Chapter 25 – Trolls and Souls

Sir Lester, knight of Easthaven, watched sourly as Major Felix rode into camp. When they'd conquered Arendelle, Sir Lester had nabbed the only remaining interesting assignment for himself – to find Princess Anna – and left Major Felix to direct the occupation of Arendelle while Prince Dominic sailed away to find Queen Elsa. Sir Lester told Major Felix they would meet once a week until Princess Anna was captured, with the intent that he would find her before the first meeting. Now, he resented Major Felix's punctual meetings and detailed updates about how well he was doing at governing Arendelle, followed by a pointed silence filled only with Sir Lester's admission he had not yet found Princess Anna.

If it wouldn't sound so much like an excuse, Sir Lester would have ventured his growing opinion that Guardsman Kristoff did have magical powers over the mountain. There was no other way a common ice harvester could have evaded their search so thoroughly. They might have been able to persuade the hill folk to be more helpful, but Prince Dominic had specifically forbidden violence against the population; he still planned to rule Arendelle.

Sir Lester's aides prepared a table with their maps of Arendelle and brought a pot of coffee while Major Felix dismounted.

"Prince Dominic has returned," Major Felix announced in lieu of a greeting. "He brought the Duke of Weselton and a witch with him."

Sir Lester's lips twitched. "The queen?"

"Different witch," Major Felix said with a shrug. "He wants to know where Anna is."

Of course he wanted to know where Anna was. Dominic did not tolerate failure, which was the reason Lester was so devoted to his service. A man who refused to accept defeat would eventually succeed, and Lester intended to be there to share the glory. Dominic had chafed under his brother's royal hand for years, and Lester had listened to Dominic's plans to build an empire to rival Easthaven and seen himself as Dominic's most trusted and longstanding advisor. With the glitter of ambition obscuring the possibility of failure, Dominic painted a picture of a quick rise to prominence driven by the unstoppable force of Queen Elsa's magic. He'd meant to woo her, but when she'd jilted him, his fury formulated another plan. One way or the other, Queen Elsa would get for Dominic the power and glory he craved.

A man who refused to accept failure in himself also refused to accept it in others. Sir Lester had not found Princess Anna, and Dominic would not excuse that failure.

"Is the economist dead?" Lester stalled. "Does he need the princess to help the queen control her magic?"

There was a crack in Major Felix's implacable confidence. "The queen escaped; her husband was badly injured but may have survived."

Sir Lester turned his attention to his coffee cup. Dominic had failed again. That was a possibility that he had never considered, nor had Dominic. But he'd been around the man long enough to know that Prince Dominic would see failure as only a temporary setback. They still held all of Arendelle, and Princess Anna couldn't run forever.

"Well? What report do I give Prince Dominic?" Major Felix pressed.

"As you can see on these maps, my men have searched all the northern valleys and peaks. We leave a garrison in each marked sector to keep her from hiding somewhere we've already searched." At length, Sir Lester described the search grid, the thoroughness of their techniques, the traces of camps they'd found, the help they'd gotten from a couple of Hamarian ice harvesters who had taken payment, all designed to obscure the fact that he did not have Princess Anna.

Major Felix 'hmmed' from time to time, and Sir Lester knew he knew exactly what he was doing and why.

Galloping hooves from the north got the attention of all the men in the camp, and Sir Lester got to his feet with a rebuke ready for the noise. But before he could speak, Lieutenant Cherton was reigning his lathered horse to a stop and calling out, "We've found her! They're not three hours from here. I left two scouts as lookouts. It isn't a trace of a camp or a rumor; she's there in person."

Sir Lester turned to Major Felix. "You can send word to Prince Dominic that we have the princess." Then he began calling out orders to his men.

~###~

"Grand Pabbie is dying to meet you. We already sent word we'd meet him here, so just be patient until he comes," Anna said when Bern said he had to talk to Grand Pabbie.

It was the next morning, after an evening of apologies, rabbit stew, recollections about every word Grand Pabbie had said about the potion Bern had drunk, and then Vilrun's arrival necessitating a repeat of everything everyone had already said.

"Want to play with fire while we're waiting, Bern?" Kristoff suggested.

