Chapter 20
"You turned a hero into a monster. You prayed on his deepest fear; that his daughter was trapped in a prison with Fearlings, and you destroyed him. You are no Goddess. You're a coward for running." Jack pressed his staff into her neck more and she rasped when she took a breath.
"I didn't do anything that wasn't meant to happen. You wouldn't have come back if it weren't for my 'cowardice'. Hell, Earth wouldn't be like this if it weren't for me; the moon was made for Manny, if he wasn't attacked, there would be no moon. No Guardians. Nothing would be balanced." She choked out. Jack kept pressing on.
"Jack, do not kill her." He tried not to look around, but he flicked his attention to me for a fraction of a second. He must have caught the look on my face, covering his daughter so she wouldn't see her father almost kill a woman.
"What do you suppose we do with her? She's dying anyway." She made a guttural choking sound that I think was a laugh.
"Just because I'm dying, doesn't mean I'm going to die." She suddenly kicked out and knocked Jack's left leg out from under him, almost causing him to fall, but he managed to stay upright at the loss of his hold on her. She rose to her feet without a single ounce of effort and Jack suddenly doubled over. "Don't you DARE attack me when you're so full of fear and panic. They are my power source. My domain to rule over as I choose." He tried to lash out, grab her ankle, but he couldn't do anything but lie in a heap and suffer through his panic in the dark by himself. Without a second of hesitation, I slammed my foot to the ground, coating the floor in a sheet of ice that momentarily caused Ayana to loose her footing. Before she could regain her stance, I sent another wave of ice directly at her, pinning her down. The ice grew over her, encasing her in it. All but her face was covered and she was held down, but Jack continued to suffer.
"What are you trying to achieve here? You have no quarrel with Jack." She took shallow breaths, trying to keep the magic going.
"My quarrel is with those created to bring me and my creations down. Jack Frost is one such being through no fault of his own, but he is none the less." Her hands were still managing to twitch and send out distinct waves of darkness in Jack's direction. It floated through the ice and air as if they weren't there. Nothing stopped it from reaching its victim. Jack screamed in his heap on the floor, writhing in a type of pain that is never meant to be felt so strongly.
"What about my daughter? What quarrel do you have with her?" She laughed and, for just a moment, the darkness halted, but she returned her concentration to the magic.
"You don't even grasp how much power she will have. The child of a Guardian and a human is power enough, not that it's ever happened before, but the child of a Guardian and a human sorceress of the same magic? The chances of her even existing were slim and the power she will have." She sighed and smiled a menacing smile. I concentrated on her hands, trying to keep them still and stop the darkness that poured from her fingertips. Alyssa started to cry beneath her sheet, trying to push it off her face. When she didn't succeed, she wormed her hand out from under it, pointing one little baby finger at Ayana. The darkness stopped flowing to Jack, but he continued to writhe in agony, whimpering words that I couldn't distinguish.
Ayana screamed. It was a bloodcurdling sound that sent guards running, how they didn't hear us before I'm sure was her work, but now they pounded on the door I had frozen shut. I reinforced the ice coating the door, but in doing so I heard their voices.
"Elsa, what are you doing? Stop this!" Nikolai's voice rang clear through the door, and I had to believe Ayana was too incapacitated for this to be a manifestation of her magic. Once the door was sealed, I turned my attention to my daughter, not even at one year old, incapacitating a powerful 'Goddess'.
"She is not old enough! How?" Ayana's pain flared on her face, the only part of her able to move, as Alyssa pointed and held her hands out. I pulled the blanket off of her and she clapped, to which Ayana screamed and blacked out. I sank to my knees, thawing the ice unintentionally and unbarricading the door. Within seconds Nikolai's hands touched my shoulders.
"What happened?" Nikolai's voice was both accusing and concerned. Ayana lay wet and shivering, unconscious, in the middle of the room. From what I could gather none of the guards could see Jack lying a few feet away from her, still trying to pull through his panic coma.
"I can't." My mouth opened and closed with no other sound coming out.
"Elsa, you just attacked the Queen. What. Happened." Nikolai crouched in front of me now, his hands firmly gripping my shoulders.
"She. Jack." I said the words before they even registered in my mind. His grip loosened on my shoulders, confused more than worried.
"Jack? As in Jackson?" He asked. I responded automatically; nodding before I could even think to tell myself not to. A cold feeling, a feeling I've never felt in my life, crept slowly up my spine. "Elsa, Jackson is dead. He died almost a year ago." I nodded again. He shook his head at some guards who stood behind him, one moved Ayana to her bed and was watching over her, the other looked down on me like another criminal he would send to the gallows.
