Following Princess Anna's hurried words, unrest had returned to the ballroom tenfold. The faint buzzing of the crowd of dignitaries quickly became loud, frenzied vocalizations of fear. A few of the more brave - or perhaps more restless - guests began to mill about the hall in search of an alternative exit that didn't exist, a strategy that only exacerbated the shared sense of confusion. One of them even tried to open the frozen door to the side, giving the knob a shaky pull before pulling his hand back in stinging pain. Above the hall, the crackling of the flames tearing through the queen's wing lent a fittingly uneven rhythm to it all.
"Hey, hold on a minute," Kristoff attempted from his post at the archway, but his call was lost in the swirl of noise and movement.
The ice master exchanged a look with the guardsman beside him. Isaac looked every bit as helpless as they both felt. The volume of the confusion in the hall was only growing louder and it was nearly certain that none of the noble guests would care for their alleged protectors' opinions. They were powerless to stop the chaos.
Across the room, towards the back of the crowd still clustered along the far wall, a corpulent man eyed the two men warily. He had seen Kristoff's mouth move in vain and presently wondered if the other men would do anything more to put an end to the pervading madness. He shook his head dismissively when they redoubled their pressures on their respective doors, signaling that they wouldn't even try.
The diplomat was disappointed. He had expected more from guards endorsed by the princess herself.
The foreign agent started towards the front of the ballroom, maneuvering his unusual stockiness through the panic with minimal effort, carrying himself with self-assured steadiness around every obstacle. As he neared the center of the hall, a particularly worry-stricken guest lurched in his direction. He saw her movement before it was even made, correcting his own course with a quick sidestep before the potential collision without so much as slowing his pace. A few of his fellow dignitaries gazed at the man admiringly for a moment as he passed, temporarily awoken from their panicked state by his familiar, fine, imposing stature. A fleeting sort of calmness seemed to follow him through the crowd, almost as if his exaggerated propriety was not only his own but something passed to those around him through some mysterious force.
After a while, the man definitively broke away from his peers and, still holding his posture high, closed in on Kristoff and Martin at the entrance.
"Open the doors," he gave the order with the almost casual tone suitable for one who had given many before. His head was raised at an angle suggesting superiority, his eyes narrowed and set perfectly to look down upon his company.
"Excuse me?" Kristoff asked, turning around while still leaning back against the entrance securely.
"Open the doors," the diplomat repeated with proper smoothness. A few of the closer guests to him became aware of his predicament and now started a wave of hushes that coursed through the splintered crowd. The fat man counted the seconds it took for relative, interested silence to return to the hall and then added, "now, if you would," to his nonchalant demand.
"You want us to open these doors?" Kristoff asked incredulously. "Are you insane?"
"Yes, I do," the man stated with more than a hint of condescension, "and no, I am not."
"Then you realize that the Dark Mage is still out there," Kristoff said.
The dignitary nodded with a slight eye roll, clearly annoyed.
"Then why would you even suggest that we-"
Suddenly, laughter fell out of the agent's mouth, sounding like little more than a calculated social act. He glanced over his shoulder, ascertaining that everyone was paying good attention.
"There's nothing to fear from that fool outside," the man said finally, his apparent merriment fading. "Surely you've noticed by now. He's a phony, of course - a fake!"
The hall - save for the speaker - inhaled suddenly. No one dared to follow the assertion with any words of their own, however. Even Kristoff had been silenced and now awaited further explanation from the other man with a furrowed brow.
"You're joking," the diplomat spoke with a flat, arrogant, mocking surprise to the reaction. "I thought everyone would have picked up on it by now."
"Tell us what you mean," Kristoff mustered up the courage to say, the effort alone enough to cause his face to flush in intimidation.
"Notice anything?" his opposition answered with a question of his own, half-heartedly cupping his hand to his ear, encouraging his audience to listen carefully. By then, the only sound in the hall was the light clicks of the inferno above. After a few seconds, the fat man continued. "This Dark Mage has been rather quiet, hasn't he?"
The crowd murmured in consideration. They had heard not taunt nor proof of magic from the attacker since he had succeeded in setting the queen's wing ablaze.
"That doesn't matter. He could still be out there, you know," Kristoff said, hesistantly voicing his concerns.
