The Snow Queen: Jelsa *Third Book to Frozen Love*

Chapter 16

"A woman does not realize how powerful her voice is until she is silenced." --Disney's The Little Mermaid

Elsa

That night, several of the owls in my cell flew down to fix my tousled hair and urge me to mend the ruined ballgown. By the end, I looked beautiful but I felt like I was going to be sick.
I only had one shot at this.
I drew in a deep breath and looked into Ursa's azure eyes when I was led into the throne room for the last time.
What seemed like every animal had gathered in the room and separated into two halves, leaving an aisle in between for Ursa and me to walk down. She linked arms with me and beamed proudly enough to make my stomach churn. That aisle seemed like the longest path I'd ever walked, with the hundreds of dark eyes turned towards me, not filled with celebration, but with emptiness. An anticipatory silence surrounded us.
Finally, we reached the end.
"Ursa?" I asked.
"What is it dear?"
"I was wondering..." I started, but she didn't seem to be paying attention. She was staring starry-eyed into the distance. "Could we go outside?" That pulled her back to her reality.
"What dear? You know that"--
"Yes. I'll have to stay within the fortress for the rest of my life until I have my own heir. Which is why I just wish to see the stars one more time before the entire world is covered in snow. Just you and I. After that, everything can be as you said. Ursa--Mother, please." I held her hands in mine and watched her eyes fill with tears.
"Of course, darling. Anything." A rumbling shook the nearest wall, as if the palace itself was a creature reluctant to let us out. But Ursa opened a round hole in the ceiling and stairs leading up to it.
I was overcome with a warm rush of relief when I caught sight of the indigo sky through the ice. I hadn't realized how much like my Arendelle bedroom that suffocating cell had been. "My goodness. It's been so long," Ursa muttered as we stood to stare at the retreating sun. As the pink glow of the sunset followed it, a spattering of stars came into focus. The only sound was the surprisingly low whistle of the wind.
"You know," I whispered, "some people in my country believe that stars are the souls of Vikings who refused to rest in Valhalla and instead wanted to watch over the land that they pillaged."
"Scared people will believe anything," she said blissfully.
"But Jack said that humans learned stars are only gaseous balls of heat millions of miles away," I continued.
"My ancestors tell of how each one is the spirit of a Snow Queen offering guidance to the current one," Ursa smiled, "though I suppose there's too many even for that." I nodded. "Still, they will be watching when we cleanse the world with ice."
"Ursa," I gulped. "What will happen to everyone when that happens?"
"The mortals? Simple: if they do not surrender to our rule, they die," She answered with such a casual tone that a shiver went through me.
Before I could hesitate any more, I brought my heel down hard on the ice.
"Pitchiner? Balder? Now!" Ursa's eyes widening was all I saw before black Sand curled out from our exit hole and ripped it open several meters wider. Then a wolf's bristled fur blocked my view. I was shoved to the ground with jabbing claws to the ribs. When I looked up, Balder had pinned Ursa to the ground. Lady Pitchiner stood threateningly behind them. "Wait! Balder, you don't need to hurt her. I can trap her."
The wolf's bandaged chest heaved as drool dripped from his snarling jaws. He stepped off Ursa. She looked to me with the wide, tear-filled eyes of a child, and I was brought back to Aurora for a moment.
"Girl," Lady Pitchiner pulled me out of the memory. So I held my hand out over the Sand-encrusted hole, praying to the Man in the Moon that this would work. When I closed my eyes tight and concentrated, a tingling ran up my fingers. A whooshing sound grew from below my feet until I felt a long shaft fly into my palm. The impact threw off my balance for a moment, but I was able to toss my shoe off and point the scepter at Ursa, who was lying on her back.
As she looked to me, Ursa's eyes clouded over with anger. She stood up so we faced each other. I heard the lumbering of animals coming outside.
"Ursa, I can't let you hurt this world." Instead of uttering a word, she threw a blast of frigid wind towards me. I stopped and caught the wind in my hands without even thinking. I looked down at the small spiral of air between my palms before thrusting it back in her face.
Ursa was knocked back. Lady Pitchiner restrained her limbs with Sand, only for Ursa to shatter it. I attempted many times to cover them with a layer of ice just to be blocked. I ducked to avoid being torn apart by the bits of ice shrapnel. I pulled the splinters heading for Pitchiner out of the air and sent them rapidly back to Ursa, molding them into a net midair. However, she easily blocked it again.
The scepter filled me up with an invigorating power, and I was using non lethal weapons against Ursa, but she still hadn't spoken and didn't seem to be afraid of hurting me. Just as a bird made of ice flew by and sliced my shoulder with a razor-sharp wing, I saw every one of the live snow animals line up in a circle surrounding Ursa.
Her face was covered in sweat and one of her ankles had been twisted, but my artificial mother was still seething.
"I was just tired of living in the shadows!" Suddenly, she raised her hands with an angry, guttural cry. The wind picked up enough to drown out any other sounds, I felt the needles of flung snow against my face, and I lost sight of the entire circle of animals in the wash of white chasing white.
Ursa had created a storm.
I started pulling parts of the blizzard apart to see beyond, but then I heard a faint voice of solace.
"Elsa!"
It was Jack.