After more than an hour, they agreed Bern couldn't do much beyond what they'd already seen. He could start a fire without pretending to use a match by holding wood and wanting it to catch fire, but it seemed that was the only magical thing about them. Bern's fires could be put out by any ordinary means, or by Elsa's magic. Bern couldn't put out his own fires unless he used water or dirt like anyone else. They also found out that if Kristoff started a fire, Bern could make it 'work' for Elsa by lighting a branch on fire and adding it to the existing fire, but that didn't matter to anyone but Elsa. Bern was immune to his own fires – he could tell they were hot, but the heat didn't progress to the point of pain or injury. But when he picked up a burning branch from a fire Kristoff had lit, he had to drop it within a few seconds. Kristoff declined to see if he could hold a burning branch as long as Bern could, despite Anna suggesting it would be interesting to find out.

Elsa insisted that the betrothal agreement had caught fire while Bern had been across the ship's cabin, but no matter how hard he willed it, Bern couldn't set anything on fire without touching it. His hands also wouldn't spout flame while they were empty, even though Kristoff thought that would have been really impressive.

Kristoff finally quit nagging Bern to try again.

"This may come as a disappointment to you, but I'm relieved to find that I can't start fires as easily as Elsa can freeze things," Bern said to Kristoff. "If I really have had magical powers over fires ever since I drank that potion, they're obviously weak enough to look like nothing more than a knack with fires."

"Elsa can feel your fires," Anna added. "Is that magic or because she loves you?"

"The magic," Elsa said. "I've felt warmth from him and his fires before I loved him."

Anna raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Or maybe the love worked even before you were willing to admit you loved him."

"I suppose we'll never settle that question," Elsa said, giving Bern a nudge in the ribs with her elbow to stop him from gloating too obviously.

"And you don't need a match, Bern," Kristoff pointed out.

"That seems to be the most magical thing about them," Bern commented. While he was relieved to find out he wasn't going to lose control and burn down the country, he was also disappointed his magical powers were not powerful enough to save Arendelle or even threaten Dominic. He wondered if there was another explanation for how the betrothal agreement had caught fire on the ship.

Kristoff shrugged. "I'm still right about your name."

The topic of Bern's name came up when Kristoff mentioned what he'd seen in Bern's family Bible, and they'd argued over the spelling – Bern insisting he was named after his Uncle Bernard, and Kristoff just as insistent that he'd seen 'Burn' in the family Bible, and refusing to change his memory of the spelling when Anna pointed out that a nickname for 'Bernard' would be spelled differently than the way a fire could 'burn.'

"Father wrote our names in the family Bible when we were christened, and I can't imagine a motivation for him to give me a name like that. Mother is the one who calls me 'Bernard,' so even if she knew she was giving me abilities with fire when she made me drink that potion, she's not the one who named me 'Burn,'" Bern insisted.

"I saw it," Kristoff repeated.

"May I suggest we move on?" Vilrun interrupted. He'd been as interested as the rest of them in Bern's demonstrations, but was pressing for action today, after yesterday's interlude. Vilrun brought news that Prince Dominic had returned to Arendelle, aboard a ship flying Weselton's flag.

"Sure, let's practice dueling. Dominic is alive and back in Arendelle, so Bern's got a duel hanging over his head," Kristoff said.

"Perhaps Dominic could manage to die in battle," Elsa said.

"If I killed Dominic in single combat, would the rest of them leave peacefully?" Bern countered.

"They might," Vilrun conceded. "He's the driving force behind this invasion. Sir Lester isn't planning to hold Arendelle on his own account."

"It's not worth the risk," Elsa said.

"Elsa, give me a chance," Bern said. He'd hoped his magic might have helped, but he couldn't duplicate whatever had happened on the ship. The duel was his only other chance to do something useful for Elsa and Arendelle.

Elsa sat down abruptly, lips pursed, and refused to watch when Bern and Kristoff drew swords. After several minutes, Anna came to sit on the log next to her. "You may as well see what's happening," she said in a low voice.

Kristoff was pulling every thrust and slowing every swing; Bern couldn't parry anywhere near quickly enough.

"Your Highness," Vilrun began.

"Don't call me that, Vilrun – it's Bern to you. Just a few more times. I'm slow only because I'm out of practice. I'll get the hang of it soon enough. Again, Kristoff," Bern said.

Kristoff complied, but his swordwork didn't get any faster. Bern couldn't keep up.

"I imagine it's a matter of vision. There are visual cues in stance, expression and movement that precede a swing or thrust," Vilrun offered.

Kristoff sheathed his sword.

"Again, Kristoff," Bern said, sword ready.

