Anna tasted blood and spat onto the carpet, head heavy with fog. The assassin had stepped past her and was closing in on Elsa's bed, belt knife in hand. She could see the dangerous glint of the metal as he moved on stealthy feet and struggled to stand. The cutlass she had wrestled from him lay only inches away, and she grabbed ahold, jamming the tip of the blade into the floor and heaving herself onto her only other functioning knee. Suddenly, Anna was back on the fjord watching helplessly as Hans stalked towards a weeping Elsa, sword raised ready to cleave her head from her shoulders. The terror of that moment came flooding back like it did in her nightmares.
"Get away from her!" Anna screamed as loudly as she could, hoping that if she distracted the man for a few seconds longer the guards would arrive. The assassin's eyes flicked over to her, but he seemed unconcerned about the princess and gave her a tight, malicious smile. The bastard was enjoying this! Well, that is until a wave of bitter cold washed over him. Snapping his head around, the assassin was just in time to see the queen slide from her bed and lock nearly glowing white eyes on him. He seemed genuinely surprised to see his query confronting him and hesitated, and that was his first and last mistake. Elsa lashed out, throwing her left hand into the space between the two and letting an arctic blast slam into a stunned assassin.
Anna could hardly believe what she was seeing. The man rolled past her, arms and legs flopping uselessly as the brunt of Elsa's power assaulted him like a maelstrom. He didn't stop until he'd reached the far wall next to the door and struggled to stand. Clothing frozen solid, he was only able to straighten fractionally before another arctic blast hit him, and he covered himself in a vain attempt at protecting himself from the cold. When Elsa's barrage ended, Anna heard the unmistakable click of a small crossbow being loaded and watched him raise the shaking weapon until it was level with the queen.
"No, Elsa!"
The arrow leapt from the small weapon, cutting through the cold air with an audible hiss. Anna tried to watch the flight of the deadly projectile but lost it in the darkness. The thud of the bolt finding its mark made bile force its way into Anna's throat, and she nearly gagged. She turned, fully expecting to see her sister clutching a crossbow bolt protruding from her chest, but the arrow never made its journey to the queen. Instead, it had buried itself in a sheet of translucent blue green ice feet from Elsa.
The queen lowered her hand and the ice wall fell, taking the bolt with it. Now there was true fear in the assassin's eyes as he watched Elsa stalk towards him, turbulent white eyes alive with power. When she raised her hands for the third time the temperature in the room took a massive dive, long shards of ice crystalizing along the ceiling and walls, groaning and crackling as it spread. Behind the queen a flurry of angry snowflakes was quickly forming like a buzzing halo.
Anna knew what was about to happen, her memory flashing back to the moment in Elsa's ice castle when her sister had struck her with her power, and scrambled behind the first piece of furniture she could find. The chair would provide little protection from what was about to come, but something was better than nothing. That thought had just left her head when she heard the concussion of Elsa's power rip from her body and felt knives of ice rattled against her makeshift shield. The temperature in the room continued to drop until Anna could clearly see her breath hovering around her head like a fog. When she was sure the coast was clear, she peaked over the side of the chair and gasped at the damage. Thick sheets of ice covered everything, locking furniture in at least a foot of glistening blue wonder. Even the fire in the fireplace had frozen over, tongue of red and orange extinguished but their icy fossils remaining.
With this much ice coating everything, Anna instinctively knew the assassin hadn't stood a chance. She glanced over at the other side of the room and felt her stomach twist. He had frozen in mid scream, hands out in front of him as he tried to ward off the blow, his cold, dead eyes shining with a primal fear.
Serves the bastard right for trying to kill the Snow Queen, Anna thought as she huddled behind the chair, body shivering. Movement brought Anna's attention back to the center of the room. Her sister had moved a few steps closer to the assassin, each footfall echoing with bursts of glowing blue frost. She stopped in front of the man, head canted to one side in an eerier expression of curiosity.
Slowly Anna stood, hissing as she did, and limped out around the chair using the cutlass as a makeshift cane. No doubt the bastard had broken her knee when he'd flipped her. She'd be hobbling around on crutches for months, and the idea galled her to no end. No sparing matched with Revel meant her evenings had just gotten a little less bright. She'd have to berate the Captain next time she saw him. Apparently he needed to be a little more aggressive if she was going to learn how to take a punch and not fold. Anna carefully picked her way across the ice and leaned heavily against one of Elsa's frozen bed posts, shivering as the true extent of the rooms arctic temperature hit her. She was still wearing her sundress which gave her no warmth or protection. Had the blankets on the bed not been locked under a foot of ice she'd have wrapped herself in those.
"I t-think y-y-you got h-him," Anna shivered, left hand across her chest attempting to rub warmth back into her right shoulder.
