Chapter Eleven - Capture

Erik paced the floor of his castle endlessly, his hands shifting from the sides of his head to out in front of him. The red hue was now brighter than ever.

"Get it together…" he breathed, feeling more and more spikes grow across the windows and ceiling. "Control it…" but his efforts were in vein.

Sharp, dangerous icicles protruded form his very emotions, stretching across the windows, almost shutting him inside.

"Don't feel… don't feel… DON'T FEEL…" he repeated under his breath, saying the last one out loud.

But as he looked up, he suddenly felt afraid in his own castle, red icicles now covering the entire ceiling above him, enveloping him in a sea of red light… and his own fear. Would this winter continue on forever? Would he be unable to end it as long as he was… alive? Erik thought it over.

If he were to die, would the winter leave with him and all be restored? Or would it rage on even with him gone, and no one able to end it? Or maybe it wasn't just the weather. Maybe he deserved this fate, to end it all right here. After all the years he had neglected his brother, every time he had shut him out, including today, did he deserve to live?

He slowly raised a hand to his heart, prepared to shoot an icicle through it, the spell rising to his fingertips. When suddenly his mind stopped himself. NO. He thought. If there was even a chance that he could thaw this winter, he needed to take it. The risk of the winter not ending if he was gone was one too big to take. He decided right then and there, that he would force himself to stay alive, to fix what he had done… even if it meant living with himself another day…

Harmony and her search party of over a dozen men stalked up to the steps of the ice castle. The group looked up in bewilderment at the extravagant creation their runaway King had made, the dumbstruck group at the base of the stairs. Harmony turned to face the group she had assembled.

"Be prepared for the worst, but do not act rashly. We are to carry this out in a moderately aggressive manner, as our king has committed a crime against our land, but no harm is to come to him. Do you understand me?" the assembly murmured in agreement, but the Duchess' men looked at each other, knowing something the Princess didn't.

Harmony turned to the castle and looked around. To the left, she noticed what seemed to be a large, ice… boulder type thing. She wasn't quite sure. Cautiously advancing towards it, she reached out a gloved hand to its icy surface, and as soon as her had made contact with it, it sprang to life. The supposed 'boulder' had actually been an enormous animal at rest, its icicle fangs as sharp as knives. It immediately whipped around and the Princess backed away. The beast roared horrendously. Harmony pulled out her bow and and an arrow from her quiver and shot it at the beast, where the metal tip sliced right through its face.

But the beast roared even louder and instead shifted its shape. The ice that once melded to form the shape of a leopard now morphed into that of a giant polar bear, at least 10 feet tall. The assembled civilians and soldiers raised their arrows and swung their swords as it charged through them, but each hit only made it stronger. One soldier swung his sword and sliced one of the bear's legs off, to which it only morphed into the shape of a snow yeti, even bigger this time, its leg restored.

Harmony noticed the group of attackers keeping the beast distracted and seized her opportunity and ran. The Duchesse's men saw the Princess make her way to the stairs, and made after her, their crossbows raised. Racing for the staircase that led up to the next mountain, Harmony ran as quick as she could, reaching about halfway up before she was sent crashing face first into the ice as the beast had grabbed onto her leg, sending much of the stair's banister tumbling to the ground below as it smashed under its enormous hand. Harmony screamed. The Duchesses's men managed to slip away, heading straight for the castle as they saw the doors close and Erik disappear behind them.

Desperately trying to shake it off, three men came to aid the Princess, their swords at the ready. They slashed and swiped and dodged the Yeti's thrashing claws and monstrous roar, and eventually, the severed torso of the yeti fell to the ground, thousands of feet below. Harmony regained her footing, catching her breath. She looked out over the endless canyon where a few shattered bits of ice and snow continued to fall off the stairs. Swallowing her disgust, she kicked the remaining half of the beast to join the rest. It may have been made out of ice, but it had still been... alive.

