serendipity - narnia [EDITING]

chapter 36

Chapter 36
The Misplaced Queen

After a long stretch of sailing, the Dawn Treader came upon a large, lush island of rolling hills and rocky beaches. Dahlia, Edmund, Drinian, and Caspian stood in a line by the wheel, taking turns peering through a telescope at it.

"It looks uninhabited," Caspian remarked. "But if the lords followed the mist east, they would've stopped here."

"Could be a trap," Drinian warned.

"Or it could hold some answers," Edmund proposed. Dahlia hoped it was the latter; her eyes landed on Rhince and Gael on the deck below them.

"We'll have to take that risk if we want any chance of returning the lost people to their families. Cas, it's your call." Caspian glanced down at her, and even though he'd already made his decision, the way her eyes silently begged him to at least give the island a shot solidified his choice.

"We'll spend the night on shore. Scour the island in the morning."

***

The Dawn Treader was anchored in deeper waters off the coast of the island and a portion of the crew set out for the shore in longboats. They spent the night sleeping rather uncomfortably on the sand, many of them with their backs against the large rocks dotting the beach.

At some point around sunrise, Dahlia jolted awake from an awful nightmare. They weren't uncommon for her, but this particular one left her with her eyes squeezed shut, knees to her chest, head between her legs as she tried to steady her breathing.

The only thing that snapped the mage out of her panicked state was the sudden realization that her necklace was glowing. She scrambled to her feet, quickly performing a royal headcount- Lucy was gone. The only indication that something had gone wrong, besides the missing queen, were the giant footprints around their makeshift camp that hadn't been there the night before.

"Ed," Dahlia muttered, almost to herself. "Ed!" That time was much louder and directly in the just king's ear as Dahlia forcefully shook him awake; his eyes snapped open and his hands instinctively balled into fists. He almost started to relax when he realized it was only Dahlia, but panic set in as he saw the look in her eyes and the glowing pendant around her neck. "Lucy's gone." That got him up immediately.

"Lucy? Lucy!" Edmund's cries for his sister roused Caspian and Drinian, who got to work waking the rest of the crew when they caught sight of Lucy's discarded blankets and Dahlia's glowing necklace.

Dahlia snatched her sword off the ground and flung Edmund and Caspian's weapons at them with magic. For once Caspian had to move quickly to keep up with her pace instead of it being the other way around. The general ruckus of the early morning had done nothing to wake Eustace, however, and the boy continued snoring on the sand since no one quite remembered he was there.

As the crew made their way deeper into the island, the rocky beaches turned to bright green grass and the large rocks to perfectly pruned shrubs and trees. The pink morning light caught a silver glint and Dahlia rushed over to it. It was the blade of Lucy's dagger, abandoned beside one of the shrubs.

Dahlia cursed as she bent to retrieve the dagger, catching the attention of Edmund and Caspian. As she tucked the weapon into her belt, a spear flew seemingly from out of nowhere and impaled itself in the grass beside Dahlia's crouched figure. Caspian barely had enough time to pull her to her feet when at least a dozen more spears crashed down around them, once again with no visible owners. The crew spun in circles, swords held aloft as they tried in vain to identify the enemy.

"Stop right there or perish," a deep voice warned from somewhere. Not a second later Caspian's sword was ripped from his hands. Dahlia threw out her hands to steady him as something knocked him hard in the face and sent him stumbling backward. All around the crew was getting knocked down by the invisible attackers, and since the aimless waving of swords was doing them no good Dahlia tried a different approach.