"Yes, I would assume so," the agent's demeanor went undisturbed. "I'm not suggesting that his silence in an indication of his departure. No, I'm fairly certain that it's merely an indication that he's run out of magic," he continued matter-of-factly. "If you could even call his parlor tricks magic, in any case."
The man spoke on an entirely different level than those surrounding him and looked rather pleased by it. The crowd and their reluctant advocate in Kristoff were stunned by his statements, so he proudly proceeded.
"If I had to guess, I would say the fellow had quite a bit of firewood tucked under that cloak of his - that's why he wouldn't move from that stage. He probably has a striking device of some sort, too. I suspect he has run out of wood, though I suppose he could be short on matches as well. Either way, he is no danger to us now."
The diplomat's words still went unmet.
"You all must have seen how his so-called magic always seemed to drop from his sleeves," the agent looked over his broad shoulder once again, though he was not truly expecting to find anything. He opened his mouth to another slight chuckle. "You all must have been looking for his trick the moment he claimed to be a villain from a children's book."
The ballroom remained quiet as, all at once, those present rewound their memories. The heavy man before them certainly had a point. It was true that the alleged Dark Mage's flames had always been summoned weakly from somewhere under the folds of his costume, and the figure had been unyieldingly rigid in his positioning at the center of the courtyard.
"Who are you?" Kristoff was once more the only one who dared to speak following the mass realization. Perhaps it was because he was one of the few who did not know the answer to his very question. The ice master regarded the diplomat, a weathered gentleman, with an impressed squint as he waited for an answer. The other man's thickness seemed to exaggerate his age even further than his wrinkles and thinning, gray hair, yet he stood with the majestic regality of a young and well-trained prince. His bearded chin had not left its upturned position for the length of the encounter, clearly denoting that he was a man who always thought that he was in control of a situation. Often, he was correct.
The entire crowd behind him was entranced by his very manner and hung on his every word when he graced them with his response (despite most of them having already made his acquaintance at some time or another).
"I am Ambassador Malhaas Balan of Geralde," the diplomat's head tilted downwards for a fraction of a second before returning to its original position. "Very nice to meet you," he said disingenuously. "Now, if you would," Balan gestured towards the door.
"How can we know for sure that it's safe? How do we know that your theory is right?" Kristoff asked. He remembered Anna's orders - he was supposed to keep the doors closed.
Unfortunately, the ice master was quite outmatched.
"Theory?" Balan mocked with a biting coolness that suggested a great, sarcastic offense. "I rarely hear my observations called theories. Open the doors. I want to have a chat with this Dark Mage. I believe he has ruined a rather important evening for all of us."
There was a clamor of agreement throughout the ballroom and any semblance of control that Kristoff had retained to that point was gone completely. The ice master could only step aside as a few of the impassioned guests pushed past him and Isaac and opened the double doors themselves, connecting the hall to the courtyard once more.
After leaving the dungeon and starting off in the direction of the ballroom, Elsa was quite surprised when she began hearing the mysterious crackling. The sounds were anomalies, as Elsa was sure that Anna had told her that the caretakers would be dismissed for the evening on account of the festivities. By all means, the lowest floor of the castle should have been empty, and yet the light whispers continued and grew even louder as the queen traversed the bright, painting-laden hallways. She was unable to place the noises in their faintness, but she had the feeling that unwanted company joined her, floating above and around the rooms in her twisted route to the main staircase.
When she heard several far-off bangs and accompanying shouts, the intrusions into the silent basement suddenly became more alarming than merely perplexing. Elsa stopped immediately, instinctively turning around completely to face the shrieks.
"Anna," she breathed out, recognizing one of the screams.
It had unmistakably been the princess's voice. Questions raced through the queen's mind, though they were overridden by her compulsion to take action.
"Anna!" she called, dashing backwards through the path she had just taken from the dungeon. The louder noises had come from somewhere beyond the prison's colossal entrance and, as Elsa flew past it, she could begin to hear the continuing, quieter clicks with increasing clarity, positively identifying them as the sounds of excited flames. "Anna!" she yelled again, her sister's previous screech replaying itself in her mind and amplifying her worry.
The queen's fears were confirmed when the princess did reply to the final shout with frantic rapidity.
"Elsa, help!" Anna cried from the foot of the staircase that emptied into one of the floor's many side halls.
Her sister took note of her general location and cut through a display room to her left, still relatively far away.
