“Poor lass,” remarked the man who had dragged me off the wagon, shaking his head with sorrow. “I’m so sorry about your parents.” His face twisted. “I promise you, those Northuldra sorcerers will pay for their crimes! If it takes me till my dying day!” He squeezed his right hand into a fist, so tight his knuckles turned white. Then he waved his fist in the air as if he was ready to take on the entire Northuldra people right that very second. Frightened, I edged backward to get out of his punching range.
The man in charge groaned, grabbing the angry man’s fist and lowering it back to his side with some force. Then he turned back to me. “It is indeed very tragic what happened to your parents in the forest,” he agreed in a steely voice. “But do not worry, young Iduna,” he added, saying my name very carefully, as if to help himself remember it. “We in Arendelle take care of our own. Since you are one of us,” he said, again emphasizing each word, as if giving me a secret message, “you will never want for anything. We will care for you, feed you, keep you safe from harm.”
I forced a nod, even though the lump in my throat had grown so large I felt like I would choke on it. I wanted to protest, to declare I would never be one of them. These strange people in their strange town were as unlike me as the sun was unlike the moon.
But I kept silent.
Instead I nodded, pulling the Arendellian cloak tighter over my body. “Thank you,” I forced myself to say. “You are too kind, sir.”
The man’s shoulders relaxed. He knew I had gotten his message. He turned to the others. “I will escort her to the orphanage personally,” he told them. “In the meantime, I assume you all have something better to do than stand around?”
The other men grunted but didn’t argue, scattering from the wagon to go back to their homes. The man watched them go, then turned to me.
“I am Lord Peterssen,” he said in a soft voice. “And you needn’t be afraid. I meant what I said. No harm will come to you.”
I nodded meekly. What else could I do? He held out a hand, helping me out of the wagon.
“Come,” he said. “I will take you home.”
“AH, YOUNG PRINCE, YOU ARE AWAKE AT LAST.”
I opened my eyes blearily, my vision still spotted as I looked around the room. Even so, I recognized it immediately. The rich greens and browns. The rosemaling scrollwork trailing down walls, embedded in doorways. The thick beige curtains of the canopy bed. The roaring fire in the hearth.
I was home. In Arendelle. In my bedroom.
Had it all been a dream? The forest? The battle? But no, my body felt as if it had been run over by a herd of reindeer. And when I attempted to sit up, my head spun and I quickly collapsed back onto my feather pillow.
The castle overseer, Kai, hovered over me, clucking his tongue. “Take it easy,” he scolded. “You’ve had a rough go of it. It’s going to take a while for you to be on the mend.”
I nodded slightly. Even the small movement of my head against the pillow seemed to take a herculean effort. I closed my eyes, trying to pull together memories of what had happened. How I’d ended up here, like this.
A day of celebration, twisted into violence. Northuldra and Arendellians, fighting one another. Then fire. Wind. Smoke.
Papa…
My eyes flew open. “Is Papa dead?” I asked, my voice raw. But even as I asked the question, I realized I already knew. I had seen it. My father, battling the Northuldra at the side of the dam. His foot slipping. His arms flailing.
Oh, no. No, no, no!
Kai gave me an anguished look, turning away. His gaze shot to the back of the room as if it held all of life’s answers. A figure stepped from the doorway.
It was Lord Peterssen, one of my father’s trusted advisors.
To my surprise, he dropped to one knee beside my bed. “Your Highness,” he said, lowering his head in a bow. “I am sorry to be the bearer of such terrible news.” He straightened, then looked me right in the eyes. His own were solemn as the grave. “Your father is lost. Perished in the battle between us and the Northuldra.”
My heart wrenched. It was true then. My father. Gone. The strongest, most powerful man I’d ever met. The noble leader the Arendellians sang of in the taverns. The man who had devoted his entire life to keeping Arendelle safe and helping it prosper.
Gone. Just like that.
Guilt assailed me as my mind flashed back to our last hours together. He’d been furious at me for wandering off. And why had I wandered off, anyway? I could have spent the day with him, helping him organize any loose ends with the Northuldra regarding the dam, serving as his squire. Maybe if I’d been there, I would have noticed something was wrong. I was good at that—seeing things that no one else did. Maybe I could have warned him before it was too late. But I’d failed again. I’d always been such a disappointment to my father.
Maybe it was my fault he was dead.
Lord Peterssen rose to his feet, putting a fatherly hand on my shoulder. “I am so sorry,” he said again. “Arendelle has lost a good man. A good king. We will all miss him.”
A sudden horrifying thought came to me. “And…” I struggled to sit up again, ignoring my aching head. “What of Lieutenant Mattias? Is he…?” I trailed off, not able to form the words. I tried to think back again to the battle. Mattias had shoved me out of the way, trying to protect me as the forest erupted into violence.
The thought of losing my father and my friend on the same day was almost too much to bear.
Lord Peterssen shook his head slowly. “We don’t know what happened to him,” he admitted. “Some say he was still fighting when the mist rolled in.”
I squinted at him in confusion. “The mist?”
He nodded. “They say it fell from the sky. Dropping down over the forest, heavy and thick. So thick no one could penetrate it. Many of our people were trapped—are still trapped—on the other side.”
“But that’s crazy!” I cried. “A mist can’t trap people. It’s not solid.”
“This one is,” Peterssen said solemnly. “I rode out yesterday to see it for myself. It’s as solid as this wall right here.” He rapped his knuckles lightly against my bedroom wall. “And from what we can tell, there’s no way in and no way out.”
Fear thrummed through me. My father had instilled in me from a young age awareness of the dangers of magic and sorcery. It was powerful. Wicked. A man who wielded magic did not fight fair. Sorcery corrupted the very soul, turning it black as night.
“Was it the Northuldra who did it? Are they magical?” I whispered, suddenly remembering the girl I’d watched in the forest. The one dancing in the wind. She’d been like a fairy from a storybook. Lithe, ethereal. In that moment, I couldn’t have looked away. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to recall more details, but it was mostly a blur apart from that stirring sense I had been witnessing something—and someone—incredible. I frowned, frustrated.
“Your father believed they were,” Peterssen said. “But from what I saw in my time with the Northuldra as the dam was being constructed, they were simply friends of the elements. They used these gifts of nature to help them in their everyday lives. But I never saw them use magic of their own.”