The husband and wife rushed to bolt it shut again.
“Hey, do me a favor and grab my butt,” Olaf’s head said to Hans.
Anna was lost in her own thoughts.
Olaf.
Her new memories.
The voices.
All those things felt like a tiny itch between her shoulders that she couldn’t reach.
Why had she always dreamed of snow?
Why did she make snowman cookies?
Why did she feel such a pull to Arendelle?
Maybe because she was always supposed to be there at that exact moment to help Elsa. She and Elsa seemed to have a connection Anna didn’t understand. She needed to find the princess and find out why.
There was a sudden pounding on the door. Everyone looked at one another. Hans reached for his sheath.
“Open it,” he instructed the man.
A guard in a green uniform fell through the door.
“My goodness!” the wife cried as she and Anna rushed forward to help him up. The husband struggled to close the door again against the wind.
The guard saw Hans and his eyes widened. “Prince Hans! We’ve been looking for you everywhere.” His voice was hoarse and his face was red with windburn. “When we didn’t see you after the battle, we thought we’d lost you. I planned to keep looking, but my horse is struggling in this cold. I saw the cabin and—”
The husband started putting on layers of clothing. “I’ll get your horse in the barn,” he said, and pulled on his boots before going to the door.
“What battle?” Anna asked.
Hans ignored her and helped the man to the fire. “What’s happened? Is everything all right in Arendelle?”
The wife wrapped the guard in a blanket. He took it gratefully as he shivered. He looked at the people around him, then back at Hans. “May we speak in private?”
“Of course,” the wife said, and put her arm around Anna. “Come, dear. We should see if we can find you some warmer clothes.”
But Anna didn’t want to go. Now wasn’t the time for secrets.
“Is everything all right?” Anna asked the men. “What aren’t you telling us?”
Hans hesitated. “The North Mountain has suffered an avalanche. I don’t want to upset you when you’ve given up so much to be here, but I don’t know if we can continue toward the valley with the situation outside so precarious.” The guard looked at him.
Hans was charming, but there was something about him she wasn’t sure she trusted.
Anna was about to argue, but she suddenly felt it in her aching bones—the castle was calling to her. Elsa wasn’t in the valley anymore, and she’d long ago left the North Mountain. She wasn’t sure how she knew this, but she wasn’t about to share her feeling.
“Let’s go back to Arendelle,” she agreed. “We can wait out the storm in the castle. Maybe when we’re there, we’ll find a clue we’re missing.”
“Yay! Elsa will be so excited to see you!” Olaf said, and Hans looked at him. “She’s been looking for you forever.” Anna didn’t flinch.
Hans smiled. “I meant what I said before—you’d be a great leader.”
“I don’t know about that,” Anna said.
Hans didn’t break his stare. “I do. Let’s get you to Arendelle so you can see that for yourself.”
“It’s official! I’ve decided something, Sven,” Kristoff told his friend as they trudged down the ravine to find what was left of his sleigh. “Who needs people when I have a reindeer?”
Sven grunted. The reindeer was too busy watching the darkening tree line for signs of another wolf attack. Fortunately, between the light of the rising moon and the bright snow, Kristoff and Sven could see pretty far into the distance.
There was no reason to look back.
So he’d let Anna go off with some smooth-talking prince and a snowman to find a princess who didn’t want finding. He wasn’t about to get himself and Sven killed over it.
Yes, he wanted to bring back summer—all this available ice made selling it for a living kind of hard—but he was used to the weather. He spent most days up in the mountains, being covered in snow, wool clothing, and heavy boots that smelled of sweat. And it didn’t matter what he smelled like, because who was around to smell him? Only Sven. Well, reindeer didn’t smell that great, either. So bring on an eternal winter. He could handle it.
But Anna…the cold was clearly getting to her. He’d chalked it up to hypothermia or possibly frostbite, but deep down he knew that wasn’t it. It was almost as if the closer she got to finding Princess Elsa, the more