Frozen is the property of Disney.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Headwinds

Marshal Marmont's parting words echoed in the back of Elsa's mind for the rest of that day, like an aggravating noise at the edge of her hearing. She pushed them aside to listen to Anna tell her about all the wonderful dishes that would be served at the wedding feast. She ignored them in favor of a report from Kai on Kristoff's impressive progress after just a few hours of instruction on the arts of being a gentleman. They were even briefly drowned out by a visit from Olaf, who snuck in through a window as she read through a stack of petitions by candlelight before resigning herself to bed.

As she slept, even her dreams remained restless. She roamed the castle like a ghost, seeing the hallways in fleeting glimpses, touring closed doors and darkened windows accompanied only by the quiet stillness of midnight. She awoke the next morning unsettled and edgy. Eager to busy herself with the tasks of the day, the queen was dressed and in her study while the sun was still just a red-orange splash upon the eastern horizon.

Distraction, however, proved to be more elusive than Elsa expected. Her study had been reclaimed from the uncharacteristic mess of the previous weeks. Her correspondence was caught up. Even the petitions from the night before were now all read and signed, well ahead of the next open court to be held at the beginning of May, where the citizens whose appeals had reached the queen's desk would present their cases for her adjudication.

Anna had begged out of their usual breakfast, as she was taking a trip into town with Seraphim; something about a last-minute meeting of the minds regarding the bridesmaids' dresses. Kristoff had wholeheartedly thrown himself at Kai's tender mercies, engaging the chamberlain for a marathon lesson while Anna was out of the castle. They'd even shanghaied Gerda for the occasion, as apparently Kristoff was already making headway – at his own insistence – into the realm of dance steps. Elsa had to admire his persistence. She also had to trust that Kai would have Kristoff ready for the ceremony she had in mind prior to the wedding, but it was out of her control now.

In short, Elsa was left with very little to do. She knew she would have to meet with Minister Henrik at some point, which would almost certainly put an end to the fledgling confidence the minister had expressed in her the previous day. That was not a task for the first thing in the morning. A halfhearted attempt at scrutinizing the ledgers for the new copper mine in the eastern foothills proved incapable of holding her attention, and so Elsa found herself standing in front of the glass-paned doors that opened onto her private balcony. She was staring off into space, not even seeing her own reflection until she registered the look of surprise looking back at her at the unexpected sound of knocking upon the door to her chambers.

Curious, Elsa went to answer the door herself. The surprise became pleasant when she saw Prince Uriel standing outside.

"Your Majesty," he greeted, giving her a slight bow. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

"Nothing that couldn't use a little interruption," Elsa replied, smiling for what felt like the first time that day. "Please, come in."

"Thank you." He glanced around as he stepped inside, taking in the surroundings. The queen's chambers on the second floor were actually three rooms in one, set against the castle's west wall. The two of them stood in the parlor, which served as either a sitting room or an informal audience chamber. There were two sets of sliding doors, much like those in the guest rooms on the floor below, one to either side. The doors to the left, which led to Elsa's bedchamber, dressing room, and bathroom, were closed. The doors to the right, leading back into her study, stood open.

Over the winter, the chambers had been decorated and furnished to Elsa's taste. They had stood untouched for more than three years prior to that, and the only way for Elsa to bring herself to take up residence in the rooms that she could only ever remember belonging to her parents had been to start over from scratch. The carpet was a shade of greyish-white, like a blanket of fresh snow. The waist-high baseboards were white plaster trimmed with gold. The walls were papered and painted in royal blue, patterned with faint sapphire stenciling: the crocus flower of the kingdom's royal crest. The colors might have made the room seem dark, if not for the tall banks of windows throughout the chambers. They allowed for plenty of sunlight to get in, and a high, cloudless blue sky ensured there was no shortage of sunlight to be had.

Uriel turned in place, admiring the rooms. "This place suits you."

"You should have seen it a week ago," Elsa said, leading him into the study. "You'd have had to take me at my word that I had a desk under all the mess."

"Somehow I can't picture you being disorganized," the Black Prince replied, "so I'll have to take your word on it anyway." Uriel was, as always, dressed to earn his nom de guerre. His dark trousers and tall boots shone against the baseboards, while the rest of him nearly vanished into the backdrop of the walls. The winter-paled skin of his face seemed to float into the room.

"What brought you by?" Elsa wondered.

"Your sister and mine cornered me before setting out to right all the wrongs in the world of fashion. They seemed to be under the impression that you could use some company this morning." He gave her a lopsided smile. "To be fair, it didn't take a great deal of convincing."

It was then that Elsa noticed the checkered surface of a chessboard tucked beneath his right arm. "I see you came prepared."

Pinning two corners of the wooden plane between his palms, Uriel spun the board with a flick of his wrists. "This way, you can keep me nattering on about chess metaphors, if you like. I thought it better than the alternative, which would be me rambling about everything else."

"I think a bit of rambling is just what I need at the moment," Elsa decided. To spend a while talking about nothing would be a welcome change, after days where it felt like the fate of the world seemed to rest on every conversation.

"Be careful what you wish for," cautioned Uriel. "And be sure to stop me at the first signs of boredom. If you start feeling drowsy, it might already be too late."

Elsa moved behind her desk, pulling her chair from behind to set it sideways against the corner. She sat down, absently smoothing out the wrinkles along the arms of her grey velvet blouse and the hem of her dark blue skirt. "Oh, sit down and set up the board already," she commanded, pointing to the empty chair set against the side of the desk nearest her. "You're here, and by now I've heard enough about just how bad you are at this game that I'm actually curious. You're not getting out of this so easily, Your Highness," she added with a smirk.

"That's good," said Uriel, taking the offered seat. "After all, this is where I reveal that I'm actually a secret grandmaster at chess and impress you with my keen insights." He set the board down between them on the corner of the desk.

