She could hear them outside of her cell—the echoes of public disenchantment.
"King Hans said this winter would come to an end, if we prayed hard enough—so why do these dark days continue?"
"Perhaps he was just trying to reassure us … anyway, I'm sure it will end soon."
"Reassure us? Don't be a fool, Fredrik. He only tells us to pray to distract us from the truth: that neither he, nor anyone else in this land, knows how to lift Queen Elsa's wretched curse."
She wanted to take some pleasure in the knowledge that the people had begun to question Hans's rule—that they were beginning to realize just how little their own king understood.
But it's my wretched curse.
The thought shattered any sliver of satisfaction she might have extracted from the exchange outside her window, and she stared out with a face full of regret.
They're my people, but they're suffering because of me.
She knew that, beyond the mere grumbles of discontent with the king, there was a general hopelessness settling over the population of Arendelle; many of the old and sick had already died from the persistent cold, and more still were threatened on account of their livelihoods being lost and their crops having died many weeks before.
The pain of knowing that it had all been caused by her own inability to control her temper, however, had by that point settled so deeply within her heart that, at times, she didn't know what to feel anymore.
But I'm sure he'll remind me, if I ever forget.
She quavered with fury as his image summoned itself in her mind, and it took her everything in her power not to throw off the gloves and burst out of her cell purely out of spite.
I can't, though.
The only thing she would allow herself to do, in fact, was to continue to refuse to eat—though even that had become a feat of extraordinary willpower.
I have to have at least this much power over my own body.
She faced the window with renewed determination, and ignored the knock on the door that signalled a fresh plate of food would soon be passed through it.
"The King says you will eat," the guard said roughly, shoving his arm through the slit and presenting the food to her, spilling some of the cabbage soup over the side of the tray in the process.
Her nose wrinkled at the smell as she turned to stare at the tray in distaste.
"And you can inform your King that I will do no such thing," she growled back hoarsely, her throat sore.
She touched her neck briefly with her gloved hand, expecting the guard—as he usually did—to withdraw the food again, and wait until the king himself came and delivered it to her in person.
That, at least, had been the routine for the past two weeks.
Instead, he suddenly tossed the tray at her onto the floor with a roar of frustration, and the turned-over soup splashed across her white dress.
"I don't know who you are, or why the King keeps you as well as he does," he began, disgusted, "but you should be damn well grateful to 'im for giving you some of the best stock the country has left, day in and day out."
She heard—rather than saw—the pure hatred he felt towards her with his next words.
"He keeps your sheets and clothes clean; he keeps you fed; hell, he even makes me bring in a damn tub for you to wash yourself in!" His voice lowered as he continued:
"And yet … you go on not eating, just as well as you please."
She stood in silence, staring at the door as he spoke.
"Well, I've had enough of this," he said finally. "If you don't want to eat, then don't eat. You can die in there for all I care."
She heard him walk away with heavy footsteps, and a mutter of "Some prisoner!" before he went out of earshot.
When she was sure he'd left for good, she leaned down, staring at the pile of turned over plates and bowls.
This is the kingdom's best stock?
She tentatively removed one of her gloves to touch the thin, watery stuff being passed off as the kingdom's traditional, hearty cabbage soup; she equally laid her hand against the small loaf of cold, stale bread that had been brought to her, rapping the top of it with her knuckles.
Have I really been so … ungrateful?
The loaf turned to ice beneath her fingertips without her even realizing it, the top suddenly becoming freezing to the touch. She quickly slipped the glove back on, though by then, the rest of the previously warm food—the thin soup included—had become frozen solid in much the same manner as the bread.
The sight made her brows furrow in repulsion at her own unfortunate power, and she clutched the responsible hand to her chest, shutting her eyes tightly.
Please let this nightmare end.
The guard's revulsion for her haunted her as she remained crouched by the door, still leaning over the icy tray.
"… you should be damn well grateful to 'im for giving you some of the best stock the country has left, day in and day out."
She thought, reluctantly, upon that comment; though her mind was clouded and tired from hunger, she knew that she couldn't deny at least some of the claims he had made.
"He keeps your sheets and clothes clean; he keeps you fed; hell, he even makes me bring in a damn tub for you to wash yourself in!"
As much as she was loathe to admit it, Hans had provided her with far more amenities in her cell than she would have ever expected him to, given how transparently power-hungry he had become since she'd first met him.
Which begged the question: why had he gone to such lengths to keep her—at the most bare, minimum level acceptable, anyway—comfortable?
