A/N: I'm sorry it took so long to write this update - moving to a foreign country and starting a new job is more daunting than I had imagined. But I am getting more settled now, and the writing has continued. I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Chapter 21 – Aftermath

A new day came.

Duty came upon its dawning.

It was three hours past sunrise. Princess Anna stood inside the doors to the barn. She could smell the dew on the grass, she saw the kittens gambolling together near the hay bales, and she watched as the Captain of the Guard investigated the bodies of the men Anna had killed. Her plastered arm was up in a sling, but she pushed the ache of her wrist far, far away from her present thoughts.

He made his observations in silence, and Anna watched likewise, until he finally stood once again and came to stand near her.

"Your report, Captain?" she quietly asked.

"I did not recognize either man, Highness," he said. "However, I was able to determine a few things about them based on their clothing, their weapons, and so on. Can you tell me again about their fighting style?"

"Untrained," Anna replied. "Even with the crossbows they seemed hesitant, unsure of themselves with the weapon, though they made up for that uncertainty in their awful intent. They seemed to have no more than basic training with short swords. Several of the initial shots on the crossbows were quick, but as soon as I faced them, they became clumsy with the bows, and took longer to load their bolts. That first man, his aim was better than the second. He was the one who shot Elsa, and then Nils."

"These are not huntsmen, Highness, nor do I believe them to be trackers. By the type of calluses on their hands, I believe them to be shepherds or farmers, who had fallen into hardship."

Anna gestured to the second man she had killed. "He was angry, Captain. His face was full of hatred. I… I've never seen hatred like that, not in my direction."

"And you say he deliberately killed himself. He wanted to guarantee his silence, Highness. Which means that this attack was orchestrated, planned out, and executed. I wonder if either of them believed they would survive it.

"But then you say that they fought alongside five wolves. That seems impossible to me. Nothing about this attack makes any sense." He looked into Anna's eyes. "I commend you on your valour, Highness. Hard choices must be made instantly in a fight such as this. The fact that you survived, that Queen Elsa survived, is a testament to your prowess. I'm sorry you had to go through this, but I am proud of you."

Anna took her eyes away from him, to stare at the kittens now washing themselves. She didn't want his compliments. Not with Elsa's scars.

"I do not need praise, Captain," Anna said, her voice distant from the roaring in her mind. "I need answers. Until then, please ensure that there are more guards here, to see to Queen Elsa's safety."

He bowed to her, and escorted her from the barn, where the morning sunlight made the dust motes flash golden in the air. As they walked Anna remembered how Elsa had stared at her the first time she wore breeches for her sword training.

It had only been a week ago, but Anna felt that time differently now. Truth, guilt, and shame had made her soul ancient, though her body stayed the same.

Would Elsa ever love her again, just as she did that day?

…

It was four hours past sunrise. Princess Anna sat beside Elsa's sleeping body. She held Elsa's hand and gazed at her bandaged face. From outside she could hear the sounds of the wagon being loaded, the many unfamiliar voices of the changing of the guard, Kai's voice among them sharing the horrifying tale of what had transpired at Lost Island Lake.

Birds were also singing. The sun was shining. The day had continued clear and golden and all the more horrifying for its beauty.

Anna felt exhausted in mind, body, and soul. More than anything she wanted Elsa to wake, and to say the words that would forgive Anna her dread mistakes. She wanted to hear Elsa's voice, to feel the gentle caress of her fingers, to taste the glory of Elsa's lips.

More than anything, Anna wanted to stay.

They would all understand. Anna could send Nils back with an honour guard, and she could stay here with Elsa, and the Regency Council could oversee the arrangements for the funeral.

But who would speak the words inside Anna's mouth? Who could lay a bare and noble sword in the hands of Nils' father and tell the tale of valour and sacrifice? All this truth only existed upon Anna's tongue, and second-hand stories were not enough. A letter would be damning and hypocritical. No more silence. Not for such service.

