Gerda
The main hall is breath-taking. I lift my eyes to the ceiling and twirl slowly, taking it all in. The walls are decorated in silver shapes. A chandelier sparkles above me. Crystal hallways branch out in every direction, crisscrossed by glimmering stairways that lead up and into the unknown. If the visit were less serious, I could spend hours running from room to room, exploring, but that's not why I'm here.
The rose bush said Kai was in the third room to the right, so that's where I'll go.
I am silent as I move across the room. I keep my eyes open for snow guards—I'm still not sure what they look like—but I see nothing of the sort. The third door is slightly ajar. I take a deep breath and push it open.
Kai's face is white as death. He's sitting still as a sculpture in the center of the floor surrounded by shards of ice. For a second I think he must be dead. Then he reaches forward and slides two pieces of ice across the floor.
"Kai," I whisper. He doesn't look up. I run to him. Halfway across the room, I slip on a shard of ice. I bite down hard on my lip to keep from crying out as my hands and knees slam against the hard ground. I crawl across it until I'm kneeling in front of him.
"Kai," I say. "Kai, I'm here." He stares right through me. His eyes are blank. He reaches past me and picks up another shard of ice. I grab his shoulders.
"Kai!" I shout. I don't care who hears. "Kai, please see me!" He doesn't. He shifts another piece of ice across the floor. What if he's too far gone for me to save?
Warm tears trickle down my cheeks. I throw my arms around him and press my face against his icy chest. His sweater is frozen solid. "I wanted to save you," I say. My tears leak into the fabric and thaw the ice, creating a dark stain against the deadly white frost. "I've come so far. Please, please, just look at me!"
"Gerda?"
I sit up. Kai is staring at me. There's color in his cheeks, and his eyes have cleared. "Gerda, it's really you! What are you doing here?"
"Kai!" I throw my arms around him once more. He's not as cold as he was a moment ago, but now he's shivering. I take off my coat and wrap it around him. It wasn't doing me any good anyway. "The Snow Queen took you. Everyone thought you were dead, but the swallows said you were alive. I came to find you."
He hugs me tightly. "You shouldn't have come."
"You would have saved me too."
Outside, the wind howls.
"We need to get out of here," Kai says, "before the guards hear us."
"There's a reindeer waiting to carry us if we can get to the garden," I say. "Can you walk?"
He nods. I take his hand, and we rise shakily to our feet, leaning on each other for support.
"The queen's going to be angry if she finds us," Kai says. "She said I couldn't leave unless I made the ice shards spell out a word." He looks down at the ice at our feet and trails off. I look down too. The word 'eternity' winks up at us, spelled out by the shards of ice.
"I didn't do that," said Kai. "I couldn't. It was supposed to be impossible."
"Then who did it?"
"Sometimes I think the ice has a mind of its own," says Kai. He shivers and takes my hand. "Come on."
There is a rumbling sound behind us. A window bursts open, and the gust of wind nearly blows us off our feet. Snowflakes the size of my head pour into the room and writhe around us. The wind shrieks.
"The guards are here!" Kai shouts over the snow. "Run!"
The snow blows into the doorway and materializes into two giant snow creatures shaped like men with angry white eyes. One holds a scythe made of ice; the other holds a sword. They raise their weapons above their heads.
I cover my face.
"Stop!" Kai shouts up at the guards. They pause, blink, and lower their weapons. "We've done nothing against Queen Johanna's orders. She's permitted me to leave if I can make the ice shards spell the word 'eternity.' As you can see, I've done so."
The guards peer into the center of the room where the word 'eternity' glistens.
"I'm free to go, according to the queen," says Kai. "This girl is my escort. If you don't let us go, you're defying her."
The guards look at each other. One of them grunts. Then they splinter into pieces and fly out the window.
"You've saved us," I say.
"Not yet," says Kai. "Let's go."
He takes my hand, and we flee the palace as fast as we can safely run.
A/N – This chapter makes me happy. ^_^