The princess twisted out of Martin's weakened grip. The guardsman had succeeded in shielding her from the flames and the impact of their fall only by taking the full burden upon himself. Anna stood and looked down upon the man, who now lay unconscious just below the final step. His forehead was bruised severely - the injury likely to have knocked him out - and the rest of his body had sustained many burns in tumbling through the fire. His observer's eyes grew wet with responsibility as she assessed the damage. In her peripheral vision, she could see the inferno continuing its descent down the steps, closing in on their present position unhindered by any door at the staircase's foot.
"Where are you?" Elsa called. She hurried through yet another hallway and, despite her uncertainty, turned the corner at the end and ran even faster down the next.
"We're at the servant staircase over here!" Anna volleyed back over the roar of the flames. "Come quick!" she bent down and took Martin's shoulders in her hands, struggling only slightly because of her reasonable soreness as she worked at dragging the guardsman away from the steps.
She was capable of pulling him, but such a task would be anything but speedy. It only took a few barely-effective tugs and a thoughtful glance upwards at the spreading fire for the princess to know that it would be impossible for them both to outpace the flames.
Still, Anna kept at it, grunting with determination as she yanked at the man's shoulders. She refused to think for a moment of leaving Martin behind.
The fire jumped out of the enclosed staircase and into the open hallway that was its landing. It sputtered as it rolled along the carpet and tore across the green wallpaper. The room transformed around the princess and guardsman, becoming a hellish portal at a rate just slow enough to taunt them and just fast enough to follow through. Flames started to lap at Martin's slow-moving boots and Anna squealed, her fingers now sweaty with the renewed heat losing their grips on the man.
Elsa turned the corner into the hallway. Both of her hands swung out in natural unison and with them came flurries of white energy that curved gracefully around her sister and the guardsman. Once they had been passed by the magic, Elsa flicked her wrists upward, exploding the cool bursts of power into countless crystals that were static in the air for just a moment before distributing themselves evenly onto every surface in the far half of the hall. The diamonds of energy glided into the flames with an urgent perfection, extinguishing the whole of the blaze and revealing what remained of the room underneath with a simultaneous, climactic hiss of steam.
The queen made an additional gesture with her right hand, willing a wall of sturdy ice to rise impossibly out of the staircase's bottom step. The block started to melt immediately, but it successfully stopped the inferno's spread for the time being.
"Are you alright?" Elsa finally asked, dashing over to her sister and pulling the young princess into a hug from her side. For a few precious seconds, they shared the embrace, however the memory of the evening's events returned to the queen all too soon. Her arms dropped from around Anna and, although she felt restricted by the circumstances in expressing her emotions fully, a bitterness passed between them as if something profound and biting had indeed been said.
Her sister recoiled from the feeling with a small shudder. "Elsa, I'm-"
"What happened?" the queen demanded in harsh interruption. There was no time for any of that. She looked forward through her rapidly shrinking frozen blockade to the flames beyond, astounded by their ferocity. Elsa could not tell for sure, but it looked as if the blaze reached all the way up to her wing. Apparently, the princess did not answer quickly enough, because her sister repeated herself coldly. "What happened, Anna?"
Anna explained as best and as quickly as she could. She spoke of the Dark Mage's arrival following Elsa's untimely departure, of his threats to the performer, and of his grand feats of magic. She recounted the shattering of the fountain and the attempts on the ballroom and finally the origins of the inferno that now ravaged the queen's wing. The princess ended with her journey alongside Martin through the flames to retrieve her sister.
"We had nowhere else to go," she explained. "He wrapped himself around me as we rolled down the stairs. I..." Anna trailed off, gazing at the incapacitated guardsman with guilty pity.
Elsa didn't follow her sister's gaze, instead alternating her own wide-eyed focus between Anna, Martin, and the ever-melting icy block circuitously. The story that had been spun was so ridiculous that it was believable - too far-fetched to even consider as a lie - not to mention the surrounding evidence.
After hearing the significance of Anna's tale, the queen moved with even more haste.
First, she knelt at Martin's side, inspecting his injuries with light, quick hands. "He's definitely still breathing," she commented. The guardsman reflexively winced a few times as the queen tried to soothe some of his worse - though still relatively mild - burns with thin veils of frost. "I think he will be okay," Elsa decided and rose. The queen didn't look at her sister as she moved towards the stairs and raised her hand in preparation to dismiss what was left of her conjured wall. "You should stay with him to make sure," she stated simply.
