Daggers of Ice

Chapter 44

The Northern Lands.

Edmund.

He did not know what drew him from his bed in the dead of the night; but he found his feet taking him towards her chambers, pulled by something he could not name. Untouched by the servants, the air was eerily quiet. Like a tomb.

The torches offered no warmth, merely light that caused a starburst of sparkles across the marble before it was plunged into darkness once more.

Edmund paused, his heart in his mouth as he watched the water trickle, a steady stream under the door. The water was cold, icy even, and nothing could have stopped him from shattering the door with a single kick.

Perhaps it was the servants of Corradyn, come to claim the body of the one who had foiled their plans.

He nearly slipped in the ever-growing puddle as he rushed to the bedside. His heart was pounding, his hands clenched into fists and it seemed like an eternity had passed before he finally reached the coffin.

"Who has done this?" his whisper was furious, forced through clenched teeth as he looked down upon Arianna's face, slightly damp in the fresh air, her lips parted as if to take a breath that would never come. The sparkling droplets of water clung to her dark lashes, her face nestled in what remained of the ice that Eirwen had said would last an eternity. The steady drip of the water was all he heard passed the beating of his heart.

Drip.

He gazed down at her lovely face, at the coronet that had always belonged on her brow. It was her mask that he saw; the calm indifference to everything around her. The mask that had slowly become her true face – the Ice Queen.

Though it was not how he remembered her. He remembered the soft smiles, the laughter in her eyes as she twirled in the snow, her daggers flying from her hands with deadly precision. He remembered her soft skin beneath his fingertips.

His hand moving of its own accord to touch her icy cold cheek. The soft texture was the same, as it always had been. The ice had preserved her well.

He sighed, he would have to tell Elyon that the ice coffin had not worked; that Arianna would be buried like any other. Returned to the north, buried beneath the earth that she so loved. A single finger traced those rose pink lips.

"You knew all along didn't you," he asked her, knowing she would never answer him. "You knew from the moment you saw me, it was why you were so terrified at that ball. You knew it would come to this. You knew you would end up giving your life for me."

The thoughts consumed him, but tears did not fall. He was the earth, he was solid, he was her strength; he would not weep again. She would scoff at him for the weakness.

Looking upon her face it was as if the world around him had been sharpened as he saw everything in the amazing clarity seen only by the ethereal folk. His vision burned.

Drip.

He felt the droplet of water splash onto the ground, he could hear the pitter patter of the spray as the droplet dissipated.

Drip.

The vines on the wall reached out, stretching as if the sun had risen.

Drip.

He could hear the soft patter of a child's feet as they ran through the semi clean streets of the city.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Through it all he heard the faintest sound, like the flutter of a hummingbird's wings; like the battering of feathers against a glass window or a cage.

Drip.

He felt the presence's then, where they had been concealed in the shadows, watching him silently. He met those glittering eyes, eyes which had once been crimson, one by one as they stepped forward into the patch of moonlight that streamed through the open window. He found himself clutching Arianna's limp hand, though he knew she could give him no strength.

He felt her footsteps reverberate through his very being.

"Quite a display you made there," Myria's voice was one of dry amusement, her moss-coloured eyes locking with his dark ones. He could feel her eyes on him, and on the shattered wooden door. "Though quite unnecessary."

He felt her circling the bed upon which Arianna and the remains of the ice coffin lay.

"What do you want, dryad?" Edmund had not patience for her. Though he knew with Corradyn's death the sorcerer's spell-blood remained. She looked just as she had been before her 'death'. Before she'd been corrupted. Before she'd killed Jenari, her love. Before she'd betrayed Arianna, her best friend. Whatever Myria had been before, she was not that anymore.

She had regained herself in those last moments he had seen her; but it seemed as if Corradyn's blood had taken ahold of her fully.

She was something different, twisted.

There were others behind her.

The remains of Corradyn's fallen army that had not sworn fealty to the Pevensies.

"We can bring Arianna back." Which of them spoke, he could not have known, for it was as if his heart had stopped.

"How?" It was only one word that he could utter.

They offered so much, yet they expected far more in return.

But it was Arianna.

The woman he had loved more than his own life. The woman who had loved him as much. His thoughts moved from one thing to the next, barely registering that the dryads had moved closer. Drip. His eyes were riveted on Arianna's still face. If he could only see her smile once more.

"Her spirit survives; her body did not sustain much damage. All we'd need is a drop of your blood."

The low growl revibrated through the room, the low deadly snarl.

He watched as they froze, one by one.

"Begone, and let me not see you within Narnia again," Aslan's voice was calm and Edmund looked to him, glad to hear the retreating footsteps of the dark-eyed warriors. "Edmund, my son. Look to her. All is not lost."

Her hand shook as she touched his face. The soft texture was the same, and he instinctively leaned into her palm. Yet he still would not look at her.

An inaudible sigh left her lips, he knew from the cold air that tickled his shoulder.

His eyes moved to her of their own accord, sweeping over her face and form like a man who had been starved.

Her eyes were downcast, her hands folded delicately in her lap.

"Arianna?" he said softly. She was afraid. He knew from the way she bit her lip ever so slightly, barely perceptible to anyone else. He knew from the slight crease between her eyebrows.

Emerald eyes, as fierce and wild as an animal of the forests, flashed as they rose to meet his.

Electricity ran through his veins as their lips met, her hand curled around the back of his neck as she pulled him downwards. Her lips were softer than he remembered but he knew it was her by the goose bumps that rippled over his skin, the way his magik fluctuated, rising to meet hers. He smiled into the kiss. She wasn't just the daughter of the White Witch who had terrorised Narnia for one hundred years. She wasn't just the formidable Ice Queen who had waged war against them. She was the enchantress who had bested Corradyn and tricked the Witch into revealing herself. She was the warrior who had killed herself to save Narnia.

She was his Arianna.

His Queen.

And Aslan had given her another chance.