The North Wind

Part VI

If there was one thing she truly missed about her old cell, it was its closeness to the outside world.

At least down in the damp depths of the prison, she had been able to keep up with what was going on in the kingdom, if only through the occasional bits and pieces of hurriedly whispered rumours spoken on the frosty air. She'd had an idea of the people's misfortunes, and their feelings towards King Hans; she'd been able to see their faces, even if obscured by the heavy cloaks they wore around them to keep out the cold.

Up in the royal suite, however, she had little to none of that insight anymore. She now could rely only on the fuzzy observations she could make out from her high window, and—besides that—whatever state the King was in when he visited her chambers.

And he hasn't done much of that, recently.

Since his eruption at the end of their last real, sustained conversation, his visits had become even scarcer, and the ones he'd previously made in the night stopped completely.

I guess he really thought that I didn't know about them.

The look on his face had been evidence enough of that, and his shock at her questions and remarks had been palpable.

What had stayed with her the longest, though, had been the image of his crimson face, his expression permanently stained red in her memory.

He just looked so . . . embarrassed.

Had it really just been embarrassment, though?

As the days drew on and his visits grew fewer—she now received food by an unknown servant in the castle who, forbidden to see her, simply put the tray down by the door and left—she found herself questioning, more and more, her previously-held assumptions about the strange expression he'd worn that day, and how he had shouted so fervently at her.

"You don't understand at all!"

His meaning was lost on her even then, as she turned the exclamation over in her mind; still, she recalled the passion with which he had spoken with startling clarity.

And I remember my reaction.

She slowly took her gloves off, pressing her hands to her cheeks—and again, she felt that same heat as it rose up in her throat and billowed out across her skin.

What is this?

She roughly shoved the gloves back onto her hands as she contemplated the answer, though her fingers were already too warm, the heat having spread to nearly every inch of her body. She felt them sweat inside the gloves' thick interior, and though it was uncomfortable, she dared not remove them again.

Whatever it is, I don't like it.

Try as she might to thrust that hot sensation back to wherever it had come from, however, she was unable to stop its constant, fluttering pulse within her—nor was she entirely certain that she wanted to.

----------------------------------------------------

She dreamt that night of purple flowers blooming in the meadows of the mountains near Arendelle, their brilliant colour dazzling under the sunlight.

They were the same flowers that Anna had loved, and had brought her many times when they were children, trying to coax her older sister out of her room.

Orchids.

The scent was as real to her in the dream as if she were holding a bunch of them under her nose, and she grasped at the flowers in the green fields, gathering them up in her arms lest they disappear.