Author's Note:

There was some internal debate on this chapter, believe me. It earns the story a ratings bump to Mature due to heavy language. The decision to use coarse language in this chapter developed organically, as while writing it I found that the text seemed insincere when I was awkwardly trying to make do with softer expletives. In addition, I was going to have to confront the ratings beast anyway; a chapter currently in the storyboarding phase has themes that are probably too adult for a Teen rating. Sooner is probably better than later when it comes to these things.

On the other hand, my desire has always been to produce a fanfic that remains ideologically pure (that is, it still feels like Frozen). Rest assured that I wouldn't be making the change if I didn't consider it important to the integrity of the story that I'm sharing with you.

Anyway, back to the story!

xxx

Chapter Twelve

The wizard searched the world ceaselessly for knowledge and eventually found it in an ancient book.

The Seer's Parables

Royal Palace in Olympia,

the Southern Isles

May 3rd, 1835

Hans generally found himself cooped up in the library these days. Between lessons, it was the place he could most easily avoid his brothers. More than ever recently, they had made it clear to the prince that he was unwelcome among them.

But it didn't really matter to him; Hans never really minded the silence anyway. So it was that the afternoon of May 3rd found him hidden away in a corner of the library reading The Count of Monte Cristo for the fifth time.

Hans sighed, turning and glancing out of the window nearest him. A late afternoon sun filtered through, casting the ground in a gilded light. The apple trees were in full blossom, beautiful white flowers dotting the foliage that reminded Hans so much of the ones that Mallory had woven a crown for herself of that magical day they had stolen themselves out to the countryside.

Thinking of Mallory made Hans realize that he was late for marching practice. Again. The prince abandoned his book on the table and rushed from the library, swearing under his breath. Admiral James seemed hellbent on treating Hans like any of the other men, which extended to harsh punishments when he stepped out of line.

Hans had just reached the bottom floor and was headed to the courtyard assembly when he heard the type of raucous laughter he associated only with his eldest brother. The prince wouldn't normally have shuddered to a halt, but something about the laughter bespoke something darker than mirth.

"I'm telling you, I wouldn't be caught dead with a girl from Brenton," Hans heard his eldest brother Maxwell's voice coming down the nearest hallway.

Thinking quickly, Hans saw a nearby arras and dove behind it, concealing himself just as Maxwell, the prince's next-oldest sibling Adolphus, and a voice Hans didn't recognize entered the hallway.

The unknown voice laughed again. "Look, Max, all I'm saying is that these new money girls are desperate to get in with high society, and they're willing to do anything to get there."

Hans felt a strange pounding in his ears as the young men approached. The unknown man must be one of Maxwell's friends; the privileged dilettantes that the oldest of Hans's siblings crowded himself with wasted away their families' considerable fortunes and reputations on gambling and meaningless dalliances. Worst of all, the rest of Hans's brothers acted as sycophantic hangers-on, desperate to play the same games as Maxwell and his rotten crowd.

"But that's your goddamn problem, Wiley," Maxwell said, wheeling about and thumping his friend's chest. "You probably promised this girl jewels."

"Maybe," Wiley retorted.

"And fancy new dresses."

"Okay, but –"

"And, probably, you said you'd take her to parties, and teas, and all kinds of other shit, just to fuck her, didn't you?" The sneer in Maxwell's voice made Hans's lip curl.

"So what if I did? It was lip service, man." Hans could picture vividly Wiley backtracking hurriedly, desperate to save face against the onslaught. "That bitch isn't getting a half-crown off of me, Max. I just wanted to fuck her so I made up some shit she'd believe."

Adolphus cringed as Maxwell punched Wiley in the chest far harder than a friendly nudge.

"You fucking dumbass," Maxwell said, laughing cruelly. "Now if you don't keep those fucking promises of yours she'll run all over court and tell everyone who cares to listed what a goddamn gentleman you are."

"So what? It's my word against hers, who the fuck is gonna –"

"It doesn't matter if a single goddamn person believes her, fuckhead. The point is, all over court people will be talking about you, talking shit. Who knows if it's true or not? Does it matter? Of course not. Nobody knows anymore whether or not they can trust your word. All your social capital bankrupt because of one bitch who ran her mouth off."

Exasperated, Wiley said, "Well how the fuck would you get some girl to sleep with you without promising her stuff, Max?"

"I can show you." Hans found that there was a small partition in the curtains through which to peer at his brothers and Wiley. "Admiral James, you know, that general who's always trying to kiss ass to my father, happens to have a daughter I wouldn't mind giving a few lessons in high society."

The raucous laughter sounded to Hans as if it were separated by a veil of water. Mallory. Maxwell was talking about Mallory.

"And listen, Wiley. I'm not gonna be a fucking fool and tell her that give her diamonds and shit. No, man, power, the kind that we've got, is an aphrodisiac. If I just give the time of day to a girl like that she'll be begging to fuck me in minutes, just you watch."