"Did you forget something?" Elsa wondered, raising an eyebrow. "Or do secret grandmasters not need pieces to play the game?"

Uriel leaned forward a bit, laying his left hand flat across his half of the board. "No. I just had a better idea." The smile he gave her at that moment cleared her mind of all distraction. His grey eyes glittered, and Elsa realized it was not a trick of the sunlight. A soft glow emanated from beneath his palm, and the prince slowly lifted his hand to reveal two rows of chessmen where none had been the moment before. Tiny sprites of white-gold light were arrayed on his side of the board. Luminous embers, not in the simple, familiar shapes of pawns or rooks or bishops, but rather a rank of glowing riflemen, backed by pairs of real mounted knights, priests in tall miters, even a king and queen with shining scepters no bigger than matchsticks.

Elsa gasped when she saw them moving. She bent down, her chin almost resting on her side of the board, and stifled a giggle as the light-forged pawns brandished their rifles. She reached out with a finger, and watched the chessmen recoil, shaking their fists at her in silent remonstration. Elsa glanced up to see Uriel still smiling at her, the light in his eyes flickering out as they returned to their familiar storm-grey.

Elsa hesitated, a glimmer of doubt drawing her brows together. "Are they…?"

"Just light," Uriel assured her, "and a bit of puppeteering on my part. Creations like your charming friend Olaf are a bit beyond me."

She nodded, straightening in her chair as she placed her own left hand down flat upon her side of the board. Elsa's eyes drifted shut as she fixed an idea firmly in her mind. She took a slow, deep breath, inhaling the familiar aroma of her chambers: mint and cool winter breeze. Her nostrils twitched at the springy hint of lilac in the air, but she cast that thought aside as she felt her power respond. A whisper of cool air tickled the skin beneath the sleeve of her blouse as she raised her palm, accompanied by a faint crackle of ice as the magic flowed from her hand.

Elsa opened her eyes to survey her handiwork. A row of miniature Arendelle guardsmen stood at the head of her side of the board, a rank of figurines in ice as clear and pure as glass. Looking closely, she could even make out the faint bumps she'd pictured on the shakos, just like the kingdom's crest emblazoned on the caps of her living guardsmen. The back row was just as impressive. The rooks looked like the tallest spire of the castle, adorned with a single snowflake as it had been during the skating party at her winter's end. The bishops looked like finger-height versions of Bishop William, right down to the cleric's long beak of a nose. The knights were two tiny Svens, mounted by two even tinier Kristoffs wearing comically serious expressions on their faces, swords clasped in their right hands. The king was her father as he appeared in his coronation portrait, clasping the royal scepter and orb writ small. The queen was Elsa herself, the tiny braid over her left shoulder almost stunningly detailed, ice dress and train rippling as they caught they light. She smiled with satisfaction as she surveyed her force of chessmen. They would do nicely.

"Beautiful," Uriel breathed. Elsa glanced up, seeing the prince's eyes dart down to the board. "Beautiful and impressive," he said. "And frankly, almost unfair. I'll be sad to see any of those pieces go."

"They're solid ice, too," Elsa observed. She shot him a pointed look. "I don't want to catch any of your pieces mysteriously changing when you start to lose."

Uriel's jaw dropped open in an expression of mock hurt. "Never, Your Majesty. On my honor as a gentleman, I'd sooner throw myself from your balcony than be caught cheating."

"I'll hold you to that, mister sunshine."

Uriel chuckled. "That's a nickname I'd rather not hear outside this room. I've worked so hard at the 'Black Prince' thing, it would only serve to confuse people." He grinned. "Your move. As I taught you the other day, white moves first."

"And I remember telling you then that I'm well aware of the rules," Elsa replied, reaching out to move a pawn forward.

"So you did." Uriel sat back in his chair, expression turning smug as one of his pawns marched up two squares of its own volition.

For a moment, Elsa's mouth dropped open in surprise. Then she smirked, looking at Uriel through her eyelashes. "Showoff." A second pawn advanced with her aid.

"Guilty as charged." Another piece moved on its own. "Though I wonder what Kristoff would think if he knew you'd conscripted him into the game."

She shrugged, advancing one of her aforementioned knights. "Consider yourself lucky that I didn't make Anna my queen. I'm pretty sure that piece would be practically unstoppable."

"A fair point. But I suppose you're going to tell me the form you chose isn't still meant to be some kind of a distraction?"

"A distraction?" Elsa said, arching one eyebrow upwards. She slid one of her bishops across the board to claim one of the prince's pawns. It disappeared like a snuffed candle, the first casualty of their match vanishing with a flicker. "Don't you mean symbolic?"

He repaid her raised eyebrow with one of his own. "Not at all. Unless you think there's hidden meaning in a chess piece wearing a sheer dress with a slit in the leg." He grinned as one of his rooks silently glided forward to take her bishop. The ice evaporated with a sibilant puff of vapor. "The attention to detail is impressive."

Elsa felt a bit of heat rising to her cheeks. To hide it, she bent her head over the board, studying for a long moment before moving one of her pawns to threaten his rook. Despite – or perhaps because of – her momentary embarrassment, she was taken by a sudden boldness. "I'd think it'd take a lot more than a skirt to distract you. As I recall, you've seen me in a much more compromising state."

Elsa was rewarded when it was the Black Prince's turn to blush. The shot struck home: a reminder of their first meeting, when she had awakened in a ramshackle cabin wearing nothing but a bedsheet. Uriel had found her a short time earlier, after an attack in a quarry near his home city of Kristensand. She'd been hurt badly in the ambush, and the ice of her dress had consumed itself trying in vain to staunch her wounds. Uriel's healing had saved her life then, but she tried not to dwell on that thought. Now, almost a year later, it was something to look back on with a sense of relief, like a half-forgotten nightmare.

Even so, the prince's embarrassment quickly turned to somber concern. "Does the wound trouble you?" he asked.

