Forest of Shadows Page 19

  “And where do we need to go?” Anna asked. She stepped over to Kristoff’s traveler’s pack and sifted around for a spare splint. Aha! There it was. She knew Kristoff rarely left home without it. The splint was for ice mountain emergencies, but Kristoff liked to tease her that he needed to make sure he had one on hand at the castle for the amount of times she’d managed to trip or stumble over something.

  Anna sat down and offered the scientist the splint. “How did you escape the Nattmara?”

  Sorenson said, “I found a thing of myth.”

  Anna’s eyebrows shot upward. “You found Revolute?”

  Sorenson tilted his head, and with his long silver beard, he looked a little bit like a confused dog. “Did you figure out where it was hidden?”

  Anna grinned. “Yes! Well, we know where to look. It’s in—”

  “What did you find, Sorenson?” Elsa asked, stepping in between them. She’d arranged their mother’s scarf around her shoulders like a cape.

  “Ah, I found a cure,” Sorenson said, and he tapped his fingertips excitedly together. “But it’s hard to explain. I’d rather show it to you first. It won’t defeat the Nattmara, but I believe it will clear up the Blight from the animals and the crops.”

  “What?” Kristoff, who’d been waiting in the sleigh, jumped out. “There’s a cure? We can help Sven?”

  “Allegedly, yes,” Sorenson said. “And the Huldrefólk have it.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Elsa said, tugging on the fringe of her scarf. “They’re our friends, I think, and they didn’t say anything about having a cure.”

  “Yes.” Anna nodded. “And they are definitely our friends.”

  Sorenson’s face crinkled and he shook his head while he sighed. “Whatever they told you is wrong,” he said. “The Huldrefólk are thieves. You should not have trusted them.”

  “No,” Anna said, standing up for Echo, the Librarian King, and Obscuren. “They find lost, unwanted things and give them homes. They find ‘that which is lost,’ like your book says, sir.”

  But Sorenson kept shaking his head, his long beard waving like one of the windswept pennants on the castle wall. In the lengthening light, his beard looked more white than silver. “Then my book must be wrong, because the Huldrefólk have a thing of myth hidden in their hot springs, not more than a mile away. I discovered that if a Nattmara-touched animal drinks the water, they will be cured, even if you don’t defeat the Nattmara by sunrise of the third day.”

  “Let’s go!” Kristoff said, the hope so bright on his face that it hurt Anna to see. “If it’s only a mile, we could get a cup of the water from the hot springs, just in case, and still make it back without losing that much time!”

  Bjorn’s snuffle was louder now. The bear wanted to move. He wanted to go. Yet Anna was torn…until she saw the expression on Kristoff’s face.

  Kristoff’s best friend was sick. And he had no way to know what had happened to Sven in the time they’d been gone, but he’d risked his life over and over again just for the chance that he could help make Sven feel better. How could Anna say no to that?

  “Elsa,” she said, turning from Sorenson, who still nursed his ankle on the splint, and from Kristoff, who looked like he was about to go sprinting in any direction as soon as he heard where these curing springs were. “I think we should get the water, as a precaution.”

  Again, Elsa looked at the sky and bit her lip. As Anna saw her sister take a deep breath, she knew she wasn’t going to like whatever she was about to hear.

  “We can’t risk it,” Elsa said, still keeping her gaze on the sky, and on the floating bits of ash that looked like snow but weren’t. “I’m so sorry, Kristoff, but we can’t. Even if the spring water does work, there’s no way we can bring back enough for everyone in all the kingdom…and what about the sword?”

  The look on Kristoff’s face was unbearable. “So now you think the sword is real?”

  “Elsa!” Anna said, looking between her sister and the man she loved.

  “I understand your responsibility to the kingdom,” Kristoff told Elsa, “but Sven is family to me.”

  “Kristoff,” Elsa cut in, and her eyes were wide with hurt, though Anna didn’t know why her sister would be upset. “I’m saying no because it endangers too many people!”

  Anna took a deep breath, ready to argue more, when Bjorn let out a great bellow.

  Whirling around, she turned to see that Sorenson had taken Kristoff’s pickax from the sleigh and was trying to yank the bear out of his harness.

