Daggers of Ice

Chapter 47

2303.

Three Hundred and Fifth Year of the Telmarine Reign.

Cair Paravel.

Edmund.

Thirteen hundred years had passed before Edmund returned to Narnia. After the battle against the Telmarines he pulled Prince Caspian, no King Caspian X, to the side and asked him how it was that Narnia fell. Had there not been anyone defending her?

He'd not allowed himself to think of her, of his Arianna.

He'd needed his full wits about him.

Had she survived? Was she still alive?

But sitting on the steps, looking into the older man's eyes, he allowed himself to grieve. Even if he didn't show it on the outside.

"Why do you ask?" Caspian was curious, for of course if it had meant so much to him why had he not asked earlier?

"I wish to know how my country fell," Edmund's voice was soft, and he didn't look up into the pitying looks of his siblings.

"Ed-" It was Lucy who spoke. She would understand, sort of. For only a year after his wedding Faelar had been felled by a savage band of dwarves who'd rebelled at their queen joining with the Narnians. She would understand that he needed closure. "Yes, tell us Caspian. We would all like to know."

"We Telmarines have always been military-based...and Narnia seemed the easiest target," Caspian's voice was sad. "For their Kings and Queens had abandoned them –" he flinched slightly, as if remembering who he was talking to – "My ancestors swept through Narnia, taking everything swiftly. There was a pocket of resistance by the time they had established their new government. In Cair Paravel there was rumoured to be an army amassing, with strange creatures we'd not even encountered yet. Strange snow fae with glittering wings and dryads with hair the colour of starlight; minotaurs and even giants." He paused slightly, perhaps noticing the smiles on the faces of the Pevensie children.

Edmund knew exactly who had amassed the army – for he spoke of all Arianna's oldest allies. Allies that would have rallied only to her call. Those who stood with her when she stood against the world and fought for them.

"And so Caspian I ordered a frontal attack on Cair Paravel. It was a long and bloody battle, though the history books tell it differently. My professor told me of the witch who'd lived there, she froze the oceans in her fury, her daggers felled hundreds upon hundreds of the Telmarine soldiers." Caspian's smile was almost wistful. "Though it would have been a terrible thing I wish to have seen such a sight. Such beauty she possessed that Caspian I, though not yet crowned, asked her to wed him."

Edmund could easily imagine how she would have looked, with her eyes flashing like emerald fire, her lips curling up into a snarl. "And did she?" It was something she would have done, to save the Narnians she would have sacrificed herself. For she'd already done it once.

"She did not reply, for a great lion appeared at her side and together they disappeared to the East," Caspian was in awe. "Aslan took her from Cair Paravel, though it was she who froze the oceans that they walked upon."

"She abandoned them all?" Susan's voice was shocked, judging. And Edmund wanted to skewer her.

"She was the last. She got the last of the Narnians out of Cair Paravel and she stayed to give them the chance to flee."