Chapter Twenty Four: Gone Is the Golden Sugar Maple
ELSA
As soon as the Ice Queen blasted her antagonist out of the ice palace, she'd conjured a whirlwind of snowflakes and ice crystals around them, and the silvery haze they formed was all she could see as they carried her and Hans across the white-flecked world. The last time she'd created this kind of magic was during her night time battle with Wisty back in the City's municipal courtyard, ages ago. Elsa withdrew it when she felt they'd flown long enough, and the chilly cyclone spiralled and swirled before petering out.
She and Hans dropped onto land draped in thick layers of snow. They were deep in a wintry forest rising in lush green trees coated with an abundance of hoarfrost on a medium-steep hill close to the North Mountain.
"Oh, Elsa…" Hans rose, dusting rime off his blazer and trousers. "I wonder what possibly befuddled your mind to lead you to abandon the Allgood heroes to Pearce and bring us here. I was under the impression the witch and wizard are your friends."
"Whit and Wisty are mighty enough to deal with Pearce in my absence," Elsa snapped, also rising. "But you teaming up with your newly transformed ally so you could assist him?" She gave one shake of her head. "I don't think so. I will obliterate you before you could lay a hand on the Allgoods. I carried us to this place, far away from my palace so that there is no way you'll be able to find your way back to it. I take it you're unfamiliar with these territories?" She didn't know she still got it in her to play with him. "Even if you aren't, you still have to get past me first."
Approval shone on the king's features. "Smart plan. Although…you do realize that by carrying me to this location I'll be able to teleport again. Right?"
Panic set in like an onrushing tidal wave, and Elsa wanted to clock herself for being such a dumbass.
Hans's sinister chuckle made her wince. He went on, "Once I 'bounce' back to Arendelle, I'll avenge the murder of my Champion by destroying your sister's beloved ice harvester Kristoff and those risible rock trolls, and then return from the stronghold with reinforcements to wipe you, Whit, and Wisty out. Once and for all."
Elsa jeered, trying to steady her rapid heartbeat, "Let me guess: too timid to take me on one-on-one?"
He only chuckled. "Just you wait."
She stared at Hans, and he stared at her, sneering.
Seconds elapsed, then a minute.
A minute and a half.
And he was still standing right in front of her.
"What's going on? Why can't I teleport?" Scowling, Hans touched his uniform, bafflingly lifted his arms, and surveyed his body, the ground beneath him.
The corner of Elsa's lips tugged upwards in a smile.
"The spell should have worn off—"
"The spell," Elsa interjected, "the Allgoods incanted on you must have a boundary. A range. You, Hans, are still within that range. It's the only logical explanation." Her shrug barely contained her delight. "Who knows how far the boundary extended?"
Hans held up a hand as if signalling her to shush. He spoke in a low voice to no one in particular, "I can feel it—their sorcery. I feel it on me, in me. The boundary of their enchantment…stretches circularly in a one mile radius from your ice palace. And its limit, its limit…is just half that distance from where I'm standing."
His gaze locked with hers. Before Elsa could react, he was off.
She dashed after him.
She should've known better than to believe she could catch up. Like Anna, she, too, considered herself a fast sprinter, but Hans was a solid, athletic runner. Whichever physical activity Elsa thought she excelled at—such as running—he was probably better. A gap had separated them before long and it was only broadening with each passing second. Elsa was already having a hard enough time preventing it from widening, let alone retaining it.
Her foot caught in the snow, and she couldn't help but yelp as she tripped. The snow draped over the sloping hill was deep, yes, but not that deep. She had no problem darting through it a moment ago. How come she did now?
Anger swelled in her as she realized: Hans.
It was him, bewitching the hill beneath his feet as he ran. The sorcery belonged to the footprints left in his wake.
