She had her eyes closed, unconsciously bracing herself.
She waited for a few minutes, but nothing happened.
Cautiously, Anna slowly opened her eyes and glanced around warily, automatically getting into a defensive crouch position even as she tensed to run. But she was alone. She remained alert as she continued to scan her surroundings.
After all, any potential attacker might be trying to lull her into a false sense of security.
However, there was no sign of the mysterious shadow that tried to attack her.
Anna was just recovering from her visions of Grand Pabbie-and the revelations that he wasn't an evil monster after all-when she sensed that she wasn't alone.
She whirled around, her eyes widening in terror.
Coming straight at her on a speedy trajectory was a large shadow.
With evil, yellow, glowing eyes. Every so often-as she backed up in fear-Anna would get flashes of the tree. Only this time, the tree was glowing and pulsing with an evil, malignant light. Its eyes continued to glare at her.
The clawlike branches were writhing in protest.
Swaying to an unknown breeze.
The roots were twisting about and tangling and untangling themselves in a repeated cycle. The bark of the tree oozed blood that was blacker than oil. Moving slowly like molasses.
When she couldn't back away any further, she instinctively raised her arms to shield herself. As clichéd as it sounded, her entire life flashed before her eyes. She tightly closed her eyes, cursing her helplessness. She hated that she couldn't fight back.
She wished that she at least had powers like Elsa.
When-not if-she got out of this, she made a mental note to get some training in.
She was queen, was she not? She made a mental note to have a conversation to rectify the situation regarding her blatant lack of fighting prowess with General Matthias. Then she berated herself for letting her thoughts wander in nonsensical directions when she was being attacked!
Anna braced herself for impact.
But nothing happened.
While she was looking away and closing her eyes, Anna had no idea that a rocky wall formed between her and the shadow. In between the cracks, were bits of earth and flowers.
The shadow was too surprised to scream as it was banished.
By the time Anna glanced up and lowered her arms, the wall was gone. She slowly rose to her feet, wary and confused. Why didn't the shadow attack when it had the advantage?
Anna didn't understand. What in the hell just happened?
The entity was wondering the same thing.
One moment, he was approaching the wall to analyze it, when his chief enemy awoke.
Unfortunately, this meant Ahtohallan was aware of his presence. He tried to resist as best as he could. But his essence was still tied to that tree.
The chains weren't weakened enough to the point that he could fight back.
Ahtohallan would NOT be denied.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
His yells echoed eerily throughout the caves of Ahtohallan as he was forcibly ejected from the ancient edifice. His fingers clawed desperately for purchase, but he didn't have a solid form. He was annoyingly, insultingly and infuriatingly helpless as he returned to the tree. Once his spirit was returned, the chains glowed with pure light magic.
"ARGH!" He yelled as Ahtohallan strengthened the chains holding him at bay.
It wasn't fair! He was so close!
Like Grand Pabbie and Volva, he had the ability to see into the future. He knew it would have been the perfect moment to place those spells on his beloved.
She was alone and vulnerable.
While she had powers, she wasn't properly trained yet.
But he lost his chance due to Ahtohallan's blasted interference. He took a deep breath to calm down. It wouldn't do to lose control like some lowly, pathetic human.
He had patience in spades.
This was just a minor setback.
At least he got to see her up close. She was even more breathtaking in person. Elsa was powerful and formidable yes, but in his opinion, she was nothing compared to her sister.
Anna was a rare beauty.
Lovely on the inside as well as the outside.
She had tremendous courage and bravery in spades. She accomplished amazing feats even when her psyche was fractured and her powers were suppressed. The most recent examples being when she sacrificed herself to save her insipid sister and she used nothing more than her cunning and determination to lure the earth giants to the dam in order to destroy it.
Anna instinctively sought to heal everyone and everything she encountered.
It wasn't a coincidence that she was born in summer.
Despite their obvious differences, they had much in common.
Both knew what it was like to feel rejected and alone.
He didn't know how long he languished in this accursed tree. All he knew was that many centuries have passed. He remained trapped in seemingly eternal darkness.
To pass the time, he would come up with difference plans of vengeance.
He would imagine all sorts of gruesome deaths for his myriad enemies.
Then, like the sun illuminating the sky after a violent storm, he sensed when SHE was born. She was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, even as a newborn.
She was the only star in a very dark sky.
He felt drawn to her innocence and purity like a moth to the flame.