In spite of herself, a phantom of memory flashed through Elsa's mind. Her left hand drifted absently across the bodice of her dress, above the spot in her stomach where the knife… She shook her head, pushing the thought away with sheer will. "Not at all," she said, grounding herself back in reality. "There's not even a scar."

Uriel nodded mutely. He flicked a finger, and one of his bishops strolled diagonally across the chessboard, but his heart no longer seemed to be in the game.

"I'm sorry," Elsa said. "I wasn't thinking, to bring something like that up. I really am fine."

"No, it's alright," Uriel muttered. "I just…" His voice trailed off. The look in his eyes was haunted.

There was more to this than what had happened to her, Elsa realized. "What is it?" she asked gently.

"Something I'd forgotten. Or perhaps something that I hadn't wanted to remember," the Black Prince said, arms crossing over his chest. He was staring at the chessboard, though Elsa could tell he wasn't really looking at it. "Princess Anna showed me to your Hall of Portraits a few days ago, and she was kind enough to introduce me to all her old friends there. I was a bit surprised to find my mother among them."

Twenty years prior, Elsa's grandfather, King Magnus, had remarried after Elsa's grandmother passed away. The new queen had brought a teenaged daughter, Helena, with her into the family. As a step-sister to Elsa's father, Helena had lived in Arendelle for a time, before leaving to marry the then-Duke of Kristensand: Christian, Uriel's father.

"I've seen her picture there," Elsa said, her voice tinged with sympathy. "She was beautiful. And her dress was lovely."

Uriel nodded. "I remember so little of her, but I've never forgotten that she loved to wear blue. You remind me a bit of her, in that way." He swallowed thickly. "I don't think I ever told you how she died."

"No," she admitted. "I heard it was an accident."

"Yes. She fell from her horse," Uriel began. "My father had been teaching me to ride, and I'd just gotten my first pony. It was my fifth birthday. We went out for a ride on the beach to celebrate… it was such a beautiful day. Something spooked Mother's horse as we were riding through the shoals, and she was thrown. Wet sand isn't all that soft," he explained, voice soft with regret. "She landed hard, and hit her head."

Elsa hadn't realized he'd been there when it happened. "I'm so sorry."

Uriel didn't seem to hear her. "I'd only just started learning how to use my powers, but even then I knew how to heal. Before I could make light or heat, my touch had been able to relieve pain and mend small wounds. After she fell, there was a bit of blood from a cut. Some bruises on her neck. I was a child, with a child's understanding. I healed what I saw was wrong, and she seemed fine. We headed back to the castle." He shook his head numbly. "Mother had spent the whole morning pointing out the sights to me. Counting dolphins in the breakers, quizzing me about the kinds of rocks and the species of birds. But she was so quiet on the ride back. I remember how much that worried me."

Elsa sat there listening. She had no words to offer him, even as she dreaded what came next.

"By the time we were home, she was complaining of a headache, and was tired and dizzy," Uriel said. "She fell asleep in her favorite armchair by the window. She never woke up."

The prince was still staring through the chessboard, his left arm lying on her desk. His eyes were vacant. Elsa leaned forward, placing her hand atop Uriel's. "Magic or no magic, there was nothing you could do. You were only five. You couldn't have known."

His gaze fixed upon her hand for a moment, before finally meeting her eyes. "I know I'm not a god; I can't heal myself, or old age, or disease. But to watch her slip away from a bump on the head… A part of me has never trusted my magic ever since."

That was probably what had made it so easy for Uriel to believe that the drought that had plagued Kristensand in years past had been his doing, Elsa thought. She also realized then why she had worried him with the idle comment about her own wound. "You saved my life with your magic," she said firmly, giving his wrist a squeeze. "I'm still here, and I'm fine. Thanks to you."

The prince let out a long, slow breath. "You're right, of course," he said, nodding firmly. "I didn't mean to become so maudlin. Where were we?"

He seemed determined to be cheerful, and Elsa felt it best not to belittle his efforts. "I believe you were poking fun at the design of my chessmen."

"Ah, yes." He leaned forward, planting an elbow on her desk and cradling his chin with his hand. His fingers brushed idly across the burn scars covering his cheek and the right side of his jaw as he surveyed the board. "Perhaps I should start taking this more seriously," he decided. A knight charged forward, vanquishing one of her pawns in a puff of steam.

Elsa smiled as she picked up one of her rooks, dragging it across the board and squashing the gallant attacker even as his horse reared in celebration.

Uriel frowned, staring at the spot where his knight had been enjoying its moment of triumph. "I meant to do that."

"Who am I to argue with a secret grandmaster?"

He glanced up. "You're quite the witticist today, Your Majesty."

Elsa shrugged. "I finally seem to have met an opponent I can beat." As if to emphasize the point, she moved her rook back across the board, snuffing out a pawn the prince had just moved. "I suppose that puts me in a good mood."

"Happy to be of service," he muttered. He blew out a breath, and his second knight moved into the field.

It had barely come to a stop when it was claimed by Elsa's remaining bishop. She frowned suspiciously. "You're not going easy on me, are you?"

Uriel was staring at the board, brows knit. "Your Majesty, I assure you I'm not." One of his rooks moved over to block an advancing pawn. When it was ambushed there by one of Elsa's knights, his mouth twisted with consternation. "There's simply only one way I know how to play chess: badly."

"Perhaps you should stick to the metaphors," Elsa suggested wryly. Then she grew serious. "I never did thank you for your advice the other day."

The Black Prince met her eyes briefly, before returning his focus to the board and his deteriorating strategic position thereupon. "If I managed to be any help at all, then you're quite welcome. Though I don't know how much credit I deserve for pointing out the obvious."

A few moves passed in silence as Elsa formulated a reply to that. "Sometimes the obvious things are the ones we most need to hear," she said at last, her voice quiet.

