A Queen of Narnia - Chronicles of Narnia, Prince Caspian fanfiction NEW VERSION

Dragon kiss

iii.

"Eustace is gone!" Edmund cried to us as soon as we arrived at the shore, a few seconds after Edmund and Lucy had. I frowned and scanned the shore with my gaze but couldn't see the young, blonde boy anywhere close by. Why would he have disappeared from shore when he knew if could be dangerous? Maybe he had got lost but why would Rip even had let him wander off by himself when he wasn't from Narnia? I had to assume that Eustace had run away out of boredom, thinking he would find us in the way.

"I'll go look for him," Edmund volunteered and grabbed his sword from the boat he had placed it in.

It was not wise to go back alone since one of them had already disappeared, so I decided to go with him while the others would row back to the ship and prepare to take off again. The crew hadn't found much eatable food on the island for it was volcanic, but enough to satisfy the crew members for another couple of weeks. The night before the storm, Drinian had warned Caspian that the food was running out and that they would have to make a choice - turn back home or starve to death unless we found more food. Drinian wanted to give up and turn back since he didn't believe they would ever find the blue star. Caspian had been stubborn though and told Drinian that they would continue on and find wood somewhere else, which we now had done.

"I'll come with you," I said to Edmund and nodded toward him. Edmund nodded and smiled thankfully. I guess he didn't want to go all by himself after all. "It's not safe to go alone."

"Me too," Caspian said and stepped forward toward Edmund. He and Edmund exchanged glances between each other, and I could just hope they would make a mince soon enough - they had better things to think about than their fight in the cave.

They both had to soon accept that it was none of their fault. Though there was some kind of truth in what they had said when they were tempted though. I had noticed that Edmund had some kind of jealousy toward Caspian, since he had never been able to be in the lead and be the hero because his older brother had occupied that station in his life. Caspian had noticed it too and I knew that he feared somewhere deep in his heart that Edmund would become his competition and suddenly want to take back the throne. Of course that was only nonsense because Edmund was happy that Caspian sat on the throne, he was a good and wise king. At least I hoped it was nonsense.

"Let's go," I said and took the lead of the small party. I wanted to find Eustace before the sunset because when the sun disappeared, he would have no chance alone on the strange island.

We walked for nearly an hour, shouting and calling for Eustace but we never got an answer. Our throats were dry of all the yelling and our feet tired of all the walking. We had been walking over boulders for the whole hour and I even went down in the cave again to see if he had been tempted to go in there, but there was no sign of Eustace anywhere.

Caspian managed to finally find some tracks from a human, a boy that was probably Eustace since his feet were so small. His footsteps lead toward a big hole in the ground, close to the mountain. It wasn't very deep but what astonished us was what was in the hole. It was an abandoned treasure, filled with gold, silver, diamonds and jewellery. The goods filled every corner of the pit all the way up to the solid ground. The diamonds glittered from the rays of the sun and made all of our eyes twinkle with a desire to take something.

"A treasure?" Edmund said with a confused frown on his face. And it was strange, why would anyone leave a treasure on his abandoned island if not to hide it away from someone? It had to be why the Lord in the cave had come here, he had to know there was a treasure here on the island. But what worried me most was what creature that was guarding it, for a treasure never laid unguarded in Narnia.

"Trouble," Caspian said and sighed.

Edmund jumped down firstly of us into the hole. Caspian came after and then gave me his hand to help me down. I grabbed it though it wasn't really needed and jumped down as well. Amidst the treasure sat a skeleton - it had been there for a very long time I could tell. On the "finger" was a ring - a ring I recognised since it had been on the index finger of all the lords we had found until know.