A/N: My spin on what might have occurred prior to Jadis' sealing herself away in the hall of living statues. Everything concerning Narnia belongs to the brilliant C.S. Lewis.

THE FATE OF CHARN

It somewhat surprised her to see Osidia approaching, her gown of midnight blue and silver whispering secrets as it trailed across the marble floor, her footsteps echoing hollowly from the ceiling of the vast, wall-less, nearly empty room. How she dared to show her face, framed by glittering strands of white hair that intertwined with silver beads and a silver crown, Jadis could hardly venture to guess. Or, perhaps she could; were they not the same blood, of the same superior history, of the same cruel upbringing? It might have made her proud that her sister approached now, if she weren't so conclusively, hellishly angry with her. It hardly mattered that her own forces lay slaughtered across the entrance to the Imperial Palace of Charn, their blood running in red rivulets down the stairway as an unfolding carpet for royalty. It hardly mattered that Osidia's own followers lay waiting in the shadows of the room, for their queen to utter her command to destroy Jadis where she stood before the throne of Charn.

It hardly mattered at all. Her sister was doomed and she was too stupid to realize it.

"Jadis," Osidia said, in a languid tone that could have spoken of boredom if her hands weren't clenched tight on her sword. Absent was her wand, for both had promised to defend their claim to the crown by unmagical means… but Jadis knew better. Her sister's wand, though hidden from sight, must have been hidden away. She didn't believe for a moment that it was absent. Not hardly. "Jadis, will you not concede, even now?"

"You needn't bother to ask that," Jadis sneered back, raising her chin. Under the weight of the Imperial Crown, the gold digging into her skull, she refused to sag. "As long as I remain, this throne will never be yours."

Osidia had the impudence to shake her head, as if saddened even now by Jadis' words, though they were far from new to her ears. "Do you even now still cling to what Charn was? Are you blind, sister?" She swept an arm out, towards the vastness of Charn that lay beyond the pillars lining both sides of the throne room, giving an unobstructed view of their land Smoke and refuse and ash and heaping mounds of bodies lay before their sight. "What we used to be, we can no longer be. It will destroy us all."

"Save your breath," Jadis snarled, her nails biting into the palms of her hands, drawing blood.

But Osidia didn't obey. "This world is ending sister, on a path that leads to nothing but destruction." She squinted towards the setting sun outside, a fiery orange-red orb that hung swollen and sore in the sky. "It may be a thousand years yet, but one day Charn will end, and everything, everyone that lives here will have no place to escape to. But you know the lore. There are worlds that have been saved. There are worlds where it is said a Being of the Greatest Magic can rescue even those on the edge of obliteration." She twitched back her skirts, striding ever closer, only freezing in place when Jadis slipped her hand into her sleeve and drew her own wand, pointing it at Osidia's face.

"Speak nothing of Him," she said quietly, dangerously, her wand gleaming red in the sunset's agonized glow. Her narrowed eyes held nothing but darkness. "I care not who He is. I care not what He has done. My magic is greater than all, than anyone! I am master to the Greatest Magic!"

Osidia bowed her head, her eyes daring to leave the wand tip that stood mere inches from her brow, before turning once more to scan the horrid scene of death displayed to the horizon's edge. Her voice was biting and raw. "You will rule nothing, Jadis. Look! Look! You are master of destruction, and empress to no one! You care nothing for this world and those who dwell here. You have proven yourself that you would rather stand, alone and forgotten, at this throne than to serve anyone who serves you."

Jadis mouth twisted, her smile as cruel and cold as a blade's edge. "Yes."

Osidia must have seen then, the intent within Jadis' mind, the power she held on the tip of her tongue, for her blue eyes widened at her sister. Realization came to her at that moment, as Jadis stood proud and tall among the devastation she had caused, holding fast to a power that would lead to nothing, that would come to a hollow ending… simply for the sake of wielding that power alone…

"You know it," Osidia whispered, finally looking to the wand and then back to her sister's face.

"Yes," Jadis answered again. Her eyes were gleaming maniacally and her grin was sadistic. "Yes, I know it."

Osidia sighed then, a low sound of sorrow and defeat. She spread her arms out, hands up, and her beautiful gown glittered in the sunset as if stars were trapped in its fabric. "Know then also, sister, that though you believe me to have used magic, I did not. My wand is far from here—"

"Lies!" Jadis thrust her wand forward, the tip digging into her sister's brow, holding it there while blood spilled from the wound and fell down her sister's face. "Cease your lying prattle! You have used magic, or how else would you have bested me? The fact you are still alive and standing before my throne even now testifies of your deceit."

Osidia stood still, and if the blood slipping down her chin, dripping to the floor, bothered her, she did not show it. "There is a magic that does not exist in wands, that is stronger than the Dark Magic you have so wholly and irreparably sold yourself to, Jadis. It is a power that has allowed me to be here, that has allowed me to triumph… save for the atrocious and abhorrent word that you are no doubt moments from speaking. I think I'm beginning to understand that this magic, this force, is part of the Greatest Magic that the one they call Aslan"—she winced then as Jadis hissed and burrowed the wand's tip in further—"controls. It is devotion. It is loyalty, even love. And you, poor wretched thing, will never understand what it is to receive or to feel it."

"I have no use for such weakening things," Jadis spat back, but her hand shook as much as her voice did and the wand scratched a fraction downwards.

"No," Osidia agreed sadly. "For you do not know how to deserve it."

Jadis let loose a roar of anger, of scorching madness, flinging forth the word that coiled murderously on her tongue, a word made from a language so ancient it was older than the dying sun that stared mournfully down at its broken word. She spoke it, and her sister withered away before her eyes, like ash peeling back from a fire before a great wind. And Osidia's followers died with her, demolished before Jadis' power, as the world writhed, tortured, beyond. The wounded land shriveled, festered, and turned to smoke-gray and burnt brown. Jadis felt her very bones creak beneath the weight of such destruction, but as promised, she was left untouched, gasping for breath as the moment passed.

All was still. The silence that came to her was so heavy, so palpable, that she forcibly straightened her body to not bow to it, her heartbeat thunderously loud in her ears, the noise of the only living thing left in all of Charn. And Jadis, now undisputed empress of a dead world, laughed.

How she laughed.