Chapter 20 – At War
In the windowless gloom of their floating prison, there was no way for Elsa to tell if the sun had risen or not. The hours passed slowly and meaninglessly, rocking away on the motion of the ship. She would know the time if she knew what the ship's bell meant when it sounded. Sometimes sailors passed their compartment and Elsa heard footsteps or voices. Their guard had changed, and the soldiers who had carried Bern back to the hold and tied their hands together were gone, replaced by others who were just as quiet, looking at them with curiosity and menacing her when she'd only wanted to speak to ask for water for Bern. At last, she'd managed to form bits of ice and snow at her fingertips and slip them into his mouth.
She couldn't sleep. Whenever she closed her eyes, she saw again those blurred moments on deck after Bern had fallen – Dominic standing over him with a board in his hands, the crackle of the fire eating up the quarterdeck and pouring out waves of heat that shimmered in the air that she could feel as well as anyone; Elsa had lied when she'd told Dominic the fire wouldn't harm her.
"If the ship sinks, he dies with the rest of us," Dominic had said, and so Elsa had poured a rain of ice and snow that put out the fire as sailors dropped their buckets and fled her magic; a third of the ship was now encased in ice that she refused to thaw. Let them know what they owed her, and what they should fear.
She'd knelt by Bern then, her hands desperately searching for a pulse, a breath, a heartbeat. When Dominic had reached for her, she'd thrown up a hand crackling with frost, the anger and desperation in her eyes making the threat without the necessity of words. He'd backed away, and Elsa was sure he would gladly see them both dead now.
In the gloom of the single lantern in their prison, Elsa checked Bern again as best she could. She'd pulled him onto his side rather than let him lie on the knot on the back of his head. It had swollen alarmingly, but not bled, and she wished it had. Blood from the wound wouldn't have worried her nearly as much as the blood oozing from his ears. The blood had finally stopped leaking out some time ago; she'd wiped it away with the sleeve of her dress, twisting their arms awkwardly and wishing she had a cloth and some water. Bern was breathing, shallow breaths with a pause between the inhale and exhale that made her own breath catch with the fear that he wouldn't finish the breath, and he'd groaned once, hours ago. She had no way to know if he was dying; he was so dreadfully limp. She wanted to cry, but only the guard would see and she wouldn't allow herself to be humiliated in front of these people.
Elsa wished with all her heart that she could go back two days, and tell Bern how much she loved him over and over again, and kiss him and love him and let him love her. She'd taken him for granted for so long, and she only noticed how deeply she loved him and how much she needed him when she was on the verge of losing him. If he never woke up, she was going to destroy this ship and everyone on it, including herself, because she refused to try and live without him. She never had lived without him; he'd been right there ever since her very first attempts to live life instead of hide from it, with support so quiet and constant she'd never noticed how much she leaned on him even as she pushed him away. The regret pierced her sharply.
Footsteps of many people came towards their compartment, and Elsa schooled her features into composure as the canvas was brushed aside and Admiral Wordonn held up another lantern, Prince Dominic next to him. More men stepped past him, and one knelt next to them and laid a finger on Bern's neck.
"He's alive, but not much more than that," the man said with a shrug.
"Can you wake him up, or do we have to carry him again?" Dominic asked.
Elsa drew a breath, but Dominic gave her a nasty smile and said, "Stay quiet, Elsa. You wouldn't want us to hit him again, now would you?"
Admiral Wordonn tossed a waterskin at them. Elsa took a couple swallows, and then held it to Bern's lips, pouring a few drops onto his cracked lips and then pushing it against his teeth, willing him to wake up. He coughed, moaned, and then seized the waterskin and drank it in thirsty swallows, draining the entire bag before dropping it and struggling to sit up, tugging Elsa's hands along with him.
Elsa pressed her lips together to keep back a cry of relief and kept the joy off her face – it was not for these men to witness. Bern blinked in the dim light, and his eyes wouldn't open fully. He squinted, full of confusion, and then his eyes closed again and he stopped trying to sit up.
"Get him on his feet," Dominic ordered.
Two of the soldiers stepped behind him and hauled him up, which pulled Elsa along with him. She tried to prop him up and let him lean on her, but he couldn't take enough of his own weight; she might have been able to support him, but not carry him.
"Cut him loose and drag him; she'll follow," Dominic said.
As soon as they'd cut the ropes, they dragged him out of the hold, Admiral Wordonn leading them away. Elsa rubbed at her hands and arms and went after him. As soon as they'd taken Bern, frost started to crackle around her feet. She didn't try to stop the frost; instead, she encouraged it to spread. Let Dominic worry that she would freeze his entire ship if they took Bern away from her. She just might do it, too.