So Anna would leave. She would leave Elsa to wake alone, and in pain. She would leave Elsa in Synneva's faithful hands. Elsa would be held in the steadfastness of their aunt's sacrifice, the depth of which Anna still could not comprehend.

But now that the time for their departure had come, Anna could not make herself go. It would be five days, maybe even seven, before she could return. What would Elsa face in that short eternity? What nightmares would assault her? What pain would cleave her in two?

Would she truly understand why Anna had to leave?

Anna picked up Elsa's hand. Lifting it to her mouth, she gently kissed it. A tear fell from her eye upon Elsa's skin, and it shone there like a diamond.

"I wish it didn't have to be this way," Anna softly said. "Elsa, I wish so much that I could stay. But Synneva is here with you, and she knows why I'm going. She can tell you everything. She has served both of us better than we'll ever really know.

"I'll miss you, though. I'll miss you every second that I'm gone. From the moment I woke up in your arms on the fjord we have not been apart, not like this. I'm scared of leaving you, Elsa. I'm scared that somehow you won't be here when I get back. I'm sending more guards here to help protect you. But I could send a thousand guards and it wouldn't be enough to ease my heart.

"You are strong, Elsa. You are the strongest person I know. You are the bravest person I know. God, I wish I could be here when you wake. Just to tell you how much I love you. And if this moment were like any moment from a storybook, then you would wake up right now, and you would feel me kissing you…"

And Anna bent over and gently, fervently, kissed Elsa on the mouth. The pain of kissing her was a flint feather to her heart, slicing with every heartbeat, but so very necessary. She kissed Elsa as if she could be awakened from a spell, resurrected from the dead, brought back to life by the power of love alone.

Her heart was bereft as she ended the kiss and sat up again, and despair flooded her mouth with the taste of vinegar. This was no fairy tale. She was a Princess, and this was her Queen, and she had duties to fulfill, and promises to keep.

Elsa stayed sleeping.

Anna stood from the bed, as yet unable to let go of Elsa's hand. Wishing still that Elsa would wake, and squeeze her fingers, and say that she loved her.

That she forgave her.

Anna turned away, but the heartache was too great, and she returned to kiss Elsa once more, their noses bumping in her haste and despair, and still the kiss was sweet. Maybe sweet enough to last.

She forced herself to walk away, to let their fingers drift apart, and nothing in Anna's short life could have prepared her for the chasm of loss that opened up behind her. With every step she took she felt herself growing older, growing sadder, growing wiser as she left the love of her life behind.

Synneva waited for her outside Elsa's door. Her face was freshly scrubbed, but the traces of pain and exhaustion upon it were now obvious to Anna's watchful gaze. Synneva began to bow to her, but Anna suddenly stopped her, her hand to Synneva's shoulder. "You do not bow to me, Synneva Avundir," Anna quietly said.

Still holding Synneva's shoulder, Anna leaned forward to kiss her first on one cheek, then on the other, and finally on her forehead. Then Anna bowed to the woman who had sacrificed more than Anna thought possible.

Synneva's eyes were bright with astonishment and awe when Anna stood back once more. "You honour me too greatly, Princess."

"I would give you every honour in my power to give, Sera."

Sera peered through the open door to Elsa's sleeping form. "I'll take good care of her, Anna."

"I know you will."

"You need to take care of yourself. Please. And I'm not talking about your wrist."

Anna gave her all the smile she could create, which wasn't really much. "I know, Synneva."

"Is there no one you can talk to about all this? What about Kristoff?"

"I'm hoping to talk with him, yes. And with Olaf. Beyond them, there is no one else. We've been rather isolated." Anna didn't bother masking the tinge of bitterness in her voice.

Of course Sera recognized that particular emotion, but she didn't comment on it. "On a more practical note, we will require a shipment of ice soon. I am close to exhausting my stores, and Elsa will need some for her recovery. Normally I would send Erik…"

"But your brother cannot leave, not now. I will handle this. You'll have a shipment by tomorrow morning."

The stark practicality of Anna's words seemed to wound the physician. She gave a soft sigh, and then asked, "Is there anything you want me to tell Elsa when she wakes?"

