"More evil gets done in the name of righteousness than any other way."
―Glen Cook

~O~

Chasing Shadows

~O~

A/N: After a year long hiatus, I've come back to life and tweaked my horribly written fanfic, eradicated a few characters, made the story much simpler and understandable, and shorter by leagues.

The minute she woke, her eyes met dark, dull walls encasing her inside this dreary prison. Moonlight beamed through small openings along the stonewall barricaded by thin poles. Her head felt heavy as she tried to prop herself up on her elbows.

As soon as she had gathered her wits about her, the girl stood up on the bed, toes tipping so she could reach the hole that held a free world beyond it. She could taste the dew kissed grass budding from the ground above her, and smell the crisp breath of the Eastern Ocean.

She looked around. No one was there. At least, no one who should know. The girl cupped her mouth with both her hands and began to mimic the hoot of an owl. A lithe, brown fox emerged from the shadows, red fur glinting against twilight rays.

"I knew you'd come, Bane," she grinned.

"Please, Calla. Stop calling for me as if I were some dog." The fox gnarled crossly.

"It's not my fault you always answer to it," she retorted. "Now get me out of here quick before they try and kill me."

"Wonderful. After I save you, your father will kill me." Bane muttered before vanishing into the shrubs once again.

"Edmund, she's just a girl. She had nothing to do with this." Lucy reasoned the minute her brother suggested the girl in the dungeons be surrendered as a hostage to Archenland.

The young Queen almost never dared cross her brother about matters that would require his judgments. She knew Edmund Pevensie was an unprejudiced man with logical reasons. He prided himself for being the Just. But today, his attitude seemed stripped of the title.

"Nothing?" Edmund almost laughed. "Archenland has ordered anyone affiliated with Reth Winter be handed over to them, and this 'girl' you speak of is his daughter."

"That man had a daughter? How did you know?"

"She told me."

"That is absurd. Why would she risk telling you her identity?"

He brushed his hair that fell sloppily into a mess over his dark eyes. "I've no clue."

"Did you tell anyone about this?" Lucy asked.

Edmund glanced around the room. "I didn't want to alarm anyone yet."

"So then why are you so bent on surrendering the criminal's daughter?"

"Her father has done offense on Archenland, our trusted ally. That means whatever fault or felon has wrong our linked kingdoms, it has wronged us too," the Just king explained in a very just demeanor.

She raised an eyebrow. "That is really interesting, Ed," she sighed. "Now are you going to tell me more of your self righteous jokes or the real reason behind this?"

Edmund showed her an absolute look of befuddlement. "That's completely…absurd. Why on earth would I jest?"

Lucy was not the least bit convinced of his act. He inwardly cursed himself at how easily he was caught.

"Archenland doesn't trust us enough, alright, Lu? Ever since Reth had crossed our borders with a great threat, I've been forced to do the pleasure of making the most noble form of alliance."

Lucy caught his drift. "I noticed you've been upset the last few days after Peter had decreed you to be wed with King Lune's daughter. Is this why you're doing this?"

He sighed in surrender. "I just thought that if I earned the King of Archenland's trust enough by showing them we were faithful allies, then maybe I wouldn't have to marry one of their pimped up princesses."

Lucy cast an unfamiliar gaze on her brother. "Ed, Peter expects highly of you. It's only due time that a twenty three year old king like yourself should be indulging in these kinds of responsibilities. You should be grateful you of us siblings will have an heir."

"Grateful?" His voice was low and barely audible. "I barely even know the girl. Who knows what our child will look like."

"This is all for Narnia, Edmund. Think of how it would better our country and the neighboring one. We never had an offer to make treaties with Archenland for years." She sat down beside him, caressing his knuckles with her thumb. "It's for the best."

"Well, does anyone think of me? What I want? Why not let Peter or Susan get married instead?" Edmund argued.

"It's perfectly unfitting for the High King of Narnia to get married at this time. Peter has many duties to serve in different countries. He's far too busy. And as a loyal Queen of Narnia, Susan cannot go and live in another's kingdom. She belongs here." Lucy reasoned, her voice calm enough hopefully for Edmund to follow.

He made his way towards the window, found the solid pressure of the wall and leaned against it while facing the dark horizon outside stretching for miles. Clouds brushed the sky with streaks of gray, while constellations littered the heavens and reflected the still waters of the Eastern Ocean. Narnia at night looked like patches of green floating on a vast body of stars.

These were one of the views that would keep his temper sane, but as the situation grew rather remorseless, he frowned once again at the excruciating reminder; that he was being pressured once again to take a big leap he wasn't ready for.

Life was indeed not fair for the Just King. Quite an irony he hated.

"Edmund, she has done nothing wrong. I don't believe we should drag her to crime committed by someone else, even if it's her father," she said. "I know this would be violating an allied law, betrayal even. But then even Aslan knew it's alright to do a little evil to do a greater good. " Whenever Lucy mentioned the Great Lion, Edmund couldn't help but feel a strange familiar ache coiling about him, a reminder of his first brush with treachery as a young boy.