Dominic stopped her with a hand on her arm. She whirled and flung it off; he stepped between her and the doorway. "You can follow him when I say so."
"He's no threat to you, Dominic, you didn't have to hurt him," Elsa said.
"He interfered with my plans." Dominic wore his red military coat with ribboned sash and a uniform sword. His brown hair fell neatly around his ears and his nose curled involuntarily against the stench of the hold where he'd imprisoned her. His hand rested on his sword hilt, his weight balanced on the balls of his feet as if he was ready to strike out.
"I won't be part of your plans." With some surprise, Elsa realized that Dominic was afraid of her; his wary stance and the wheedling tone in his voice bespoke his fear. Seeing that he was as afraid of her as she was of him removed some of her fear. Then he caught sight of the frost climbing the walls and tensed further. Almost, she pitied him for fearing the wrong things.
"You could be, Elsa; we could make those plans together. Come with me, Elsa. If you want the economist that much, I'll let you keep him as a pet, but you'll be my wife and we'll conquer the world together. We'll make Easthaven look like the squalling self-important hovel that it truly is and build an empire that will make the world envy Arendelle and its queen. I could do that for you, Elsa. What could he possibly do that I can't do a hundred times better? No one could possibly love your powers as much as I do; you won't need him for control of your magic. I've crossed the sea for love of you and your powers, you need never doubt I would wish them away or want you to be anything than what you are. Choose me, Elsa!"
He was inching his way closer to her over the icy floor, his hands outstretched to take hers. Elsa backed away from him, suddenly seeing that Dominic's fear was misplaced. He was afraid of her because of what she could do; he would do better to be afraid of her because of what she wouldn't do. She was stronger than he was, in every way that mattered.
Elsa had always feared that she was not part of the human race because of her powers, but this man was further from humanity than she could ever be, because of his choices. And with that, she fell into his heart. Dominic was not only afraid of her; he was afraid of everything he'd ever done, because of course this wasn't his first cruelty. He had a lifetime of selfishness piled up, an abyss carved deeper with every cruel choice against another person. Somewhere, in every heart, lurks the certainty that justice will have its due, whether in this life or the next. Prince Dominic's deepest fear was facing the justice of God.
With that, Elsa's fear was replaced with love for her enemy. She saw him as the blustering bully he was, and pitied him. Her own heart was calm with the certainty that she need never doubt her place with humanity again, for in Dominic's heart, she had seen what it took to cast oneself out of the human race, and she was not of that breed.
"No, I will never choose you," Elsa said simply to Dominic.
"Then you will serve me," Dominic snarled at her, and his rage overwhelmed his fear. He seized her by the arms and pulled her from the hold, and she did not fight back.
He dragged her up the ladderway and across the deck, shaking her intermittently as his fingers left bruises around her arm. Ice was spreading across the deck; sailors and officers jumping back from it, but then gingerly stepping onto it as it covered the entire deck.
There were many ships in the water around them flying the flags of Lingarth and the Southern Isles, but Elsa only glanced at them and the shoreline behind them. Her attention was fixed on the mast, where they'd strung Bern up by the wrists and left him dangling with the toes of his boots barely scraping the deck of the ship. His shirt had been cut off and left in a pile near his feet. A sailor stood next to him holding a three-strand whip of new leather. At Dominic's nod, the sailor struck him, and Bern was conscious enough to scream.
"The flogging will stop when you've done as you're told," Dominic said, and dragged her past Bern to the starboard rail. Behind them, the sailor struck again.
Out on the sea, the ships of the Southern Isles bore down on Lingarth's navy. Their own ship was running with square-rigged sails, the wind directly astern and driving them to the flotilla. Dominic pointed at the closest of Lingarth's ships. "Freeze that ship, the same way you froze the ships from Weselton. But I want you to freeze the sailors too. I want everyone in this battle to know what fate awaits them if they don't surrender immediately," Dominic said.
"That will kill the sailors. There's no need to kill the entire crew," Elsa said. The sailor struck again, the sharp crack of the whip breaking the air, but Bern didn't scream this time, gone into unconsciousness again.
"By killing all the crew of one ship, you're actually sparing the lives of many more because they'll race to see who can surrender first. We'll capture their entire navy and force an unconditional surrender at the cost of only one ship."
Elsa looked out at the ships dotting the waters around them, and then at Dominic, who was nearly salivating with greed. He abruptly released her arm. "Flogging has killed better men than him, Elsa; don't delay too long."