"Yes, Synneva. Tell her everything. Tell her about Isolde's dream, and tell her about the oath of sacrifice you spoke on her behalf. Tell her that I wished… I wished so much that I could stay. Tell her that I'll take care of her kingdom until she is ready to rule once again. And tell her… tell her that I love her. Only her. Always her." Anna had been staring at the wall, unable to withstand Synneva's gaze, but then she turned her head to look at her aunt. "Will you tell her these things, Synneva?"

"I will, Princess Anna. Come back as soon as you can. We'll be waiting for you."

Anna nodded, her throat thickening with the pain of her imminent departure.

The first step away from Elsa's open door was hard. The second was harder. Every muscle in her body cried out for her to stay. But onward she went, away from the chalet and the ever-present golden light of the woman she loved more than anything in the world.

Kai and Gerda were standing by the carriage, saying their own good-byes. Kai would be joining her back in Arendelle, while Gerda would be staying at the chalet to assist Sera. Gerda had packed Anna's bags for her, and they had been placed in the carriage along with the suit of armour Elsa had made.

Though she couldn't use it with her broken wrist, Anna had strapped Elsa's sword about her waist, and often touched the hilt of it as if she could sense Elsa herself through her creation.

Kai kissed Gerda goodbye, and then turned to the Princess of Arendelle. "We are ready, Highness," he said, gesturing to the open door of the first carriage. At her request, she would be riding alone. Kai and Johan would be in the second carriage with Nils' body.

She saw Johan as she entered the carriage. He was standing next to the second carriage, standing tall and still, unspeaking. His eyes gentle. Too gentle. Anna could bear only the slightest acknowledgement of his gaze before entering the carriage and sitting down. On the seat in front of her was Nils' sword, sheathed in its scabbard and wrapped in a flag of Arendelle. Anna looked at it, and wondered why life always had to be so fucking hard.

Thinking of the swear word brought a smile of agony to her lips, remembering how Elsa used to call her a sailor.

The horses were eager, their harness jingling in the clear morning air.

Anna did not look back at the chalet as they made their way out of the valley, though she imagined Gerda and Synneva looking in her direction. She stared out of the open window into her lush green kingdom, and the sun was fierce in her eyes, making them sting with tears. She stared into that blasphemous sun, and began counting the hours against her return.

…

Elsa felt as if she had been drifting along the depths of the frozen fjord for an eternity, encountering the lost and broken leviathans of ships she had destroyed during the great freeze. Her awareness was only this, this sense of deep darkness studded by masts and planks and shreds of sail. She looked without seeing, she heard without listening, she existed without feeling under the weight of water, fathoms deep.

A thought pierced her. Water was liquefied ice and snow, thawed by love. Her love, the other side of her magical power. Power to freeze, and love to thaw.

She was drifting, yes, drifting in the depths of love, surrounded by it; it pierced her skin and gave strength to her hollow bones.

Swift on the heels of the first thought came another. She was asleep, and dreaming.

Pain began to grow in her shoulders, where once angelic wings had sprung into existence. One shoulder in particular. The pain tunnelled out to her breast as well. Elsa tried to breathe in this pain, to have it enter her and be transformed, but it seemed all she breathed in was water.

A bolt of panic roused her from these illusory depths, and she opened her mouth to breathe as she tried to open her eyes.

Only one eye opened. She saw white ceiling, she felt cloth under her hands, she heard far chatter, and there was a sense of aching emptiness that permeated the entire axis of her existence.

Pained, tortured existence, for it took only this first breath for Elsa to breathe in more agony than she thought could exist. The pain was so great that a veil of stormclouds passed over her eyes, threatening to send her back into oblivion. The grinding ache and splintering pain of her shoulder with its corresponding hole in her breast made each breath laboured yet shallow, and she gripped the sheets with her fingers as she tried not to cry out. There was fire along her cheekbones, pressure over her eye, and even as her awareness tried to catalogue the rest of her hurts

(god oh god help me)

she heard the voice of Synneva Avundir. "Elsa, please, listen to my voice. Close your eyes. Take small sips of air. Everything will be all right."

