problems, wouldn't you try to get rid of it?" the queen turned her head ever so slightly back to Anna.
"I mean, I guess... I don't think I'd try to kill anyone, but-"
"I used to think that my powers were like that," Elsa took a deep breath, almost amazed that she was even able to say the words. Watching Anna's equally surprised face, she was encouraged to keep talking. "I used to think that if I could just control them then everything would be all better."
"All better?" the princess prompted, her eyebrows turning downward in concern. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that I thought that my lack of control was the root of all of my problems," Elsa's voice grew in intensity as she continued. "It was my lack of control that locked me in my room all day; my lack of control that made me different; my lack of control that kept me from seeing you," the queen stopped abruptly, breathing deeply again before resuming. "I thought that if I could just master the magic, then all of those problems would go away."
"They didn't?" Anna put a hand on the sheet of her sister's bed, careful not to touch the injured arm nearby. "Elsa, you can control your powers now. You can leave your room whenever you want. We get to see each other all the time."
Elsa knew that her sister's words were true. Life had improved considerably for the queen since she had mastered her powers, but that did not change the fact that problems still gnawed at her mind.
They swept under Elsa's every thought like shadows that she was powerless to rid herself of - shadows that reminded her of what she once was and what she could still always be.
"Some of them did," the elder sister confirmed at last, "but some of them didn't. Control over my powers wasn't the ultimate cure that I thought it was. Maybe it was ridiculous for me to think that it could be so simple in the first place."
The sisters considered it together.
"I don't know if it was or not yet," Elsa emerged from her thoughts first. She paused for a moment, thinking back to her visit to the dungeon a few nights before. "Mrs. Daleon thought that revenge would be her ultimate cure. That's why she wanted to kill me."
"But she changed her mind?"
"Yes," Elsa said. "She realized something that I never did when I thought that controlling my powers would fix everything. She somehow saw that there would be problems that remained even if she went through with her plan. Pain, fear, guilt..."
The queen paused, thinking first of the widow's words in the dungeon and then her own countless trials in front of the mirror. She was reaching the end of what she had practiced - nearing the conclusion that felt so simple and yet was so hard to put to words.
Elsa did not know how to get rid of the shadows.
The elder sister opened her mouth and nothing came out. She sighed.
"Mrs. Daleon is of no danger to me or anyone else anymore," Elsa finished finally with a hint of frustration. The queen was angry at herself for being unable to finish - angry at her thoughts for being so unutterable.
"Are you sure?" Anna asked, though her question was half-hearted. In truth, the princess's mind was on her sister's words.
"Absolutely."
The infirmary fell silent. The sisters could hear a few footsteps as the curious doctor in his office darted away from the other side of the closed connecting door, but neither of them cared.
Elsa was too busy thinking about just what was keeping the widow and her in the darkness; Anna too busy trying to unravel the meaning of what her sister had already said.
Suddenly, the door leading out to the hallway opened and both of the women were pulled from their thoughts by a familiar, polite voice.
"Princess Anna, Queen Elsa," Kai bowed his head to each of them as he entered the room.
"Kai," Elsa smiled at the servant, forcing her worries to the back of her mind. Anna, too, made the decision to put aside her considerations for the moment as she turned to face the man. "Thank you for the water," the queen looked over to the empty glass on the bedside table.
"My apologies, Queen Elsa, I will get you another right away-"
"No, no," Elsa said with a slight laugh, causing Kai to stop in his tracks partway to the cup. The servant's insistence upon maintaining awareness of his position was always amusing to the queen considering the fact that he had been much more than a mere subject to the royal family over the years. "I'm alright for now, thank you."
"Did you get the ambassador to his guest room?" Anna asked.
"Guest room?" Elsa's face took on an expression of only half-joking terror. "Ambassador Balan is staying in the castle?"
"Yes, and yes," Kai nodded to each sister in turn before focusing his eyes on the princess. "Ambassador Balan wanted me to be sure to tell you that he is 'exceptionally excited' for your meeting this afternoon."
"The meeting," the queen repeated in instant comprehension.
"He talked to you about it, too?" Anna once again spun on the chair to face the bed.
"It didn't seem like he talked about anything else," Elsa teased. "He seemed pretty upset that I would be unable to participate. Do you think you will be alright meeting with him on your own?"
Anna's face scrunched up into a mock offended expression. "Of course!"