With a hard tug, Elsa freed her foot and resumed her chase…only to be pulled back down again, landing hard on her chin. Her gold sabaton sank deep into the snow and kept on sinking. It was as though the ground making up the shape of Hans's footprint was depthless, as though no rock or hardness lay underneath it. She turned to her other foot, which was also standing on an area the king had stepped. Where he had stepped! She swore as that foot also began to sink, ankle deep, then shin deep, and then knee deep. She was a human drill driving down, down, down through the earth. Elsa wriggled, but it did nothing but cause her to submerge faster, and she'd already gone down halfway through her thighs, she didn't want to drop farther.
She stopped wriggling. Reaching sideways, she dug her nails into the slope of the hill, anchoring herself, and twisted to secure her other hand. It was her right leg she dragged up first. Then, using her arms, she pulled out her left leg.
Such precious minutes wasted. He was so far ahead…
Don't let him slip, don't let him slip, don't let him slip!
There was no way she could be cautious not to tread on the places where Hans's feet had been while running directly behind him. She had no choice but to shift onto a parallel route where the snow was undisturbed.
Faster! Elsa chastised herself.
The king fired a sphere of darkness at the base of a tree he passed by. Thick roots groaned as one side of it was being lifted, flinging up dirt and soil particles. The tree toppled over and smashed the earth. Elsa did not slow down as she approached it. Instead, she leaped up at the same time as she reached overhead to grasp a low hanging branch. The branch was all it required for her to use her momentum to swing herself forward, somersault over the plant's mammoth trunk, and make a smooth landing.
She had been assembling her powers while she was at it. The moment Elsa touched the earth, a line of ice spread rapidly from her toes over the snowy ground, moving as straight as a pencil. When it elongated past Hans, it expanded and climbed up. Past the snow-flecked forest and high into the sky, until it became a structure of translucent crystalline solid. It was a barrier, stretching so far into the distance to either side of Elsa and Hans that it was almost endless. Up here near the North Mountain, at this high an altitude, where the temperature was freezing, it would never melt.
Still inside the teleportation-ban boundary. Marvellous.
Her nemesis halted before the frigid crystalline structure, and Elsa skidded to a stop behind him.
Hans snickered without turning around, "You seem to relish in generating walls and obstacles for trapping other people." When Elsa remained quiet he continued, "Well, if confinement is your thing…"
He spun around, fast as a squirrel. No time to brace herself. Metallic blue steel bars, along with a roof and a base, appeared out of thin air.
The king had materialized around her a cuboid cage.
Elsa gripped the bars to steady herself as Hans mentally levitated the cage. Her eyes were fixed on him in an unforgiving glare. On the inside, she was a frightened doe caught and about to be eaten by its predator, but no way was she going to let her features give in to that feeling. So she glared at Hans, and he glowered back. When the enclosure had risen past his height, he effortlessly flicked his wrists, and it whizzed diagonally backwards. Elsa's grip on the bars tightened as the momentum threw her body sideways. Wind tore at her hair like talons. The colours of the forest—brown, green, and white—before her blended.
The enclosure flipped once as it whizzed. Elsa almost lost her grip as she got a transient glimpse of the forest upside down.
The cage cannoned into a sturdy tree trunk, the abrupt crash so loud it pounded her eardrums, before thumping the hilly slope, scattering frost and snowflakes everywhere. Elsa's knuckles were white from her iron-hard clasp. She let go of the bars with stiff, trembling fingers.
Hans's loud and clear chuckle told her he was right outside the cage, which had landed on the wrong surface. He reached to grip the bottom of the bars that had now become the roof of the cage and flipped it the right way up using that superhuman strength of his. Elsa groaned as she slid across the base and bumped her head.
Just to keep her enemy occupied, Elsa produced a warrior constructed of icicles and smiled as Hans, however pissed he was of the new obstacle that was now serving as a very annoying distraction, was forced to fight him. Although penned up, she was grateful that the gaps between the bars were wide enough to still allow her the contentment of assaulting Hans.
Determination sparkling in her eyes, Elsa pushed herself to her feet. She was going to get out of this cage. She would.