Erik ran to the top of the staircase, desperate to get away from the new intruders trying to drag him back to Arendelle. He ran into the balcony room, the largest in the entire castle, and stopped in the middle, having nowhere else to turn. He turned to see the two men, dressed in red that almost matched the walls, close in on him, their crossbows raised and aimed. Erik backed away, his once confident self now hunched in fear all over again. For all his mind knew, he could have been back in the ballroom, an entire room of terrified people thinking he was a monster staring at him. But if they killed him, the winter might not stop. He needed to let them know.

"No, please…" he quietly begged them not to shoot.

But the trigger sounded, and Erik shielded his face; ready to die. But when he opened his eyes, he saw that his inner conscience had conjured an ice wall to shield himself, thin but certainly there, and the arrow now stood stabbed through it, the tip inches away from his face. It was only then that Erik remembered that he had ice powers. A death glare taking over his face, he turned to face the guard and drew his hand upward, and the crossbow went flying out of his arms in a burst of frost. Erik flattened his palm and a gush of mist sent him slamming into the wall, where a series of dangerously sharp icicles protruded form the wall at lightning speed, securing him in place, with one ever so slowly advancing towards his neck.

The other guard crept up behind the King, but Erik was prepared, and with his free hand he conjured a thick ice wall that blocked another arrow, then another, and another, each arrow wasted as soon as it left the weapon. The guard tried to run to different parts of the room, to find angles the King hadn't seen yet. After all, he had his orders; kill the King. But Erik shot jagged waves of ice that blocked every direction the man in red turned, sending him running back and forth until he slipped on the ice, his crossbow clattering away right behind Erik and landed right next to the one pinned to the wall. Erik conjured an enormous ice cube and sent it coming straight for the guard, who was helpless to evade it. It pushed him against the large doors leading to the balcony, and he tried desperately to push it away from him, but the pressure from the King's magic and the man's back resulted in the doors shattering, destroying the balcony's railing as the thick, heavy ice doors crashed down on top of it. But the cube continued to advance, and the man in red strained against it, about to be sent to his death over the side of an 1000 foot drop into nothing but blackness.

Erik pressed his magic harder, his face contorted in a scowl as he refused to let another person try and drag him back to that prison. When suddenly, he heard someone call his name.

"King Erik!" it said. The voice was a woman's, but Erik refused to look. "Don't be the monster your people fear you to be."

That made him drop his guard. Stopping his stream of magic, Erik turned to see that Princess Harmony and about a dozen Arendellian soldiers stood in the doorway. He huffed and caught his breath, his emotions buzzing with anger and confusion. What had he done? He had almost killed two men, purposely. The man on the balcony now had only inches to stand on as the ice cube had come to a stop right at the last second, and the man pinned to the wall barely had a millimetre of room between his neck and the icicle.

Harmony looked to see the man pinned to the wall reach with his foot for the crossbow that was so close to him, and managed to pass it into his hand where he aimed it right at the King. "NO!" She cried, knowing what was going to happen next, and immediately ran up to him where she grabbed hold of his arm and shoved it up the second he pulled the trigger.

The arrow flew, everyone turned to look, and watched as it hit the crystal chandelier right at the spot where it connected to the ceiling, sending it crashing down. Erik looked up. Although he was very much a grown man, as he looked at his oncoming doom, the face that stared up at the falling chandelier was nothing more than that of a terrified little boy. His survival instincts kicking in, Erik, Harmony, and the rest of the assembled group ran to avoid the falling ice monstrosity as it exploded behind them, Erik's own creation about to kill all of them unless they ran.

