Daggers of Ice

Chapter 15

1010.

The Tenth Year of the Golden Age.

Arianna.

The hall was restless.

Arianna could feel it in the air; the quiet hum beneath the words, the weight of eyes upon her as the wind outside howled against the eaves of the Black Keep. The frost-fires in the sconces burned blue, casting the chamber in a cold, glacial light that made every face look carved from stone.

Before her knelt three northmen – broad-shouldered, fur-clad, their skin wind-chapped and raw from travel. Their leader, a man with streaks of white in his beard though he could not have seen more than forty winters, pressed his palm to his chest and bowed low.

"My Queen," he said, his voice hoarse from the cold. "We come from the high valleys beyond the Northern Pass. The giants press us from the west. They have taken our stores, our hunters, our young. We beg aid."

Arianna leaned forward slightly on the throne, her elbows resting on her knees, chin propped on folded hands. The room was silent save for the faint drip of water from the ice sconces.

"The giants," she repeated softly. "From Harfang?"

The northman nodded. "Aye, my lady. Their numbers grow. And now the snows are thawing early. The dam at our valley's mouth strains under the melt. If it bursts..." His voice faltered. "There will be nothing left."

Arianna's gaze did not waver; she hoped Edmund was paying attention. "And you came here, not to the Cair."

The man hesitated. "The Cair is far, my lady. Its kings... do not see us as their own."

A low murmur rippled through the hall, and she did not have to look to feel the heat of Edmund's disapproval at her side.

He took a step forward, his voice calm but sharp as a blade drawn halfway. "If you sought aid, you might have ridden south. You are Narnian subjects, are you not?"

The northman's head lowered further, shame and defiance warring in his posture. "We are northern-born, my lord. The southern kings do not hear our cries."

"Enough," she said quietly.

Her words seemed to still the hall. The weight of her voice carried farther than any shout could. She rose from the throne, her cloak whispering against the frost-stone steps as she descended. The crowd parted before her.

When she stood before the northmen, the tallest barely reached her shoulder. Their eyes, blue as the winter sky, shone with desperate hope.

"Tell me," she said, her tone softer now, though the steel beneath it remained. "How many have fallen?"

"Seventeen," the man whispered. "And more with each night. We cannot hold."

She nodded once, slow, deliberate. Her thoughts turned – not to the giants, but to something darker that coiled beneath the surface of her awareness. Giants did not act without reason. Not in this season, not in this way.

Jadis.

The name slid like a shadow through her mind, and she felt the faint, cold echo of laughter deep within her mind. Do you see, child? Even the stones remember who their true queen was.

Arianna exhaled sharply through her nose, silencing the whisper.

The murmur of the court deepened into a hum of disbelief as Arianna rose once more from her throne. Her furs swept behind her in a rush of white and shadow, the crystalline floor reflecting her every movement like ripples of moonlight.