In her mind's eye, she visualized a pair of marvellous icy wings…and gasped in awe at the touch of coldness on her back as they sprouted from her shoulder blades. Elsa willed them to extend as far out to either side of her as possible, and her magic obeyed, until the wingspan was bigger than the length of the cage and the tips, high above head level, jutted beyond the bars. Made from sheer icicle blades aglow with azure blue light, they were stunningly wondrous to behold. Although Elsa could move them totally at her command, their icy formation was as hard as blades of steel.
Quick! Before Hans eliminates the warrior and turns his attention back to her.
Elsa flapped her wings gently and they lifted her a few inches up. She spun, rapidly gaining velocity until she was as vigorous as a tornado. While she was spinning, the utter hardness of her icy wings rapped the bars until they were nothing more than splinters.
She flew through the open spaces she'd wrecked upon the cage and was out.
The Ice Queen soared past the trees and into the sky. She yearned to escape the battle and the horrors that came with it, leave everything behind, and just fly. But then Hans would run past the limit of Whit and Wisty's restriction spell and 'bounce' away, and she couldn't let him annihilate more of the City's army. So she soared in a rotation around Hans like a vulture circling its prey, then touched down in front of him. Remnants of the ice warrior she'd conjured earlier littered the hill beneath his feet.
Frost and snowflakes swirled around Elsa's fingers as she called on her powers, but the king was peering over her shoulder, distracted. Frowning, Elsa swivelled her head to look.
"Wisty!" she called. Relief and happiness flooded her veins. The witch was racing down the sloping hill, her flame-coloured hair a pretty streak in the wind.
Elsa whirled and released the power she'd gathered at Hans in a bolt of ice, aiming straight. Hans cleverly sidestepped. Emitting a feral snarl, he lifted his leg and brought his boot down with almighty force.
A crack formed where his boot had collided with the ground. It snaked towards her. Elsa scuttled back a few steps and could do nothing but gawk as it stretched speedily in Wisty's direction. Her friend swerved, but Hans stomped his foot again at that moment and, with a violent tremble in the earth, the crack split, cleaving the hill apart.
Wisty plummeted down the still-expanding gorge.
Dread building in her gut, Elsa screamed her name. She was about to take off when twin shafts of orange light directed from behind shattered her wings like glass. Before she could so much as think about generating a new pair, Hans pushed her off the precipice.
Below was a river of sizzling, spitting lava. Half-molten rocks drifted along its current. Elsa's heart lodged in her throat as gravity dragged her down, down, down towards it. And in that fleeting moment she could see it: death. Laughing as it extended its dark claws to grip her. This was it. This was the end. She was going to die.
But not before she did this.
Whiteness burst from the centre of her chest, shooting past the figure of Wisty tumbling ahead. It expanded until it filled the entire length of the gorge—which had stopped widening—to form a thick, translucent sheet of ice. Wisty slowed her fall with magic and glided down the remaining distance onto its surface. Her head swivelled up to find Elsa still plummeting. Wisty raised her arms, and Elsa instantly felt an unseen force take hold of her, halting her in mid-air. With the guidance of her friend's powers, she floated down the rest of the way as though she was light as a feather and gently landed on the icy sheet.
"Thank you," she said.
"Don't mention it," Wisty said.
They hardly had time to calm down from the aftereffect of the fall when the level of the lava began rising. Fast.
Hans's doing.
Wisty cried urgently, "We need to get back up. Now!"
Elsa clasped her by the forearms. "Stay steady."
The Ice Queen looked to her feet and summoned a pillar of ice at her command. Using the icy sheet as a support, the pillar elongated skyward like a thumb poking from the earth, carrying Wisty and Elsa with them. Together, they ascended, bending slightly and holding onto one another to prevent from slipping. Elsa expected Hans to be watching in wrath or astonishment from above, but he was at the edge of the precipice, a hand extended out into the gorge. Gradually lifting his arm, Hans willed the lava to rise higher, faster. It melted Elsa's sheet of ice within seconds and arrived to the base of the pillar that'd become their lifesaver. The lava was licking its way upwards! The pillar wobbled, and Wisty and Elsa tightened their grips on each other.