"Bern, it's not your fault," Kristoff said, his tone full of sympathy.

"Don't you dare!" Bern snapped at him. "I can do this!"

Kristoff didn't answer him, but he also didn't pull his sword again.

Bern stood there, chest heaving with the exertion, and then with something else as he realized the truth of Vilrun's explanation and accepted Kristoff's refusal. Bern sheathed his sword. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Bern, I'll come," Elsa said, getting to her feet.

"No, I want a moment alone," Bern said, just as he stumbled over a rock, catching himself before he fell.

"I'll leave you alone as soon as I get you somewhere," Elsa said as she took his arm and guided him into the trees.

Bern couldn't protest because he wasn't sure he could speak without unmanning himself with tears. He'd wanted so badly to be impressive. Elsa's kindness proved to be the last straw, and he vainly hoped she'd mistake the dampness on his face for sweat. With his free hand, he rubbed his handkerchief over his temples and down his cheeks. If she knew what he was really doing, she pretended not to. Elsa led him to the same clearing by a stream where they'd gone yesterday.

"I'll leave you alone, since you asked, after I say something. I'm not very good at telling you how much I love you, Bern, but I want you to know I don't want you to be any different than you are. I finally understand that's how you feel about me. You don't wish I had fewer problems or no magic. So you can't tell me that I should think any less of you for not being able to see well anymore. I love you, Bern. I love you a thousand times more than I did a month ago."

He put his head down and refused to look at her.

"And one more thing before I go. I've met lots of royal princes now: Dominic, Hans, Victor, Hector, Henry, Obadiah, Nels, and the rest of them. You're better than any of them, Bern. I'd marry you again tomorrow."

He kept studying the green blur of ground between his feet and only nodded in acknowledgment, then heard her footsteps walking away. That heat in him yearned after her, but he scolded himself into humiliation for needing her so much when he couldn't be strong enough to protect her.

She came back and stood next to him, her fingers gently running through his hair as he kept his head bowed, too ashamed to even look at her. "If I leave, does it make that heat in you uneasy?"

"I don't have to follow you around like a puppy on a leash. Maybe I'm just making all of it up. I've got this head wound, remember? Perhaps it's just a fever dream."

She didn't move, just kept caressing his hair until he put his arms around her waist and buried his face in her stomach. They had only a few moments alone before light footsteps alerted them to someone's approach.

"The trolls are here," Anna said, appearing out of the underbrush. "If you don't come quickly, you'll have about five dozen rocks coming to look for you."

"They'll have answers for us," Elsa reassured him.

"I should probably warn you about something, Bern," Anna said as the three of them started back. "Grand Pabbie wasn't very happy about you drinking earth fire and messing with magic and doing things that aren't supposed to happen, like, ever. So I told Bulda that once I marry Kristoff, he'll be your brother, because I thought then Bulda would like you and Grand Pabbie couldn't stay angry at someone Bulda liked. Wow, did it work! Bulda's thrilled Kristoff has a brother, and you might get adopted, but it's all worth it because Grand Pabbie isn't upset with you anymore. Bulda just loves you! You're soul mates with the trolls anyway, right? They can get really excited though, so watch your toes. Try not to pay too much attention to the advice and don't let the little ones push you around."

Anna was still trying to prepare Bern for the trolls when they got back to the clearing where trolls were standing three deep, waiting for their arrival.

It's Kristoff's brother!" Bulda shouted, and a party started.

"Where's your reindeer?"

"Here's a mushroom!"

"Can you dig tunnels?"

"Kristoff's boots are better than yours."

"Do you like ice-blocking?"

"If you steal Kristoff's sled, I'll drive it for you!"

"Say 'borrow' not 'steal' or Kristoff will get mad!"

"I still like Anna best."

"Sven likes me best."

"Are you three hundred years old yet?"

"I turned twenty-seven last May," Bern answered.

The trolls fell silent and double-blinked.

"Humans, you're both the best and the worst," Cliff said with a sigh.

"Be nice about it, dear, since we're adopting him too," Bulda scolded Cliff.

"We are?"

"He's Kristoff's brother, isn't he? We can't very well tell him we won't!" Bulda pointed out logically.

Kristoff threw an arm around Bern's shoulders. "Welcome to the family! Don't let it go to your head though. Your other brother is a cockroach."

"How do I tell the two of you apart?" Bern asked.