He certainly hadn't given her the impression that he had wanted to, when he had first imprisoned her in that cell; rather, he had made it abundantly clear to her, on repeated occasions, that living in that tiny cell for the rest of her days was to be her punishment for her sins.
"Some prisoner."
She scowled at that last, bitter comment the guard had muttered beneath his breath, and finally stood from her crouched position.
Even if, in retrospect, she could acknowledge that Hans had "kept her well" by comparison to most prisoners she'd heard of in the past, he most certainly did not make her feel any less like one whenever he deigned to visit her cell.
Not that I deserve any better.
The reminder sent her trudging back to the hard mattress, too exhausted from her self-inflicted sickness to do much else besides lay down and try to sleep away the rest of the day.
Maybe the gods will finally let me leave this realm, this time.
With that sullen hope, she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, never noticing the dark, wide eyes that watched over her trembling figure.
A dim glow in the night greeted her eyes when she blearily awoke a few hours later.
What … what is that?
Her eyelids fluttered open and shut drowsily as she struggled to prop herself up to a sitting position. She rubbed her sunken, dark eyes, wincing in pain at the light near her—which, she began to notice, was only growing brighter.
Before she even had time to process what it was, however, she felt the sting of cold steel beneath her chin.
"Looks like you're finally awake, Queen Elsa."
She trembled at the sound of the guard's voice, her frightened blue eyes following the length of the blade up the man's armoured arm until they finally locked with his fiery stare.
"I thought it was suspicious," he murmured coarsely, pushing the blade against her skin just enough to draw a little blood from her neck. "For the King to keep a prisoner so well, in times like these … well, it's pretty unusual, to say the least." He paused, scowling, and added: "No wonder he didn't want me finding out who was locked up in here."
Drops of blood fell from her neck onto her light brown gloves, and she stared at the blooming stains with unabashed fear, her eyes searching the man's for some hint of sympathy.
"Please, sir," she said piteously, "please—don't do this."
He pressed the sword harder into her skin, making her cry out in pain as the blood flowed more quickly than before from the cut.
"Don't act like you couldn't turn me into a big ol' block of ice right now, if you wanted to," he warned her with a grim smile, eyeing her gloved hands warily. "You move those even an inch, and you'll lose more than just your hands."
She swallowed at the threat, knowing it wasn't idle—the burning look of resentment he was shooting her was enough to convince her of that—but she couldn't let herself stay silent, either.
"Aren't you going to kill me anyway?" she countered, ignoring her pain for the moment. "You may as well get it over with, if that's your plan."
He laughed at the remark, and the guttural, rasping sound made her shudder. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" he mocked her. "Gods know you can't stand being so finely looked after for the rest of your miserable life."
She returned his taunt with a scowl, though she strained herself to do so.
"Say what you must!" she exclaimed finally, and pressed herself even further into the blade. "But be quick about it, and finish what you've started!"
He suddenly withdrew the blade, and the loss of its pressure made her stumble forward, her palms pressing against the hard floor below.
The guard held a torch aloft with his other hand over her frail body, illuminating it. "No. Not yet, anyway."
She pressed one of her hands to the cut in her neck, trying to keep herself from losing more blood than she had already, and looked up at him in confusion.
"What do you mean—" She stopped, pausing to catch her breath. "What do you mean, 'not yet'?"
His grin was vulgar. "Well, it wouldn't make sense to just kill you down here without anyone else knowing that you're still alive besides me and the King, now would it?"
Her eyes grew wider. "What—what are you saying?"
He seized her roughly by the arm and dragged her back up onto her feet, ignoring her cry of protest. She kept her hand pressed to the wound, fighting to keep conscious and alert.
His grin turned cold. "What I'm saying, my Queen, is this: I'm gonna take you out of this royal suite and bring you out into the streets to face the people you condemned to this damned winter," he said slowly, "and then—after they've all gotten one last, long good look at you—I'll let 'em kill you any way they like, and your curse will be as good as lifted."
He watched with cruel glee as a faint terror stole into her light eyes at this pronouncement, and he jerked away her hand that stemmed the blood flow from her neck, allowing it to course down her collar and colour her dress a deep, dark red.
The gesture threw her off-balance again, and she staggered forward, her eyes rolling back into her head; this time, however, she felt her body hit a distinctly soft surface, and a pair of warm arms surround her thin frame.
In the same moment, she thought that she faintly heard a low, agonized grunt of pain; but by then, her vision and hearing had begun to fade, and her hold on reality was quickly slipping away.
Still, when her eyes rolled forward again, they focused just long enough to catch a glimpse of red hair, and—far below that—a large body splayed on the ground, blood pooling around it.