Elsa obeyed, closing her eye to the white ceiling and to the emptiness that spoke of the truth. It was Synneva speaking these words, not her darling Anna. Where was Anna?

"Sera?" she asked, her voice small and childlike, her hand opening and flailing, desperate to touch skin. She had gone more than a decade without touching another person's skin.

She felt Sera take her hand. Her aunt's hand was cool, slightly clammy, rough and slightly callused. There were fine wrinkles of age. This was her true father's sister.

Oh, god. Henrik. And Isolde.

Erasmus, the huntsman.

"Where is Anna?" she whispered, her eyes closed and fighting back tears. "Sera, what happened? Is she all right?"

Memories came flooding back, along with the taste of blood in her mouth. The ache in her shoulder and her chest intensified as images stormed her retinas.

The sheaf of papers in her hand, with words that could scarcely be believed. The letter she had been promised, and it held more truth than either of them could reasonably bear.

(God, Elsa, why does this hurt so much?! I should be glad I'm not your sister.

Elsa. You're not my sister.)

Anna's despairing cry and flight down the grassy slope. Up to the edge of the lake, where she wounded the air with her screams.

Elsa had followed, and held her, and mourned with her.

Then the glint of metal, a dire crossbow bolt pointed at her Anna, and her magic chose for her, chose the best form of defence in the form of armour for her love.

The bolt sticking out of her chest.

Then grass, and wolves. Eyes, and claws, and teeth. Magic that faltered, and died. Died like Nils.

Being carried up the slope again, inwardly begging for oblivion. Only when Sera had pulled the bolt from Elsa's shoulder did she finally fall into the jagged pit of unconsciousness.

It was too much to bear with her eyes closed. She opened her eye again and was astonished by the slow leak of tears that trickled down her cheek.

"Anna is all right, your Majesty," Sera was saying. "Please continue to take small sips of air and try to remain calm. I don't want you to injure yourself."

Elsa closed her eye, for she had only one to close really, and tried to stop crying. She couldn't halt the steady flow of tears from her eye, but she valiantly tried not to give in to the grief that was a great wolf inside her chest.

Anna might be fine, but Anna wasn't here.

God, Isolde! Henrik!

And the wolf.

There had been something about the wolf. She had realized something when the wolf marked her with his teeth. What had it been?

Oh, she wanted her Anna.

"Elsa?" she heard.

"I'm all right," she whispered behind closed eyes, desperately hoping that to speak the words would make them true. Would keep the ravenous beast of grief and pain in her chest from tearing out her heart and spine. "Where is Anna?"

"She left a few hours ago, to take Nils back to Arendelle for a state funeral."

Even as Synneva said the words, Elsa realized she already knew the truth. The void was greater than her heart alone; this entire chalet felt bereft of Anna, lacking the special spark and vitality that her sist…

Cousin.

That her dearest cousin always brought to any space.

"When will she be back?"

"Five days. Maybe seven. She didn't want to leave, but there was no one else who could tell the story of how Nils' saved your lives."

That was her Anna. Pride for her filled every remaining crevice of Elsa's heart.

"Did she seem all right, Sera? She killed two men last night. That must have been so hard for her…" Elsa choked back the sob that was rising in her throat, and pain lanced through her back. She let go of Sera's hand and resumed her grip on the sheets.

"She is in shock, Queen Elsa, and has not been able to rationalize what happened. She is flaying herself with guilt, holding herself responsible for their deaths as well as your injuries."

"That is ridiculous," Elsa breathed, holding herself so careful, so still, sipping so softly from the air in the room. "She saved my life yet again." Every breath came at a cost to her splintered shoulder-blade, the hole in her chest raged like an inferno, her leg felt thick and aching, and the fire of stitches was like a constellation on her face and arm.

"Please, you are in pain, Elsa. I want you to sleep again, just for a little while longer. Let me give you some broth and porridge and one of my tonics to help you sleep."

"I have so many questions, Synneva."