"Wait, what?" Anna asked, stepping up now from her own assumed position beside the man. "Elsa, no. You're not going up there alone. I'm coming-"
"Anna!" Elsa whispered with a power that was stronger than a raised voice. She still kept her back to her sister. It seemed like she was going to say more in the caustic tone, but she sighed instead, her voice normalizing as she dropped her hand again to her side. "We don't have time for this. Arendelle needs me. We don't know what's going on up there, okay?"
"I don't understand. I-"
"No, you never do, do you?" the queen interrupted, her tone returning to a brutality that she was instantly ashamed of. A gust of chilled wind emanated from her body, sweeping through the hallway and buffeting the flames on the steps before her.
Anna gasped in shock, though even she was uncertain of which of the surprises it was in response to.
Elsa's words seemed to hover in the cold air, their meanings palpable and suffocating.
Many things went unsaid as the weakened but relentless flames whittled away at the last of their frozen obstruction.
"Stay with Martin," Elsa ordered quietly over her shoulder. "I will come and get both of you when it is safe."
Without another word, the queen left her sister, coating the tilted corridor before her with ice to clear the way as she darted up its damp, charred steps. Once she made it halfway up, she turned and made a flourishing gesture with one hand. A block of ice resealed the staircase at the bottom and this time there were no flames to melt her barrier.
The double doors of the ballroom opened to a courtyard much the same as it had been before. Only the crescent moon above and the twinkling glows from the castle's windows overlooking the terrace - none the least of which came from the queen's burning wing - provided sparse light to the cleared terrace. As Balan had expected, the Dark Mage still stood upon his stage, barely visible. On the far side of the courtyard, where it joined with the bridge, a few curious townspeople still stood (now having lit torches with limited benefit), ready to flee further at any moment.
The Dark Mage paid them no mind. In fact, he was looking everywhere except at the bridge, rotating slowly on his roost with his head held up in concentration. To the spectators, he seemed to be watching for something in the brightness of the windows above.
The Dark Mage's hooded face was turned to his work in the queen's wing for a particularly long interval before his vigilance was interrupted and he noticed the returned light in the archway. His head snapped downwards in the direction of the ballroom.
"Oh?" he bellowed, his voice winding up to its full strength and echo through the word. "Queen Elsa?" he asked, at first unable to discern the figure that emerged from the open doors.
Even through the sudden and temporarily blinding brightness, however, it was quickly apparent that the trespasser onto the courtyard was not the predicted queen. The formidable shape of Balan became evident as the diplomat made his approach.
The Dark Mage noted the other man's impressive size - comparable to his own beneath the cloak albeit not nearly as healthily obtained. He also was struck by his unexpected guest's refined manner. For the first time in the evening, the mage felt humbled, shaken in advance by the well-dressed dignitary's ambivalence.
"Sorry to disappoint," Balan answered coolly. He descended the few steps just outside of the ballroom, steady and casual. If any worries intruded upon his mind, the Dark Mage certainly was not one of them. His voice was arrogant and just as loud as the other man's as if the two were engaged in some sort of a battle for attention. "I am Ambassador Malhaas Balan of Geralde," the diplomat declared proudly for all to hear.
The Dark Mage shifted uncomfortably but invisibly upon the darkened stage. He recognized the challenger before him as a threat in every way and prepared for his next words with warm dread.
"I've introduced myself," Balan continued, sensing his already growing dominance, "perhaps you would care to do the same?"
"Have you just arrived?" the mage asked from above, struggling to maintain his composure. While his worsening quivering was hidden by his cloak and the darkness, his voice had no such luxury.
Balan cracked a smirk at the response. "I have not," he volleyed back. "No, I have been here the whole time."
The mage paused for a moment in assumed confusion. "Then you would know that I am the Dark Mage of the Western Isles," the cloaked man called out, but he was unsure.
"I think we all know that that is not the case."
The mage hesitated again, this time for a far longer time. That was all it took for Balan's gift for observation to internally declare his own victory in the struggle.
The massive diplomat paused on a brick halfway between the ballroom and the stage - a place where his adversary could now see the smile across his face, barely still illuminated by the light pouring from the archway behind him.
The Dark Mage physically reacted to the sight, pulling his shoulders back and finally converting his terror into a recomposed response. "You doubt my identity?" he asked, his voice dubiously stable.
