author's note: Thanks for the reviews and follows everyone! (I think my favorite was the one word: "Interesting." I'm gonna go ahead and take that as a compliment?) I can see there is some definite love for Jack. DON'T WORRY. He's coming. But he won't get here for several chapters. Until then, please enjoy your favorite grumpy ex-thief Stabbington (his name just never gets old for me).
Chapter Two
Stabbington
I should have asked for more money. From the Arendelle princess and from the impatient little nose wipe from the Southern Isles. In my limited experience with princesses, they're difficult, yeah, and definitely annoying—but they're also easily intimidated, jumpy, and ultimately unsure. I get the feeling, from our brief encounter, that Queen Elsa won't be bullied into doing something she doesn't want to do, but she also gives off that innate insecurity that comes from living too long behind walls, especially those made of castle stone. She might as well have a big fat COMPLICATED stamped on her forehead, which is going to make my job just an absolute pleasure, a real blessed treat.
I pass the guard by the front gate and flip up the paper that has Princess Anna's seal on it, granting me admission into the palace court. I also give the guard a lazy glare down my nose—my trademark 'I-kill-little-runts-like-you-for-sport-when-I'm-bored' look. Predictably, he tenses and waves me through, eager to be rid of me. Arendelle is a pansy little kingdom; relatively small compared to some, with its harder living conditions so close to the high mountains; peaceful, hasn't seen much war. As a result, the villagers are soft, pliable, and eager to push out conflict or anything that challenges their steady way of life. The guards have nothing much to do except settle meaningless peasant squabbles and escort smiling princesses around. They wouldn't last a day in my world.
I meander through the palace halls unconcerned, prepared to show my paper again if anyone stops me, but no one does. In fact, the whole place is suspiciously empty, for the home of an entire kingdom's ruling force. My satchel hangs off my shoulder by one hand; it's light, weighed down only by a change of clothes, a small amount of money, and a rolled case of dried jerky. Everything else I need I carry on my person: three different knifes, rope, sharpening stone, long sword, short broadsword, flint and steel, mace, mid-sized battle axe, pick, and spyglass. Only three of these are actually visible.
I pause in front of an upward spiraling staircase that most likely leads to the living quarters and private bedrooms.
"Mr. Stabbington." There is a tangible iciness to the Queen's voice. It's like I can feel her brittle words scraping against the skin on the back of my neck.
I turn and there she is, standing with her hands clasped regally in front of her. She is, as I concluded after our first meeting, very beautiful without being particularly attractive to me. Give me a girl from the village I grew up in, warm, freckled, smelling like food—not pretty, just nice, with a soft mouth, ample hips and chest. The Queen's beauty is like looking at the moon; it takes your breath away, but you know you'll never touch it.
Her face shows nothing but polite interest, her posture the perfect balance of erect and relaxed confidence. But she's mad. All that poise is just a pretty frame for the miniature volcano bubbling just behind her eyes.
"I see you've made yourself at home," she continues.
"I would have waited for you to give me the tour, but it didn't seem like you were going to offer."
Just the slightest twitch of tension, then she exhales softly. "I understand you've spoken with my sister about certain . . . duties this month, but I assure you your services are unnecessary."
Right. Princess Anna's sisterly worries, unnecessary though they probably are, happen to occupy the bottom of my Reasons for Enduring Queen Elsa list. I choose not to say anything.
"I'll happily pay you whatever you and Anna agreed upon, as well as your passage home—"
"The princess already paid me," I say.
"Oh." She blinks. "Oh—well then, I can offer you additional compensation for your trouble, but—"
"No, I mean she already paid me," I say pointedly. "She paid me to do a job that I, as an honest working man, agreed to do. It would be dishonest to sell my obligation to the highest bidder."
Queen Elsa's jaw tightens. "How very . . . noble of you."
Hard to say whether or not she bought my shining integrity speech. Heaven knows I'm not an honest working man, though I could sure pass as one by the time I left Corona. Thinking of Corona, even briefly, reminds me of the Pit: the dark sucking thing in my chest that will be there until the day I die. I pretend it's not there. Otherwise, some days, it almost swallows me whole.
Shaking off the momentary relapse into darker thoughts, I concentrate again on Queen Elsa's despairing face. "I'm not going anywhere," I say.
Princess Anna is secondary to my first employer, a certain prince of the Southern Isles nursing a grudge against Queen Elsa's frosty mark on his life. Magic and I have a shaky history together, but the offer came with a hefty reward and a way to leave my homeland and all the memories it contains, so even after hearing stories about the Snow Queen, I jumped at the opportunity.
I nod at the staircase. "So, you going to show me to my new room?"
Queen Elsa lets out a short laugh, seemingly more from surprise than humor. "Room? Upstairs? There are plenty of good inns in Arendelle, Mr. Stabbington."
"An inn is too far away. If I'm going to protect you, I'll need to be close by." I take the first step up the stairs.
A flash of anger in the Queen's eyes is the only warning I get, and then suddenly I'm hoisted into the air, my entire body pressed in by freezing, powerful ice. My arms, neck, and head are my only free extremities. A swirl of ice has sprouted from the floor like a curved mountaintop, trapping me in its clutches.