"There is time yet for the answers."

Time.

Yesterday morning, Elsa had promised Anna that they had time, all the time in the world, to enjoy being together. Making love to each other. Building a life together.

An apocalypse of wolves had made a mockery of Elsa's words.

Anna was gone. And while Elsa told herself it was temporary, it was necessary, it was duty, she knew she only wanted Anna here. She didn't want to go through this alone. She had so many years without her Anna but now the thought of five or seven days without her made her nearly senseless with loss.

Was there no part of her life that could be easy, and simple, and joyous? Surely the lives of other reigning monarchs weren't as stilted yet tempestuous as hers. By what design did all this pain and fear and isolation come?

And how much blame could she levy upon the head of Erasmus, the huntsman?

So broth and porridge came, along with another of Sera's tonics. She could taste the milk of the poppy inside it. It reminded her of the fuzzy edges of her fever illness after the night on the bell tower. Sleep came after.

It was dark when she woke again. The room was sticky summer hot, and she lay underneath a single sheet. With her eye open she could see the strong moonlight coming through the window, painting bars of light and shadow on the floor.

She already knew that she was alone, for the time being. There was no sense of another presence near her.

Elsa was grateful. She would have time now to think, and to remember.

Her thoughts were sleep mussed and jumbled with pain, touching lightly from place to place without coherence. She thought of Agnarr and Idunn, the parents-who-were-not-parents and the many years she had spent in isolation at Agnarr's command. She had accidentally frozen Idunn's foot once; Sera had had to amputate two of her toes. How had her not-mother felt during that operation? Had the two estranged sisters stared at each other and thought of Isolde?

Isolde, whose name was struck from all records. Whose reign was unmarked, deliberately forgotten. Whose sacrifice was hidden under layers of secrets and deception.

Erasmus, the huntsman. Elsa had touched the healing waters of Lost Island Lake without knowing why they healed. Her ancestor, Princess Anna, had made the ultimate sacrifice, but it hadn't been enough to stop him.

Princess Anna. Was there any cosmic attraction between names? What would her dearest girl have to endure throughout her life? Would she be called upon to make a similar sacrifice? It was Elsa who was hunted, but she knew her impetuous cousin, the light of her life and love of her heart. When the time came for choice, what would Anna choose? Would she let Elsa go, or would she be like Henrik, and die in an ill-fated attempt to save her?

The mere thought of it caused Elsa's heart to stutter in anxiety and pain. Tears once again mobbed her eyes. The pain in her body was incredible; Elsa had to focus entirely on her breathing, with staring at the moonlit stripes across the walls in order to forget the heated weight of agony in her shoulder, her breast, her face and her leg.

The silence was almost threatening. Perhaps she should call out. Surely there would be someone listening for her, ready to assist her. She had only to make a sound and help would come.

But before she could make even a single sound, she took another breath.

And a voice came to her mind.

This wounding is yours. Only you can accept it, and bless it, and thus transform it.

All darkness carries the seeds of redemption.

This wounding is your gift. Use it.

And peace, calm and cool as winter snow, ghosted through her veins.

Elsa took another breath, and the peace, and the silence remained.

Pain throbbed, grinded, ached, splintered. But she breathed. Slow. Calm.

And when she opened her eye, she also opened her palm. There was no grand gesture of wrist, no movement of her arm. But a small flurry of snow spiralled slowly up from her open hand, white and dry and cool, until it hung over her bed. Tiny snowflakes began to fall upon her.

The damning heat and ache in her bones slowly began to recede.

The coolness was miraculous, clearing her thoughts. She finally turned her mind back to the wolf that had ravaged her. A thought had come to her in the middle of the battle, and as much as it pained her to remember what had happened, she forced those memories upon her.

The eyes of the wolf, dark and malevolent. They were somehow his eyes, the eyes of the huntsman.

She had known what was going to happen. She had known that she was going to be marked, going to be wounded.

She could have fought against it, but she did not. In that moment, she had accepted the madness that had descended upon them. She accepted it, though she did not choose it.