FLASHBACK
When he witnessed what her bastard father did to her after she was born, he was beyond furious. It was more than apparent that Agnarr wanted her to freeze to death.
Or starve to death.
Whichever came first.
The insipid mortals were more focused on saving that weakling Iduna or calming Elsa down to worry about the baby.
She didn't have a name yet.
There wasn't even a fire lit in the nursery!
Nor did anyone come to answer her cries as she continued to sob her protests. No one seemed to care that she was cold, hungry, scared and alone.
He knew this would cost him a lot of energy.
But he had to act fast before she was killed.
Reaching out with his powers, he carefully covered her in more blankets and lit the fire. Her cries started to lessen once the room began to warm up.
But she was still hungry.
Desperate and angry, he scanned the palace and found a wet nurse.
He easily took control over her mind and ordered her to attend to the young princess. While he was evil, even he had some standards. Letting this poor child starve was low, even for a pathetic, stupid idiot like Agnarr.
FLASHBACK ENDS
He had to intervene on several occasions to keep her warm and fed.
Agnarr wanted nothing to do with his daughter.
She was left to rot in the nursery. Unlike Elsa, there was no grand holiday proclaimed or christening planned to honor her birth.
Her care was left to cold nannies and governesses.
All of whom might as well have ice flowing through their veins.
While Anna received some care, it was clearly the bare minimum. She was barely fed, she got constant rashes due to soiled diapers and she only got one bath a week.
Once again, he had to intervene to make sure she survived.
There was one night when it got particularly bad. Iduna was on the brink of death and the doctors weren't sure she was going to make it.
Agnarr seemed to snap.
Becoming mad with grief and misplaced anger.
FLASHBACK
For Agnarr, there was a grim sense of irony to the situation.
Most people would call Elsa an abomination.
After all, it wasn't normal or natural for someone to have powers. They would have accused her of being a witch, a whore who was consorting with the devil and making an evil compact with the dark forces.
But Elsa, his precious angel, wasn't the monster.
It was the unnamed beast infecting the nursery.
Despite his best efforts, it seemed to thrive. He deliberately made sure it was barely fed, changed and bathed. He refused to acknowledge it as a human being.
It was a monster.
An evil abomination that was killing its mother.
Iduna continued to take a turn for the worse. Agnarr couldn't lose her on top of everything else. Besides Iduna and Elsa, Agnarr didn't have anyone else in the world.
Losing his parents was horrific enough.
But Iduna was his light, the love of his life.
Agnarr didn't know what he would do if he lost her. If she died... Agnarr made sure that no one was around as he approached the demon's lair.
It was kept cold at his orders.
He was hoping against hope that it would freeze to death.
Reluctantly, he opened the door. He instinctively tightened the sash of his robes as he approached the crib. His upper lip curled in disgust as he saw it sleeping peacefully.
This thing was killing its mother.
And it was sleeping like nothing was wrong!
Grimly, Agnarr grabbed a pillow from a nearby chair and went closer to the monster's head. A life for a life, was all he could think as he slowly lowered the pillow...
"My king!" Kai called. Quickly, Agnarr dropped the pillow.
He glanced down at his shaking hands and then raised them to his face to examine them, as if he'd never seen them before.
There was a lost, shaken expression on his face as he glared down at the baby. "Your Majesty, the queen is awake!" Making sure no one was looking, Agnarr replaced the pillow and quickly raced out of the nursery.
Unaware that he was being watched.
FLASHBACK ENDS
He had to intervene more times than he would have liked.
Agnarr's loathing for his second daughter ran too deep.
While he would have loved to do more for the little princess, even he had limits, due to the chains binding him to this infernal tree.
No one would ever acknowledge it.
But it was because of HIM that she was still alive.
Yes, he reflected, this was only a minor setback. Sooner or later, they would meet again. Fate dictated as such many years ago, when Volva uttered that prophecy.
Anna shook her head a few times in order to clear it.
She rubbed at her eyes.
Was she seeing things?
Hearing things?
Imagining scenarios that weren't real?
Was the tree effecting her mind more than she cared to admit?
Anna decided to shake it off for the time being. She placed her hands on her hips and gazed at the trapped woman in the roots. For some reason, she looked VERY familiar.
Her eyes widened.
It was the woman from her dreams!
With no one willing to listen to her, Anna turned to drawing as a medium. She couldn't help it as she drew like a person possessed. It was like something was compelling her to draw what she'd seen in her dreams.