The queen watched her sister expectantly. The faux annoyance left the princess's face as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by a nervous smile.
"It would be nice to know what it will be about, though," Anna said through exposed teeth. "The ambassador was never really, uh, clear on that point."
Elsa chuckled a little at the princess's antics before responding with a certain air of seriousness. "That's what I was afraid of," she said, mulling it over in her head. "He avoided the purpose of the meeting when he was talking to me, too," the queen recalled. "That man is quite odd."
Anna nodded in affirmation as Elsa seemed to return from her rather un-queenly contemplation with a slight blush.
"I suppose you will just have to find out what the ambassador is up to at the meeting," the older sister settled. Her eyes fluttered over to the man by the door. "You said it was this afternoon?"
"I thought we agreed on tonight," Anna, too, looked to Kai.
The servant nodded wearily in response. "My apologies, Princess Anna. Ambassador Balan seems to have a rather loose definition of 'tonight'. He decided that you should meet him for an early dinner in the dining hall. Considering his... insistence, I have already put in an order with the chefs," the servant said. "The meal is set to be held at three-thirty."
"Well," the princess quipped, "somehow I don't get the feeling he'll be late."
"It's strange for him to be so vague about something that he clearly thinks is of such great importance," Elsa reasoned aloud. She returned her focus to her sister. "You will have to be cautious during the meeting. I have a feeling that Ambassador Balan has a few tricks up his sleeve."
"Cautious?" Anna almost scoffed, whirling back around in the visitors' chair. "I'll be cautious, alright. I'm always cautious!" the princess bragged. She was the only one who had not noticed that in her turn she had nearly knocked the empty glass from the bedside table with a carelessly outstretched elbow.
"Of course," Elsa said amidst stifled laughter. "Your main focus should be finding out what exactly it is that Ambassador Balan wants. All you need is the details. If it's something simple like a trade agreement you are free to proceed, but if you sense anything amiss in his proposal then just tell the kind ambassador that you're uncomfortable making a decision without my approval."
With her sister's words, Anna's facade of confidence faltered. "At least I won't have to lie," the princess said with a worried look.
"You'll be fine, Anna," Elsa converted her former giggles into a warm smile. "The way I understand it, you've been keeping Arendelle running all by yourself the last few days. A dinner meeting is nothing that you can't handle."
Anna blushed, embarrassed by her sister's praise. "It's mostly been Kai," the princess deflected the compliment, looking over her shoulder.
"With all due respect," the servant gestured back in the young woman's direction, "I only know how to take orders, Princess Anna."
"Thank you both," Elsa said. "The doctor says that I will have to stay bandaged for at least a few more days. I'm feeling well, however, so I would expect that I can resume at least some of my duties-"
The queen stopped abruptly, her voice going coarse as her throat returned to painful dryness. Elsa had not realized how thirsty she had gotten with all of the talking.
"I insist, now, Queen Elsa," Kai bowed, swept across the room to retrieve the empty glass, and quickly made his way back towards the door.
"Please, any... any reports from the staff, too," Elsa said with difficulty before descending into a fit of coughs that hurt more than just her throat.
"Yes, Queen Elsa," the servant reluctantly nodded and took his leave.
"You shouldn't push yourself, Elsa," Anna warned from the bedside.
"I'm sure... I can handle some reading," Elsa said once she had finally stopped coughing. Despite her weak frame, she was undeniably resolved. "Just... no more talking from... me," the queen rasped.
Elsa's eyes drifted over to the infirmary's window to see the sun framed high over the docks, slightly off to the east in the sky. It was only just before noon and she had slept late to begin with, so why was it that the queen felt so exhausted?
"I should still have plenty of time before I have to get ready," Anna stated, following her sister's gaze to the view of the glimmering fjords. "Why, are you tired?"
Elsa only grimaced in response.
"You're never going to get better if you don't get enough rest," the princess scolded.
The queen nodded slightly and winced more than a few times as she relaxed stiffly again into a comfortable position on the bed. Once she had finally settled, she took one last look at her sister.
Anna smiled. "Sleep," she ordered. "I'll make sure that those reports will be here whenever you wake up, alright? I'll make sure that I'm here, too."
"Thank-"
"Sleep!"
And Elsa was also smiling as she closed her eyes and drifted off.
The late-morning sun beat down on Martin atop his horse, at least giving him an excuse for his excessive sweating over the course of the journey out of Arendelle proper.