Elsa's head whipped around at the sound of Anna's voice, and the princess felt the same primal fear the assassin had before he died ripple through her. Turbulent white eyes aglow with power locked onto Anna's blue one and held her in place like a wolf staring down a potential meal. Anna felt herself shrink back even though Elsa was across the room.
No, Elsa, what's happened to you?
Anna tried to swallow her fear but the lump in her throat just wouldn't go away. Instinctively she knew the woman standing across the room from her wasn't her sister. Her sister didn't have eyes like predator. This was the animalistic fear every human felt when threatened taking on a physical form. Elsa was like a wounded animal lashing out at her attacker, but Anna had a sinking feeling her sister wasn't seeing the princess in front of her but rather another enemy that needed eradicating.
"Elsa it's m-me," Anna said moving away from the bed towards the window with lurching steps. Her broken knee made it hard to keep her balance on the ice and when the tip of the cutlass slipped on a particularly slick bubble of ice she planted both feet for balance and nearly went down as pain swallowed her leg. Recovering quickly, Anna braced herself against one of the overturned chairs and stood again, a shaky laugh squeezed from her throat.
"Guess I'm n-n-not as c-careful as you on—"
The cutlass handle in Anna's hand suddenly frozen over and exploded, shards of metal biting into her palm. The princess screamed, toppling over and hitting the ground with a jarring thud. Whimpering in pain, she clutched her hand to her chest, hot blood pooling in her palm and spattering the floor where it froze almost instantly. Past the roaring sea in her years, Anna heard the cracking and splintering of ice as her sister neared and knew if she didn't get up she was as good as dead.
Not surprisingly, the temperature in the room took another drastic dive, and Anna felt the effects like a physical blow. It wasn't just cold in Elsa's room, it was stupid cold, it was mind numbingly cold, it was deathly cold. Anna's breath didn't even have the heat energy to fog as she heaved herself up onto her one good knee, every inch of exposed skin frighteningly numb. It was like being back on the fjord again. Slowly freezing to death, fingers turning blue, Anna had felt what it was truly like to be cold, and she was reliving that nightmare again in her sister's room.
"P-p-please, Elsa it's m-me! It's Anna!"
The queen took a predatory step forward, snow flurries building behind her once again like a cloud of angry hornets. Anna had no choice but to use the iced over chair as her support, leaning half on half off, her left arm shaking with the effort of holding herself up while the right hung uselessly at her side. A blast of arctic wind buffeted her and she hissed through the pain, head bowed.
"Elsa, I'm…n-n-not going t-to hurt…y-y-you."
The queen didn't seem to think so and raised her right hand, face still an emotionless mask but eyes burning with anger. She channeled the flurries until they'd accumulated into a cohesive ball at her palm. Anna saw her death looming toward her and knew that this time no amount of love or tears would bring her back from the grave. But it wasn't fear she felt staring at the blue ball in her sister's hand, it was sadness. This wasn't Elsa, this was her fear, and when her sister finally awoke from the spell her powers had put her under, Anna knew what she'd find waiting for her. It was a horrifying mental image, Elsa's nightmare made real once more, her sister dead by her hands. Had Anna had the ability to shed tears she would have, but as it was she decided to do the most reckless thing that came to mind since death was surely imminent. She dove for her sister and wrapped her long arms around her neck, squeezing tightly. This close and she could feel the bite of the magic in Elsa's palm like a knife pressing into her gut. This close and the cold rolling from the queen was completely shattering, Anna's skin freezing almost instantly. This close and Anna knew her life was forfeit, but she wouldn't go without holding her sister one last time.
"Control it," Anna whispered into her sister's ear, teeth gritted against the pain, "Control it, control it, control it! Elsa I k-know y-you can control it! Please, d-don't shut m-me out again. Come back." Then more quietly, "I love you." She held onto her sister, a woman who she'd loved since birth despite all her flaws and shortcomings, refusing to let go even in death.
But death never came.
Anna was prepared to feel the cloying hands of death drag her back under like they'd done two years ago, but they were absent today. The blackness never came. The emptiness never came. Anna opened her eyes ever so slightly, eyelashes momentarily sticking together. The angry snow flurries had died away and, if it wasn't her imagination, the room seemed to be getting fractionally warmer. That or she really was freezing to death.
Elsa seemed to snap out of her primal need for self-preservation, white eyes slowly returning to her natural cerulean blue as thought and reason returned. It took a few moments for her power to calm but when it did she took in a sharp breath like a swimmer coming up for air.
"Anna?" Elsa asked in a voice laced with confusion. Her arms snaked around Anna's waist and pulled her close, not realizing her sister was quite literally hanging off her. She seemed to notice her room for the first time and gasped. "Oh God, what have I done?"
"Nothing short of amazing," Anna whispered with a drowsy smile, her body too cold to shiver any longer. Her strength finally left her and she slid to the icy floor in a crumpled heap.