"Kristoff is sentient," Trixie said.

"Most of the time," Vixie amended, popping up to stand on Trixie's hands.

"Bern's my step-father!" Olaf announced.

"That makes you my nephew!" Chone hollered.

"That's quite a family you just acquired," Vilrun observed.

Bern thought he might never need to worry about loneliness again, although the noise might give him a headache.

Trixie threw Vixie off and popped up. Bern caught her by reflex, staggering at the unexpected weight. "Can you really do strange magic?"

"I can start fires," Bern said.

The trolls demanded a demonstration. Bern wrapped his hand around a branch and willed it to burst into flame. It did. He held the branch with the flames crackling around his hand, feeling heat but no pain.

"What else can you do?" Trixie demanded.

"That's all," Bern said. "I tried all morning, and all I can do is start a fire. Elsa can feel them. She can't feel warmth from anything besides my fires, so they're special to Elsa, but that seems to be the only magical thing about them."

Elsa was already holding her fingers towards the fire in Bern's hand.

"That and you don't need matches or tinder to start them," Kristoff added.

Bern shrugged. In his mind, it wasn't that hard to use a match, so this was hardly an ability to admire.

"It's not the magic that concerns me so much as his soul. Kristoff, didn't you explain this to him?" Grand Pabbie said. He popped up to land on Cliff's hands and put his stone hand into the fire, but discerned nothing out of the ordinary about it.

"I don't understand it!" Kristoff protested.

"You've done a miracle, Kristoff," Grand Pabbie reproved him.

"You have?" Bern asked.

Kristoff shrugged. "I'll tell you later."

"Kristoff told us what you said about this ice magic of mine being designed to trap earth fire, like in the potion Bern drank. He can't get away from me now, even if he wanted to," Elsa said. Her voice was full of guilt and shame.

"I'm not trapped," Bern insisted. "Elsa, do you really think the reason I want to spend the rest of my life with you is because magic is forcing me to stay? Is that really what you think of me?"

"It's what I think of me, Bern, not you. Why else would someone as wonderful as you want to stay with someone like me?" Elsa said in a low voice.

"Did you marry her voluntarily?" Grand Pabbie interrupted before Bern could answer.

"Yes," Bern said firmly, hoping that would be Elsa's answer. "I've wanted to marry Elsa for a long time now. I love her. I've loved her for years."

Bulda, Trixie and Vixie sighed dreamily.

"You love her?" Grand Pabbie challenged him. "What does that mean? You think she's beautiful? You wanted to rule Arendelle? No one else would have you?"

"It means I've been putting her needs ahead of my own," Bern said.

Grand Pabbie subsided with a smug smile and exchanged a knowing look with Cliff. "I suspected that's how he survived."

"True love," Bulda said with another dreamy sigh.

"How I survived?" Bern questioned.

"You've got a double soul," Grand Pabbie said to Bern, "the only one I've ever heard of. When your mother fed you that potion of earth fire mixed with magic, it should have killed you. Instead, it bonded with your soul. Are you typically good at true love? Do you put others' needs ahead of your own on a regular basis?"

Kristoff snorted. "I'll answer that one for you. Bern does that better than anyone else I've ever met."

"How is it that you can make a compliment sound like an insult?" Bern asked.

"It's a brother thing," Kristoff said, with another slap on the back.

"The strength of a soul is determined by the ability to put someone else's needs ahead of your own. Your soul was strong enough to combine with the earth fire rather than dying to get away from it. You survived because of your ability to love. The earth fire is a portion of the earth's soul, you know. It's our soul." Grand Pabbie held up something. Bern could see only that it was fastened around his neck and was glowing. Then he took a small vial out of a pocket in his robes. "You may as well have the rest of it."

Bern took the vial he offered, worked out the stopper, and poured a spoonful of glowing orange liquid into the palm of his hand. It flared brightly, then soaked in and disappeared.

"That's all there was?" Bern asked.

"Once I purified the magic out of it, yes," Grand Pabbie said

"No, I mean all the earth fire that's been trapped by the ice spell. How long have the cave trolls been using it?" Bern asked.

Grand Pabbie thought for a minute. "At least a couple of centuries by human reckoning. But there isn't any other earth fire that's been trapped; we've spent the weeks since Kristoff brought us this potion searching for any other indication of orphan earth fire and haven't found any."

"That isn't much of a trap, then, if it only worked once after two hundred years of trying," Bern said. "Elsa, do you see? I'm not trapped; I love you."