Since retrieving a few of the Royal Guard's horses from the stable in town, the guardsman had merely followed Dee on the beaten path to the Daleon Farmstead, his steed always trailing a few seconds behind the widow's own. Dee seemed to be treating her escort like some sort of a racing opponent and, while Martin would have preferred to ride at a more stable, slower pace, he was not about to say anything.
Neither of them were.
The wordlessness only ended once the widow's horse had reached the gate to the Daleons' property and Dee climbed off of her mount.
"Please, allow me," Martin offered politely from behind her, scrambling to the ground himself.
The woman ignored him, however, unlatching and swinging the rusty gate open to the tune of several metal screeches.
"I can make it on my own from here," Dee said once she had finished, not turning to face the guardsman in full, but at least speaking from over her shoulder. "Thank you for letting me borrow the horse."
"Uh, don't mention it," Martin stammered, but the widow was already off, moving swiftly down the cleared strip towards the farmhouse on the horizon.
For a moment, Martin mused that the horse had probably been slowing the woman down.
The guardsman took a length of thin rope from his pocket and linked the two horses' bridles before remounting his panting horse and coaxing it to start off back down the way they had come.
The return trip was taken at a considerably slower pace.
Dee leapt straight from the dirt path onto the house's porch, bypassing the steps beneath her altogether in her haste.
"Ron?" she called for her son hysterically as she exploded through the shack's door.
The widow scanned the front room with a concern that had finally been allowed to burst forth now that she was free of company. Her eyes darted from the chairs to the stove to the sofa to the bookcase in rapid succession before coming to an unsatisfied, worried rest on one of the doors on the far wall.
It led to the bedroom and, unlike its twin, it was closed.
"Ron?" Dee cried once more, this time quieter and with a voice that was perhaps even more fearful. The widow walked towards the shut door with gradually slowing, dread-filled steps.
It was as if she was unsure whether or not she wanted to know what was in the next room - as if she had not yet decided if she could bear the possibility that lay before her.
With every unanswered call, the terror which had been building within Dee ever since she had felt the castle quake beneath her three nights before grew heavier around her. Before, it had been but an irrational scenario in her mind - surely a construction of her isolated confinement - however, upon seeing the empty room, the mother's worries had become real, somehow palpable in the dusty air.
"Ron?" Dee attempted one last time upon reaching the door.
Again, there was no response.
The woman took a deep, shuddering breath. She turned the knob and pushed.
The bedroom beyond was just as empty as the rest of the house.
"Please no," Dee whispered harshly, but no one would have heard her plea even if she had shouted it.
She was alone.
The widow's eyes were drawn to her son's bed in the back of the room, illuminated most by the sunlight which streamed in through an undraped window beside it.
Dee noticed that it had been made since she had left for the festival; its pale sheets tucked into the frame neatly and its two accompanying pillows arranged perfectly where the covers left off. In the center of the arrangement laid a yellowed piece of paper. It was torn on one side, as if it had been ripped from a small book.
The widow stumbled towards the bed in a daze, tears dropping from her face and mixing with the thick dust on the ground.
Dee picked the page up with uncontrollably shaking hands and began to read.
In the form of the Knight, the Dark Mage stood above his victims in the hall, watching each of the scorched, dead faces with a hateful contempt as he laughed:
"You thought that you could teach me," he laughed, watching his Captain.
"You thought that you could deceive me," he laughed, watching his Wife.
"And you thought that you could lead me," he laughed, watching his King.
"I have more power than the three of you combined," the Dark Mage said. He looked proudly to the magical flames which covered the walls of the room around him. "I have more power than one-hundred Men, one-thousand Men! I have more power than all who would stand against me!"
And the Dark Mage was so lost in his own praise that he did not notice the fire begin to creep across the floor in his direction. He felt pain as the flames met his feet.
"How?" the Dark Mage shouted, jumping quickly away from the fire and into another. "I cannot be hurt by my own magic!"
The hall, which had been completely overrun by the flames, began to collapse around the Dark Mage and his three victims.
The relentless flames attacked the Dark Mage's host as they had been ordered to attack.
"No!" the Dark Mage shouted from within the Knight. "It is my magic! I cannot be hurt!"
But the Dark Mage was trapped within the body of the Knight, still, and thus he could be hurt. Fire burned at Daniel's mortal skin.
The Knight was consumed by the magic which he had been powerless to unleash, and the Dark Mage, too, was devoured by his own flames.