"That's true," he agreed, as his bishop took one of her pawns. "I don't suppose you have any other problems for me to comment on? Leaky roof? A stocking with a hole in it?"

"I'm afraid my problems are rather more animated," she said. "Though at least I'm making some progress with them." Her rook claimed his bishop.

Uriel leaned back with a sigh. "This is turning into a rout. Have you considered challenging the ambassadors to a winner-take-all chess tournament?"

She managed the thinnest of smiles. "That may end up being my best option at this rate. I've spoken with half of the ambassadors, and I haven't yet been offered anything I actually want."

He looked up, and this time he held her gaze. "Why would you expect anything different?"

"All of the embassies are trying to provide me with some incentive to join their cause," she said, giving him a quizzical look. "Why else would they be making offers?"

His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Forgive me, Your Majesty, but I believe you're looking at it all wrong. Not one of these ambassadors knows a thing about you as a person. They haven't a clue what matters to you, or what you want. If they're smart, the best they can do is play for time, trying to get a sense of you before they make their case."

There was a certain amount of sense in that, Elsa realized. Klemens von Metternich had been goaded into showing his hand early, and it was hard to tell how much the skeptical Austrian cared about wooing her anyway. But Auguste de Marmont had told her how that he had paid close attention to the French envoy who'd been at her coronation, and had openly admitted that he would have made a different proposal if it had been in his power to do so. Most telling, though, was the first ambassador to make an offer. Christian Frederick, whom Elsa considered the canniest politician of those she'd met, hadn't made his play until their second meeting. And when he did, he had tried to manipulate her perceived naïveté and inexperience. Only his overconfidence, combined with her bluff of feigned interest, had revealed his true intentions.

Still, while the realization helped her to understand what had been happening, it was not exactly new information. "The essence of every agreement boils down to knowing what is valuable to the person you're negotiating with," Elsa said. "Of course they'll try and tailor their offers to me if they can."

"No doubt," Uriel agreed. "But if that's true, do you think they're the only ones who should be doing so?"

Elsa blinked. "What do you mean? I already know exactly what they want," she said bitterly. "My magic. Me."

"Is that all, though? I know, just as you do, how our magic would be put to use if these nations held sway over us," Uriel said darkly. "But I said it before: we're not gods. Regardless of how rare or unique our abilities are, we're only human. We've both struggled with ourselves, which proves we're just as flawed and imperfect as anyone else. Do you really think we're able to make the kind of difference in the world that they expect?"

Elsa pondered that. She knew what her magic had been capable of when it had gone out of control. She'd never considered duplicating its effects of her own volition; in fact, having seen firsthand the devastation it could cause, she'd sworn never to try. But while there was no denying the possibility that she could hold sway over a battle, or a fleet at sea, or a city, the world was a very big place. As powerful as her magic could be, she was only one person, and that was never enough. The Emperor of France was living proof: his reputation was almost unprecedented in history, a veritable Alexander reborn. To this day, a force under Napoleon's command had never been defeated in the field. But that hadn't done anything to prevent the catastrophe that befell the French army in Russia.

There was no question Elsa's magic could win battles. But could it win wars? That was not so simple.

"I'm not saying that their desire for your magic isn't a factor," Uriel went on. "Or even that it's not the most important part. But do you think that all of these ambassadors are interested in you solely for your powers?" he asked.

"No," said Elsa, surprising herself at how quickly the answer came to her. Metternich didn't even believe her magic was real. Marmont had implied that Elsa wouldn't be nearly as useful on the battlefield as his superiors believed. Again, the key was Prince Frederick. What he desired was a crown of his own and authority over Denmark-Norway. Elsa herself was simply the guarantor of the bargain, the means to secure success in his personal plot, and her magic was no more than a secondary tool. "No, you're right. They aren't pursuing me for my magic alone."

The Black Prince nodded. "Then I don't have to tell you what you need to do."

"I have to know what they really want. To read between the lines of what they're offering to find out what they want me to do." Easier said than done, she thought. Not all the ambassadors would be as forthcoming as Marshal Marmont.

"That makes more sense," the prince agreed. "Far more than taking what they propose to give you at face value. You're worth more than anything they have to offer, Your Majesty."

"It's kind of you to say so," she said mildly, "but we both know the world doesn't work that way."

"Perhaps not," he admitted. "But another thing we both know is that the rules we play by in the real world aren't set in stone. My little sister is a queen regnant, and when I gave up my own birthright to put her in that position, she turned around and used it to make me her chancellor and heir presumptive anyway. Your own sister, a royal princess, is marrying an untitled commoner in less than a week, an act that half the noble families in Europe might well have disowned her for. You've not only blessed the marriage, you've encouraged it, and for no less a reason than you love your sister and Kristoff is a good man who makes her happy." He waved expressively at the game set on the desk between them. "We're not pieces on a chessboard, only permitted to move in certain ways. Every time you step into a room with one of the ambassadors, you have a chance to prove that."

"I was wondering when you'd manage a chess metaphor," she quipped, wishing it was all as simple as he made it sound. She was getting better at dealing with the ambassadors, perhaps; even Minister Henrik admitted that. But if so, it was only because of all the help she was getting. From the minister, from Anna and Seraphim, even from Kristoff. From Uriel himself, for that matter, for all his modesty about stating the obvious. "A charitable observer might say that I'm finally getting my footing when it comes to politics," she granted, "but I'm no match for the men I'm up against. Not on my own."

"You don't mean that," Uriel said, frowning. "Not really."

Elsa crossed her legs and planted her elbow on the edge of the desk, leaning back into the cushions of her chair. "It doesn't matter, does it? Even if I were the savviest diplomat in the world, I'm not negotiating from a position of strength. The smallest nation treating with me is a hundred times the size of Arendelle. The only leverage I have, the only real power my kingdom has at all, stems from my magic."