Elsa's palms were slick with sweat. Panic roared in her head like a lion. Sneaking a peek down, she saw that the lava had reached a quarter up. The small piece of land she and Wisty were standing on turned wet and slippery as the vertical structure of ice began to melt. Steam wafted upwards. Elsa could feel the heat from up here.
Calm down, we're nearly there. Nearly to the top, Elsa comforted herself. Calm down.
Then, as if the pillar couldn't take it anymore, it toppled over.
"Leap!" Elsa screamed, giving Wisty a hard pat.
Wisty didn't need to be told. She pushed off the pillar's edge and leaped the distance from the precipice.
No time to check whether she made it. It was now or never.
Elsa threw her body forward, putting all her energy behind it. Her legs kicked as she sailed. She reached for edge of the precipice, and her palms slapped the top. Got it! The snow on the ground was freezing, but she'd never minded it. The pillar smacked the cliff face on its way down, split in two, hit the lava with huge splashes, and went under. Elsa used a notch in the rock as a foothold to bring an elbow over the edge, then the other. Now that she was more secured, she used the strength of her arms to haul herself up.
Wisty heaved herself over too, taking a little longer than Elsa. There were bruises on her chin and upper lip. When she caught Elsa looking at them, she rubbed the injuries and filled in, "I leaped too hard. Bumped my face against the rocks."
Hans was on the opposite side of the gorge. Since he couldn't teleport, he had to lift himself over using telekinesis. The lava stopped rising just before it reached ground level. The depth in the land that had been a gorge was now a mere river.
Magenta mist swirled around the king's hands. Although Elsa had not seen how he'd killed Gerda, the aura of odiousness tingling in her bones told her that this had to be what he used. What a horrible way to die, detonating in your own entrails. Wild panic, followed by an onrush of adrenaline, had Elsa nocking an arrow to the bowstring and firing it before Hans could even lift his arms. A clear shot. The arrow buried in his flank. Hans screamed. His swirling magenta mist dwindled into nothingness. He plucked out the arrow. The red dot in his flank was leaking blood, and Hans put a hand over it. In a couple of seconds' time, it was healed.
Elsa was glad her assailant had landed between her and her friend. Wisty's gaze was on her. She gave Elsa a nod, and the Ice Queen nodded back.
Elsa launched a bolt of ice crystals from her palm at the same time as Wisty discharged a band of fire from hers. Their powers careened at Hans from either side…and collided with dark convex shields created by his outstretched hands. Hans's shields weren't normal shields of magic—they were powerful. Elsa could feel it pushing against her, opposing her will with every step. It was hard to make out how Wisty was doing on his other side, but on her side, her own bolt was getting shorter.
Wisty spoke to Elsa using telepathy. Put distance between you and him for more powerful ejection.
Elsa did as she was told. She moved back. Her bolt automatically grew longer. Indeed, it required less effort and focus to maintain her magic from farther off. Producing the ice crystals became swifter, easier.
Just then, Hans hit back.
A surge travelled through Elsa's bolt and along her arm as he increased the strength of his shields. She staggered back a little, but she wasn't drained. There weren't rules to her supernatural abilities. To her, drainage from excess or prolonged use of her powers didn't exist. Elsa raised her other hand and transferred some of her magic to it. With both hands now directing her energy, her bolt was stronger than ever.
Wisty's voice spoke in her head again. Give it a push. The best push you could deliver. In three…two…ONE!
Elsa released the gulp of air she'd inhaled in a yell as she envisioned the shield to be as smooth as porridge and willed her magic to penetrate it. She heard Wisty do something similar.
And like the fragile shell of an egg, the pair of shields cracked.