A free and willing sacrifice.

I have marked you as mine, the wolf had tried to tell her, as I have marked your mother.

I am me and mine, Elsa had whispered back, and I am hers.

Anna.

As sleep began to fall upon her once more, as soft and delicate as the tiny snowflakes in the air, Elsa's thoughts once again turned to her Anna. She prayed that the peace that sifted through her veins, easing her tortured bones, could also be gifted to her cousin.

That, wherever Anna was on this dark and moonlit night, she could know that she was thought of, and missed, and always most dearly beloved.

…

It had been a difficult day, and an even more difficult evening. Five hours journey with the carriages had brought them back to Arendelle. Anna had not delayed in speaking with Nils' family; she had paused after her arrival only long enough to eat a small meal and wash the dust of the road from her face and hands. Then she had gone into the village with Kai, Johan, and a small honour guard, bearing the sword in her arms.

The weight of Nils' sword had been immense. The weight of words on her tongue had been worse. But still she told the tale, with words that were stark and unrehearsed.

Then they all wept again, though Anna managed to contain most of the ocean of her grief. Only a few tears leaked from her eyes. Her head ached with the pressure of damming the rest.

It was twilight before they returned, in silence, to the palace. Kai assisted her as much as possible with the arrangements for the state funeral, to be held the day after tomorrow. After he departed, Anna forced herself to write a note for Elsa, informing her of the day's events.

A tear fell on the page as she continued the note, and Anna wrote words she never believed she would write. Words praying for Elsa's health and safety, and words begging for Elsa's forgiveness for all Anna had done wrong.

Then she sealed it, and gave it to Kai so it could go out with a morning courier to the chalet.

She went to her bedchamber, and prepared for sleep. Alone. It was horrifying.

Anna tossed and turned in her bed for several hours before she got up, pulled a robe over her shoulders, and walked to the Queen's bedchamber. The room was warm; too warm with the remnants of the summer heat, and too warm for a place that was Elsa's. Underneath the plaster, her wrist ached and itched. Anna climbed into Elsa's bed, put her head on one pillow and clutched the other pillow in her arms. She could smell Elsa's perfume on the sheets, and the scent of it made her heart stutter.

Weeping openly now for the first time all this terrible long day, Anna blindly clutched at the leather pouch hanging around her neck. "Oh, Elsa," she softly cried, her tears wetting the pillow.

Within her grasp, the heart of the earth stayed cool, stayed constant.

Now that she was here, Anna could remember all the beautiful times of waking and sleeping and loving. The fall of Elsa's hair over her shoulders, and the colour of it was moonlight and stars. Her curvy and beautiful body, cool and welcoming to Anna's hands. Her lips, all candy and jewels and sweet perfection.

Beloved.

She once called me her beloved.

Oh, am I her beloved still?

In these hours past midnight, Anna found she could not maintain her vast army of guilt and shame. She was simply too exhausted, too defeated. Here, in Elsa's bed, she could only remember every instance of Elsa's love and devotion. She recalled every kiss they had shared, from the very first one in the sitting room the day after the great freeze, to the one she pressed against Elsa's sleeping lips early yesterday morning before leaving the chalet.

Here, sleepy and anxious, Anna realized she knew the truth. Elsa loved her with all her heart. And no apocalypse of wolves or men could come between them. Not even here and now, with so many miles between them.

What was distance when their hearts were melded together, when love connected their souls?

Anna fervently clutched at the heart of the earth, the diamond that had once resided inside the heart of her ancestor, the first Princess Anna. She had little idea how magic worked; why had she never asked Elsa how her magic worked?

A thought came to her. She fumbled with the leather laces of the pouch, and then the two halves of the large red diamond spilled into her palm.

Anna pressed the pieces together and then brought them to her lips. As she kissed the diamond, she sent a thought of pure love and intention into the jewel.

Whatever strength I have is hers. She has my strength, my love, and my altered heart. Forever.

Anna kissed the jewel one last time. And finally slept, the broken diamond in the palm of her hand.