"He's alive." I craned my head to see over Nikolai's shoulder and see Jack coming back to his senses. He propped himself up on one arm and managed to focus his vision on Nikolai's back. A white heat flared in his blue eyes that gave him the strength to get to his feet. He had no interest in Nikolai, for once, and came over to sit beside me. He put a hand on my back and I instantly felt better.
"Elsa, you're not making any sense. Have you lost your mind?" The way he said it may have not been accusing, but what he said was. I took one of his hands from my shoulder and held it in my lap.
"I'm not insane. You just don't believe in it." He tried to pull his hand away, but I held it firmly. Jack put a hand on Alyssa's forehead, making her laugh. "You need to trust me, and believe he's alive. Believe he is alive. Please." I never thought I would ask Nikolai of all people to see Jack, but he was the only one the guards would believe and keep me from being thrown in jail or executed. He sighed and, seeing the pleading in my eyes, closed his own and concentrated. When they opened again he fell backwards.
"Hey Nik." Jack greeted flatly, clearly disapproving of my choice.
"You died." Jack laughed and stood up.
"Because that was going to keep me down." He walked to the other side of the room and glared over the shoulder of the Guard examining the Queen.
"What happened?" Nikolai asked, hopefully with a more open mind this time.
"Your mother is insane is the short version." Jack called across the room. I adjusted Alyssa in my arms and rolled my eyes.
"She's got magic of her own. She's not dying of any illness; she's in a perpetual state of death. She's immortal." Nikolai turned around to the unconscious figure of his mother lying on her bed.
"I don't understand." The look on his face, the look of panic, was churning the panic within myself. In the presence of someone who feeds on panic the two of us were not helping in keeping her sedated.
"First of all, I need you to calm down before you give her enough power to wake up. Secondly, we're going to leave this kingdom right now and sail for Arendelle." Nikolai took steady breaths, and nodded. I got up and Alyssa squealed at the sight of Jack walking back towards her.
"Elsa." His eyes were trained on his daughter. I looked down to see streaks of gold and silver flit their way along her short mess of hair, standing out against the brown.
"What happened to her?" Nikolai asked, alarmed. He almost went to pull her from my arms but he caught Jack's expression and withdrew.
"She's coming into her magic far too early." I sighed, pulling her closer to my chest and covering her with the blankets again. Jack started toward the door and melted through it, not waiting for us to follow. Nikolai rushed an excuse to the guards, smoothing the incident over and arranging the trip home before we left the room.
"My mother attacked you?" Nikolai asked along the path back to his siblings' wing.
"Yes." He kept pace with my quick strides and tried his best not to get caught on the ice patches that formed with my every step.
"How?" I sighed, wanting to wait until we had Jack to explain what he seemed to know.
"You understand who the Boogyman is, don't you? You remember who he is?" Nikolai looked away for a moment.
"A fictional entity of fear and torment to children everywhere?" He asked mockingly. I nodded.
"She was his wife before he turned into the monster. She made him what he is." I didn't understand much of their conversation, but I did know that for sure. Kozmotis Pitchiner was a name I heard many times as a child during my training.
"I don't understand. How is that possible? She's my mother. If your child developed magic through you, and Jackson, why did my siblings and I not inherit magic?" It was a legitimate question, one I couldn't answer. I climbed the stairs a quickly as I could and rushed down the hall into Nikolai's room, finding Jack floating above the rug again. Nikolai walked in and stopped short upon noticing.
"Sorry." Jack set his feet back on the ground and leaned on his staff. Nikolai closed the door and stood against it.
"How are you alive?" He demanded without another breath.
"I'm not. I'm a vessel." Nikolai shook his head and stepped forward.
"Stop with the half answers and just tell me how you are not still lying at the bottom of a lake." Jack laughed at him, pulling his feet back into the air.
"I'm a vessel for the winter Spirit. It reanimated me and inherited my memories, my life, everything, only putting enough of itself into me for me to be able to access the magic." Nikolai pondered this for a moment, trying to wrap his head around it. I lay Alyssa in Jack's arms for him to look her over. Nikolai watched the two of them with an emotional he didn't seem to be certain on.
"How did you know about this? Him?" Nikolai pointed sharply and Jack, who raised an eyebrow at him.
"I was told by the uh… being that infused him with the spirit." Nikolai sat down on the sofa, eying Jack with a cold gaze. He seems to have started believing his own lie; that Alyssa was his. "He warned me about this, in his own way." Jack dropped to the floor, letting his staff clatter to the tile.
"He what?" He set Alyssa, now asleep again, in her bassinet before he covered her in a fine layer of ice.