Wisty's fiery band and Elsa's icy bolt struck Hans at once, and his shriek of agony cleaved the air. Hans must still have a tiny ounce of strength in him, because in the moment he shrieked, he used it to fling Wisty and Elsa backwards.
Elsa cannoned into a tree trunk. She bit her lip as daggers of pain shot up her spine. Through the blackness at the edge of her vision she saw Wisty getting up from the heap of snow where she'd fallen. Wisty aimed at Hans on the ground. From her palm buzzed orchid purple electricity. Before it struck him, however, he moved to somewhere else, too fast for the naked eye. Movement made Elsa swivel her head to the right. Hans was atop a branch midway up a tree. A lean, wounded silhouette against the light of the rising sun.
"Up there!" Elsa shouted, pointing.
Wisty scampered to the tree he'd taken shelter and set the branch ablaze with her mind. Hans bounded to a different tree using superior strength. Close to Elsa. Elsa rubbed her still-throbbing spine. She wasn't allowing Hans time to recover. Getting up, Elsa half scurried, half sneaked to Hans's tree and conjured an ice Frisbee. She threw her arm. The Frisbee whisked through the air at amazing speed and severed the branch. Too weak to call upon his magic, Hans tumbled headlong to the ground, and for the first time in forever, Elsa hated the thick, deep snow for cushioning his fall.
Hans slowly and achingly pushed himself to his feet. Elsa noticed he wasn't fully healed. One side of him had been badly burnt, his uniform smoking and blackened at various places, his skin red and raw. The other side had almost been frozen, his uniform stiff, rigid, and coated in a thin layer of rime, his skin pale and cold.
But he wasn't debilitated that he was unable to fight. An invisible force clutched Elsa and hurtled her through the forest so rapidly the wind stung her eyes. With a squeal, she crash-landed in the snow. She recoiled from the river of steaming, sizzling lava right next to her. Before she could get as far away from it as she could, Hans was on her.
He levitated and hovered her above the lava.
The heat was like a blowtorch to her skin, but despite the sweltering temperature Elsa was shaking badly, as though she was freezing. If Hans released his telekinetic hold…
Elsa braved a look down. The lava was extremely deep, that's for sure, since it had risen from several hundred feet below all the way up to ground level. If she fell, she'd be completely immersed.
And seared to ashes.
Elsa turned pleading eyes to Hans. She could attack him perfectly well from this distance, but unless she wanted him to drop her in his pain, she would not do a damned thing. Her next breath hitched in her throat. If Anna made it out of this battle alive, at least she'd let the people know Elsa had gone down fighting.
But she wasn't ready. She didn't want to die.
Wisty came up behind the king and spun a ring of flames around his neck. She vowed, "Put Elsa down or I will scorch your head off your shoulders." Her voice was certain. She would do it.
But Elsa didn't want to be put down. If Hans put her down, she would die. "Wisty, don't!" Elsa shouted. There was so much sweat coating her forehead due to the heat that it was showering her brow and running into her eyes.
Hans responded evenly with a smirk, "As you wish."
No, no, no, no, no!
He gave his arm an outward jerk, and the telekinetic clutch was gone. A second ago Elsa had been hovering ten metres above the lava. Now she was falling.
Over the sharp wind in her ears, Wisty yelled a spell.
Elsa slammed heavily against something warm and hard. She'd collided on her front, and her knees, thighs, breasts, and side of her head had taken the worst of the impact. She could barely shift an inch owing to the wave after wave of aches threatening to consume her, but the earth underneath was suddenly alarmingly hot. Elsa winced, let out a yell, and rolled onto cooler territory. She sighed at the comfort of freezing snow against her body.
Wisty crossed over to her and said, "You alright?"
"I guess," she managed. She looked at the river full of lava. Except that it wasn't liquefied anymore. In its place was a winding trail of greyish-brown rock.
"Magmatic rock," Wisty explained. "I performed a spell that cooled and solidified the molten lava." She grimaced. "Sorry about your hard landing."
