Freya made her first few tentative steps into the uninviting maw of the tunnel. The entrance closed behind her, more quickly than she was prepared for. The only light was flickering far off in the distance; she would have to head toward it and hope for the best. If the entire network was this dark scouting this place would be difficult. One of her feet slid from under her but she managed to stay quiet as she caught herself from falling. Upon closer inspection in the she saw the floor transitioned to pure ice. This forced her to take measured steps toward the light. Running at full speed would be out of the question due to the concentration required for footwork.
Her feet and hands began to numb as she carefully made her way forward, getting deeper into the cave-like tunnel she could feel the air irritate her skin with the increasingly chilling temperature. She rubbed her hands and blew on them in an attempt to return some feeling in them, the light rush of air echoing its way through the tunnel. She watched the steam from her breath rise to the ceiling in the dim light.
When she reached the torch that had been guiding her she got up close to the flame but to her dismay it produced no heat, yet another reason to hate the magic the Empress threw around or whatever it was that kept this blasted flame from doing half its job. She took it from the wall as it would at least light the way. She had to focus hard on gripping the wretched thing with such little feeling in her hands. She cursed the flame's refusal to help with the cold. Having put so much focus into letting the flame know her disappointment in it she was startled to suddenly be face to face with someone. After letting out a small yelp, stepping back and nearly slipping over again, it turned out just to be another sculpture. She did not recognise who the sculpture was supposed to resemble and moved on only to discover there were dozens of these sculptures spaced sporadically throughout the tunnels. They were all of people but there were no familiar faces amongst them, she wondered what purpose they were supposed to serve; decorating secret tunnels in the same manner as the city seemed redundant.
The placement of cold torches was becoming more generous as she advanced. More sculptures and branching paths were revealed along the way. Freya decided to stick to the left wall, keeping her route simple was the most effective way not to get lost in a potential labyrinth and there was no-way of knowing where these branching tunnels could lead. The ground of pure ice, numbness in her feet and thinking of the potential dangers frustrated Freya to no end. She wanted to throw caution to the wind, explore quickly and get out. Instead she was forced to creep around a dark, freezing atmosphere. She knew she could not get careless, as much as she wanted too. Her lack of patience cost her against Anton and any information gathered would be worthless if she failed to get out of this place in time.
Freya stopped dead, she had heard something. Unsure of the sound she started to listen intently. Some muttering was echoing through the caves and it was getting louder. Someone else was in these tunnels and they were getting closer. Freya slotted her torch into the wall and tactically moved some others around to provide a dark spot to crouch down in. Whoever it was had come close enough for the muttering to become clear.
"I am weak, but my faith is strong. In the halls of the frozen I will ascend," bounced around the walls over and over again. The man saying it came out of one of the side passages and turned in her direction. Freya stayed still and held her breath, the sound or the steam from it could give her away. He turned to her direction, Freya relying on the darkness to stay hidden. She was sure the man was looking directly at her but when he stepped forward into a well-lit section she got a brief view of the stranger. He wore only a thin green robe and had a pale face with eyes of pure white. He walked so close to her that when he went passed Freya, she had to squeeze into the wall as much as possible to avoid being hit by him. He was still muttering the same line to himself as he passed her. Freya decided to follow him, he might lead her somewhere interesting and his clothing suggested there could be warmer locations nearby.
She kept her distance, moving between darker areas behind him and making sure to avoid walking into the strange sculptures. She was rewarded for her caution as a pale-faced woman coming from the other direction addressed the man. She had been walking with her hands underneath the large sleeves or her blue robe. Her hands were revealed as she put them on the man's shoulders; Freya was surprised to see they were the same ice-blue as Anna's scarring and claw-like.
"You have been blessed, brother" the woman said before darting through one of the off-shoot tunnels. Freya waited to make sure the woman would not come back the same way. Despite her caution she concluded that observation was not a strong point for these tunnel-dwellers. They also seemed delusional in their demeanour; Freya started to think it might be the tunnel network's influence itself. Her strength had been sapping the whole time she was here and it became increasingly difficult to concentrate on the task at hand. The cold was taking its toll and Freya knew nothing of magic, it could be a magical influence was down here affecting her. Avoiding ending up in a lost state of mind was now of the utmost importance. If following this man was fruitless in the next few minutes Freya would turn back. There was no way to tell if the tunnel had mind bending properties but the risk was too high to stick around and find out.
