"Albrecht?!" Giselle called frantically.
He was nowhere to be found.
Giselle began to weep. Why today, the most glorious of days, with her curse gone and a better ruler at last, did the love of her life have to disappear?
Had he run off? She didn't want to think he'd run off. It seemed so unlike him. She knew he couldn't run back to Bathilde, not when she had broken off the arranged marriage for Hilarion.
Suddenly, Giselle heard a sound. It was an odd sound, like a tiny piece of ice breaking.
She looked down and noticed one of her tears fall onto what looked like an icy footprint! As soon as it touched the ice, it turned to ice and shattered.
She gasped. The ice footprints were everywhere, and they seemed to belong to women. Among them were what looked like marks of men's shoes that had been dragged through the grass and dirt.
Albrecht!
He must have been kidnapped by the ice women. Why would they take him? Was Nieve perhaps not quite defeated yet?
Giselle had to find out. She ran, following the icy trails.
Myrtha chuckled. The prince looked so foolish here, bound to an icy throne by chains of snowflakes.
Eira laughed too.
"But honestly, why is he even here, Myrtha?" Eira asked.
"You do know that Giselle had a hand in defeating Nieve?!" Myrtha suddenly snarled.
Eira fell silent at once.
"He's punishment, Eira. Giselle took from us what we adored most of all, so now, we've taken from her what she loves most!"
They both laughed.
"Serves her right," Eira said, smiling in a rather mean way.
"Unnh…"
Albrecht was stirring.
"G…Giselle? Where…am I…?"
Eira and Myrtha erupted into hearty laughter as the prince's eyes opened.
"What the…who are you?!" he suddenly shouted. "Where's Giselle?!"
"Probably crying her pretty little eyes out," Eira snarled. "Nothing more than she deserves."
"What – how dare you talk about her that way!" Albrecht snapped.
"She took Queen Nieve from us," Myrtha said coldly. "Our gracious queen was the one who liberated us."
Albrecht stared.
"What do you mean?"
"Troops, come to me!" Myrtha declared.
Soon, many more snow faeries appeared from the doorway into the icy room.
"This is our fort," Myrtha explained. "We were fools once. Fools who wore our hearts on our sleeves and got them broken. But dear Queen Nieve saved us. She punished the men who scorned us by freezing them into solid ice!"
Realization dawned in Albrecht's head. Oh no. These were no ordinary snow faeries. They were the Wilis, the highest court of Nieve's and fiercely loyal to her.
"So she liberated you by freezing your hearts?" Albrecht replied. "I suppose that's why you're so…cold." He laughed.
"Do you want to get frozen?!" Myrtha said, glaring. In her icy blue hand she held an orb of magic.
"You can do that?"
"Not as easily as our great and benevolent queen, nor as permanently, which is a shame, but yes, we can do it. And we will do it if you continue to mock us."
Albrecht shied his face away from Myrtha's hand.
"I…I did not intend to be rude. Please forgive me," he said hastily.
"You're worthless!" Myrtha snapped. "You are only sixth in line for the throne!"
"Third," Albrecht corrected. "I don't include my sisters."
"None of that matters," Myrtha laughed. "Royal titles mean nothing when you are bound to stay with us…forever."
All the Wilis joined Myrtha in hearty laughter.
Albrecht shivered. Forever. He never dreamed he would be stuck in an icy fort. It had been eerie enough facing the Snow Queen. Now, he was trapped by her army for what seemed to be an eternity, just waiting for him.
At the gates to the Wilis' fort, Giselle too shuddered. It wasn't just the ice; the fort looked ominous. Mean-looking icicles lined the gates and fences. Just like Nieve's castle, no light at all seemed to surround the place other than a cold icy blue glow.
Albrecht was in here?
She honestly didn't know how she would get him out. It seemed to be the perfect prison.
Giselle let out a fearful sigh as she approached the gates. Her icy breath touched them and froze. Her hand trembling, she pushed upon an icy bar. It was so cold that she was astounded her skin didn't turn blue.
The gates creaked and opened.
She entered. The blue doors were already ajar. She stepped into a long hallway lined with blue icicles that seemed to glare at her and shout, "Leave! You are unwelcome here!" Nevertheless, Giselle pressed on. She had to find Albrecht!
Her ballet flat creaked as it touched the first icy stair upward. Worried she would slip, she grabbed onto the cold railing. It was so bitterly cold that she thought she might freeze completely if she held on, but that didn't stop her.
The staircase soon branched off into two paths. Giselle looked from one to the other, unsure of which one to take.
Suddenly, the hearty laughter of the Wilis reached her ears from the top of the left staircase. Quickly she ran in the direction of it.
When she reached the top, she found herself behind a group of women wearing white tutus embroidered with icy blue snowflakes. Not wanting to get their attention, she crept to the side of them and saw what they were gazing upon before her eyes.
"Albrecht!"
"Giselle?!"
"What are you doing here?!" Myrtha snapped at the girl. "You don't belong here! Go back to your farm!"