"It could've been much worse," Elsa dismissed gratefully, propping up on her elbows. "That was clever and ingenious, Wisty."
They both stood up. Wisty sashayed back to Hans, who was trying to banish the hissing ring of flames still suspended around his neck with no success. Wisty smirked at the sight of the king vulnerable under her magic. Without contrition, she conducted a series of spins of her wrists so that the fiery ring circled in. Despite the armour, Hans squalled when the first of the flames licked his gorget.
"Begone, you evil tyrant!" Wisty shouted, and manipulated the ring so that it wrapped fully around his neck.
Hans flailed his arms and stumbled about, shrieking. He dropped to the ground in the snow and rolled and rolled and rolled until the ring of fire had been quenched. When Elsa next inspected him, his gorget had been charred and his neck was the colour of glazed ham. But he was very much alive.
Uttering a snarl of pure hatred, he unsheathed his sword and lunged at Wisty. He slashed diagonally. The cruel motion of his blade across her torso made Wisty squeal in pain. Hans slashed again, this time horizontally. His weapon left strips of red on her knees and Wisty fell on her butt. Hans was too close and too fast for her to nock an arrow.
So Elsa nocked one.
The king yowled as Elsa's arrow pierced his back, but he persisted in attacking Wisty and didn't bother to pull it out. Wisty had gotten up. Hans battered her with his shield. He ducked when she ejected a fireball at him. Hans sliced his sword and wounded her in the sternum.
Elsa nocked another arrow, aimed, and released the bowstring. Her second arrow also stuck in Hans's back. Yelling in pain, Hans twisted his arm to pluck them out. He cast the arrows aside and healed himself by swiping his hand over his back. Elsa wished she had the ability to heal like that.
Wisty brought her bow up and struck Hans with it under the chin. Hans savagely knocked it from her hand. He stepped forward and smacked her in the cheek. He swung his arm to strike again and Wisty caught it. She tried to push it away from her, but Hans used his other arm to prise her grip loose. Then he gave that forearm of hers a twist. Wisty screamed. Hans elbowed her hard on the mouth and she lurched. Blood dripped from her split lip. He closed his gloved hand in a fist and punched her in the temple with all his strength. Wisty reeled, hit the snow, and didn't stir again.
Elsa knew she'd only been knocked out, but so did Hans. Hans stared down at Wisty, white lightning cracking in his upraised hand. Before he could direct it at her, Elsa generated that whirlwind of ice crystals and snowflakes again, and it picked Hans up and carried him away from Wisty until it reached the limit of Elsa's field.
Time to fly again.
Azure blue icicle blades sprouted from Elsa's shoulder blades and formed the shapes of remarkable wings. As soon the wingtips came into being, Elsa took off. As she flew she drew a jewelled dagger. Kristoff had made the dagger and Whit had later enchanted it with magic, making it lethal. No one except Kristoff and Whit knew Elsa possessed it. She drew it from an inner pocket of her leather armour now, holding it in front of her so her reflection shone in the blade. Tearing her gaze away from it and flapping her wings, Elsa flew on.
Hans was in the middle of a small clearing in the forest. He fired that white lightning he hadn't had the chance to fire at Wisty a moment ago, and Elsa veered sideways when it sped towards her. She flapped her wings to increase her speed so Hans wouldn't be bold enough to impede her with magic again, and bowled straight down at him. He was yards away. Getting nearer.
When she'd flown close enough, she raised the jewelled dagger and plunged it into his stomach.
His cry was nothing short of agonizing. Elsa's blood curdled hearing it, but she wasn't going to take back what she did. Kill Hans. That's what she intended to do. That was her plan. She let go of the jewelled dagger and watched as the remainder of the blade poking out and the adorned hilt went in by themselves.