Just as she was about to give up on the man, he stopped moving. It was a poorly lit area so it was hard to tell what had brought this on. Freya observed for a moment, it was still hard to think clearly so she forced herself to focus. She noticed that even the muttering had stopped. Something was wrong here so she grabbed a torch from the wall to approach the now still and silent man. The light reflected off a translucent blue robe, in her state it took Freya a moment to realise this was different to before. She got closer to discover the robe was not alone in this transformation. His entire being was now ice and in that moment the sculptures made sense. Each one had been a living person wandering the tunnels, slowly shuffling through until they became these gruesome statues. With her ability to think rationally shot, terror took hold of Freya's heart as she realised how much death was haunting this whole network. Freya dropped the torch and ran; her exhausted and numb feet meant she slipped regularly. Too disorientated and scared to take note of which direction she was running in she soldiered forward. Mercifully she came across some natural light glowing in from a side-tunnel. Freya made her way to it instinctively, no longer caring about being noticed or maintaining subtlety. She just had to be away from the ghoulish sculptures and the hysteria inducing aura the tunnels had had on her. She finally got out, lucky enough to remain undiscovered in her dash to freedom. The cold air outside the tunnel was much less punishing and the ground beneath her had stonework built into it. Freya sat in an inviting looking nook to sit down in. She curled up and allowed herself a few minutes to recompose herself.
She started to see things clearly and gradually returned to coherent thinking again. She was still perturbed by that cave of the dead, she always forced herself not to let death bother her but she had been overwhelmed but what she had seen. She knew she had to shake it off, knew she was stronger than this. That cave's ghastly aura must have affected her and she refused to believe otherwise.
The stonework around her was surprisingly reassuring after what she had just been through. She got up and looked out of an opening to see the city bustling below her. She was in one of the palace spires. It was conspicuously empty which was pleasant for her, having expected to see a wealth of nightmares to be roaming the bridges and towers. Scouting further into the palace seemed like the most constructive course of action as she wanted some time before tackling the tunnels again, she could even look for alternative methods of leaving.
"Another way to get in or out of this place would be useful for Anna," she quietly justified to herself.
She entered a new spire, the bridge across was quite short and had no railings. Freya looked over the side to see jagged rocks and the mountain's edge. She was grateful she could trust her feet on this ground rather than the numb slipping of the cave as there was nothing to prevent an accidental slip turning into a messy landing below. It could be useful to draw fights out to one of these bridges if something went wrong. She pressed on, every bridge leading to a new tower with varying levels of ice built into them; each were round rooms with stone floors and filled with assorted decoration. There were suits of armour, paintings and she recognised some of the more famous spoils of war. Some were even iconic works from the Southern isles that she had seen as a child. Now they were claimed as trophies for the inner-sanctum of the regime that destroyed their home.
The aesthetic changed as she ventured further across the tower structures, the ice became more prominent as spikes protruded from increasingly careless designs. The fancy decorations had gone, there was only one she saw this far up. Two torches each side of a painting, the sitting girl was smiling at her and the straight red hair was draped past her shoulders. The fresh face displayed a happy innocence and her bright green eyes were wide and gleeful. If it were not for a content looking Elsa standing to her right with a hand on her shoulder, Freya probably would have failed to recognise that this girl was Anna. The left side of the painting looked damaged and the picture frame cut off a fraction of Anna's left side. Freya stared at the dainty girl in the picture; she could hardly believe this was the same person as the one she had met recently. The lack of scars and slimmer frame looked odd on Anna, before Freya had only really seen a hardened, scowl-factory of a warrior whose main redeeming feature was her vendetta with a cat.
She was snapped out of this curious trance when she heard chanting that was not far off, unlike the tunnel this chanting was loud and strangely melodic. Freya left the painting to investigate further, when she peaked round a large archway it dawned on her just how deep into the palace she had come. Over a dozen green-robed people were kneeling with their heads bowed before a throne, chanting to a very bored looking Elsa. The same anxiety she felt in the tunnels shot back so quickly it was almost dizzying. It was her; she looked no different than in the painting Freya had just seen. She was slouched back into the throne, leaning on her hand and tapping her fingers impatiently. The room had banners with Arendelle's symbol draped down either side of a low-key throne, a wide chair made of ice with spherical designs at the end of the arm-rests. The insignia was etched into the floor and there was a large opening onto a balcony that overlooked the entire city. It was a large space with little else in it.
Elsa perked up when the robed one's chanting stopped and they raised their heads. She stood and waved her hand, blue beams hitting the chests of those before her.
"Thank you divine," they said in unison.
