Daggers of Ice

Chapter 1

1010.

The Tenth Year of the Golden Age.

Arianna.

One of them would die that night.

Though which of the Pevensies that was, she hadn't quite decided.

The spires of Cair Paravel rose ahead, gilded and obscene, a crown of gold stabbed into the dark. Torchlight slicked its marble walls, throwing back the sea's black shimmer, and for a moment the castle almost looked alive; like a god bloated on the faith of its worshippers. Awe was what it demanded. Disgust was all it stirred in Arianna.

For how could they live in such opulence, in such grandeur when so many of their subjects went without even a roof to cover their heads, without food to lay upon their tables?

Kings and Queens.

Saviors.

She tasted the words like poison.

They did not deserve to be called as such.

"We're here but for one thing, my Lady." The voice at her side was low, roughened by frost and age. A warning, not a reminder.

Do not lose yourself.

Not yet.

Do not let the anger blossom, do not let the emotions take over.

There were very few who would dare to counsel her, even who would dare to utter an opinion that differed to her own; to almost scold her. It was a counsel that she valued, though they were not words that she'd utter aloud.

So, she swallowed the fury clawing at her ribs and forced it down into the frozen depths of her composure. The rage became a current under ice: hidden, silent, lethal.

She drew the mask over her face. Gold filigree, delicate as spider-silk, useless as mercy.

Behind it, she was calm.
You are cold.
You are ice.

Raenor been hesitant when she'd revealed her plan to perform the task at hand herself.

He'd wanted to send the naiads.

He always wanted to send the naiads.

'Naiads got things done,' was an adage he said over and over. 'And they are loyal to fault.'

And when she'd said no in a tone that brooked no argument, he'd insisted he accompany her himself rather than one of the northmen – even after swearing he would never go near Cair Paravel again. Any further protests that he'd had had been quietened when she'd informed him that King Edmund the Just had not yet returned to Cair Paravel. His distaste for all things frivolous was well known, and her whisperers had seen him heading South – a routine inspection of the mountainous region that bordered with Archenland. He would not return for many weeks, conveniently missing all of Queen Susan's planned festivities. And those festivities were exactly the opportunity that Arianna had been waiting for. Not even Raenor, who had once stood as General of the White Witch's Army dared to oppose her completely.

So, the wolf watched her, amber-yellow eyes glinting in the light of the half-moon. Watching her as closely as any wolf would watch their prey.

But prey she was not.

He said nothing more as she urged the mare forward, a pretty thing the colour of careless seafoam. And her heat beat steady and even; a constant in the ever-changing magical land that was Narnia.