Well, what images she could remember.
As if in a trance, Anna slowly approached the screaming woman.
She knelt down, gazing at the poor woman. She seemed tormented and doomed to eternal suffering. Her eyes begged for a release that would never come.
Anna reached out and touched her face.
Her eyes rolled back and her vision turned white once more.
FLASHBACK
She knelt, feeling her heart pounding.
In her very hands, she held the book that would unlock the key to ending her pain.
The souls of more than a hundred victims cried out for justice, including her own daughters and her second husband. She reached underneath her tunic and pulled out a pendant.
It contained the key that was passed down from mother to eldest child.
A manic smile, tinged with hope and desperation, touched her lips as she lifted the pendant from around her neck and slowly went to insert it into the lock.
"Wait!"
She whirled her head around, her eyes flashing with anger.
It was her sister, Eira. While powers ran in the family, there were some members of the clan who didn't inherit any abilities at all.
This was certainly true in Eira's case.
As if to compensate for the fact that she didn't have magic, Eira was very beautiful.
She was tall and elegant. She had long white hair and piercing blue eyes. If their great aunt Astrid didn't resemble her, one would think that Eira had been adopted.
Eira was very much sought after by the other Northuldran tribal leaders.
She had her pick of any suitor she deigned to marry.
Finally, she married the wealthiest and most prosperous of all the Northuldran leaders, a handsome man named Eerikki. Their tribe prospered, as did their family.
Eira would give birth to many daughters.
All of whom had powers of their own.
"Don't do this." Eira panted. "Your daughter has foreseen it. This would lead to nothing but trouble. It will lead to your doom, my sister!"
"Don't try and stop me." She said in a dead, hollow voice.
"Please, do you really think this is what Frode would have wanted?"
"DON'T YOU MENTION HIS NAME!" She jumped to her feet, clutching the book to her chest like it was the most precious of jewels. "DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND, EIRA? I LOST EVERYTHING!"
"Not everything." Eira said. "You still have Volva. She needs you."
"I can't stop, not now." She whispered.
"Why?" Eira said.
"You don't have powers. You wouldn't understand." She snarled.
"I may not have powers, but I do understand grief." Eira said. "Don't forget, I've faced my own losses. I lost two daughters to miscarriages and another was brutally murdered. Bodil and Brenna were my nieces, my family too. I understand you want vengeance, but don't follow this path. Volva's visions were clear. You are doomed if you seek revenge this way."
"I won't have my path dictated by a weak link in the family chain!"
"But Hefnd-"
Hefnd refused to listen to her sister's pleas. Instead, she used her powers to gently knock her out. Then she used the pendant to unlock the book. She feverishly scanned the pages until she found the map that would lead to the tree.
She returned the book to its secret compartment.
She paused briefly by Eira to remove her memories of their conversation.
Then she mounted her reindeer Hela and took off. She followed the map for many days and nights. Hefnd barely stopped for food and rest. She knew she made for a strange sight to her fellow travelers she occasionally encountered on the roads.
Hefnd didn't care.
She barely slept.
When she did, she would witness the rapes and the massacre all over again. The souls of the damned would appeal to her, pleading with her to avenge their murders.
Finally, she reached the forbidden lands.
It was a long stretch of desert.
Hela protested, but Hefnd coaxed her reindeer to keep going. They traveled for many days and nights. Occasionally, they would find a rotting body. Rumors of treasure would lead many unwary fools to their doom.
Finally, they reached the tree.
Hefnd tethered Hela to another tree and carefully approached the black one.
She closed her eyes and uttered the spell that she carefully memorized before setting out on this journey.
"Who dares to disturb me?" A cold, sinister voice hissed.
"It is I, Hefnd, of the Northuldra."
"Why do you seek me out, foolish mortal?"
"I desire vengeance!"
"Against the fools who massacred your village?"
"Yes."
"Are you aware of the price?"
"Yes."
"Are you willing to pay it?"
"Whatever it takes."
"Then we have a deal."
Before Hefnd could say or do anything else, she was instantly attacked by the tree. Her body was seized by those foul roots. Hefnd knew then and there she had made a terrible mistake. The tree was draining her of her magic.
Of her soul.
Of her very essence.
She could only watch helplessly as the tree's shadow extended. A doppelganger of Hefnd slowly emerged from the ground. She gave the original a cold, empty smile.
Then it mounted Hela and took off.