  “Sorenson?” Anna said, forgetting her frustration with Elsa as she took in the man’s peculiar actions. “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing, nothing,” Sorenson said, reaching down to fiddle with a buckle. But as he bent down, Anna noticed something falling from his pocket.

  If the world had been its normal color—dark emerald hues mixed with the rich blue of the mountains and the oncoming colors of fall—she would never have noticed it. But the world had turned ashy white, so what tumbled from Sorenson’s pocket stood out like a stain. It was sand.

  Black sand.

  “NATT—NATT,” ANNA SPUTTERED, trying to get the warning out.

  But it was too late.

  Already, as she watched, sand swirled from out of Sorenson’s eyes to reveal not dark brown irises as Anna had thought, but eyes the color of a hornet’s jacket. And then the sand swirled into Sorenson’s heart. A place for the Nattmara to roost until the sunset. Trolls tremble at the Nattmara’s howl while the Nattmara flees from the sun like a shadow. But nightmares could still hurt, even in the day.

  “Nattmara!” Anna finally bellowed, and it was as if her shout had broken some strange enchantment. A moment ago, she’d felt utterly suspended outside of herself, and now she was moving faster than she could think. “Run!”

  But Kristoff and Elsa had already seen what Anna had not been able to say. Kristoff took a running leap for the driver’s seat of the sleigh while Elsa grabbed Anna’s hand and pulled her safely inside.

  “Mush!” Kristoff shouted, and Bjorn, already deeply unhappy about the break from the run and nervous around the man who did not smell quite right to him, shot off.

  “Go! Go! Go!” Anna yelled when she was able to make her mouth move again. She twisted around just in time to see Sorenson bare his teeth, and then he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a glittering vial of violet powder—the Highly Flammable and Very Dangerous Combustion Powder. The scientist, now the Nattmara’s puppet, raised the vial high into the air.

  “FASTER!” Anna cried, just as an explosion fell short of them, barely missing the sleigh.

  They careened out of control, the ride far from smooth as it was still early fall, and the ground was only just hard enough for the sleigh’s runners to work. Any other sleigh would not have been able to make it across the rough terrain of scrub, brush, and rock, but an Elsa-made sleigh was as slippery as could be, and twice as fast.

  Another vial of powder whistled by Anna’s ear, and she turned her head just before violet fire could engulf her. From the corner of her eye, she saw Elsa raise her hands.

  “No!” Anna yelled. “You can’t! The Nattmara will only get bigger and more powerful!”

  Elsa lowered her hands, and Anna faced forward.

  “What’s that?” Anna asked, pointing at a dark line in the earth that loomed ahead.

  “That,” Kristoff said with a gulp, “is a canyon. A very, very, very wide canyon.”

  Another whistle hit the air. Another blast.

  “We have to lose it!” Anna yelled. “Faster! Faster! We’ll be able to clear the canyon!”

  “No, we won’t!” Elsa shouted. “We’re too heavy!”

  The dark line was thicker now, the chasm closer and wider. Just a few more seconds until they would be able to try to clear it, to try to soar over the deep trench.

  “Elsa, here!” Kristoff thrust the reins into Elsa’s hands before turning to Anna. “I think I can hold Sor
enson off until sunset,” he said, looking straight into her eyes. “Tell Sven I said he should listen to you.” His words came too fast, and the meaning came too slow.

  Anna shook her head. “Wait, what?”

  But then Kristoff was kissing her. His lips pressed to hers, warm and light and as strong as a promise…but a promise for what? Before Anna could gather up her thoughts and piece together what he was telling her, her lips were suddenly cold again. The kiss, over.

  And Kristoff was turning away from her, balancing on the edge of the sleigh…

  “No!” Anna gasped as his words became clear.

  But she was too late. Kristoff leapt from the sleigh, and Anna screamed.

  “What’s happening?” Elsa yelled, tearing her eyes from the chasm and looking back just as Kristoff landed hard on the ground, both knees bending to absorb the impact, somehow managing to stay on his feet. And then he was off, running toward Sorenson.

  “KRISTOFF!” Anna shouted. But without his added weight, the sleigh slipped faster.

  The bear’s heavy paws sent mud flying as he barreled his way toward the chasm, taking Anna farther and farther from Kristoff.

