Daggers of Ice

Chapter 12

The Tenth Year of the Golden Age.

Arianna.

The room was colder than usual, the frost creeping along the stone walls like veins of silver. Arianna stood before the long table where maps sprawled in careful disorder, the ink on their parchment catching the low blue light that emanated from the wall sconces.

Raenor's hulking shadow loomed across the table, his wolfish features half-lit by the flame. "You should have sent the naiads," he said, his voice low, the rasp of gravel under ice.

Arianna didn't look up from the map. "Folly would have been to send those whose deaths would cripple us." Her tone was cool, precise. "The naiads are too few. I will not waste them in a fight that is not theirs."

Raenor's tail flicked once, a frustrated twitch. "They are all our fights, my queen. The giants remember too much. They will not forget what was taken from them."

"They will remember the cold before they remember mercy," she replied, finally lifting her gaze. "Their palace may be new, but their minds are still chained to the ashes of their old city. Let them stew in it a while longer. We will not provoke them until they step beyond their stones."

The great wolf's golden eyes narrowed, but he bowed his head slightly. "As you command." His paws echoed against the icy floor as he turned, shoulders brushing the doorway before vanishing down the corridor.

The silence that followed was heavy.

The kind that pressed against her ribs.

Arianna stood alone, staring at the map. Her fingers brushed the inked lines that marked the northern passes, tracing routes that her scouts might never return from. Harfang: newly rebuilt in arrogance, its halls rising on bones of an age long buried. The giants had always been creatures of hunger: for land, for power, for vengeance. And she had neither the army nor the will to reignite that war.

Her hand stilled. Her reflection caught faintly in the darkened window – tired eyes, a smear of ink on her palm. A queen born from another world's ruin, now fending off the ruin of this one.

The door creaked. She didn't turn. "I said I wished to be alone, Raenor."

"Your Majesty."

Too smooth. Too measured.

Edmund Pevensie leaned against the doorframe, the flickering blue light of the room dancing across his features. His smile, if it could be called that, was faint and sharp-edged.

"Your Majesty," he said again, tone a careful mockery, and she felt the faintest spark of irritation curl beneath her ribs.

"King Edmund," she returned, her voice calm but clipped.

He stepped forward, uninvited, and the air between them seemed to grow thinner with every pace.

He reached the table, gaze dropping to the maps she hadn't bothered to conceal. The flicker of his eyes was quick, practiced – trained by a soldier's habit. "You've marked the west. Why?"

Her hand hovered over one of the circled areas. "Something stirs," she admitted. "It began near the far north when the pestilence first took root. But they grow bolder."

"They?"

"." She looked at him then, and her expression hardened. "They are not mine, if that's what you're asking."

He studied her, but the challenge in his gaze softened – only slightly. "Fire is an effective weapon," he said, voice low.

Her lips twitched. "Fire is a cowards tool."