"Doubt is a weak word," Balan's smile grew wider. He resumed his path toward the wooden structure. In the ballroom and at the bridge his audiences breathed in rhythm with his confident, brisk pace, wanting very much to believe in his accusations but nervously awaiting their disproval.
Contrary to their expectations, the townspeople saw no grand gesture of magic from the attacker above. Instead, the Dark Mage spoke with an increasingly cracked facade of mystique.
"Stop!" he ordered thunderously, some weakness from his throat bleeding through shakily.
"And if I don't?" Balan teased.
"I'll... I'll..."
"You will hurl one of your fires at me, will you?" Balan challenged with a trace of laughter, but despite his words he did not slow down. "Believe me, I have no power to stop magic. Go ahead - please. Throw one right at me."
The Dark Mage did nothing of the sort.
"Oh, that's right, you won't," the diplomat proceeded. He was only a few feet away from the foot of the stage, veering to the left and beginning to make his way to the ladder on the opposite side. "You haven't done anything for a while, now. You won't do anything. You can't do anything. You've run out of wood under that cloak of yours, haven't you?"
The mage and his robe shook furiously in the windless night. Beneath his hood, the man's eyes darted around the lights of the courtyard, now seeking any escape that they could find and coming up hopelessly short.
"I do believe that I have you figured out, Dark Mage," Balan spat. "Your tricks were spectacular, to be sure, but they were just that - tricks. You may have a bit more flair, but you are no more magical than that hired performer up there with you!"
The Dark Mage looked down at the pile of an old man beside him on the stage, suddenly reminded of the trembling hostage's existence.
"You should have made sure that I wasn't attending before you decided to pull your little stunt," Balan jeered, full of pride. He was congratulating himself. "As foreign minister, seeing through flourishes of trickery is one of my stronger suits. Surely you did not think that you could take me in with your little ruse. It was all too easy to tell-"
"I'll kill him!" the Dark Mage's shout pierced right through the other man's ego. His voice was different, now - underscored by the scratchy, deep roar of desperation akin to that of a cornered animal. The mage bent stiffly, just enough to claw at one of the old magician's shoulders and pull him back up into a forced stand at the edge of the stage. "Stop!" he demanded.
Balan paused at the foot of the structure's side ladder, his hands already gripped around the first of its wooden rungs.
"Step back," the Dark Mage ordered. When Balan refused to move immediately, the performer was pushed further towards the perimeter of the platform with a sobbing yelp.
"Fine, fine," the diplomat conceded with considerable irritation. It would not do for an Arendellien man to die on his account. That would hamper negotiations significantly.
Balan released his hold on the ladder and took four deliberate paces back, all the while gazing up at the dangling man above him.
"Further!" the Dark Mage roared, finally back in control.
Frost and fire waged war on the queen's wing's walls, ceilings, and floors, the chaotic elements hissing in each other's company as they dissipated from the charred foundations underneath.
A Elsa was at the center of the battles, barely thinking as she sent forth her armies of magic. Ice burst from her hands in hurried, cathartic release and it was the once pent-up emotions of the evening, set willfully free at last, that painted and fizzled away in the halls.
Elsa turned from the short corridor housing the servants' staircase and onto the wing's main hallway. She instantly stopped at the new edge of the inferno, looking on in disgusted amazement. Behind her, where the fire had been relatively newly spread, the flames had always been curling off of carpets and wooden blanks, but it seemed to her that the core of the blaze was different, independent now of the rules of what used to lay underneath. The central conflagration had turned into a consistent, all-encompassing swirl; the main hallway beneath into but a skeleton of what it had once been.
Starting from above the door to her room - still blocked from view by a particularly dense portal of blackened haze - and branching inconsistently in either direction, Elsa could see that the ceiling had been eaten away completely in spots. Beyond the gaps, she noticed that the attics glowed a terrible orange. Below, the decorated carpets of the queen's wing were a thing of the past, as well as most of the planks underlying them. Only a few resilient panels remained, soot-covered and unable to conceal the view of the also burning second floor.
Elsa could not believe her eyes. It was like a nightmare - the whole evening had been, really - with equal parts fundamentally terrifying and thoroughly surreal.
However, the flames now beginning to intrude again upon the recently cleared corner of the hallway were quick to remind the queen of the reality of her circumstances. Their heat struck her in a way that, while what blazed before her could definitely be classified as a nightmare, forced her to realize that she was not safely asleep.
