*Disclaimer: not mine I own only the plot and Arianna of Charn.

Chapter 4

Edmund growled, pacing his room, unable to believe she had escaped. Killing seven of their men in the process; killing them as easily as if she had been slicing through butter not human, centaur and faun flesh. Whenever he closed his eyes it was emerald eyes he saw – bold and defiant. Her eyes. Not Jadis's.

Though the line blurred within his mind; how much of her was the witch or were they one and the same? He did not delude himself into thinking that it had been the witch in control of her body when she'd chopped his men up. For Jadis had never been one for close combat – she preferred the occult arts. But Arianna of Charn…was it she who led the raids on villages? What it she who stole into warehouses at night and set them alight?

He ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the dark locks.

He could not understand why she had been afraid of him; why she had fled upon seeing him. Why she had been in Cair Paravel to begin with. Why she became Jadis, or why Jadis became her. There were too many questions; too many possible answers.

Those beautifully crafted daggers looked up at him from their position on his bedside table; their ice-like facets glinting in the moonlight. She had not meant to leave them behind; he had seen her eyes dart frantically towards them before she ran through the door and disappeared into the darkness; to the shadows who had embraced her as if she were one of their own.

"You're going to worry yourself sick you know," Lucy told him from her position on the chair by the window. Though the moon was high she did not wear her night gown, opting instead to don her favourite breeches and cotton shirt, much like his own. Even bleached of colour he could see the concern in her eyes. She was as troubled as she; she just hid it better.

"I don't understand why Pete won't let me go north," he growled, falling back on his bed, looking up at the silver canopy. Of all his siblings, Lucy was the one he got on with the best with. She seemed to understand him, despite him being horrible to her when they were younger.

"You forget Edmund, but the White Witch knows you," Lucy said.

"She does not know me now," the daggers were ever-bright beside him. Something within him was pulling him north, to the witch's country. Whether it was magic or curiosity, he did not know. But he did not care. He had to know what was going on; he had to protect Narnia from the witch's army. From Arianna and Jadis.

Another shudder ran through him at the thought of Arianna; at the feel of those slender shoulders beneath his fingertips. At the challenge she had posed whilst fighting him.

"We need to know what's happening," he said softly. Peter was wrong; they were a threat. He could feel it. It was not just a few of the witch's supporters like it had been for years – it would be a full scale attack, led by the young woman who bore the eyes of the White Witch. "I can't just stay here and do nothing."

Then Lucy's hand was on his shoulder. "Take care, Ed. I don't want anything to happen to you." Not again, her eyes said.

…..

Arianna cocked her head to the side; regarding the minotaur that knelt before her with a bland expression. Her finger tapped the ice throne, the vast expanse of the hall sweeping before her. Filled with more and more creatures who sought to join her army.

"My lady," the creature's voice was a low rumble, lower than any humans. "I would serve you to my dying breath."

"And that is what you told Jadis," she said; her voice as cold as the icicles that decorated the ceiling. The ceiling of the castle that had been hers for eleven years. "And yet you fled at the Battle of Beruna. I know you, minotaur. I know your kind."

He growled, a low and rough sound that would have had another quaking in fear. "You will lead us to victory."

She dismissed them with a wave, rising from the throne in an elegant movement of long sweeping gossamer skirts and white furs. The silver train trailed behind her like a cloak; the furs purely for decoration. She did not feel the cold of the eternal winter that surrounded them.

She nodded idly to the dwarves that bowed to her as she made her way through the winding corridors – an endless maze of crystal corridors, where one could be lost for an eternity.

It was not the White Witch that lived within her that guided her way; she knew the corridors by heart. For since her birth she had traversed their length.

The minotaur would seek her approval with some bold scheme.

Perhaps he would slay some great Narnian lord, leaving his lands open for the taking. Or steal the weapons from the guards who stood ever vigilant over the merchant caravans that made their way to Cair Paravel.

If they succeeded it would boost her cause; if they failed it was no true loss to her. Nor could the attack be traced to her, for even under a truth spell she could answer that they were no part of her castle. They would be under no orders from her.

…..

Lucy tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep. There was something wrong, something more sinister afoot than a mere possession. The witch would be capable of that; but she had been killed, by Aslan Himself. So perhaps another had been acting in her stead. She refused to believe it was Arianna, for she had seen good within the girl. She wished Aslan was there for her. So she prayed.

…..

She looked at herself in the mirror; at the reflection that looked back at her. She looked every image the hard Empress; from the beautiful dress that hugged her body to the glittering gold crown upon her head. A crown stolen from the head of her dear dead sister.

The army that Arianna had amassed for her had grown considerably; perhaps larger than her own original army had been. It would not be long before they were ready to take back Narnia from the humans who dared take the rule she deserved. An Empress without an Empire was what she had been when she came to Narnia.

It had taken awhile to grow used to the small body of the girl; her mind had been easy to control, so young and tender. The child she had raised from birth, give breath to, who adored her. Who had been so willing to please.

She did not know how many had fallen beneath Arianna's blade and she did not care. The girl did her job well. She had been trained as the perfect vessel in the off chance that she would be killed.

But of late her control had been slipping – as Arianna grew weary of battle after battle. The girl was no longer tightly under her control, her mind no longer as compliant. She could no longer see everything through her eyes.

The girl had learnt that by cutting of her emotions she could close her mind.

Jadis laughed aloud; the sound so lovely coming from Arianna's mouth.

…..

Edmund shivered, pulling his cloak tighter about his body as he trekked through the snow. He knew the way to the witch's castle, where he knew Arianna would be; he knew it as well as the back of his hands, criss-crossed as they were with old scars. Though eleven years had passed the way was imprinted deep within his mind. It was the memory he could not shake no matter how hard he tried. Nestled between the two mountains to the north, on the edge of a lake that had once been frozen. A castle as cold as winter, glistening like ice in the sun.

Her daggers seemed to burn through the leathers like ice – blistering cold that burnt his skin when he touched them. There was no doubt in his mind that they were of the same substance as the White Witch's sceptre which he had broken so long ago.

He gritted his teeth against the cold. Even after her death the winter had not left her palace, nor the lands which had once belonged to the giants she could have hailed from.