"You say that as if it wasn't the most valuable piece in play. And even if it weren't, I don't understand why you think you're so outmatched. You have a head start on every one of the ambassadors coming to meet you," Uriel insisted. "You have something you know they want, and you're more than capable of seeing through any scheme they've concocted. Don't play by their rules. Decide what you want, and find out which of them will give it to you."

Elsa shook her head. He doesn't understand. "This isn't about me. What I want out of this is the least important part of the equation."

A new expression flashed across the Black Prince's face, a jumble of confusion and something that almost looked like anger. He rose from his chair, half-cape billowing like a black cloud as he whirled away from her. He stopped next to the French doors leading to the balcony, his back to Elsa as he stared out at the courtyard. When he spoke, his voice was strangely disappointed. "Why do you think so little of yourself?"

Elsa fell silent as she looked to her left, out the bay window that stood behind her desk. She had not expected a question like that to come from Uriel. In fact, under the circumstances she would have thought that he was the one person who would be well aware the sacrifices she had decided to make. Hadn't he made the very same choice? As she felt the pang of frustration his words elicited, she realized it was more than that. Elsa hadn't just thought Uriel would understand… she had hoped he would.

Why did she think so little of herself? She was a queen, born and bred to rule her kingdom and protect her people. The only calling she had ever known was the peaceful governance of Arendelle and its citizens. She could have been content with that. But her powers, the magic that the whim of fate had placed within her, made that difficult. Ruling a kingdom, even one as humble as Arendelle, was challenge enough without such… complications. Uriel himself had abdicated in favor of his sister due to the rumors and mistrust borne of magic in Kristensand. There was no room left for ego; the things she wanted out of life could never come first.

Why did she think so little of herself? Because selfishness had nearly led her to disaster. Elsa had spent no small amount of time contemplating what had happened last July. After her powers had been revealed at her coronation ball, thinking of the flight into the mountains still filled her with shame. In a moment of panic, fear, and weakness, she had abandoned her responsibilities, and in so doing had nearly destroyed everything she held dear. Elsa was under no illusions on that count. Arendelle would have been lost, and she would not have been far behind. Given her mindset at the time, Elsa figured there was a better than average chance she would have wasted away within her palace, firmly convinced that starvation was just part of the price she had to pay for the safety of seclusion. Only Anna's incomparable stubbornness and uncompromising love had saved the day.

That wasn't even the worst thing that selfishness could have cost her. The origin of Arendelle's well-intentioned isolation might have come from her parents, but when they met their fate on the voyage across the North Sea, Elsa had been eighteen. Old enough to assert her rights, if not to assume the throne, but a part of her had been all too willing to meekly accept the letter of the law and three years of regency. That same timid, self-centered creature had allowed her sister to bear those weeks and months of grief alone. And even if only the three years since their parents' deaths were laid on Elsa's account, she knew that Anna had forgiven her far too readily. For that, she knew her sister was a better person than she could ever hope to be.

Why did she think so little of herself? She had more reasons than she could count.

It never once occurred to Elsa that that was not the question Uriel had asked.

The silence between them had stretched into a chasm, chess games and politics alike forgotten. There was no telling how long they might have stayed that way if not for a knock upon the door to the queen's chambers.

They both turned toward the sound. Elsa shook herself from her reflections and went to answer it. She stopped at the threshold of the study, struck by a realization. Glancing back, she looked at the chessboard, and its competing sets of frozen and luminous chessmen. One of those would not be remarkable. The other most certainly would. And if whoever was knocking stepped into the sitting room, they would both be clearly visible.

A breath hissed between her teeth as she pointed to the board. Uriel took her meaning at once, and in the blink of an eye, his summoned pieces vanished.

Elsa was at the door a moment later. The knock had come from Adrian, one of the guardsmen of her detail during the morning shift.

"Beg pardon, Your Majesty, a courier just arrived," he said, holding up a small package wrapped in brown canvas and tied with string. "The Sommerbrise made port, and this was marked as a diplomatic parcel."

She frowned, mildly confused. "Diplomatic packages typically go to Minister Henrik," she said.

"Aye, ma'am. No answer at his office, and the door was locked," Adrian explained. "Courier thought it might be important, didn't want to leave it sit."

Elsa thought at once of Henrik's harried state when she and Kristoff had encountered him the previous morning. It was more than likely that the minister was out dealing with some new crisis – real or imagined – in the guest wing. Further reminded that she needed to meet with him anyway, Elsa decided it would be simpler to take the parcel to him herself later than send a guard combing through the corridors now.

"I'll take it, Adrian. Thank you." Shutting the door behind her, Elsa examined the package. It was an oblong box, a little more than a handspan in length, and fairly heavy for its size. She carried it back into the study, reading the note on top of the canvas, written in grease pencil to keep it from being spoiled by water. She blinked in surprise.

"What is it?" asked Uriel.

"That's strange. It's marked as diplomatic, but it's addressed to both Anna and myself."

"Maybe they addressed it to you to make sure it arrived. A crewman with sticky fingers might think twice about a diplomatic parcel marked for a queen. What do you think it is?"

Elsa shrugged. "It's addressed to both of us, so there's no harm in looking." She set it down on her desk and pulled at the string. It was fine silken thread, not cheap twine, and the canvas was almost new, still heavy and clean. Whoever sent it had not been stingy. Elsa unfolded the layers of protective wrapping, gasping as she saw what it contained.

It appeared to be a music box of exquisite craftsmanship. It looked brand-new, the details crisp and the carvings immaculate. Elsa could smell the freshness of both the paint and the sweet cedarwood. A single red ribbon was tied around it, holding in place an unsealed piece of parchment. Elsa slid the note out of the ribbon.

"'To Princess Anna of Arendelle,'" she read aloud. "'May the music of this gift remind you of the joy of your wedding day for many happy years.' It's signed with the initials K. V. D."

"It's not chocolate," said Uriel, "but my guess is she'll still like it quite a bit."