"Back to the halls of the frozen with you," Elsa said. Her voice was powerful and demanding. They all bowed and filed out. Whilst Freya made sure she was behind the archway it took very little effort to avoid the attention of these people as they shuffled away in various directions. Another man's voice spoke up out of the throne room after the robed ones were gone.
"You should really stop indulging those fanatics," Elsa turned to face whoever this was. Freya peaked out again to see a grey-haired man holding parchment and a quill.
"They're loyal Sebastian and since you insist on having no ice-warriors within the city walls to appease those squeamish masses it's a trait I value highly," Elsa said.
"They're lunatics, most end up dead from these little rituals of yours as it is," he said.
"But the ones that survive…" she said.
"Are horribly disfigured?" Sebastian interrupted.
"Are strong and unwavering, if a majority of them have to die to achieve that then so be it" Elsa continued.
"The unstable fanaticism and human sacrifice thing they have going on doesn't exactly scream "stable bodyguards" to me. Half their captives escaping makes me fear for their competence," he said.
"We both know you're wildly exaggerating the number of those who manage to escape and of those that have only two have survived," Elsa said glaring her eyes at him and raising a glowing hand.
"Don't give me that. I'm an advisor, I'm advising," he said.
"People have died for less than your current attitude," she said.
"If I become anything other than vital to this empire then kill away," Sebastian said, he scratched away at his parchment. "But until you find someone else who can keep the nobility and the correct people happy you're stuck with the "not murdering me" option," he continued.
"I'm untouchable and I am the divine," she said. "And I've made it clear to you many times I couldn't care less if they start fighting each other instead," she got this comment in before Sebastian could cut in.
"Never underestimate the gusto of a disgruntled aristocracy, oh divine one," he said whilst doing a slight mocking bow. Sebastian's comments spelled out to Freya Anna's importance, she should have worked this out before. If all they needed was a strong fighter with knowledge of the palace Jasper would have launched the operation months ago when they were at full strength. The reason they were ready to move on this almost instantly, the reason they had waited whilst other resistance cells were hunted down was not one of cowardice, but one of lineage. Anna was the only legitimate heir to the most powerful seat in the world. If no-one could fill that spot, the surrounding kingdoms and those under Arendelle's rule would destroy each other vying for power. Everything would collapse in on itself as everyone would try to claim the scraps of the fallen empire with the innocent caught in the middle of it all. All this time Hans and Jasper had been caught in the dilemma of Elsa's death actually causing more harm than her reign.
Freya was jarred harshly out of her train of thought when she heard the Empress' voice.
"Did you see something over there Sebastian?" she said.
Freya whipped her head back; she had got lost in thought and left her head poking out from the archway. She could hear Elsa's soft footsteps against the ground. Freya looked around frantically, there was nowhere good to hide in the short amount of time it would take Elsa to cross the room. Elsa's fanatics had been absent-minded and more importantly not looking for anyone specifically, the archway provided too little cover to use this time. Freya bolted to the closest bridge, she looked back to see Elsa's foot emerge from behind the corner. Freya dropped down, hanging on to the edge of the bridge as it was the only place directly out of sight she could go. She had no way of seeing what was going on above her now, all she could do was listen to the soft footsteps of the Empress. She had slowed down, the taps getting closer one by one.
Freya's hands were beginning to ache but she could ill-afford to pull herself back up. Elsa appeared at the doorway of the bridge; Freya would have to wait for Elsa to cross into the next spire before she could pull herself up to run in the opposite direction. Elsa passed Freya's hanging spot, though it was a short bridge Elsa was going at an agonisingly slow pace, moving her legs in a very smooth and deliberate motion. Each placed step was tortuous to watch as Freya's fingers were wearing out. After an eternity Elsa reached the other side of the bridge, Freya was alarmed when Elsa stopped moving as she reached the doorway at the end of the bridge. Elsa then swivelled one hundred and eighty degrees and leaned on the doorway. Elsa looked right at her, cocked her head and said.
"You're a bold one."
Freya looked down, then at her hands, then at the Empress. There was only one option. She let go. She figured she could work something out on the way down. As she fell backward her first thought was to try and spin around so she could at least keep a lookout for a solution to the predicament she was in. Before she could do this she hit the ground, this was much sooner and less fatal than she anticipated as she had not fallen for long at all. She sat up and found herself atop a rising platform of ice. Any pain she felt upon falling onto it was immediately negated when the platform stopped rising and she was face to face with Elsa.