Once again, Elsa's eyes were drawn to where she could see the fire spreading to the attics and second floor through the holes around her. Elsa would have to eradicate the flames entirely - and fast - but such a task would easily be the most strenuous use of her powers since she had gained control.
Still staring at the fleeing flames, the queen realized what would be at risk if she were to fail in putting a halt to the spread. She thought of her sister and Martin below and then the party downstairs. She thought of Dee Daleon, too.
Reserved emotions again welled up inside of her and Elsa found that she could hesitate no longer.
The hallway howled in resistance as the queen threw her arms out with a powerful cry and waves of cold air flew from her fingertips. Teal forms seemed to rise from the hearts of the larger flames outside of the queen's quarters, fizzling into geysers that erupted as they extinguished the flames beneath. Whenever the enchanted, still-cold water dropped onto another blaze, a shower rose from it, too, creating a self-sustaining cycle of shimmering arcs throughout the hallway.
The icy water skipped around the massive corridor, impressing even its creator in its beauty and, more importantly, effectiveness. Even though her powers seemed to be capable of continuing the task on their own, Elsa didn't pull her supportive hands back until the magical fountains had eliminated all of the visible flames. She could still hear the faint crackles of hidden flames on the other floors, but she also felt the continuing pull of her powers at the back of her mind as they gave chase of their own accord.
The castle's fire would no longer be an issue, it seemed, and Elsa wasn't sure whether to be terrified or amazed by the sheer power of her magic and the emotions which fueled it. In the literal heat of the moment, she settled on somewhere in between.
The queen's next challenge would be getting through the hallway. She had planned to cross the wing and descend back into the ballroom via the main staircase; however, steam had risen from the extinguished flames before her, bathing the long room in a thick, opaque humidity. It would be difficult to traverse through the mist, especially considering the rickety spider web that was what remained of the floor. Elsa feared she may not make it to the other landing before slipping in the suffocating warmness and tumbling down through a gap into the floor below, but she had no other choice.
The queen began her cautious approach, feeling around with her feet for places where the planks under her had not been disintegrated. The warm mist clung to her, harsh against her exposed skin and making the maintenance of her icy dress a required constant effort. She allowed her conjured shoes to melt, giving her more control of her stride but making the wood beneath her feet slippery. A few times, the queen slid slightly on the slickness, recovering only with a balancing gust of cool air to the side.
After an interval of concentrated navigation, Elsa stood on a narrow walkway on the opposite wall outside of the door to her quarters. The cloud of fog surrounding her had thinned slightly - exposing a fairly safe path through the rest of the hallway - and she could no longer hear even the quiet crackling of flames.
Feeling a bit more optimistic about the situation, the queen prepared to continue and had just taken another step when the newfound silence of the scene was interrupted by a faraway shout.
"Further! I won't ask again!"
Elsa snapped her head in the direction of the perpetually mist-covered portal to her right. Although the voice's volume had been weak, it had clearly come from that direction. She remembered Anna's tale, assuming that the yell had filtered from the courtyard in through her own room's broken window.
"I swear that I'll kill him, I'm not joking around!"
Someone was in danger.
Elsa tried to think quickly. While crossing the rest of the main hallway to the staircase would be easy, reaching her room even from her present position looked like a challenge. The fire had originated outside of the door and thus that area of the floor had been the first to have disappeared. Through the dispersing steam, it was clear that the space reaching from the entrance's mouth to the queen's current perch was devoid of planks. Even if Elsa were somehow able to make it across the gap, she could not be sure of the state of her room beyond the portal.
"Is there anyone else who wants to question me?" a shout rang in from the courtyard again.
Elsa saw no other option. She willed ice to sprout from the plank below her and provide a crude bridge to the door. It sizzled fiercely in its inception, already beginning to melt under the heat of the pervading steam, but she kept at it, reinforcing the surface with her mind as best as she could. The queen proceeded carefully onto her walkway. Her bare feet gradually lost traction on its wet surface in their short, quick steps and, by the time she passed through the entrance, Elsa was sliding uncontrollably.
"What was that?" the roaring came - in response to some quieter comment that went unheard by the queen. "You still have faith in that witch, huh?"
Elsa slipped into her noticeably cooler (but just as steamy) room, falling to her knees in the slush that now made up the floor. She rose quickly, embarrassed even with her lack of company. The queen released the bridge behind her from her mental support to a great sizzle before examining her misty quarters.