Elsa agreed with that assessment. She quashed her curiosity and resisted the urge to open the music box. The gift was not for her. She slid the note back under the ribbon and began carefully re-wrapping the layers of canvas.

"If the wedding gifts have started arriving, the guests can't be far behind," Uriel observed. "The ones you actually want to see, that is."

Elsa looked up at him as she tied off the string. "They already have," she said, smiling.

He grinned sheepishly. "I feel I owe you an apology, Your Majesty. I came here trying to cheer you up, and seemed to accomplish just the opposite."

"It's not your fault," Elsa replied. "I'm afraid I just don't make very good company of late."

"At the risk of being counterproductive, I have to disagree."

A brief laugh escaped her throat. "Flattery won't save you, Your Highness. We have a game to finish."

He waved at the half-empty board, where only Elsa's ice-forged pieces still stood. "Don't you mean start over? I appreciate your concern for the secrecy of my powers, by the way."

Elsa looked down, head tilted thoughtfully to one side. Her eyes narrowed. "Pawn. Pawn. Rook. Pawn. Queen's bishop. Pawn," she said, pointing in quick succession. "Your king, queen, and their pawns hadn't moved."

With a wave and a flicker of light, Uriel summoned the pieces exactly as she had described and took his seat. Elsa walked past the prince and around the corner of the desk, smiling at him as she returned to her own chair. "It's your move. You're not worried I'm cheating you?" she teased.

She had expected him to make a quip. Instead, he studied her thoughtfully for a moment. "No," he said at last. He looked down to watch his king's pawn advance, but didn't look back up. "I am a bit confused, though."

"Oh?" Elsa wondered. She placed her queen in the square in front of the pawn that had just moved, threatening that piece, as well as the king it had left three squares behind.

Uriel's own queen shifted into the space in front of his king, smacking her scepter into her open hand like a thug brandishing a club. "You have an excellent memory."

"And that confuses you?" Elsa said questioningly, sliding a rook into the square behind her queen.

"In a way," he said. A pawn on her left flank marched forward, intent on the promotion from reaching the back row. "You're intelligent."

Elsa moved her rook to the edge of the board, snuffing out the ambitious pawn. "Thank you. But if you want to distract me with flattery, you're going to have to try harder than that."

"Your people care a great deal for you. I don't imagine that's without cause." His remaining bishop crept over by a single square, putting it in position to strike at Elsa's queen.

"Try again," she said, as one of her knights ambushed the ambusher.

"Your sister loves you fiercely." A pawn claimed her knight.

Elsa had nothing to say to that. She gave a mental salute to the miniature Sven and Kristoff, who had done their duty. She moved her remaining bishop into the space to the right of her queen.

Uriel remained silent as well. His last rook glided across the board, making a desperate charge onto her side of the field against the pair of pawns that stood between him and the last row. Elsa ignored it, moving her miniature self forward, taking the pawn that stood between it and Uriel's queen.

The Black Prince blinked slowly, recognizing the dilemma that was unfolding. Their queens were now facing off. Elsa could attack, though that would mean losing her queen to his king. But if Uriel struck at her queen, his would immediately be taken by her bishop. He seemed unwilling to make that sacrifice, instead advancing his rook to take the second pawn in its path. In one more move, it could place her king in check. Nothing stood in its way other than the rising puff of steam from the pawn it had captured.

He finally looked up, grey eyes staring at her through the brief haze. "You're beautiful."

Elsa froze, hand hovering in midair above her rook. She felt her cheeks grow warm in spite of herself. "Well, that might have worked, but I'm afraid it's already too late." She moved the rook forward from its place on the far left flank, all the way to the back of the board. "Check."

The trap was sprung, and the Black Prince's position was hopeless. Only one move would take him out of check, and even that would do nothing more than buy him time. "And mate in one. Well-played, Your Majesty." To his credit, he chose honorable surrender. His king silently broke ranks, kneeling before Elsa's queen and offering up its scepter with both hands in a gesture of supplication. Uriel himself sat back in his chair, dismissing his chessmen with a wordless wave.

"Thank you for the game," Elsa said. The prince looked strangely somber, to the point where not even his last desperate tease was enough to put her in a mood to gloat, even in jest.

Uriel nodded, gaze drifting to his left. His eyes swept across her desk. "It wasn't flattery, you know."

She blinked. "Oh," was all she managed to say. You're beautiful. The two simple words echoed in her mind, matched only by the unaccountable pounding of her heart.

"I wasn't trying to make you uncomfortable," he explained. "But I really am confused. You have an extraordinary mind, as well as the love of your people and your sister. And you're a beautiful woman, Your Majesty. I don't know how someone with all those qualities could possibly think as little of themselves as you do."

Elsa silently cursed herself. The prince, who was not half so oblivious as he liked to joke about, had merely been trying to cheer her up with a series of gracious observations. And Elsa had allowed herself to be affected by the last as though she were some vain little girl who had never been paid a compliment. It wasn't as though she'd never heard the words before. Once upon a time, her mother had said it every morning as she'd brushed Elsa's hair in front of the vanity. Her father had said it every time she'd tried on a new dress. Anna had said it, complete with endearing stumbles, at the coronation ball. They were words, and that was all. Offered honestly – and she had no reason to doubt Uriel's sincerity, any more than she doubted her parents' or her sister's – they should be taken for what they were. How had her foreign minister once put it? Words are wind.

Her heartbeat took on a different timbre as the rest of those words came rushing back. Why do you think so little of yourself? Uriel had said, and all of a sudden she realized what question he'd really been asking.

It was not nearly so easy to answer.

"I… don't know," she admitted softly. Yes, she lacked confidence, and not without cause, but it would be unbecoming to sit there moaning to him about all her faults. Even though he wasn't looking at her, Elsa still glanced away, unwilling to risk the sight of disappointment in those sad storm-grey eyes. It was bad enough that she couldn't be the kind of person he seemed to see in her.

