my heart will be blacker than your soul (when i'm through with you)
ii/_

She'll never know how it happened, but he was in her room.

Months after sending his calling card, he made his way back into Arendelle's borders. Despite the mountains that protected them to the north and the fjord and ocean guarding their south, he had managed to sneak past the blockades or through the mountains. Somehow, he had managed to get into the castle through all the guards and the heightened security, through Elsa's own ice defenses and past Arendelle's soldiers.

Somehow, he was in her room.

Anna had woken with a start, the figure in her room jolting her into consciousness. At first she thought it was a dream. He was standing at the foot of her bed, broken sword in hand, moonlight glinting off the shattered blade. (how did he have the sword - it had been lost in the fjord after the great thaw, which seemed so long ago.) But as he stepped fully into the light, she knew he was real. Knew this was real.

His face was gaunt, his cheeks sunken. His once perfectly coifed red hair was wild, long around his face, his carefully shaved sideburns growing into a patchy beard along his jaw.

"Hello, Anna."

She winced at the sound of his voice, remembering some of the last things he'd send to her. ("if only there was someone out there who loved you.") She reached for her nightstand, for the dagger she kept laying on it. But the blade was gone, already in his hand.

Hans pointed his broken sword at her, grinning madly.

"If you're here to kill me," she toned, her voice surprisingly even, "just get it over with. I'm not particularly eager to listen to another of your monologues."

His grin impossibly widened, distorting his features. "Oh, I'm not here to kill you, pretty little Anna. Not yet. I'm here to let you know what I am going to do to you. In fact, it's already started. Smoke comes before fire. And water can't always put it out." He twirled his sword idly. "How is that irritating little snowman of yours, anyway? I'm sure he was finally put to good use, watering your gardens."

"We know you started the fire, Hans," Anna interrupted, feeling her blood boil at the mention of Olaf. "You sent your calling card to make sure of that."

"Oh, so you did figure it out. I wasn't sure you would," Hans said flippantly, moving over to the window, to look over Arendelle. "You are rather stupid, after all."

Anna gritted her teeth. "Give me my dagger back and I'll show you just how stupid I really am."

Hans turned to her, silhouetted in the moonlight. "Ah ah ah, not yet little Anna. This isn't our endgame, not yet. No, this is only our beginning."

Slowly, so slowly it made her heart pound faster and faster with each agonizing second, he approached her. He reached her in her bed and Anna sat up straighter, defying him as much as she could as fire burned in her eyes. Hans grabbed her jaw and she tried to twist away from him, but he held fast, bruising her skin. "I am going to destroy you, Anna. I am going to take away everything and everyone you love, all of your hopes and dreams, your future. I am going to tear you down until you beg me for death. Until you are so worthless and hopeless that death will be a relief, an escape from the nightmare I will make your life. And then, and only then, will I kill you. And up until that moment, you will live every day of your life in fear and regret and guilt. You will feel everything I have felt, all the anger and pain, but a hundred times worse. I will destroy you long before I kill you.

"Remember, pretty little Anna, everything that happens, every death that happens from here on out is your fault. The blood of the people you love will be on your hands."

He leaned in close, his breath the scent of rotting meat on her skin. "You destroyed my future, Anna. Now I'm going to destroy yours."

Sven was the third to die.

A year after Hans' visit, he came back to them. The ice harvesters had found him high in the mountains, at an altitude that none would ever dare to live at. The men reported him to the palace and guards were sent to bring him back. But only one guard returned to them ("it only takes one to send a message"), tired and cold and suffering from hypothermia. But he managed to form a coherent sentence before collapsing in the palace entryway, his teeth chattering. "Prince Hans wishes to have an audience with the Queen."

They never thought it would come to a confrontation, not then, not yet. Which was why Elsa insisted that she go with Anna and Kristoff alone and without her guards. "No one else has to die today. This is our fight and our fight alone."

