Welcome to the second volume of Forging a Nation. If you haven't already, please read the first Ashes, which can be found on my profile. Let's get started, shall we?
The Ettinsmoors were silent.
They were a cruel and unforgiving collection of hills across the northern borders of Narnia, grey and grim. The only civilisation here was a small town in the southern hills, also called Ettinsmoor, and the city of the giants.
The fires of the giants burned bright across the valley from the Narnian camp. They had refused to swear fealty to Caspian X, the new King of Narnia, and so the army had travelled north in response. The skirmishes had raged back and forth for days with no hopes of a victory for either side. Now each army waited for dawn, for with dawn came a parley and a meeting between the leaders of each army.
A figure emerged from the cluster of tents surrounding the one in which the King of Narnia slept and made its way towards the cliff edge. It paused for a moment on the precipice, gazing across the valley at the roaring flames of the giants, and then turned and made its way further up the hill the Narnians were encamped upon.
It tripped over something and crashed to the ground in a torrent of swears.
"Lorrin? Is that you?" a voice said out of the darkness.
"Yes. What on earth are you doing out here?" he asked, managing to right himself. "I would have thought you unable to leave the King's side, Lady of the Bow."
He could just about see her in the dark, sitting against a rock, her legs outstretched before her. It had been her legs that he had tripped over. Her eyes flashed orange in the giants' firelight as she glared up at him.
"Are you mocking me?" she snapped.
Ah, there was that oh-so-charming turn of character she had inherited from her father. Not that he was completely without fault; he had inherited many traits, both good and bad, from his own father.
"Of course not, Isadora," he replied with a sigh. "If I may call you Isadora. I recall one occasion when we were children and you insisted we all call you "my lady" because you were of a higher station than the rest of us."
She laughed once, a hollow sound. "If I remember said occasion correctly, I kicked you on the shin when you refused to do so," she said.
"You were a lovely child," he said with a terse smile.
For a moment she said nothing, returning her fiery gaze to the giants' camp across the valley.
"I am out here, alone, because I have found in the past months that I require more and more time to be alone with my thoughts," she said slowly. "I have somehow found myself as the Lady of the Bow, Caspian's advisor, and I have to think, think, think. I'm expected to have answers when no-one else does. Every moment alone has become precious to me."
"I know your situation well," he said. "Or have you forgotten that I am now Lord Lorrin Sopespian of Beruna. I too am expected to advise Caspian and think, think, think, as you put it. The Axe of the River's Run, that is mine. It's very pretty."
She ignored that final comment, instead staring up at him standing over her.
"You were there, weren't you?" she all but whispered. "Did you see your father die too?"
In an instant, he was transported back to the riverbank. He once again stood on the bridge, staring in confusion at the golden-headed girl and the lion facing down the retreating Telmarine army.
It was the Lion. The Lion from his childhood that he had met in the depths of the How. He knew Him as well as his own face even though he had not seen Him since he was a little boy. He threw down his sword and tried to push through the other soldiers around him; desperate to reach his father and convince him to call off the attack.
Then the Lion roared, a roar that shook his very bones and sent him tumbling into the waters of Beruna. And he was forced to watch as the river came alive and swallowed his father whole.
"Yes," he said grimly, on the clifftop in the Ettinmoors, as he was tossed and buffeted by the river of his memory.
She stood and faced him. One half of her face became bathed in orange and the other was cast into shadow.
"I am out here because as soon as I stop thinking for Caspian," she said, spitting out each word with more and more venom, "all I can see, over and over, is your father plunging Queen Susan's arrow into mine."
With that, she turned and left him. He watched her retreating back closely to ensure she returned to her tent.
"Both our fathers were traitors," he noted to the night air, "and we are our fathers' children."
After a short climb, he was at the summit of the hill. Beside a small mountain spring, he waited.
"You are late," a voice said coldly. He stiffened as he felt a blade pressed to his back.
"I was detained," he said.
"We saw. Was that her?"
That was a second voice. Female, he had never heard it before. He tried to look back but the blade dug in a little further and he faced the front again.
"Yes," he said grimly.
"You had better move faster, Lorrin. You cannot touch Caspian without first eliminating Isadora," the man said.
"I need more time. She does not trust me."
Something soft was pressed into his hand.
"Then make her," the woman whispered. "We'll be watching."
The pressure in his back vanished and he became aware that he was once again alone.
He breathed out slowly and then lifted up the eagle feather, as black as the night sky above him.
"We are our fathers' children," he repeated softly.