"You don't need to kill the entire crew, Dominic." One last offer of mercy.
"No. You kill them all."
Elsa raised her hands, closed her eyes, and focused on love, her heart and thoughts reaching past Prince Dominic to the man dangling from the mast behind him. She felt she could trust the power within her. As it had done on the North Mountain, the ice threw up a shield that stopped the arrow fired from the crow's nest as she turned and attacked the men on deck. Dominic leaped into the water with a splash before she'd gone a quarter of the way around, but her first blast of ice was aimed at the whip. She struck the sailor's hand and he bellowed in pain, staggered back several steps, and dove over the side of the ship.
She almost smiled at the sight of an admiral, ship's captain and heavily armed soldiers and sailors scrambling to get behind Bern, thinking to use him as a shield. With a flip of her hand, she sent a wall of ice skidding over the icy deck, herding them all overboard with shouts and splashes, and then the wall of ice went over the side of the deck after them, leaving a huge gap in the splintered deck rail. The archer in the crow's nest ran along the yards, and with a desperate leap, made it into the sea. Then Elsa stopped and watched, because everyone else was jumping overboard without her doing anything at all. She sent a few flurries of snow around the deck, just to add to the confusion and hurry them along.
Within a few seconds, the deck was empty and Elsa went running over the ice towards the mast. There was no knife to use to cut Bern down; instead, she climbed on a crate and wrapped her hand around the rope, pulling all the heat out until it snapped in her hands, brittle and frozen. Bern collapsed and drove them both to the deck. He was breathing, and she gulped back the tears at the sight of his bloodied back.
Elsa skated to the port rail to see if everyone was drowning, or if she should make an ice raft for them. Even when she wanted to use her powers to fight, she couldn't stomach the thought of killing people. She was indignant to find that both lifeboats were already in the water. They'd suspected they would fail, and they'd put her through all of that anyway. Just to punish them, she froze all the oarlocks with targeted blasts of ice – perfect control, even without Bern's hands over hers.
There was an intermittent sound of splashing as crewmembers who were coming up from below decks kept abandoning ship, plunging over the side to take their chances in the water. The ship's sails were fixed, and the Explorer was headed straight towards the ships from Lingarth, who were undoubtedly preparing to attack. Elsa ran towards a sailor who was already climbing on the railing to jump.
"Stop!" she called out.
He gave her one frightened look and leaped.
The flag. She knew enough about naval battles from her history lessons to know that a defeated ship had to strike its colors to show its allegiance had changed. She ran to the pole and picked uselessly at the knot, then shot a blast of ice at the flag, freezing it, then bursting it apart as she did her snowflake banners. Easthaven's flag was gone, but they were still sailing at full speed into another warship who didn't know they were allies. She had to stop the ship.
Bern had called the ropes something besides ropes, and she knew they held up the sails. Elsa seized the ropes on the aft mast and drew out all the heat. The ropes shattered and the sail collapsed, billowing over the deck like the ship's shroud. Elsa clambered out from under the pile and did the same thing to the mizzen sails, and then the jib. The only ones left now where the foremast sails, but if she took those down, she would bury Bern in their smothering folds. After a few seconds of thought, she created stairs of ice and climbed up to where she could hold the sail, sending ice out over it in an even sheet, then with a blast of wind and a sharp jerk of power, the mainsails exploded in a hail and shimmer of ice and rags, blowing off the ship's yards in a cloud of white shards that covered the ship in a brief fog.
With its last sail gone, the Explorer lost speed. Elsa looked towards Lingarth's closest warship and was surprised to see them adjusting sails so quickly that the ship was heeling over in its hurry to change direction and avoid them. They couldn't leave! She needed their ship's surgeon to attend to Bern, and someone from their ship to sail the Explorer into a friendly port. Elsa had captured her first warship in battle, but she had no idea what to do with it.
Elsa sent a huge snowflake over the bow of Lingarth's ship. Couldn't they tell who she was? Lingarth knew they were allies with Arendelle, even if she couldn't run up a proper flag. Angry at their flight, Elsa looked around the rest of the waters and saw the battle was about to engage, a dozen ships of the Southern Isles bearing down on eight ships flying Lingarth's flag. If they got caught up into a sea battle, no one would ever come help Bern.
Elsa shot out an entire series of snowflakes to burst over the bows of the ships from the Southern Isles. When they didn't change course immediately, she sprayed out ice over their bowsprits, and then shot a line of ice back along the hull to freeze the rudder of the nearest ship. The next ship, she attacked with ice on their sails, and then a blast of wind that shattered their sails as decisively as she'd shattered their own, leaving them only a mizzen and jib sail to try and quit the battle. For the third ship, she traced a line of ice around the hull near the waterline, then thickened the ice until the sharp report of snapping wood sounded over the water. With a wave of blue sparkles, she thawed the ice and left the ship foundering as the water rushed in through the gaping crack near the waterline.