"Let him go!" Giselle ordered.
The Wilis laughed yet again.
"After what you did?! Never!" Eira replied coldly.
"What I – what are you talking about? I haven't done anything to you!"
"You had a hand in the fall of our great and benevolent Queen Nieve!"
"Your grea – oh!"
They were the Wilis!
"You're…you're real!" Giselle gasped. "The Wilis…I always believed you were just a legend –"
"How dare –?!"
"Eira, hush now," Myrtha interrupted. "As she was saying, Giselle, you had a hand in the fall of our queen. You took from us what is most precious, and as punishment, we have taken likewise from you!"
"But I – you can't do that! I did nothing to Nieve other than be imprisoned by her!" Giselle shouted angrily.
"We already have done it, dear," Myrtha replied. "And to make sure you do not defy us, we will dance…forever, and ever and ever!"
She raised a blue hand and the snowflakes binding Albrecht vanished.
"What are –?" Albrecht began, but soon he found himself rising up out of the chair, surrounded by a blue glow.
Giselle's mouth opened in horror. She watched as Myrtha began moving her hands in strange patterns. Spooky music filled the air as Albrecht began to dance to it. He seemed to be following the faery's hand motions. She wondered why he was doing this for only a split second – she soon saw that her beloved's expression was one of absolute terror.
"Stop it! Let him go!" Giselle screamed.
"Never!" Myrtha declared. "You shall never be forgiven for what you've done, Giselle!"
"I haven't –"
Giselle stopped. The Wilis were quite determined to keep him entrapped.
She took a deep breath and raised her arms.
Eira and several of the Wilis gasped. Giselle was taking Albrecht's hand and beginning to dance with him.
"Giselle…" the prince half whispered.
"Dance with me," the girl whispered back. "Never mind her."
"No…" Myrtha murmured. The prince was now following Giselle, and the snow faery's control over him was weakening.
"Dance!" she ordered her troops. "Now!"
Eira and the rest shuddered and started to dance.
"May I cut in?" Myrtha asked nastily as she directed Albrecht away from Giselle and toward her troops.
"No!" Giselle shouted and danced into the Wilis' circle after her true love.
"Albrecht!" she cried.
"Giselle…" he answered weakly.
She took his hand again.
"Not so fast, pitiful farm girl!" Eira snapped as she took hold of the prince.
Giselle didn't even answer. She just took Albrecht back.
"What are you doing?!" Myrtha screeched, struggling to keep control of him. "Get him away from her!"
Giselle heard every word she said and wasn't going to let Nieve's ice-hearted army take him.
Thinking quickly, she began dancing in a circle around him. Whenever a snow faery neared Albrecht, Giselle blocked her.
"NO!" Myrtha screamed. "Stop her, you fools!"
Giselle suddenly noticed the Wilis closing in on her and Albrecht. She moved her arms upward and spun around him in a series of very quick pirouettes.
"I can't!" Eira cried out. "She's impossible to get by!"
"Useless idiots!" Myrtha screeched. "Out of the way, I'll handle this myself!"
She reached her hand out to take Albrecht's, when suddenly Giselle appeared in front of her.
"What –!"
"He's not going under your spell again!" Giselle snapped at her.
"You think so?" the snow faery cackled. "I still have him under my control –"
No sooner had she said this when she noticed that the blue glow around Albrecht was completely gone.
"What? No!" she screamed.
Out of the blue, the same blue light burst from Myrtha's hands. She gasped. All the other Wilis staggered back. Their hands were glowing too. The glow spread quickly to surround their entire beings.
"What's happening to them?" Albrecht asked in wonder.
Giselle's eyes followed Eira, the one who seemed to hate her with a passion. She was yelling and rising into the air. All of them soon rose into a huge circle around the two. The blue light filled the room and turned yellow. In that instant all of them dropped back to the ground.
A scream issued from the circle. It was Eira.
Eira looked at her hands. They were no longer blue. They were pink! Her tutu had turned from icy blue to orange, and her icy blue curls were now blonde.
She had become mortal again.
All the other Wilis were coming back to themselves as well. Myrtha's deep blue hair turned back to its natural shade of black, and in all of them, their blue skin returned to its natural color, and the ice in their eyes melted.
The ice covering their hearts was melting too.
Just as Albrecht's love had nearly broken the curse on Giselle, her love for him saved not only the prince, but broke Nieve's curse over the Wilis.
For in truth, she had stolen their compassion as well as their mortality.
Giselle observed the ice on the fort recede, revealing tan stone. Flowers were blooming in a garden that the window overlooked. The girls were weeping; the ice in their hearts had turned into tears.
Giselle and Albrecht made their way out of the fort. As she neared the staircase, Giselle glanced back and noticed that all the girls were embracing one another.
"They'll be fine," Albrecht said. "Look, they're getting by with one another. Let's leave this place."
With one final look at what had been Nieve's icy army, Giselle left without another word.