Anna kept looking at her knights. The chess pieces were finely carved and imported from Italy. She knew because Uncle Alexander had given it to Elsa as a birthday present and Anna had been present for the occasion. She remembered Elsa’s surprise at the beautiful gift and how her face had lit as Elsa touched each piece reverently as though they were already family heirlooms. Elsa had just turned eleven and Anna had been eight. It wasn’t until later, when Uncle Alexander had set up the board to play a match with Elsa in a corner, that Anna had quietly asked her father, King Frederick, why Elsa would want another chess set. After all, Elsa already had a set made of mahogany and it was just as nice. Her father had said that that set was getting worn; Elsa still sometimes froze the pieces by accident and the damp was damaging the wood finish. Marble, while heavy, could tolerate the frost without complaint. Elsa had never used the wooden set again; every subsequent chess game had been played with the marble set. Anna was quite familiar with it, but she still felt vaguely stupid for not realizing earlier that Elsa never took her knights. At the start, probably before Elsa had taken up her sweet, mad quest to not steal the pretty horses that Anna liked so much, Anna had considered it a triumph if she survived a game without losing her knights—she wouldn’t even try to save both. Just one would have been enough. Anna had known she couldn’t beat Elsa; the very notion of actually winning was rather quixotic. So she’d focused on what she could achieve, which was preserving her favorite piece. And then Elsa had decided not to take them at all, simply because Anna had looked sad. Anna wished she'd known, though she wasn't sure what she'd have done with the knowledge. And Elsa had always won so fast, butchering Anna's side with the swiftness of an executioner; but at the time, a young Anna would have just been relieved that it was over with and eager for Elsa to be released from her lessons for the day to play. It was so romantic. So stupidly romantic. Who needed a dragon to slay when one had a princess—well, queen now—making such gestures? And it couldn’t have been meant to be romantic because Elsa had done it as a child and probably only did it as a small mercy.