The question remained unanswered, even in her mind. "I don't know," she said again, this time with a shrug that looked more indifferent than it felt. "A better question might be why anyone thinks so highly of me. I've studied hard for what I know, which I'm proud of. I try to do the right thing for my people, and I guess they think that's enough. Anna is my sister, and we'd love one another no matter what. As for my looks, I can hardly take any credit for them. If anyone could, it'd be my parents."

"I can see that," Uriel said. There was a rustle of motion, and Elsa's gaze was drawn to the noise. The prince was standing at the back of her desk, picking up one of the two small portrait frames that stood in the corner.

One was of Anna, a miniature still-life done as she sat in one of the armchairs in the castle library. She was a bit younger, perhaps not quite sixteen. The regency council had commissioned portraits for both princesses after their parents had passed away. Anna had been hopeless sitting still, so they had tried to pose her reading a book, perhaps thinking that she'd do better with something to keep occupied. The next best thing had happened: Anna had fallen asleep. There was no way for any painting to capture Anna's vibrant energy, so the sight of her resting peacefully was the best portrait of her sister the queen could hope to keep on her desk.

The second picture, and the one Uriel was holding, was several years older. In fact, it was one of the few decorations that had stayed in place when Elsa had redone the royal suite over the winter. It had been captured some twenty years ago in the room they currently occupied. Behind the same desk and in the very chair in which Elsa now sat, as a matter of fact. It showed her father, young and vibrant, no older than Elsa was now. He was behind the desk of his study, a little girl perched on one side of his lap, with a large book occupying the rest. The artist had done a fine job portraying the king reading to his daughter, who stared at the book with rapt wonder.

It was Elsa's favorite picture. It lacked the stiff-backed nervousness that the king had displayed whenever he had posed otherwise, as in his coronation portrait or the painting commissioned after her parents' wedding. This one made him seem humbler, and somehow nobler in spite of it. More importantly, it showed him as he lived in Elsa's memory. Not as a king, but as her father.

"Is this you in the picture?" Uriel wondered.

"Yes," Elsa confirmed, not surprised that he would ask. In addition to her fascination with the book in her father's lap, the most prominent feature of the two-year-old girl in the portrait was a head of rich brown hair, thick and dark, held back with a purple hairband. "I was born with dark hair, just like my mother's," she explained. "It started to change not long after that was painted."

"Really?" Uriel asked, blinking as he glanced back and forth between her and the picture in his hands. "I know a child's hair can change a bit from when they're born. Somehow I doubt that was the case for you."

"You'd be right," Elsa said. She stood from her chair and walked toward the doors to the balcony. She pulled them open, basking for a moment in the wave of fresh air that swept inside. "That was when my powers began to grow stronger. There had been a few inexplicable incidents early on: frost on the bedding of my crib, snow falling around the mobile, even the fact that I never seemed to be cold. But it wasn't until then, when I was about three, that it became apparent that I'd been born with magic."

Uriel had set the picture back on her desk and joined her on the balcony, taking the space to her right. "I was about the same age when my magic became obvious. My hair never changed, though," the Black Prince said. "A good thing, too. In these outfits, I'd make a hideous blonde."

Elsa smiled, leaning with both arms against the chest-high railing. "You wouldn't rather have been the Golden Prince?"

"Too gaudy," he said, waving dismissively. "Though that's a better alternative than 'mister sunshine.'"

She laughed. "You'd have matched your kingdom's heraldry, at least."

"I'll leave that to Seraphim. I think we can agree she pulls it off better than I ever could. I may wear black, but she was born in red and gold."

A few wispy clouds were rolling in to mar the otherwise unblemished sky. The sun was still high and pleasant, though, and a faint westerly breeze was blowing, the only remnant of the gale that had battered Arendelle for the last few days. Elsa looked out on the castle courtyard and the bridge into the city beyond the gates, where she could make out the tiny shapes of people moving between the docks and the marketplace. "Is that why you call her 'little sunset'?" she wondered, surveying the prince out of the corner of her eye.

"Actually, I call her that because I can tell the 'little' part annoys her nowadays. Back when she was little, though, I gave her the name because sunset was her first word."

"Really?" Elsa said, turning her head to regard him with open surprise. It was a strange first word for a child, even one born into the noble family of a land with a sunset on its crest.

"Mother passed away when Sera was only four months old, making her the woman of the house very early on," said Uriel, gazing thoughtfully up at the sky as he remembered. "She wasn't about to let that keep her down, though, so she made sure to let everyone know right away that she was ready to take her place as Lady of the Sunset City."

Elsa's eyes narrowed. Uriel kept staring at the sky. "You're joking, aren't you?"

He chuckled. "And you claim you've no talent for politics. Yes, Your Majesty, that is a lie I've told many times. But you're the first to call me on it."

Elsa gave a sniff of laughter. "It's mean to go spreading stories."

"Oh, I think that one is harmless enough. But I'm willing to share a secret, if you're willing to keep it."

She nodded solemnly, biting back a smile. "Of course."

He leaned a bit closer to her against the railing, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Her first word was my name. Well, it was actually something that sounded like 'ooh-ee,' but I take credit anyway. After all, Uriel is a bit of a mouthful for an infant."

"So is sunset," Elsa countered, though this time she knew he was telling the truth. It backed his case that Seraphim had told Elsa of how her brother had helped raise her. "But don't worry, your secret is safe with me."

"I appreciate that."

They fell into a companionable silence, listening to the faint noise of water lapping against the stone as the tide came in. It was a sound you could hear almost anywhere in Arendelle, as omnipresent as the shrill cries of the gulls in the summer. Above their heads, Elsa heard a rusty creak of protest from the weathervane as the wind shifted to the east.

"How about you, Your Highness?" she wondered, breaking the silence. "Can you keep a secret?"

"I can."