Hans didn't really hear what Wiley responded to Maxwell over the pounding in his ears. He was furious at his eldest brother for any number of reasons, but above all the outrage was fear. What if Mallory really would sleep with him? Everyone else seemed to prefer Maxwell better anyway. Fury and fear overpowered the prince's sense of reason and he threw caution to the wind.

"Stop talking about her like that," Hans said, voice quivering with anger as he stepped from behind the arras, hands curled into white-knuckled fists.

Maxwell and his cronies turned to face Hans, surprised at his sudden materialization.

"What do you care, fucking bitch?" Maxwell crossed his arms across his broad chest, using his preferred title for his youngest step-brother. "Your limp little dick jealous that no one ever begs to suck it?"

Hans couldn't see anything as a sudden, overwhelming surge of adrenaline caused him to lunge at Maxwell and punch him in the face. Hans swung so hard that he felt his knuckles break against his eldest brother's cheekbone, right below the eye. Maxwell stumbled back into the arms of Wiley and Adolphus, eyes rolling to the back of his head.

In a flash Wiley rushed Hans and threw him up against the stone wall, punching the prince in the gut as fast as his flying arms would allow. Adolphus swore, looking morosely from Maxwell to Hans.

"Why the hell did you do that, Hans?"

"Get your fucking ass over here and hold him down, Adolph!" Wiley screamed, a wild frenzy in his eyes.

Hans couldn't breathe, could barely see over his pain and his pounding rage. He realized just how friendless he really was as Adolphus shook his head sadly and strode over to the wall, pinning Hans's limbs to it as Wiley stepped back.

"Adolph, don't do this," Hans gasped, feeling something horrible in his stomach where it had been pounded. "You know Max is a dick, you-"

Adolphus simply shook his head as Wiley savagely punched Hans's jaw. The prince's head snapped back against the stone of the wall and lolled for a moment, dazed. He could feel blood running down his chin and realized that he must have bitten his tongue. He hoped that he hadn't lost a tooth.

"You," Wiley said, punctuating each of his next words with another punch to the gut, "are, a, worthless, fucking, piece, of, shit, you, goddamn, little, bitch."

Hans was coughing violently now, sputtering blood onto the floor. He could hear Maxwell getting up and knew that he was really in for it.

"Wiley. Adolph. Spread his legs open for me and lay him down." Max rubbed at his temple, a rapidly swelling bruise along his left eye.

They did as they were told, forcing Hans to the ground, which didn't take much effort given his condition, and pulling his legs apart with the same ease. Maxwell rapidly crossed the distance between them and stomped on Hans's groin as hard as he could manage. Hans saw stars and couldn't put into lucid thought the pain he was in. From there Maxwell stomped on one of Hans's shins, breaking the bones with an audible crunch.

"Just because your whore of a mother can fuck dad into thinking she's a part of the family doesn't mean she can pull the same fucking shit over us," Maxwell said savagely, spitting down onto Hans's face. "You will never be a part of our family."

And the three left Hans there on the floor, only Adolphus casting a haphazard glance over his shoulder as they retreated, and only once.

xxx

Hans was in hell. He couldn't stand, and his voice was too hoarse to shout. It was probably twenty minutes before someone else came down that hallway and found him lying there, savagely beaten and bleeding.

"Hans!" Came a sudden, terrified shriek.

Hans heard footsteps pounding down the hallway and Mallory fell to her knees beside him, pulling the prince's head into her lap. Tears were already stinging at her face as she explained how she had found him.

"Daddy wondered why you weren't at assembly," she said as she brushed some hair out of his face. "He sent me to look for you – oh god, Hans what happened?"

Hans felt a burning shame as he considered what to tell her. I got beaten because I tried to defend your purity. I'm not even man enough to protect you from my own goddamn brother. Hans reached up with a shaking hand and brushed the side of Mallory's face. It was so soft.

The prince couldn't think of anything to tell her, any lie that would make things better. So he didn't say anything at all.

xxx

Hans took a deep breath, still calming his nerves over the incident seven years later. He stood leaning against a tree set in a roadside copse. The former prince was waiting for a carriage, left alone in the meantime to only his thoughts. He turned to look at the road, checking to make sure that the tree that lay fallen in the road was still there, as if at some point during the last hour it would have gotten up and walked away.

This time, however, was different than all of the previous times Hans had looked at the road; this time the carriage he was searching for was on the horizon and rapidly approaching.

Hades had sent the former prince to earth this time because one of his informants had given him a tip-off that some of Everdark's cultists were headed to Corona for something very important. The informant had accomplished the painstaking and treacherous task of infiltrating the cult and would be traveling with them. Thus Hades had positioned Hans on this road, at three o'clock in the afternoon, to stop them just as they came along it.

Only one man on that carriage knew why they were going to Corona, and it wasn't the informant. Hans had been ordered to kill them all, but only after forcing the information he needed out of the leader. Of course, he had protested. There was no reason the informant had to die, but Hades had insisted that, should the cult find the remains of this carriage without the correct number of bodies, their entire operation would be compromised. Everdark's followers would immediately realize that Hades had sown operatives within their ranks, and defeating them would be harder than ever.