  “KRISTOFF!” Anna shouted again. “KRISTOFF, COME BACK!”

  But Sorenson had seen him now. The old man raised Kristoff’s pickax, its two hooked ends gleaming like wolf fangs as he moved toward Kristoff, who was now armed with only a fallen tree branch.

  In any other circumstance, the victor of the fight would have been unquestionable. Kristoff was young, strong as an ox, and fresh from a summer of hauling blocks of ice up and down the mountain and from doing handiwork around the castle, while Sorenson was wizened with age, his face a crinkled map, his short limbs thin from years of sedentary study.

  But the Nattmara had lent Sorenson its predatory grace and ruthless instinct. Sorenson moved like hot oil, fast and crackling, guaranteed to cause pain, sliding so fast it was hard to tell if Sorenson was now man or wolf or both. His swollen ankle did nothing to slow him.

  Sorenson chopped down with the stolen pickax, Kristoff only just whirling away from being sliced in two. He barely had time to look up before Sorenson was on him once more. The pickax swung down again and again with the deftness of a sewing needle. Still, Anna could see Kristoff’s shaggy yellow hair dipping and dodging, tucking and rolling, just as the trolls had trained him to do. Anna wanted to leap off the sleigh and run to his side more than anything.

  “Do we go back?” Elsa called, the older sister asking the little sister what to do. And of all times, Anna thought.

  Elsa’s cloak snapped in the wind, and though she looked shaken, she still gripped the sparkling reins with the same steadiness as when she’d held her coronation scepter. They were almost upon the chasm. “You need to tell me, now!”

  Yes. With the whole of her heart, Anna wanted to grab the reins from Elsa’s hands and tug the bear back toward Kristoff and the Nattmara-possessed Sorenson. But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t.

  The shadows were already long. Night would soon be here—and then there would be dawn. The third dawn, the last dawn if Anna couldn’t get Revolute first. Kristoff had given her a gift—a chance to undo what she had done. And she couldn’t let it go to waste.

  “Keep going,” Anna croaked, even as her heart cracked. Hot tears flew down her cheeks, mingling with the ash from the sky as Elsa tightened the reins and Bjorn jumped.

  Anna’s heart dropped into her stomach as they soared over the chasm.

  For a long moment, they seemed to dangle in the air, suspended by nothing thicker than spider’s silk over the gaping mouth of the earth. If they didn’t make it across, the sharp rocks hundreds of feet below were ready to rip and chew them apart.

  Anna tried to cling to the sleigh’s sides, but Elsa’s creation was flawless. There was no rough patch of ice she could grab hold of. No uneven knot she could clutch. And so Anna clung to the only thing she could: her sister.

  Seconds seemed to pass, and still the other side felt as far away as forever. And then, with a bone-rattling thump, the bear’s paws touched back down on the ground, and the sleigh and the sisters slammed down behind him—hard. They had made it.

  “Anna, I can’t breathe!” Elsa squeaked out.

  Anna let go of her sister, whirling around to see what had happened to Kristoff. She could just make out two figures beyond the chasm, but she could no longer tell which blur was the pickax and which was the branch. They grew smaller and smaller as the bear lengthened his strides and the ground flew by, but she kept her eyes on the battling figures.

  Anna knew this dance could only last so long. In just a few hours, the sun would drop behind the horizon, and then the Nattmara would stop hiding in Sorenson’s body and resume its full power as the fearsome wolf.

  Or would it possess Kristoff before then? Would Kristoff be smothered by a nightmare reality? He’d live in his own horror-scape, where there were no trolls or reindeer, or quiet mountain solaces, or Anna. A nightmare world that might last forever, unless she and Elsa could stop it first.

  “Can we go any faster?” Anna’s throat was so tight that her question was barely more than a whisper. In fact, she wasn’t actually sure she’d said anything at all. She felt about as substantial as a shadow and just as useful. She wasn’t sure Elsa had heard her until she felt her sister’s hand squeezing hers.

  “We’ll go as fast as the wind,” Elsa promised, both hands back on the reins.

