Chapter 15: Visions of Frozen Summer

Anna was still inside her mother's memories, watching the seasons change again, until it finally changed to summer—last summer, Anna realized. It was a late July morning, and the Bandits were making their way along the coastal road, far north of Arendelle. Idunn was trying to convince Askel that they should move to boats, for faster ocean travel.

"Your Majesty, that would make us pirates. We're not pirates," was all he would reply.

"With the fire-stone, we could even have a magic-powered boat. We'd be better than pirates. We could out-run any ship in any fleet," Idunn said. She looked on over the road. Always muddy and sticky, always making everyone look sickly, she thought before looking over the rest of the bandits. Well I doubt anything could make this band not look sickly.

Anna could still hear the thoughts, riding as a passenger in her mother's memory. So she still sees everything with that heightened sense of ugliness, Anna thought.

Walking along the road, Idunn stumbled, nearly falling on her face. What caused her to lose her balance was a vision. The world around her faded from her sight, replaced with a room lined with forest green wallpaper. Below her was a pair of hands holding a candlestick and music box, both of which were slowly frosting over.

The frosty hands again, Idunn thought. She had visions of them many times over the past three years, and they had never bothered her before. But this time, as the hands put down the frozen candle-stick, Idunn caught sight of a painting behind them. A painting of a man holding a scepter and orb. A man named … Agdar!

At the magical sight of her husband, a piece of Hyacinth's spell began lifting, and memories of a king and queen in a tossing ship jumped through Idunn's mind.

Memories of memories. Snippets of dialog: "the princesses need their mother." But the strongest memory was that of a reassuring hand holding hers as their ship rolled through the tempest. It was a gentle hand, with a lovely soft touch. From that seed of loveliness, Idunn thought maybe the world isn't so dark and dismal.

But as she opened her eyes and looked over the ocean, her only thoughts were of its dark depths, and violent squalls, that took this man from her. She still couldn't remember exactly who he was, only that she cared for him, and he had held her hand when the ocean was caving in on her.

All of these thoughts and memories flew by in the few moments that saw the vision of frosty hands. It distracted her to the point that when she moved her feet, they missed the ground.

"Are you all right, Your Majesty?" Askel asked.

"I … yes. I'm fine. But you are right. We shan't be using ships."

It was late evening now, and the Bandits were sitting around a campfire. Idunn sat on her own, where the shadows from the flames met the woods. She was still shaken by the memories that had been unlocked to her.

These past three years, ever since meeting Hyacinth, that sorceress has held me under her spell. Even after I escaped her garden. She still has a hold on my mind. She still clouds my memories. She still …

And all this time, what is this world around me? A world of ugliness and banditry. The only thing to drive me was the ambition to become their queen. But who was this man I remember? He was no bandit. He was a king. Was I really a queen?

Before her inner monologue could continue, another apparition passed across Idunn's vision. Those same hands, one of them gloved, the other waiving forward, firing a bolt of blue magic. The bolt hit the floor and erupted into an arc of ice spikes, driving back a crowd of well-dressed people. At the front of that crowd stood a girl in a green dress with red hair, and a necklace befitting a princess.

The princesses need their mother.

Princess Anna.

New waves of memories crashed over the queen. Standing in a palace, next to the king, and Anna jumping over both of them in a hug. "I'll see you in two weeks."

The feel of that hug, and the tenderness she felt—the world was truly an amazing place with someone like Anna in. That thought sustained Idunn, as the memory within the memory moved forward, and the King and Queen walked through the halls of the castle. The halls appeared dark, the carpets appeared worn and ground down.

Oh, no, Anna thought, even her memories are colored with this heightened sense of ugliness. In everything she sees … but not what she touches. Huh.

For the Bandit Queen, sitting away from the fire, she only had a brief respite back in the bandits' encampment before the vision went on. More icicle spikes. Fountains freezing. Then a mad dash across the fjord, as the ocean froze to ice under the envisioned feet. All the while, a swirling storm of snow twisted overhead.

Late into the night, the vision returned. This time it brought her to the North Mountain. A desolate scene of white snow topping treeless mountain spires. An unwelcoming ridgeline, not a footprint to be seen. Then, a left hand lifted in front of her, erupting out a flurry of over-sized snowflakes, followed by a right hand with similar large crystals of ice dancing softly in the air. The two hands moved together and summoned a child-sized whirlwind of snow and twigs, leaving a lumpy snowman behind.