Hans put a hand over the spot where it'd entered his body and sank to his knees. The weapon had gone inside him. There was nothing he could do. He howled, squirmed in discomfort, and crumpled supine to the ground, his breathing ragged. The strange noise of his inhales sounded like he was dying, which, given his current state, he probably was.
"That dagger inside you is a talisman enchanted with dark magic," Elsa said, making a slow walk around him. "It will slit and rupture whichever organs it comes to pass in your body and make its way slowly to your heart. When it does, you die. In the meantime, you are left with pain so profound it's impossible to take your mind off it. You will be unable to sleep or move, let alone crawl. As of now you will constantly be in terrible, terrible agony."
She continued, "Tell me, Hans. Did you ever love Anna? Even for a minute?" Her foe was too devitalized to respond, but Elsa knew he could still hear and see just fine. "Because she loved you." Reflecting on her sister's desolation and misery over his betrayal lead tears to spring to her eyes. Elsa didn't bother to blink them away. She wanted to let them fall. She wanted an outlet for her emotions. "She loved you with all her reckless, feisty heart. However short-lived it was, you kept her company and brought her happiness when I couldn't. I may have had my doubts and suspicions about you, but all Anna needed at the time was someone to talk to and be there for her, and you provided her both. She really thought you were a good person. If you hadn't been so preoccupied with your selfish ambition to inherit my throne, if you'd held her when her heart was frozen and kissed her like she'd begged…I wouldn't have given the order to send you home. I would've allowed you to stay, and if you seem to truly love her, perhaps I would've ultimately consented to your marriage. But because of your actions and your endeavour to seize my kingdom not once but twice, suffering and agony before death is exactly what you deserve."
The king croaked out three words. "Burn. In. Hell."
"No Hans," Elsa said quietly, shaking her head. "Hell is where you're burning." With one last look of loathing at him, she walked away.
Twelve men materialized in the wintry forest, causing Elsa to turn back. With their auburn hair, green eyes, dark boots, epaulettes, and aiguillettes, they were similar to Hans in appearance as well as attire. All of them looked older than Hans. Some had long hair, moustaches, and beards while others had short-cropped hair or were nearly bald. Where Hans's patterned blazer was black and light grey, theirs was sea-green. And while Hans wore pants of navy blue, they were clad in walnut brown trousers. Elsa noted that the group was armed either with long daggers sheathed in scabbards behind their backs or short swords hanging at their waists from their belts.
Spotting the king, one bloke with emerald green eyes pointed and shouted, "There he is!"
All at once they moved in on Hans lying helpless on the ground, surrounding him in an arc.
Elsa gasped, "You're the royal siblings of the Southern Isles. Hans's twelve brothers!"
Twelve pairs of eyes settled on her as though acknowledging her presence for the first time.
"That would be us," confirmed a muscular, handsome guy with shoulder-length hair. "It's been a long time since we've last seen each other, hasn't it, Queen Elsa of Arendelle?"
"It certainly has," she agreed. "How did you find us?"
He inclined his head with displeasure at Hans. "Our little brother here did not return to the Southern Isles on the day he was supposed to. We have been looking for him ever since. No matter how many times our parents sent us on search parties, however, we never found him. The King and Queen were distraught. We went as far as resorting to using the occult—"
"You have magic?" Elsa cut in surprisingly. She had not known that.
"We all do," the bloke with emerald green eyes said. "But not even the occult was able to reveal his whereabouts. That's when we realized Hans must also have obtained sorcery in some way to cloak his location. He has continuously upheld the spell. A moment ago, we sensed his spell faltering, probably due to whatever you did—"
"I stabbed him," Elsa divulged.
"Very heroic of you," he commented. "Because you debilitated him, we were finally able to use our powers to track him down, and it lead us here."
"Arendelle…" a guy with curly short hair chided at himself, "I should've known!"
Elsa asked, "Were you all born with magic?"
"Yes," another well-built bloke said, pride and importance gleaming in his eyes, "We are gifted with it. But our little brother—" Hans cringed at the title "—is not, which is one of the main reasons why he felt so worthless among our family—"
"Thus, he usurped Arendelle to prove to the world that he isn't," Elsa finished, leering at Hans with disapprobation.