Queen Elsa steps closer, looking up at me through narrowed eyes. No way am I going to give her the satisfaction of begging, but as hard as I fight, the ice doesn't even crack. The cold is penetrating; already my jaw starts to quiver, though I bite down hard to hide it.
"Let me make one thing perfectly clear," the Queen says softly. As she speaks, the ice around me grows pointy arms of its own, the deadly sharp tips pressing gently into the sides of my neck. I'm afraid to swallow for fear the motion will cause the pristine daggers to puncture. "I don't need you or anyone else to protect me. I can protect myself."
Evidently, yes. Point very nicely taken.
I keep my mouth shut.
"If Anna has given you permission to be here, I can't forbid you from doing your job without valid reason." She pauses, as if she thinks irritating her is plenty reason enough. "But you will stay away from me, do you understand?"
I manage a tiny nod. Inwardly, I'm more determined than ever to find the vulnerability of her power, if only for the sake of vengeance.
"Good." She turns and starts up the stairs.
"Hey," I croak. "Hey—you can't just leave me like this—"
"It's summer, Mr. Stabbington," she says without turning around. "Plenty of daylight left. You'll thaw before too long."
. . . . . . . .
I do, eventually, thaw.
It helps that my considerable, squirming body mass is an effective inner heat source, and that a few pitying servants happen along and help chip away enough I can reach my pick. By the time I'm out, I'm blue and shivery, but my body temperature isn't the only thing that's cooled. I'm feeling less vindictive than my slew of colorful vocabulary would have suggested when she first froze me. If I wasn't going to feed her to the wolves in due time, I might feel differently, but as the situation stands, she's only come out victor in the first battle of a war I will win in the end.
As soon as I'm out of my temporary ice prison, I get to work. I'm no scholar and have no talent or capacity for understanding magic, but I do make a pretty decent thief. I spend the rest of the afternoon learning the layout of the entire castle, and then memorize it. I pick an empty room in the same corridor as the princesses', and even though I don't see Queen Elsa, when I lay down on the still made bed after the sun has gone down, I keep my broadsword where I can easily grab it (not that a broadsword would stop her, but it makes me feel better).
Between the ridiculously too-soft mattress and worrying the Queen is going to barge in and dump me out of the room a'la blizzard tempest, I don't expect to get much sleep. Not that I sleep much lately anyway. Nowadays my only chance for relief is to stay awake for three days straight until I have no choice but to pass out in exhaustion. At least now I have something for my mind to concentrate on, namely: the quest-sized task of finding a way to neutralize Queen Elsa's power.
As the whiny prince took great pains to educate me, any magic can be separated from its host—it's only a matter of how. I'm just smart enough to see that I don't have a prayer of outsmarting the Queen. But then, I may not have to trick her. I just have to watch her—to be there in those brief moments when her weaknesses are exposed. Easier said than done, of course—especially as she basically threatened me on pain of death not to come anywhere near her. But maybe . . .
A scream shatters the night's stillness. Even muffled through the walls, I recognize it instantly. Queen Elsa.
I sprint from my room, broadsword in hand. I already know which room is Elsa's, but when I get to the double doors, they're completely frozen over. Ice leaks from the corners of the gilded doorframe, encroaching upon the ceiling and the painted walls in intricate patterns. What the hell is going on in there?
"Elsa!" I pound a huge fist on her door, ignoring the sting of cold.
A solid block of ice covers the door handle; I can't even grip it. I swing my broadsword against the thick, frozen shield, but the resulting chip in my blade is far bigger than the chip in the ice. I won't get anywhere this way. "Elsa!" I pound again. The screaming has stopped. I don't know if that's good or bad. I feel panicked, but I don't stop and ponder the source of my desperation. I doubt it's solely for her well-being. Maybe I just don't want anyone else doing my job for me.
I raise my fist to pound a third time, but before I can, the ice begins to disappear. Slowly but surely it sinks back into the Queen's room as if pulled by an inner source of gravity. I stand there, blinking stupidly, my sword hanging at my side, and the doors creak open just enough to reveal a pale, faintly glowing queen.
Her platinum hair is in a loose braid over her shoulder, a white cotton dressing gown pulled snug over her shoulders. Her face is clear, placid—expressionless, almost—but there are two flushed bursts at the tops of her cheeks and her eyes are rimmed in red.
"Did you need something?" she asks quietly.
Um.
Is she serious? Is she really pretending nothing happened? She even looks vaguely annoyed, of all things—as if I interrupted her.
"I . . . are you all right?" I ask finally, feeling dumb.
"Other than being awoken by a brutish pounding in the middle of the night," she says primly, "I'm quite fine."
Okay. I mean, what the hell? I don't know what to say. I can't exactly accuse her of anything, because I have no idea what was happening on the other side of her door. Looking behind her, I see no traces of ice or snow.
After a moment of stiff silence, she adds, barely audible, "Everything's under control now." She glances up and—there—the tiniest flicker of real emotion.
"Well. Goodnight then." I glare to let her know I'm not duped even if I'm letting it go for now.
She doesn't acknowledge my glare; she only seems tired. "Goodnight." She shuts the door.
I blow out a long breath and go back to my room. This is going to be a long, weird, weird month.