What was once a statue of beauty, something he had made in the utmost feeling of euphoria, was now smashing into a million pieces behind them, a tidal wave of shattered ice coming straight for them, wanting to hurt them. Everyone ran, but the only one to fall was Erik; he had been too close. When he fell, he felt his head collide with the ice beneath him, and he immediately blacked out…

Hours… days… weeks… it could have even been years later, he didn't know. All concept of time had completely abandoned Erik's mind, leaving his pounding head to come to its senses. His vision was blurry. His ears were ringing. Where was he? He felt for his his arms and shook them awake, feeling the tingle of numbness tighten then dull as he moved his body to sit up. He was on the floor. The floor of what? He looked around him. This was… this was… a cell. This was one of the cell's beneath the Arendellian palace. The people who had come to the castle had dragged him back here. Thinking of the castle itself as a prison, ironically, he was now in an actual one.

Erik looked around. The atmosphere around him was so cold, frost covered the stone crevices and mist flew through the air. A tiny patch of light reflected on the stone floor, the source being a slim window on the farthest wall. Erik forced himself to his feet, his arms feeling extremely heavy. Cuts littered his body as the shattered ice must have sliced his pale skin, dotting his pearly white complexion with spots of red. Erik ran to the window, desperate to see what waited for him outside. But before he could properly view what lay on the fjord beyond the glass, a sharp tug stopped him from moving. He felt his muscles ache as the force had nearly pulled his arms out of their sockets. Erik looked behind him and saw that he was heavily chained to an iron O ring in the middle of the floor, metal clamps clasped around his hands.

Oh god… he thought.

These were them. These were the chains his parents had gotten for him, to have a backup plan and imprison their own son incase his magic got too strong. Well now it finally had, and their plan B had now been fulfilled.

"No…" he breathed.

Was this to be his fate? To be treated like an animal in his own kingdom and locked away from the world? Maybe it was for the best. He had nearly impaled several people on the night of his coronation. He wasn't ready to be back here. He was a danger to this entire kingdom just by being here. He craned his neck and strained against the chains to peer out of the window. To his horror, his brother's words had been absolutely right. In fact, they hadn't done them justice. What was once crystal clear water that sparkled in the summer sun was now completely frozen over, stretching as far as the eye could see. Sailing ships lay almost turned over, jagged ends of sails and columns piercing through the ice.

"Oh god…" he whispered. "What have I done?" but he didn't have time to think any further. The door of the dungeon swung open, and Princess Harmony walked in, her arms crossed to warm herself in the frigid cell, mist escaping her lips with each breath. "Why did you bring me here?" Erik asked, staying where he was. He knew that the Princess probably had at least five guards waiting outside in case he lashed out, so if he stayed still, they would have no reason to restrain him any further. Harmony's stern face softened.

"Well I couldn't just let them kill you." she said.

"But Arendelle is in danger just with my being here. Just, find Aaron, he'll-"

"Aaron has not returned." Harmony interrupted. Erik's face froze. His brother hadn't gone straight home? What had happened to him? Harmony came closer. "There'd be no need for these chains if you'd just use that magic of yours to thaw this winter." she said in a low voice.

"Don't you see?" said Erik as he turned to look at her. "I have no idea how." Harmony's face contorted in frustration, her deep red lips pressing together to hide a scowl. "I'm a danger to Arendelle. You have to let me out of here, let me leave again."

Harmony shook her head. "If you can't thaw this winter, we'll-"

"You'll what?" Erik interrupted, having had enough of this meaningless banter with the Princess. "Kill me? Go ahead and do it. But the winter won't stop, and you'll have no hope of ever thawing this place." Erik spoke with a false confidence he didn't know he had. He didn't even know if what he was saying was true. But it seemed to have worked, as the Princess released all effort to hide her own frustration, and a scowl took over her eyes.

"I will do what I can." she grunted, and stormed out of the room.

Erik's confidence soon faded as the heavy wooden door was shut with a loud boom and the lock slid into place. He was right back where he started. Feeling the familiar itch of his magic freezing over objects, Erik looked down at the clamps covering his hands and saw frost begin to creep out from the hinges. But this time, he let it happen. In fact, he channelled his energy into it, and frost crept down the chains and onto the floor then onto the walls, the wooden beams making up the ceiling beginning to weaken under the ice. Erik smiled.