Chapter 5

Anna stared at the dark green glove that was still in her hand, unable to comprehend what had just happened. The other party guests were starting to cry out in alarm. The Duke of Weselton had toppled over in surprise but was pulling himself to his feet, sputtering something about sorcery.

Thoughts flew so quickly through Anna's mind that she couldn't grasp onto them. This was the answer, wasn't it? This was why the gates had stayed closed. This is why Elsa had refused to see Anna for years, had refused to come out of her room even when their parents died. Somehow, she had some sort of ice magic, and she didn't seem to be in full control of it.

As the cacophony behind her began escalating, Anna shook herself out of her stupor and began snapping away the ice spikes until she was able to squeeze herself through in pursuit of her sister. She had to know more. She had to protect her sister. Anna had to let Elsa know she still loved her, and would never be afraid of her.

From the top of the palace steps, she could see Elsa pushing her way through the crowd toward the fountain. A woman holding a baby stood in her sister's way as Anna raced to catch up with her. The woman's eyes were wide with motherly concern as she leaned toward Elsa to ask if she was all right. Elsa jumped away from her and bumped into the fountain. Ice sprang from her ungloved hand onto the fountain wall.

"There she is! Stop her!" Anna started at the Duke's voice from somewhere around her elbow. She had the uncharitable thought that, due to his small size, he must have been the only guest who could fit through the little opening in the ice that she had been able to make.

Elsa was frantically begging the crowd to stay away from her and Anna was close enough now to see the panic in her eyes. She jumped forward; if she could just get to her sister –

Suddenly, more ice shot out, this time from both of Elsa's hands, turning the fountain's spout to ice and freezing the ground underneath their feet. The Duke slipped and tumbled, shouting, "Monster!" but Anna was expecting the ice this time and managed to keep her balance. She screamed Elsa's name as she watched her sister's blond head disappear through the doorway leading to the fjord. She raced toward the little opening, cursing her clumsy feet as she slid and stumbled on the ice. By the time she made it to the door, Elsa was down at the waterline.

Anna stopped in her tracks as she watched Elsa hesitantly touch the water. Underneath her hand, the water of the fjord froze into a perfectly shaped snowflake of her magical ice. Anna screamed Elsa's name again, begging her to stop as she watched her sister place her foot on the snowflake, then on another, and another, that formed as she ran across the fjord, away from Arendelle and away from Anna.

Not again, Anna thought desperately, as she reached the fjord and jumped for the first magical snowflake to chase after her sister, but she slipped on the ice and fell. She tried to right herself and slipped again.

Suddenly, Hans was at her elbow, helping her to her feet. She barely noticed his strong, comforting hand on her shoulder as she helplessly watched the tiny bright dot that was Elsa grew smaller and smaller as she disappeared into the darkness. "No," she whimpered, feeling that same familiar feeling she had since she was so small – rejection, and isolation; from her sister, from her people, and from the truth.

But Hans was distracted by something else, and then she saw it too.

"The fjord," he said, dumbfounded, as they watched the ice spread through the wide deep waters from shore to shore, locking the boats at their docks. Together they looked up, watching the first snowflakes of an untimely winter fall onto the green grass and flowering trees of Arendelle.

An hour later…

"Elsa! Elsa! Elsa, It's me, Anna. Your sister who didn't mean to make you freeze the summer. I'm sorry. It's...it's all my f-f-fault."

Anna and her horse had ridden through this forest a thousand times, in the summer and in the winter. And Anna was used to cold, but this cold was different.

Different, and yet familiar.

Ever since Elsa had moved out of their room when they were children, Anna had to admit she had noticed things. She had tried to ignore it, or tell herself it was just her crazy, overactive imagination, but after tonight, she couldn't ignore it anymore. She couldn't ignore the fact that she felt physically colder when she walked by the door to Elsa's room, couldn't ignore that sometimes she woke up in the night to see icy tendrils working their way across her ceiling from the direction of Elsa's room.

She had thought her shivers were caused by sadness over the loss of her close relationship with her sister. She thought she just had nightmares.

And somehow, none of it had ever shaken her love of winter, and of the snow, and the happy memories she had of playing in the winter with her sister when they were little, building snowmen and sledding. Some days, those memories felt like all she had left of her sister, and anything that made her feel close to Elsa had always brought her joy.

"Of course, none of it would have happened if she'd just told me her secret. She's a stinker," Anna muttered to herself, trying to fight back her fear as she continued through the darkness, trying to convince herself those weren't wolf howls she heard in the distance. Her horse whickered a warning.

A branch snapped above Anna's head, dumping a mountain of snow onto her, and the horse started. Anna reached out frantically - but her fingers were too cold to maintain her grip and she tumbled off the horse's back into the waist-deep snow. She shouted out, but the horse was already galloping away back toward the warm, safe palace.

"O- okay," Anna shivered, knowing that talking herself through this was the only way to beat back the panic. She had fallen under a tree, and she grabbed at a branch to pull herself to her feet, but she somehow chose the branch that was most structurally important to holding the snow on the tree, which caused it all to fall down on top of her, burying her temporarily. She quickly shook the snow off of herself, but she was bitterly cold and quickly becoming aware that her summer party shoes were not practical for this unexpected trek through the snow.

"Snow, it had to be snow," she muttered to herself as she desperately scanned her surroundings. "She couldn't have had tropical magic that covered the fjords in white sand and warm..." There, on the next ridge – "Fire!"

She took two steps toward the line of smoke on the horizon and immediately slid on the soles of her stupid summer party shoes and tumbled all the way down the hill and into an icy creek, losing her cloak somewhere along the way. She stood up quickly, but not quickly enough. Her entire dress was frozen solid to her legs, making it so they wouldn't bend and she had to walk stiff-legged up the hill toward the smoke.

"Cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold," she muttered as she slowly stiff-legged her way through the snow, furious that this was how her night was going. She wanted so badly to stop, to turn around. This was Elsa's coronation – and her engagement night! She should have been celebrating! But it wouldn't be a celebration without her sister.

Oh Elsa, she thought.

She thought she had done something wrong, to make Elsa stop loving her. She thought it was her fault.

But all along, it was Elsa who was trying to protect her. Elsa still loves me! I knew it! And Anna, in her clumsy idiocy, had ruined all of her sister's hard work in one moment of stupidity. How typical, she thought, rolling her eyes at herself. I'll just have to make it up to her, and show her that I love her as much as she loves me. We can make things right together, for the kingdom and with each other. Anna was sure of it.

She shivered as she remembered the contempt in the eyes of the Duke of Weselton as he condemned Elsa as a "sorceress" and a "monster." No wonder Elsa hadn't told anyone. Anna couldn't blame her sister for not trusting her, the loudest of blabbermouths, to keep such an important secret.

She was distracted from her dark line of thoughts by a gentle bump at the bottom of her frozen skirt. She had finally reached the source of the fire – a little cabin in the woods. She brushed the snow off a hanging sign to reveal the words Oaken's Trading Post and a smaller sign below it reading And Sauna. "Ooooh," she smiled at the idea of a nice warm steam room.

With some effort, she made her way up the stairs without the ability to bend her frozen legs and pushed her way through the door.

"Yoo-hoo," said a voice from the back of the room.