She was still talking. "You've always told me there is greater Law that governs this realm, and it's what we should follow. Why not now?" His little sister's plaintive question bit down on his character quite hard, and he knew he couldn't twist nor manipulate his way around it.

He stiffened. "Blast it. I'll see what I can do." Lucy's eyes lit up with stark relief, and she began to hug him with gibberish words of thank you's. He laughed at how giddy his sister was over a matter such as this.

A dryad came in, holding a plate with a familiar delicacy on it.

"Lucy, are those…brownies?"

"Susan taught the staff how to make them. They're a huge hit here." Lucy thanked the dryad and took the platter.

"Ten years, a decade, and Susan never bothered to make me one?!" Edmund asked, appalled. He came closer, one of his arms outstretched to stuff a longing piece into his mouth. Lucy spanked his hand before before he could snatch a handful.

"These are for her. " She insisted, guarding the plate with her life. Edmund looked almost ready to attack. The aroma of the brownies was enchanting to the point of driving him on the brink of sanity.

"My dear sister Lucy, I hereby politely ask of you to kindly remove your hand that is belaying me from enjoying a delicacy I have missed tasting in England for a decade." He threatened. "They rationed all the chocolates during war! I don't even remember what they taste like."

"That's very unfortunate, Ed. You have my sympathies. But they're not for me. They're for the girl." She had never seen her brother so astounded.

"The…girl?" He tasted the words on his mouth. "Not your own brother?"

"I'm sure she would like some Narnian hospitality—"

Before she could finish her sentence, bells outside began to ring a shriek of alarm. A prisoner must have escaped. And they both knew exactly who.

Edmund gave her a look before snatching one of the brownies.

"Wouldn't want to let this one go to waste."

"Why couldn't you just have left his body somewhere more secluded than the hallway?" Calla demanded. There was no way they could escape right now, not when hundreds of soldiers were up on every post after Bane attacked a guard and left his cadaver for the roaming night watch to discover.

"You tell me! The bloody git was already screaming for help before I ripped his throat out," Bane replied nonchalantly. "This way." He instructed, leading Calla to a maze of tunnels.

She almost looked doubtful. "Don't tell me you're only finding the way by instinct."

"How do you think I found you?" He panted, muzzle glued to the floor.

Calla grinned. "You asked for directions?"

Bane ignored her. "There's the underpass. If we keep going, it'll lead us right outside the castle gates. He suddenly froze on his tracks. His ears bent towards the pathway behind them. "We must hurry."

"Edmund, you have to go alone! The soldiers would only frighten her!" Lucy pleaded, trying to keep up with her brother hurrying to the stables. "We'll never get her back if we try to take her by force."

"Lucy—"

"I know Oreius won't ever allow it, but you're the only one who has ever talked to her and knocked her out in the dungeons. Maybe you could knock some sense into her again if you could just compromise with her."

"Lucy—"

"I know this is just some hostage, but that doesn't make her any less of a subject than it makes us more of royalty. She is in need of our help because she's alone and no other kingdom can take her in."

"Lucy, if you could just quiet down for a bit, you might notice me trying to escape by myself," He told her calmly while buckling the bridles and saddles on his horse, Phillip. "Make sure no one else tries to go after me." Edmund smirked, trying to loosen the tensed strings his sister was pulling.

Lucy sighed in relief. "Can't I at least come with you?"

"It's too dangerous, Lu. You must stay here."

He stated as he mounted himself up on Phillip and nudged the horse's flanks, trotting to a shaft leading outside the Cair Paravel walls.

"And Edmund?" Lucy called before he could depart the stables. Edmund swiveled his horse to face her. She smiled at him. "Be safe."

He laughed, and pulled back the reins so Phillip would stand on his hind legs while he held on heroically. Then, the moment Phillip's hooves went down, they had left in a trail of dust. She watched her brother ride off to an underground passageway deep beneath the stables.

"There's only one of them following us." Bane said as he and Calla hid in an underground niche. He sniffed some more and frowned, picking up a new scent. "It's not him we should be worried about."

"What do you mean?" She asked.

There was a rustling in the far edge of the forest. Sounds of whimper and quiet growling, fleeting apparitions that disappeared within a blink of an eye. Uphill, there were dark figures that roamed, eyes silently following them in the trunk thick branches. Everywhere they turned, something seemed to move, hide or poke their heads out. Yellow eyes scurried from every direction and each second; they all seem to approach closer.

Calla knew they couldn't hide, nor could any fortes keep them safe from these wildlings. They were brutal, vicious, and most of all, hungry. "I'm hoping you have a plan."

Bane slowly emerged from the burrow, instructing her to do the same. "I always do." He readied himself with a stance, and then yelled to Calla.

"RUN!"

A/N: There's hundreds of mistakes here, but I've only rewritten this whole thing in one night, so please bear with me and tell me those mistakes and I would be more than happy to give it a few more tweaks. I'm so glad to be back, and I'll try to be updating frequently. The shorter the chapters, the quicker the updates.

Lucy has a whole bunch of brownies, so I spared one for you, sweet reader. Chew. Do you like them?

-DawnD