"Manny told me to go home, yesterday, and denounce my throne. He told me Alyssa was in danger from the Guardians' adversaries and I didn't think there would be anything I could do until Desmond agreed to let us go home, but I should have demanded it the second I knew." Jack paced up and down the room, working up a snowstorm.
"No, you should have told me. If anything I could have taken her back to Arendelle where she'd be safe until you got back." Nikolai stood up again.
"How would we explain why we weren't concerned our daughter was kidnapped?" Jack halted in his pace.
"Your daughter?" The temperature plummeted and I could see Nikolai growing uncomfortable, the white material of his uniform freezing over.
"Jack, don't. The world thinks she is his, that doesn't make it the truth." Nikolai looked hurt by my words, but at least the ice melted away and the heat seeped back into the room. Jack backed off and returned to his pacing. "Jack is right, I should have gotten him to take her to somewhere safe." Nikolai again looked hurt. My constant siding with Jack was not going to be helpful for anything.
"You trust the man who just rose from the dead?" His eyes pierced mine, willing me to say no, to go back on what I said, but I wouldn't.
"With our child's life, with my life, with anything." His jaw set and he left the room without a sound besides the slamming of the door. I sighed and turned to Jack, who slowed his pacing to a stop.
"We need to leave, now, before Pitch hunts her down." I nodded, watching Alyssa sleep.
"I need to formally announce my stepping down from the throne. I need to see my sister." He nodded and picked up his staff.
"Wrap her up tight, I'll be cold." I looked to the door and considered just leaving, making it look like I simply left Nikolai, but I couldn't do that to him. I hovered over the desk, finding parchment and quill before scribbling a note.
Nikolai
I know this has to be hard on you and it feels like I'm abandoning you, and I want to say I'm not but we both know the truth is that, even if I come back, I will come back with Jack in tow.
I'm stepping down from the throne, so Arendelle wont be your problem any more, and please don't try to make it be. Let my sister take hold of things; don't let your father get ahold of my Kingdom. Please.
If you can, ensure a proposal letter is not sent to my sister. She already has a fine suitor who I do not want to end up like Jackson did all because I had no choice but to accept.
Be the man I met when we were children and the man I was married to. Do well and be happy, if there's anything I would ever ask of you, this is all.
I'm sorry, but my daughter comes first and I cannot stay here where she can be harmed by her.
Elsa.
I left the note at the end of the bed and made a silent prayer he would find it before anyone else. Jack fashioned a sling from the fabric left in the corner of the room and I tucked Alyssa into it, bundled in blankets to keep from the cold. Jack wrapped an arm around my back and under my arms. He called on the wind we needed to carry us all the way back to Arendelle and I suddenly felt weightless. I watched the Isles pass by beneath me and held the sling tight to my chest. Alyssa managed to stay asleep, thankfully, as we crossed the sea.
"Try and push us faster, see if you can add your magic to mine." Jack yelled over the wind rushing past us. I closed my eyes a moment, not having tried anything like this before and surely not above a freezing cold body of water. I could feel the cold in the wind and grabbed hold of it, pushing us along and, before I realised I succeeded, we were half way home. "Won't be long." Jack smiled down at me before returning his attention to keeping hold of the wind.
"Have you ever gone that far before?" I asked, catching my breath as we set down just outside the castle not long past midday.
"No." He gasped air and stumbled. I caught him before he fell, but he was very weak.
"Find somewhere to stay for now, rest up, I'll go in and see Anna. She might want to see you later. And your mother…" I trailed off, remembering he didn't have any of his memories about her. For a moment he had enough strength to look at me curiously, but it faded as soon as it came and he simply nodded before limping off to find a patch of powder to lie down on.
"My Queen, what are you doing back so early?" Kai opened the door when I knocked, his face a mix of worry, confusion and concern.
"It's a long story, one I don't have time for. I need to see Anna. Is she in her room?" Kai nodded and waved me through the foyer to the stairs before leaving my side. I tried my best not to jostle Alyssa in my arms
"Anna!" I called when I was close enough to the door for her to hear me. I knocked on the wood and didn't bother to wait for an answer. I pushed into the room and was delighted with the scene of Kristoff springing away from my little sister, thankfully still fully clothed.
"Elsa! What are you doing home?" Her voice was a little higher than it should have been, but she seemed genuinely happy for the most part that I was back.
"Sorry I interrupted." I sent a big sisterly glare in Kristoff's direction that made him look away. "I need to talk to you. Now. Alone. Sorry." Kristoff gave an understanding smile and, with a kiss to Anna's cheek, left the room.