  They slid through the rocky terrain of the mountains, hurtling at a breakneck pace until Bjorn’s wild run ended at a cliffside. A river rushed nearby, gaining speed and sound as it hurried to the mountain’s edge. They had reached the waterfalls—and the entrance to the Earth Giant’s Passage, to Aren’s tumulus.

  “We’re here.” Elsa stumbled out of the sleigh. “Hurry!”

  Looking down, Anna could make out the distinct shape of Arendelle Castle. The ice bubble Elsa had so carefully and beautifully made had fractured, leaving sharp shards of ice around it, a terrain as dangerous as broken glass. Next to it, Anna could see the village, the color of its homes still cheery despite the terror that Anna knew it now housed. But at least, she saw with relief, the ice dome Elsa had made for the village still held.

  She looked toward the port. The royal ship, too, was gone, and Anna hoped that Sven, Olaf, and the villagers were far away by now, and safe. She couldn’t handle it if one single soul more was hurt because of her. Because Kristoff…No. She couldn’t think about Kristoff. Not now.

  Slipping out of the sleigh, she helped Elsa free the snow bear from his harness. Without it, Bjorn looked ten times fiercer and ten times wilder, and Anna was aware that with just a single paw, he could crush her as easily as she could crush a crocus. But then, the bear shook himself, his fur rippling like seaweed, and pushed his cold nose into Anna’s hand. He snuffled, and Anna flung her arms around his snowy ruff.

  “Thank you,” she said, squeezing Bjorn and allowing herself a moment of wonder. She was hugging a bear. She was hugging a bear!

  Elsa nodded. “Yes, thank you, Bjorn.”

  Bjorn waited for Anna’s one last squeeze, and looked at Elsa. He seemed to nod his head in her direction. But then he pulled away—and ran in the direction of the Nattmara, and Anna understood.

  He’d helped them as best he could, and now he would try to lure the Nattmara away from them while they searched for Revolute.

  “Come on,” Anna said, excitement rising in her chest as she headed toward the waterfall. “If we’re right, we’re about to fix everything!”

  Elsa wrapped her scarf tighter around her shoulders. “But if we’re wrong, then…”

  Anna was glad Elsa didn’t finish her thought, because she couldn’t bear to hear it.

  THEY WERE WRONG.

  Anna was wrong.

  In the light of a torch that Elsa had found and ignited, Anna looked again at the dragon boat’s empty hull, a lump filling her throat.

  Once, there might have been mounds of
gold, pottery, lush cloaks, and jars of rare spices to help send Aren the warrior on his valiant voyage.

  Once, this might have been a splendid place of sleek polished wood, a fitting resting place for Aren and his mighty sword.

  But now the rotten boards were barely strong enough to hold a dusty footprint, let alone a thing of myth. Elsa stood in the hull with Anna, turning over a small clump of dirt with the toe of her boot. A cloud of dust trailed into the air, and Anna sneezed.

  “We’re too late,” Elsa said as she stepped over the remains of what might have once been an oar, “by a thousand years, give or take. Maybe Revolute was here once—maybe this had even been Aren’s final resting place, but…” She trailed off, her eyes lingering on the holes in the porous old wood. “I think this boat has been empty for a long, long time.”

  No. They had come too far, risked too much.

  “Revolute is around here,” Anna said, kicking another clot of dirt with her boot only to reveal…more dirt. She knew many boats had secret watertight compartments in the floor, but she had searched and found none. “It just has to be here!”

  But even as she said it, Anna knew that wasn’t necessarily true. In fact, nothing just had to be anywhere. If just had to be counted for anything, then a great storm would have never met Mother and Father’s ship. It would mean that King Runeard’s life wouldn’t have been taken by dangerous northerners, and that young Elsa and Anna would have known their grandfather. It would mean that Sven would have never gotten the Blight, and that Anna would have never called a Nattmara to the kingdom by manifesting it from her fears and nightmares.

  Suddenly, it was just all too much. Anna felt the weight of all the earth and sea and castle fall onto her shoulders and crush her, snuffing out her last bit of hope. She had not found the Revolute Blade, and she never would. She would never be able to defeat the Nattmara. She would never see Kristoff or Olaf or Sven ever again. She stepped out of the boat and lowered her head into her hands, and tears began to fall.

  “Oh, Anna,” Elsa said, following her.