The clearing they found Hans in was high in the mountains. Elsa and Anna dismounted from their horses and Kristoff from Sven, pulling his throwing axes from the holsters on his belt. At Kristoff's insistence, Anna had brought a crossbow along as her primary weapon, but she kept her dagger strapped to her waist and small knives up her sleeves in case things got dicey. Elsa was ready with her magic, but she had a sword strapped to her belt as well. The three had been training together, preparing for the day when they would face Hans in battle.

(they didn't think this day would come so soon. they should have had more time. they should have had more time.)

Hans grinned at them in the light of the setting sun. He looked even worse than the last time Anna saw him. His eyes were wild; his hair was long and greasy, disheveled around his face. There was a long, ragged scar along his jaw cutting through his patchy beard, the skin pink and puckered as if it had been infected for a long time before healing. His clothes were torn and dirty and he had covered himself with uncured animal skins that wouldn't have been pleasing even if they weren't rotting.

His smile was psychotic, the smirk of a madman.

The former prince held two weapons, a crossbow in one hand and his broken sword in the other.

He let out a sharp laugh as they surrounded him, three on one. "What, you think you can defeat me? You think you can beat me, Hans of the Southern isles? I am a Prince!"

Elsa quirked an eyebrow. "I heard you were sentenced for life and stripped of your title. And that they were going to exile you from your precious Southern Isles but your brothers agreed that you were too volatile to be loose in the world."

Hans gritted his teeth. "Don't speak of my brothers. Those bastards don't deserve their kingdom. I would've killed them all to get the throne!"

"But you didn't," Anna said, her voice dangerously low. "Instead you came to Arendelle and left me for dead so you could behead my sister!"

Hans leveled his crossbow at her. "Don't speak to me like that, you bitch. I should've killed you when I had the chance just so I never had to hear your grating voice again."

"Why don't you just kill me now?" Anna growled, raising her own crossbow and training it on him.

"I already told you why once." Hans' eyes flickered to her own crossbow, noting how her hands shook. He gave a barking laugh, throwing his head back in a fit of madness. "You think you can kill me, little Anna? You think you can shoot me? Look at how your hands shake. You'd never get off a clean shot."

Anna narrowed her eyes and tried to steady her hands but the change was imperceptible.

Kristoff stepped forward, blood boiling, ready to throw one of his axes through the black hole of Hans' heart. "Don't you talk to her. Don't you dare look at her. I'll kill you. I swear it Hans, I'll fucking kill you."

The former prince's grin grew crooked and he raised his broken sword toward Kristoff, the sharp point glinting dangerously against the snow. "The mountain man defends the princess. How fitting."

He stalked closer to Anna, eyes darkening with every step. "Tell me, pretty little Anna. Does our mountain man know about our tryst?"

She could feel Kristoff's eyes land on her, could hear the questions on his tongue. She'd never told him. She'd avoided him for days after Hans' visit until the bruises had faded. Hans had told her that everything he did, she was responsible for. Kristoff didn't deserve to be burdened with that knowledge.

Elsa knew. But at that point, it didn't even matter. What mattered was that Kristoff didn't.

The Queen cut the silence, moving towards Anna and Hans to stand between them. She held her bare hands out towards the fallen prince, magic swelling at her fingertips. "You are outnumbered, Hans. Surrender to us and we will return you to the Southern Isles unharmed. But if you fight us, you will lose."

Hans turned his sword on Elsa as she moved toward him, switching his crossbow to Kristoff as the mountain man circled around him. Hans' dark laughter filled the air, weapons steady in his hands. "No, Elsa. I will not be going home today."

It happened fast, too fast for Anna to really understand what had happened. But in less than a moment, Hans' finger was curling in on the trigger of his crossbow and Sven (who had been stoically silent) was braying and suddenly Kristoff was on the ground and Sven was crying out, a garbled moan breaking the silence.

Utter and complete and terrifying silence.