That made Elsa pull back and blink. She didn't want to kill or drown anyone, just stop the battle so they would come help Bern. The fourth ship was heaving to, showing Elsa her stern, and putting the rudder in easy reach of her ice. So she froze it. Then, to her surprise, the flags of the Southern Isles came down on the next three ships and they spilled the wind to stop their advance towards Lingarth's navy. The last few ships of the Southern Isles turned and fled as fast as they could quarter away against the wind.
The further ships from Lingarth sailed abreast the surrendering ships. Elsa saw grappling hooks flying over, and then rope ladders were thrown and the sailors began to make their way over to accept surrenders and paroles and crew the ships with their own men. That's what she needed; she needed Lingarth to come board them. There were ropes piled on the deck that might have been ladders, but there was no way she could throw them, and that nearest ship of Lingarth's was still trying to get away from them even though she'd gotten rid of their enemies for them.
She may not have rope ladder, but she could build a staircase. Elsa threw out a blast of power that crystallized into stairs as clear as diamond, with banisters, that grew into a delicate arch between their ship railing and the railing of the ship from Lingarth. The movement of the ships and sea was too violent; ice couldn't bend, only break, and within a matter of minutes, the icy staircase had plummeted into the sea. Elsa made another one. They couldn't cross on it, but surely she was getting the message across that they needed to come board her ship. She didn't want to freeze their rudder and blast their sails with ice, but she would do it if that was the only way to get them to stop trying to run from her.
After the fourth icy staircase had plunged in broken chunks into the sea, the ship from Lingarth turned abreast, and someone with a speaking trumpet stood at the rail, shouting she knew not what. She waved back and shot snowflakes into the air. Couldn't they see she was wearing a dress and crewmembers were still diving into the sea as fast as they could come up from belowdecks? Why would they think there was anyone on board this ship who knew what to do with a ship? The ship finally turned towards her, and she left the railing to check on Bern.
"Help is coming, dearest, hold on," Elsa pleaded with him. He turned towards her voice, but then collapsed again with a long sigh. Elsa froze the rope around his wrists and freed his arms. She kissed his hands and his face and went to stand at the rail again and wish the sailors would hurry.
Grappling hooks finally came sailing across, and then the rope ladders, but only two men came across, one wearing the gold bars of a captain on the shoulders of his blue coat.
"Captain Evan of the Dauntless," he introduced himself. "Who the devil are you and what happened?"
Elsa lifted her chin, which she had to do anyway to speak to him, and replied, "I am Queen Elsa of Arendelle, we're your allies in case you've forgotten so you needn't try and run away anymore, and I've captured this ship in battle. I need a prize crew to sail it into port, and also your surgeon to attend to my husband, who is badly injured."
He moved his hat to scratch his head and exchange looks with his lieutenant. "That makes seven ships you've captured today, little lady, and one sunk."
"You can have the ships, just send me a surgeon!"
Captain Evan sent his lieutenant back across the ropes and followed Elsa across the silent deck, even their footfalls were muffled because they walked on sailcloth, the only sound his exclamations, but even that disappeared when he came around the sailcloth that had piled up over the spars and saw the icy chaos on the forecastle deck. Elsa knelt again next to Bern.
Captain Evan looked down at them, and Elsa suddenly wondered if he believed her when she said who she was and that Bern was her husband. "I am the Queen of Arendelle, and this is my husband," she repeated.
"I've heard rumors about you and your powers," he said.
"They're true!" Elsa insisted. She took Bern's hand and pressed it to her cheek. "Prince Dominic of Easthaven kidnapped us. He was beating my husband to force me to freeze your ship and everyone on it; I chased them all into the water instead. Then I had to stop the battle so someone would come help Bern; I wouldn't have interfered otherwise because I don't like using my powers and I'm sorry that I likely scared everyone, but you can see for yourself that I didn't lose control at all. You'll point that out to people so they won't worry, won't you? I had things perfectly under control and the ice and snow only did what I wanted it to do."
Captain Evan regarded her for a long moment, and then took Bern's hand from her. "Let's get him to the captain's cabin and laid out on the bed; my lieutenant will send over the surgeon and a prize crew for you. The cabin is toward the stern," he added, as Elsa wondered which way to go. He slung Bern over his shoulders and carried him to the cabin.