The space had stood up much better to the blaze than the hallway had on account of its differing foundations; however, Elsa was still shocked by the destruction that the fire outside had wrought upon her chilled sanctuary. While nothing was completely melted, every portion of the room had been warped by the heat. The designs on the wall drooped, neither fully ice nor fully water. Her bed had thankfully not caught, but was soaked by the sweat of the ceiling above it. Only the back corner of the room remained untouched: a small square of unaffected icy flooring beside the broken window and, atop it, the queen's treasured mirror.
There was the sound of an impact through the window - the unmistakable reverberation of skin hitting skin.
Elsa trudged through the half-melted room, causing small ripples in the infirm flooring. Finally, she reached her destination and looked out upon the courtyard through the far wall's shattered pane.
The queen assessed the situation quickly, unsurprised to see the shadows of the Dark Mage and his captive on their shared stage just as Anna had described. She noticed the diplomat below them, hands raised in reluctant concession, and the frightened townspeople at the gate.
"Anything else?" the Dark Mage's words continued to boom, his question directed towards the hostage whose face now bled on account of the recently delivered punch. The performer winced in pain, but did not speak. "That's what I thought. Now-"
"Let go of him!" Elsa called out of the window. Everyone on the terrace looked around in shock for a moment, unable to place her in the darkened queen's wing. Hope welled within the majority of them. They all knew who had given the order. Even the Dark Mage could deduce whom the stately voice belonged to.
"Queen Elsa!" he bellowed with an odd amount of excitement. Under his hood, the mage's eyes twinkled as he looked to the upper windows again, trying to locate the source of the demand. "We were beginning to worry that you wouldn't be joining us."
Elsa brushed off the taunt and repeated her demand. "Release him," she said firmly. "Do it now."
"I'd be happy to," the Dark Mage answered, though his hands stayed unmoving on the old man's shoulders. "First I'll need you to reveal yourself, though. I'll need some insurance that I won't be blasted with ice as soon as I let him go."
The queen paused. The thought of attacking the man with her powers had not even occurred to her. In truth, she was unsure of her ability to consciously direct the magic at someone else. Elsa did not want her powers to be responsible for anyone's harm ever again - not even the imposing mage - especially considering the power it had exhibited just minutes before. Thoughts of William Daleon raced through her mind, distracting her.
The cloaked man picked up on her silence, continuing with a pained chuckle. "That was your plan, wasn't it?"
"No," Elsa contended from the window. She shook her head to snap out of her memories. "I will not harm you, you have my word. Please, just put him down."
The promise was unsatisfying to the mage, who still pivoted from side to side in vain search of the hidden speaker. He noticed that his flames were no longer visible inside of the building and correctly guessed her to be somewhere in her wing, however a mere assumption would not be enough for his purposes. "I want to see you," he insisted.
Again, Elsa hesitated. There was no way for her to know what the exact capabilities of the Dark Mage were. She knew that exposing herself would be an incredibly risky move to make.
Unfortunately, when the performer whined as he was jerked forward and only his heels still touched the edge of the stage, the queen was forced to act.
"Fine!" she begged suddenly. "Fine!"
The Dark Mage pulled back on the hostage's shoulders in order to return him to relative safety. The eyes under the hood scanned the high windows of the queen's wing again impatiently.
In a flash of pale light and a clattering of additional glass, Elsa sent energy shooting through her room's broken window. It hovered outside and twirled in the newly-chilled air for a short time as it awaited her will. Finally, the sparkling form swept downwards. It drifted towards the brick surface of the courtyard gracefully, depositing a rapidly materializing staircase of ice along its path.
The queen hurdled through the window frame - now fully emptied of glass by her magic's accompanying gust - and stood on the top step just as her powers finished their construction.
"There she is," the Dark Mage hissed instantly upon seeing the display.
"Release him," Elsa reminded the man of their deal.
"Of course," the mage tossed his hostage to the side and the old man landed in a mess on the stage, inconsequential in his captor's eyes. There was something hungry about the Dark Mage's posture, now, and an undertone of finally realized anticipation in his statement. Elsa got the feeling that his focus was fully on her - that he had been waiting for her.
"What is your purpose here?" the queen asked bravely, her voice as steady as she could manage. "Why did you set fire to the castle? Why do you threaten the people of Arendelle?"