It was by a terrible stroke of bad luck that the arrow had landed where it did. Or perhaps it wasn't just bad luck; perhaps Hans had seen Sven lurch forward just before he pulled the trigger, had seen his opportunity. Perhaps Hans knew that, once Kristoff was pushed out of the arrow's path, he wouldn't have been able to get off a clean kill-shot on the mountain man. So perhaps he changed his plan, embraced the situation for what it had become, and changed the trajectory of his shot, just slightly.

But they would never really know. And it wouldn't matter anyways.

Because Sven was lying prone on the ground, an arrow lying bloody in the snow next to him, having torn through the reindeer's throat.

Blood pooled in the snow beneath Sven's head, bright and stark and wrong against the white, white canvas.

"NO!" Kristoff's cry echoed in the silence, and the mountain man threw himself at the reindeer, tugging at his best friend's body and pulling his bleeding and broken head into his lap. "Sven, come on buddy, come on, stay with me. It's gonna be alright buddy, everything's going to be fine." The reindeer gave a mangled bugle and Kristoff nodded. "Me, too, buddy." The reindeer's head fell and his body shuddered with his last breath and then Sven was gone, gone, gone.

Kristoff looked up at Elsa and Anna and he looked no more than a child, his eyes broken, his voice cracking as it filled with despair. "We have to do something! Why aren't you doing something?"

(there was nothing to do. Sven was dead, Sven was dead, Sven was dead.)

Hans had slipped away, disappearing into the forest. Elsa made to run after him, but Anna stopped her. It was dark, there was no moon, and they did not know this area nearly as well as the former prince. No, Hans was long gone.

Kristoff began tugging on Sven's limp body, trying to pull the heavy animal towards the horses. "We have to get him back to Arendelle. The- the physician can help him." He looked at the royal sisters, eyes brimming. "Help me!"

He was frantic; his panic was clear in his jerky movements and the way he fought to stand. Anna felt her heart tighten, struggled to breathe, knowing that Sven was gone, that her friend would never see the sun rise again. She reached forward for Kristoff, her small hand closing on his shoulder. "Kristoff… I'm sorry. He's- he's gone."

A deep, resounding ache filled her chest as all the fight, as everything, left Kristoff. He slumped over his best friend's broken body, holding the reindeer's head as he cried, silent tears streaming down his face, his entire body shaking with grief and pain and loneliness.

Sven was gone and he was alone.

They burned Sven's body under the stars.

Anna had wanted to give their friend a proper burial, in a deep grave with an etched headstone in the royal cemetery. But the horses would never have made it down the mountain with three riders and the heavy body in tow. And they couldn't leave the body exposed on the mountainside, where it would be the prey of scavengers and wolves.

Kristoff suggested they cremate the reindeer; it was a practical, reasonable solution, and Anna was worried by how easily he'd come by it. After crying all his tears, he'd stood from his best friend's body and calmly suggested they cremate Sven, his voice cool and detached. And then he stalked off into the woods in search of kindling.

They used firewood from a fallen tree, building the fire around Sven's body. The wood was dry and lit quickly, burning fast and hot around Sven's body.

It took all night for the body to burn and the trio moved a good distance upwind to avoid the scent of burning flesh and fat. They gathered around their own small fire and tried to sleep, none of them being very successful.

At dawn the crematory fire finally burned out, leaving behind a pile of ash and a piece of antler that had been too far out of the fire to sufficiently burn. Kristoff silently bent down, picking up the half-charred antler and removing his hat to scoop some of the ash into it, tying it off with a length of rope and attaching it to his belt. He stood and with a nod Anna came forward with a makeshift headstone, placing it before the ash.

The mountain wind would blow away the rest of the ash before long, but this was as much of a burial site as they could give him given the circumstances. It wasn't proper or right but it was the best they could do.

The breeze picked up Sven's ashes as the sun broke over the mountaintops, letting the reindeer run with the wind one last time.

A/N: The next chapter of this will bring this arc up to a T rating, close to an M rating. I will change the overall rating of this fic to T in order to reflect this, but be warned that there is adult language and suggestion of adult themes in the next chapter.

Also, please review! Reviews are the lifeblood of the fanfiction author.