Daggers of Ice

Chapter 16

Cair Paravel.

Asura.

Asura narrowed her eyes at the northern dryad who was sitting before them, her hands folded demurely in her lap. The private meeting room of the High King was riddled with tension following the northern dryad's pretty little speech.

"Where do your allegiances lie, dryad," Peter said, in the voice she recognised all too well. The voice of the High King, demanding, powerful.

But Myriel did not quiver, if anything she drew herself taller and Asura almost laughed – Peter was foolish if he thought to intimidate a northern dryad. Let alone the first of her kind. For they were made of much sterner stuff than the frivolous children of the forests that surrounded Cair Paravel. She could admire the woman, for her strength. It reminded Asura of the Ocean-Mother's; for though she looked entirely different, it was something in her gaze, in her bearing. Something that no human queen could hope to match.

"I serve Narnia, human-king-child. Thee hath no right to speak to me such a way." The words, spoken in such a soft voice, had Peter blinking.

She could have liked the dryad, had she not been allied with the witch who'd killed too many of her men. As Captain of the Guard, a knight in her own right, Asura could not abide to have such a woman under her roof. Though she knew well of the witch's charms, Asura's own mother had served the White Witch freely. And nothing that Asura had seen or heard of Arianna of Charn had convinced her that she was any different.

If only Ed were there glare at the holly dryad, for he would intimidate her far more than Peter could ever hope to.

He was not called the dark king for no reason.

But he had retired early, pleading weariness.

Asura had snorted.

Weary of the women who had hung off him.

"What of Aslan?" Lucy's voice, Asura was glad to hear, was doubtful. Gone was the trusting little child. She had not lost her faith, and yet...There was a light in her eyes that was absent in her older siblings.

"What of the father-lion-king?" the dryad titled her head to the side. Then her dark green eyes seemed to capture Asura's own ocean coloured ones. "What of thee, daughter of the river-north? Thee doth not belong here."

It was true; she had been born in the north. But she had been forced to flee south when the waters had frozen over.

Soon there had been nowhere to go to; for the White Witch had destroyed her home and the homes of thousands of other naiads.

She looked down at her hand which was knotted in the light crimson of her uniform tunic. The hands of a warrior, though still creamy white and sparkling blue, the strange pigment catching the light from the crackling hearth. So similar to the skin of the dryad before her, yet so different. "This is my home now."

Those dark green eyes narrowed at her. "If thee doth not listen there shalt be no home for thee once more."

Asura felt her skin bristle.

It was no idle threat. The naiad did not doubt that Arianna could turn Narnia into a frozen wasteland just like the White Witch had; though why the other naiad's had returned north, Asura could not say. Yet there was something infinitely more dangerous about the self-proclaimed Ice Queen. With both hers and the witch's powers there was no telling what they could do.

Peter's summer blue eyes met hers from across the room, almost pleading. She would need to speak with him, they both knew. He could not march upon Arianna of Charn's ice castle, not with what the dryad had told them.

Perhaps it was best that they did what she suggested and allowed her to act as an emissary between them.

...

Edmund.

He could do nothing but stare down at her small, her perfect face. It was as if she had been conjured by his very thoughts of her. Her eyes widened slightly; her soft lips parted. And he became aware of how very little either of them wore – there was nothing between them save the thin cotton shirt that covered her, nothing but the breeches that encased their legs.

Her hands were splayed across his bare chest, almost trembling as she touched him.

She had answered his need with her own.

She had not hesitated.

He realised, looking into those wide emerald eyes the colour of fresh leaves in spring, that the witch was not present.

And her eyes shone.

"Ari," he said softly, a whisper, a caress. And then her eyes fluttered closed once more as she pulled him back to her.

Fire raced through him at the cool touch of her lips, her body pressing against his as she captured his lips with her own. Dear Aslan, he wanted her.

His fingers gripped, harder, finding the soft flesh of her hip he pulled her closer.

More.

She was intoxicating.

"Ed!"

The door banged open with a crash, Lucy's voice startling him from the daze he had fallen under.

And it was as if he had been sleeping and water had been thrown over him.

"Don't move," Arianna's voice was a cold hiss, but Edmund was not fooled. He'd felt her skin warm beneath his touch.

He knew there was molten heat beneath her ice cold exterior. But the dagger was pressed into his neck, her fingers white-knuckled.

She was rattled.

Lucy froze in the door, her eyes wide.

But her hand had automatically gone to her waist, where her dagger would normally have been strapped. Her mouth was open, as if she were going to say something. Whether it was at Arianna in that moment or the spectacle they had made.

"I don't want to hurt you Ed," Arianna said softly, her stance one of deadly perfection, her breath blossoming across his cheek. "But I will."

He hesitated a moment too long and she moved, jumping through the open window in a single bound.

"Edmund. What is going on?"

His hands, empty, fell limply to his side, tingling still.

The feel of her body was imprinted in those fingers.

He had been right.

There would never be anyone else for him. 

And once again, she was gone.