Cressida's whole world is one frozen prison.
The land of Narnia was long ago plunged into eternal winter by the White Witch, Jadis Queen of Narnia. The powerful sorceress who stole Cressida from her home and her people. Cressida is little more than...
The day the world changed was bright and sunny. The white sands of the coast warm and inviting beneath my bare feet. The waters crystalline blue, gilded in shimmering golden sunlight. Soft music floated on the warm breeze from the pavilion to the water edge. Sweet sounds of harps and lyres.
I remember my mother's voice most, more than I remember her face. Her voice tinged with the accent of her faraway land. The land of her forefathers before her marriage to my father. I remember the way her voice would slip over words in the old tongue, too difficult with her ridged accent. My father would laugh when she misspoke, when her jumbled words would turn a greeting into an insult. He would tease her jovially until she cut him one of her looks. A look, my nursemaid would say, that could cut down a man faster than any sword.
My brothers splashed in the water that day, full of life beneath the summer skies. My eldest brother - Eroan - the crown prince of our lands was ten years my senior. He was my protector, but not even he could protect me from this day.
Eroan was trekking up the beach to fetch me when the horns blew. Had the great warning horns not sounded that day perhaps everything would have been different.
Perhaps Eroan would have picked me up and swung me over his shoulder. Perhaps he would have taken me to the water's edge to collect shells. Perhaps he would have waded into the water, holding me against him so I could go deep enough to touch the pearl fish that swam lazily through the clear waters.
But none of that happened, those warning horns did sound, and my life fell apart.
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We were swept away in a flurry of activity. My nursemaid had bundled me up and ran. Eroan shouting orders behind us. I couldn't remember how we had gotten from the beach to the palace. All I remembered of that frantic run was the boats.
Great ships sailing quickly through the quiet bay, faster than ships should have been able to sail. Teaming with armed creatures unlike any my young eyes had seen before.
The sounds of shouting and crashing feet echoed through the marble halls of the palace. Our forces were not strong. Certainly not strong enough to beat the army rapidly coming ashore. Our naval power was strong, but it was too late to engage the invading ships. Our water wielders defended the castle but not even they could stand against the might of the foreign queen.
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