"The same reason that you whipped up your storm, Queen Elsa!" the Dark Mage howled in response as if he had expected the inquiry and prepared his answer long in advance. "Who am I to contain the destruction of our mutual gift?"
Elsa was shocked by the reply and its immediacy. "What?" she asked, her quiet question only barely making it down the steps stretched out before her.
Destruction.
"You're lucky," the Dark Mage bellowed, clearly no longer addressing only the queen but ridiculing the entirety of their audience as well. "You've been blessed with subjects so oblivious that they've already forgiven you for what you've done. It's only been one month since your magic nearly brought this kingdom to ruin, yet here they are celebrating it!"
The words cut into Elsa, now more than just the vague taunts of a clear enemy. Her deepest fears - the opinions that for their pain she had hoped were hers alone - filled the courtyard.
What you've done.
"I can't allow for such desecration of the power that we share," the mage continued relentlessly. "These people," he gestured to the coincidentally empty courtyard, "have forgotten what magic is!"
Elsa looked around from the Dark Mage and the performer to Balan and then the villagers at the gate. They all watched her on the conjured staircase. She couldn't see any of them clearly in the darkness, however her toxic mind placed imaginary expressions onto their faces in the place of her eyes. Suddenly, they all were inspecting her with the suspicion that she felt that she deserved.
What magic is.
"Have you forgotten, too, Queen Elsa?"
The queen shook her head weakly, the motion reserved, imperceptible in the night. Images flashed through her mind rapidly - a young, unconscious Anna with a white streak in her hair, a kingdom blanketed in snow, a man with an icy spike pressed to his neck, a once grand hallway's walls replaced by fire and then frost, and an unknown farmer dead beneath a cover of cold and broken wood.
Elsa would never allow herself to forget - even if the others had.
The Dark Mage did not wait long for a spoken answer. "Here," he bellowed, dropping his arms back to his sides, "how about I show you."
The beginnings of a new flame appeared in one of his hands.
"Impossible!" Balan cried, his attention ripped from the queen and back to the stage as soon as he heard the first crackles of fire. "You ran out of wood!" he insisted in disbelief. The fat man stumbled backwards but fell, plopping to the ground only a few yards from the foot of the central structure. "You're not real!"
The Dark Mage shuffled slightly to face the diplomat, all the while shifting his gloved fingers around the growing fireball. "You're very insistent," he growled menacingly. The cloaked man rose the flame into the air and joined his hands together underneath the mass that was quickly becoming too large for one of them to hold alone.
"No! Stop!" Elsa pleaded. She dared not to use her powers, instead opting to start down the stairs below her in a run, taking them two steps at a time. "Please stop!"
The Dark Mage refused to move from his position, however. He seemed to completely ignore the queen, his arms raised high in the air in preparation to send the fireball hurtling to the ground.
"Please!" Elsa, now halfway down her staircase, shouted again.
Finally, the mage reacted.
His massive frame turned with incredible swiftness - implying that such a movement had been his plan all along - and he was instantly facing in Elsa's direction again, the fireball above him so huge that the beacon now easily dwarfed his previous creations with its magnitude and brilliance. "You must be reminded!" the Dark Mage roared, his form an embodiment of sheer anger that no one present could even begin to understand.
The man under the robe started to swing the flames forward into a pitch, but the fireball never left his hands.
What transpired after the Dark Mage's final declaration was a blur to everyone as it happened and even more so after the fact. So much occurred in a single moment that no one in the courtyard truly saw all of it.
The crowds at the gates and in the ballroom screamed in terror. Elsa's arms flew out on their own in magical defense. The performer on the stage suddenly kicked his foot out and caught the back of his captor's left leg.
The Dark Mage was thrown off balance before he could throw his fireball and his knees hit the hard wood of the stage. The accumulated flames slipped out of his hands, piercing a hole through the wooden floor beside him and careening into the center of the structure.
Many hisses filled the courtyard as the fireworks within were all set aflame at once.
"Close the gates!" two informed guardsmen - one in the ballroom and one at the bridge - shouted in unison. "It's going to blow!"
There was the sound of the huge doors swinging shut before the entire terrace erupted into a swirl of multicolored, dancing, screaming flares.
Balan shielded his face uselessly, Elsa felt weightlessness as ice shattered beneath her bare feet, and the two magicians on the stage were consumed in the center of the explosion.