Daggers of Ice

Chapter 13

Cair Paravel.

Edmund.

"She isn't what I expected, I need to say that from the start," he sat before his siblings, all of them facing him, hanging onto each of his words. He was still weary, he had made the journey in but two days when it would normally take four. But he had to get out of there; that look in her eyes... Cold and hard. Or at least, trying to be. But he had seen that slight tremble in her lips before she'd composed herself, telling him to leave.

He had to get as far away from her as possible.

Otherwise he would have held onto her and never let go.

Damn all the consequences.

They had gathered in their private chambers, one used by the four of them only. Rich tapestries, plush rugs, a crackling fire in the hearth. Everything about the room spoke of warmth, of familiarity.

Of royalty.

But in that moment, deciding the fate of Narnia, the room was chilly, ominous.

"She is intelligent; highly so. She didn't lie to me...not once," he grimaced slightly at Susan's disapproving glance. "I haven't deluded myself into thinking she told me the entire truth. But I can tell you one thing. While she and the White Witch share the same body; Arianna does all she can to keep the witch at bay. She no longer does her bidding."

"No longer?" Peter's voice was incredulous, his frustration evident in his blue eyes and in the way he tugged at his collar, loosening it. "She cannot be trusted!"

Lucy had told him of the northman.

Jenari.

Whom he had met.

He told Lucy that he had been present when he had been given permission to leave. That he had been grieving, his lover had just been killed. He had left Arianna's domain and gone straight to Cair Paravel, hoping to rally the forces of Narnia to march upon the north.

He did not tell Lucy that he had held her while she sobbed, falling apart at the seams in front of tapestries of a world she had been born to but had never known.

"I once trusted the Witch. I would not make that mistake again," he said softly. They had to understand that there was something different about Arianna, it was not just her beauty.

He had seen the way her people looked at her with complete and utter reverence.

He had seen the spark in her eyes when she spoke of them. Of fighting for them.

Just as she was fighting the witch that lay within her mind. He had seen her close off her emotions; emotions that weakened the 'mirror' between them.

"What would you have me do, Ed? Sit here idly while she gathers her forces? We cannot completely dismiss the northman's words, for you have seen the raids. You have seen the ruins of the villages." He knew that Peter was at his wits end, and he could not find it within himself to blame his brother.

Delegation after delegation had arrived in Cair Paravel while he had been in the north, wanting assurances that they were safe, that there was no true threat. And Peter could promise them nothing, empty words to assuage their panic was all he could give.

His only explanation for Edmund's absence was that the younger king had been scouting the north, a partial truth.

For once Edmund could not advise his brother – for he did not know the best course of action to take. To try and take her castle would be folly, for the enchantment would trap their troops within her lands, for they would be going in willingly. And he did not know if she would move out and try to take Cair Paravel, nothing she had shown him had indicated an attack.