Grand Pabbie was nodding. "True love is always voluntary."

Bern couldn't see Elsa's expression, but she came into his arms and let him hold her and he hoped that would be the end of the ridiculous idea that she'd trapped him.

"How did the earth fire get mixed with magic, Bern? Kristoff says that wasn't your responsibility," Grand Pabbie said.

"It was medicine my mother made for me," Bern said. He thought for a couple of minutes. His expression went from curious to sad as he realized what had happened. "The last words my father ever spoke to me were that my mother was a real witch. At the time, I thought he was referring to her personality."

~###~

The conversation with the trolls swirled from banal to informative back to ridiculous and then to insightful. Bern despaired of ever learning anything specific about his abilities from them until Trixie, Vixie and Pixie all tried to jump into his arms at once and he ended up on the ground with them. In the midst of their stone bodies and babbling interruptions, he noticed just how many fire crystals the adult trolls had – dozens, even hundreds of fire crystals hung around their stone necks. They were all glowing, and even with his damaged vision, he could see them. Paying no heed to the words swirling around him, he reached for their fire crystals, not just with his hands but also with that inner heat. There was an internal sense of homecoming once he stopped listening and started feeling. He had found family, as odd as it was. He wondered if the loneliness that had plagued him his entire life was connected to this earth fire part of his soul longing for the trolls, because he was suddenly awash in happiness and contentment.

The trolls reached back, stone fingers in his curly hair, hands rubbing the cloth of his jacket and comparing it to the moss clothes they wore, then Bulda licked her thumb and rubbed at a smudge on his cheek and he dodged away from her.

"Kristoff hates that too," Bulda said.

"Leave him be, Bulda. Let him listen to the fire crystals," Grand Pabbie said.

The trolls settled into silence. Kristoff and Anna joined them, sitting back to back on the ground with their laps full of trolls. Vilrun seated himself next to Cliff. Bern held out a hand to Elsa and she joined him on the grass. With Elsa tucked into the crook of his arm and surrounded by hundreds of glowing fire crystals, Bern felt more connected to the world than he'd ever felt in his life. The bits and pieces of information he'd been gathering about himself over the past several weeks started to coalesce into something coherent.

Augmented by the fire crystals around him, he could feel the power in his soul as a distinct force, part of him, and yet with its own sentience that linked him to the trolls and the earth. The cave trolls couldn't trap earth fire with the ice spell; it had come in response to the pain of a human girl for the purpose of healing and protection, to restore her connections to humanity and add a layer of protection to allow her damaged soul space to heal. Even the magical contaminant had been turned by the earth fire into a healing force – Bern's magical fires gave Elsa warmth that the rest of humanity took for granted, giving her an experience that everyone else had so she could fit in. Elsa's delight was their primary purpose. Bern understood that this force in his soul intended to end Elsa's isolation in every way possible, bringing her back to the network of humanity and family that had been so badly damaged by her father.

When Elsa used her magic on him, it had set off the latent power within him – inviting its greater involvement in her life. Anything that works by true love waits patiently for permission, never insisting or forcing its way into someone's life unwanted. Elsa hadn't been ready to trust anyone or anything for protection until she felt safe enough to use the power she no longer feared on someone she trusted. Had she never come to that point, he would have remained nothing more than an economist who could light a fire easily. But he was now actively her guardian and protector and would not willingly be separated from her. That was the uneasiness when she was gone – the concern that his charge was out of his sight.

Bern suggested that Elsa was more likely to defend him than the reverse; her magic was much more powerful than his. The earth fire responded with a hint of the strain and isolation Elsa felt at being sole protector, and a desire to be her equal so she could share the burden. Elsa would not be alone anymore in her duty and capacity to defend those she loved. Bern's abilities would defend her, and she in turn would defend everyone else.

Because this power responded to Elsa's needs, he wouldn't be able to use it at will for any other purpose, which explained why he couldn't duplicate what the earth fire had done on the ship to burn the betrothal agreement and prevent their separation. Only the weak magic was under his control; the earth fire would not augment his magic unless Elsa was being threatened. Bern felt chastised for wishing he could be powerful and impressive. He and this force in his soul were Elsa's guardian and protector, not a hero in their own right. Bern had just a moment to wistfully wonder if it would be better if he was a warrior instead of a half-blind economist before the peace was shattered by an ambush.