Still leaning against the railing, she took a breath, gathering her thoughts. "Father told me a story once, when I was eight years old. The gates had been shut for a few weeks by then, and most of the staff had been transferred to new jobs out in the city. We had sealed off the castle because of my magic."

"Why?" Uriel asked. "What happened?"

"Anna was five at the time, and in love with my powers in a way that even I never was. She knew the magic words that never failed to get me to come with her to play in the snow. Until the day that I slipped, and accidentally struck Anna with my powers while we played." Even since the coronation, this had not become common knowledge, not even to the staff. In fact, the only person Elsa had ever told the story in full had been Anna herself. She had sat down with her to explain the history of her magic, as well as what she understood of the modifications that had been made to her sister's memory. "My powers had been growing rapidly, so until I could learn to control them, we placed the castle in isolation."

"That's…" Uriel seemed at a loss for words. "I never knew," he said at last.

Elsa leaned down, crossing her arms along the railing and resting her chin atop them. "I spent years terrified of my powers. Of myself, because I couldn't control them. Do you remember how you felt, thinking the drought in Kristensand was your fault? Stretch that into a decade, only this time you know it really is your fault. I felt so alone. But in a strange way, I look back on those years and remember them almost… happily. As bad as it was, people were safe. In those years, my magic never hurt Anna again."

The Black Prince said nothing. Elsa could not express how grateful she was for that. He merely leaned against the railing beside her, their elbows not quite touching across the narrow space of the balcony.

"But that's not the secret that I promised you, merely the backstory," Elsa said, shaking herself from melancholy. "After the gates were closed, I was almost relieved. But Anna was too young to understand. She didn't know why everyone had left, why she couldn't go outside except into the castle's gardens, or why I kept myself locked away in my room. She struggled to make everything go back to normal, as only a five-year-old Anna could, but it wasn't something she could change. When it didn't work, sometimes I'd hear her crying. That made me feel guilty. And that made me miserable. And that made me angry.

"I was still just a child myself, despite how hard I tried to emulate my parents. I asked my father why Anna was so unhappy when all of us were in the same situation. He brought me here, to his study. He told me how proud he was of how I was handling the isolation, the sacrifices we all had to make. But he also explained that everyone reacts to the same thing in different ways." She glanced over her shoulder, nodding her head in the vague direction of the picture Uriel had returned to its place on the desk. "He told me about that portrait. For two weeks, the first painter they'd commissioned tried to get me to pose. I squirmed, I cried, I threw fits. Eventually, the man gave up. He refunded the advance and stormed off, swearing he'd never seen an infant so ill-behaved."

"Ill-behaved? You?" Uriel boggled. "I'd have an easier time picturing your office in a mess."

"I don't remember, but by all accounts I was a menace. Kai once told me he had nightmares," she said, smiling up at the prince.

He pondered that for a moment. "Liar."

She giggled. "About the nightmares, yes. Kai is the only person in the castle who sleeps less than I do. Anyway, I was a basket case, fussy and squalling over every little thing. Nothing calmed me; no toy, no music, no storybook. One day, desperate for peace, Father sat me down in his study and began reading to me."

"You just said storybooks didn't work," Uriel pointed out.

"They didn't," Elsa agreed. "Fables, fairy tales, and nursery rhymes did nothing. Father swore they actually made me worse. But he didn't read me a children's book. He grabbed the biggest, most boring, most impenetrably obtuse tome off his shelf. By the end of the first sentence, he said I had gone quiet as a mouse."

"Ha!" the Black Prince laughed aloud. "I knew it. You weren't fussy, you were bored."

"Maybe so. Regardless, my parents had found the secret. A new painter was brought in, and that portrait was taken. And I understood then that, even if we handled it differently, Anna, myself, and even my parents were all coping with our new life in different ways. I still took some pride in the fact that, from that day he first read to me, Father said I cried less and less, and never when he read to me from that book."

"And so a queen was born," said Uriel. "I wonder, to what august manuscript does Queen Elsa of Arendelle owe her regal bearing?"

Elsa smiled shyly, feeling an odd blush creep across her cheeks. "That would be the secret, Your Highness." She beckoned him closer, and he bent lower against the railing. Elsa glanced back into the study, as if someone might be trying to sneak in to learn her darkest secret. Even Anna didn't know this story. Seeing no one, she leaned over to whisper in his ear. "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica." She leaned back, a conspiratorial grin on her face. She was almost sure she saw a bit of a flush on Uriel's cheek.

The Black Prince turned his head to face her, blinking repeatedly. "You're telling me that, at the age of two, your father had to read you Sir Isaac Newton to keep you entertained?"

Elsa grinned, feeling the heat in her cheeks intensify. To balance that, she tried a disaffected shrug. "I was a curious child. Father was just glad it worked, up until I could read it for myself."

Uriel smiled as well. He looked up thoughtfully. "It is with books as with the fire in our hearths; we go to a neighbor to get the embers," he recited. His gaze met hers as he concluded, "And light it when we return home, pass it on to others, and it belongs to everyone."

The words jumped from her mind at once. "Voltaire!" she gasped. "I've been reading his collections of letters to catch up on my French. You never told me you knew his work."

He shrugged. "The secret of being a bore is to tell everything."

She slapped him on the arm. "Now you're just showing off again."

Uriel chuckled, giving her a lopsided smile as he rubbed the spot she'd struck. "You're stronger than you think," he said. "Not to mention stronger than you look."

Elsa accepted the compliment silently. And this time, at least, even her heart did not disagree.

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*A/N* - Word of God has said that Elsa without powers would have looked like her mother, but I have to give credit to Searlait's "Frozen - A Dark Retelling" for the idea of her hair changing after she's born. It makes sense, seeing how Anna's hair was changed both times she was struck, if you assume Elsa's powers grew from a very limited scope early on (I doubt she was throwing icicles around as an infant, and she couldn't have done even involuntary magic when her mother was pregnant without serious complications).