Onward these enchanted hands moved. Up the mountain, first building a crystalline stairwell stretching across a chasm, then lifting a platform of ice that burst forth with walls and decks and doors. Not three minutes later, it had grown into a palace of ice looking over the entire kingdom, like a pinnacle of defiance standing tall at the break of day.

Wow, Idunn thought as the vision faded. Just … wow. The ice she had seen was flawless. It was perhaps the first thing she had seen in these past three years that still looked beautiful.

In the morning, she found Askel. "Something strange is happening in Arendelle. I believe that we need to venture back," she said.

"News truly travels fast," He replied. "I heard the same from a man on the road, and man was he in a hurry. Didn't even have time to be robbed!"

Idunn simply raised her eye at this.

"Yes," Askel went on. "It appears that the entire kingdom has been frozen. And not merely frosted like that June back about twenty years ago. No it seems that now the fjord has been frozen solid. Nobody will be able to sail in."

"We aren't sailing. We need to venture back."

"Is that a royal decree from the Bandit Queen, your majesty?"

"It's …" Idunn paused. She could feel the outlines of a thought, a thought that was very important she knew, but it was still just an outline. She closed her eyes and tried to fill it in. From the visions, the night before. Before the ice palace, before the snowman, before the frozen Fjord. There were icicle spikes, and … Anna.

"It is. It is a royal decree from the Bandit Queen," she answered. "We shall return to Arendelle to find the Bandit Princess."

"As you command, your majesty."

Once again the memory jumped, to three days later on the coastal road returning to Arendelle. Idunn was riding in a carriage, which was good because she was hit with a vision that would have knocked her onto her face—a vision of Anna in the ice palace, dressed in mittens and a heavy winter cloak. Although she was indoors, a gentle snow was falling all around. Swirls of ice were tossing through the air, the snow flying in a growing maelstrom of wind. The light snow had become an indoor blizzard. An upsurge of malicious magic swelling before her, and at its crescendo, the blizzard mutated into outward blast of freezing rays, catching Anna in the heart.

Anna! Idunn thought.

Before the vision faded, she caught sight of a reflection in the ice. The magical eyes she had been seeing through—the magical eyes that belonged to this sorceress of the winter. The eyes were deep blue and set in a face that was deathly pale, topped with platinum blond hair in a single braid.

Seeing this face opened new memories, but only a few—a young woman in blue gloves yelling "Don't touch me!" The same young woman, though older now, asking "Do you have to go?" And a thousand fragments of memories of the girl in between, studying with the King, or silently sitting at a dinner table trying to use a fork without getting food on her white gloves.

But as Idunn searched these new memories of that face, she couldn't find one associated with physical contact. There was never a hug, or a hand on the shoulder, or even a grazing tap of elbows passing in a narrow corridor. Instead all she could remember were sights, and those sights were colored in a dark and foul tint.

So this is the ice witch that cursed Arendelle, that cursed Anna. This is… Idunn strained her mind, sure the memory was hidden in there somewhere. This is… Elsa.

"Your majesty, are you all right?" She had returned to the carriage, and Askel was shaking her shoulder. "Your eyes grew dark and twisted, and it looked like you passed out."

"I'm fine," Idunn answered. "But we need to pick up our pace. Anna needs…"

"Anna?"

"We need to rescue her. She's been cursed by an icy sorceress."

"An icy.… Is she the cause of Arendelle's frozen summer?"

Idunn nodded.

Askel was silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts. "Consider this, your majesty. We have some magic. We have a fire stone, and a handful of other troll rocks that we don't know how to use. This sorceress froze an entire fjord. You think we can just roll into town, take this Anna away from her, and vanish unscathed?"

"We are bandits. Vanishing is our trade."

"Pardon my bluntness, your majesty, but vanishing has never been your trade. You have always had the mind's spell. Your brand of banditry has always been to hypnotize your victims and simply walk away. You have never needed to run off and disappear from an armed guard, let alone an ice witch."

Idunn was silent for a beat, then replied, "What do you suggest."

"We can steal this Anna—we Boreal Bandits can steal anything—but what we need is an escape plan, and most important of all, we need a safe haven to return to."

"Is the forest encampment not safe enough?"

"From a witch that can bring eternal winter to an entire kingdom? No, the forest is far from safe enough. We would need a fortress. Somewhere that a bit of winter will never bother it."

Again Idunn was silent for a beat, and then replied again, "What do you suggest?"

"I know of an island, in the far icy north, Spitsbergen. With an abandoned fortress of stone and ice. That could withstand any wintry assault. We can rebuild the fortress. It would be safe for your Anna."