"It appears so," the handsome, muscular guy assented. He grabbed Hans by his blazer so that he was forced to sit up and hissed in his ear, "How did you obtain your powers?"
Hans croaked, "I walked through the gateway in the trunk of an enormous sugar maple tree." When silence from his royal siblings implied that it wasn't detailed enough, he added, "At the heart of an island."
"And where is this island?" he demanded. Hans kept his mouth shut. "Where is it?" His brother shook him fiercely.
"Four hundred miles northwest of our homeland. Situated in the Jade Sea between Iseldor and Corona," Hans answered reluctantly. Then his lips curled in a mischievous, lopsided grin as he looked up at his elder sibling, who was frowning. "Sounds foreign to you, brother? Thought so. None other except me and my comrades has journeyed there."
The shoulder-length-haired man ignored him and said, "We teleported to Arendelle before bouncing to this hill. Apparently, you have adopted that magical tree you walked through as your emblem. A golden sugar maple on a black field. Creative." He snickered. "Well, it's too bad your reign of oppression is at an end, so feel free to kiss your awe-inspiring emblem goodbye. We're taking you back to where you belong, where you will be punished as the King and Queen of the Southern Isles see fit."
None too gently he laid a hand on Hans and felt for the spot where he presumably thought the enchanted dagger was. When he found it, his hand stilled, and he slowly brought it away from Hans's torso, producing a trail of glittering gold in the air. He flicked his wrist. As if it was summoned, the weapon burst from Hans's body, which the man caught in his hand. Hans's glove was stained red as he covered the wound from which the dagger had popped out, and he yowled in pain.
Elsa took an anxious step forward. "Are you sure about this?"
"Absolutely," the lean, muscular bloke said. "Retribution will make him regret his actions and curse his living days more than a tormented death ever could."
Defeat must be etched on Elsa's expression, for he added, "You've no need to worry. He will receive the fate that he deserves."
Elsa hesitated. She didn't know whether to feel relieved that she would not be the one with his blood on her hands, or distressed that her nemesis wasn't going to die. But the man was right. They knew what was best for Hans better than she did. "Very well," she said. "Thank you…for coming to fetch him."
The bloke with emerald eyes gave her a nod. He heaved Hans to his feet.
"Wait." The twelve pairs of eyes looked to her again. Elsa took a deep breath and addressed Hans, "Nullify the effect of your brainwashing on Pearce."
The malevolent glare she got in return could melt even her soul of ice.
When Hans made no move, one of his brothers spoke sternly. "Queen Elsa gave you an order."
Out of nowhere, a breeze blew, rustling the platinum blonde bangs on top of Elsa's head. Elsa stared into Hans's eyes, and scintillating copper irises stared back at her. They returned to their normal shade of green when he was done. "The spell has been reversed," Hans said. "Pearce is free."
Elsa turned to his twelve royal siblings. "Take care."
"You too," the bloke with curly short hair replied. "Until we next meet."
And just like what Whit did when he transported Elsa and her friends out of the castle courtyard, he swiped his arm downwards in a low crescent, and a pearly grey translucent bowl surrounded the thirteen men. An identical dome then appeared above them as the bloke swiped his arm in a high arc. The oval shell that they were enclosed in rotated until all Elsa could see was a swirling mass of grey. When it'd dissipated, Hans and his twelve brothers were no longer there.
The hills couldn't be more silent.
"He's gone!"
The voice would've startled her if Elsa hadn't been so overwhelmed with unaccountable emotions of what had just happened. She turned.
Wisty was standing beside a tree trunk, a hand resting upon its bark, the look of surprise plain on her face. She must've awakened at some point and hurried over, no doubt having seen and heard everything.
A sigh of weightlessness escaped Elsa. "It's over, Wisty," she breathed.