The informant would die, for the greater good. Hans would never know which one it was, such that the murder wouldn't weigh on his conscience. And of course the informant had not been told what was coming. For the greater good.

The carriage was approaching, the horses braying and slowing to a halt as they saw the tree trunk obstructing their path. Hans took a deep breath and slid two pistols from their hip holsters.

Hidden around the side of the tree nearest the road, the former prince heard the driver dismount, and call back to the cab. "Oi! There's a tree in the road! Must've been knocked down in a storm or something."

Swearing at him, Hans heard another man exit the carriage. "There hasn't been a storm recently, you fool."

Showtime.

At that moment Hans stepped around the tree, leveled a pistol at the driver's head, and shot him. Immediately the road exploded into movement. The pair of horses panicked and reared, kicking wildly in the air as the other man who had exited the carriage dove for the door. Hans reset the hammer on his right pistol as he swung the left around and shot at the nearest horse.

He hadn't expected much accuracy with his left hand, and he didn't get it; the nearest horse was struck in its neck rather than a leg and was killed rather than just injured. The effect was the same; the remaining horse whipped and kicked but was unable to drag the carriage away. Hans fired the rest of his cylinders at the carriage and pinned the scrambling man against it with gunfire. He slumped to the ground as the former prince charged the immobile carriage, casting aside his pistols and drawing a saber.

As Hans came within an arm's length of the carriage another man threw open the door, holding a pistol of his own. The former prince lunged and flicked his wrist, severing the man's hand even as it gripped the firearm. Both went tumbling through the air as Hans closed the rest of the distance between them and ran his sword through the man's chest. Hans barely heard the screams as he withdrew his blade and let the body fall out of the carriage to the ground.

The former prince grabbed the loosely swinging door and stepped onto the threshold of the carriage to see three terrified-looking men sitting inside. One of them wore the same cowl as Anderson Voight had, so Hans figured he must be the leader.

"Who the hell are you?" The man shouted with none of the same cool resolve that Voight had worn like a second mantle.

"Your worst nightmare," Hans said mercilessly as, without so much as a glance at him, Hans traced a bloody 'x' on the chest of one of the men.

He whirled to the last man and saw pure terror in his eyes, the kind of blind fear that spoke betrayal. This was the informant, Hans knew; this man with arms thrown in front of his face was the very reason that Hades had known where Hans would have to be, and at what time. And he had expired his usefulness.

Hans slashed him sidelong across the throat, this time hearing clearly the man's horrendous scream of pain before turning to face their leader. He grabbed the man by the collar and turned, casting him out of the carriage, where he landed roughly in the dust. Hans hopped down and strode towards him, trialing the reddened edge of his sword along the ground beside him.

"Listen very closely to me," Hans said, "and I just might let you live."

The leader of these cultists turned on the ground to face Hans, fear inscribed on his face like a tattoo. "What do you want?"

Hans considered the man for a moment, wandering around the side of the man and returning his sword to its scabbard. The leader was trying to edge himself closer to one of the pistols that Hans had discarded, and to preempt the action Hans stepped on the leader's outstretched hand. After allowing him to howl for a moment Hans knelt, retrieving his gun and spinning it around on one of his fingers.

"Ah. Wouldn't want you to end up with that, now would we?" The former prince leaned close to the leader's face. "What's your name, man?"

The leader gazed upon Hans with terror for several moments before sputtering, "Wilfred Gallander."

"Wilfred, eh?" Hans rubbed at his chin as he stared down at the cultist. "Mind telling me what you and your friend were up to, Wilfred? My boss would really like to know."

Wilfred spat at Hans. "I would rather die than compromise my mission."

"Really?" Hans frowned as he lowered the pistol to Gallander's head, positioning it directly between the man's eyes. "Because the fear in your face right now tells me that you're lying about that."

"You wouldn't," Gallander said, eyes crossing in an attempt to keep the muzzle of the pistol in sight. "That information is the only reason you attacked my carriage. Without it you have nothing to take back to your goddamn boss."

Hans kept his face perfectly neutral, upset that the man was right. "Are you willing to take that chance?"

There was a painfully long moment in which the only noise was Gallander's heavy breathing and his squirming to try and get out from the pistol, to no avail. Finally the leader of the cultists gasped and swore.

"We were headed to Corona, goddammit!"

"I knew that," Hans said. "Who are you reporting to there?"

To Hans's pleasure, he saw Gallander's pupils dilate. "I have no idea who, or what, I receive my orders from. What I do know is that we were headed to Corona to participate in the initiation of King Frederick!"

They were congregating to welcome the King of Corona to the fold. Hans could see in Gallander's face that the man was telling the truth, or at least he didn't realize that he was lying. Not for the first time, Hans wondered exactly how far Everdark's reach could stretch.

He looked directly into Gallander's eyes for several more seconds, and then he moved the pistol away from the man's head. "Thank you for your cooperation, Wilfred."

The man gasped and the tension melted out of him as the gun pointed away, starting to say something that Hans didn't bother to let him finish.

"Of course, I can't let you live." As quickly as he had taken it away, Hans returned his pistol to the man's forehead and shot him right between the eyes.