AN: I would like to apologize in advance if there are any typos/errors in this chapter that I have missed going over it for my final round of editing before posting it. Please bear in mind that I am quite tired; I've been out grocery shopping most of the day, almost got run over by at least five different shopping carts, and was yelled at by an angry cleaning lady when all I wanted to do was use the restroom. I also had a little bit of a headache a few hours ago. Thankfully the end of the day more than made up for it; I had a lovely fire-pit cooked meal with my family (my stepfather's a great cook); the food was great and we all had lots to laugh about. So, yeah, anyway, getting this AN back on track, hopefully I have not missed anything, but if I have, please be good enough to cut me some slack, and I'll try to fix whatever the problem may be in the near future. Hope you all like the chapter!

The sun was setting on more than just the day; it was setting, also, on an era, an age. Golden was becoming red.

Things might improve someday, and, indeed, High King Peter believed they would. But his rein was over; there was no escaping that heartbreaking fact.

The high king stood, looking out at the waves on the sea, the fading sun warm on his back, his steed, a black horse he called Coalblack on his left, and the very last friend he had left on his right.

"Master Tumnus," he said softly, looking over his right shoulder to his faun adviser and friend, young enough what seemed like only yesterday but aging rapidly today, stout with white and gray in his formally brown curly hair, "will you do something for me?"

"Anything, Your Majesty," he replied.

Slowly, King Peter undid the strong tie that held his sword's scabbard to his belt.

His sword was remarkable, said to have originally been created for a warrior queen long before his time. She had been called Swanwhite and was said to have been 'beautiful to the extreme'. Tradition held that this remarkable queen had christened the sword 'Rhindon'. It also held that no one, be they part of the nobility or the humblest of commoners, after Swanwhite's death had ever been able to draw the sword from its scabbard until Peter came along and did so. Thus, it had become his sword and his alone; it had been his destiny to kill the serpent-witch and save Narnia, and it had been his fate, in so doing, to inherit Rhindon.

"Your sword, Your Grace?" There was fear in Tumnus's voice.

"I want you to hide it away," King Peter ordered, handing Rhindon over, his fingers clinging round it ever so slightly, as if they were forcing themselves to loosen their desperate grip; "hide it where no one can find it."

"I…I will indeed hide it away until your return, Sire," he stammered, scraping one goat-hoof anxiously along the sand.

The king's weary blue eyes wouldn't meet Tumnus's concerned ones all of a sudden; they were completely downcast.

"My lord? What is it? You…you are coming back, are you not?"

"Narnia rots," whispered King Peter brokenly, "and I fear I'm too weak now to bring it back. And Susan…oh, Aslan, my queen, my beloved…My Susan…" His voice cracked and he needed to inhale deeply and wipe at his eyes before going on.

"Are you saying Narnia will never see you again?" Tumnus braced himself for the worst, dreading the high king's answer.

"I may never come back," he replied. "Unless Aslan comes to me and says I must; but, alas, I doubt that. My time is up. I can feel it in my bones and heart. I feel most dreadful, and yet, it isn't how I thought it would be. I'm torn to pieces, Master Tumnus, but it's all right; one day, Narnia will understand. I may never return, but, if Aslan wills it, I swear to you, Narnia shall see me again someday."

"How can that be?" asked Tumnus, speaking through the tears now streaming down his face. "You speak in contradictory statements, Sire. Has your suffering brought on madness?"

"If I am mad," King Peter said, closing his eyes, "what harm is it to you to let me be so? Only, keep your promise. And don't forget."

"Never," Tumnus swore.

The king put a hand on his friend's shoulder and they stared at each other with lumps in their throats. The faun and the high king embraced.

"Where will you go?"

"I would like to fling myself into the sea head-first and never surface," confessed the king, his tone deeply depressed. "But that is not what I think Aslan would expect of me, of Narnia's former high king. I shall go back to the location in Narnia where I first came in from that other place; that is where I will end my days."

"But, Your Majesty, you can barely remember anything about that other place! If you should manage to go back…if all ends well for you…what will you do there?"

"I don't know for sure," he told him honestly. "I was considering, if I do not die on the threshold, a career in medicine. I may not remember much about that other place, but something in the back of my mind tells me that world isn't kind to grown men who can't support themselves."

"Need you any help tacking your horse?" Tumnus did not know what else to ask, do, or say.

He shook his head. "No, thank you. I will ride him bareback."

"You go west, then?"

"Aye, dear friend, west."

"Aslan's blessings and safe journey." The faun lightly slapped Coalblack's neck. "I do wish you would reconsider."

"Reconsider? Master Tumnus, I've been overthrown. Everything and everyone I have ever loved is gone." He mounted his horse and pressed his legs tightly around the creature's black to keep his balance. "I've grown older, you know that trying to reclaim my throne now would mean going to my own death. What's more, if I won, I told you, I haven't got the strength to bring Narnia back. Not now. I beg your forgiveness."

"Peter," said Tumnus, forgetting formalities for what would be their last moment together, "there is nothing to forgive."

"Really? Nothing at all?"

"What wrong have you done? I can think of none. You were the greatest king…and now…now perhaps I, too, once I've hidden your sword away, may leave Narnia to seek other lands. There will be no peace here for a long time."

"Be wary of spies, Tumnus, we are in sight of the formally glorious Cair Paravel still."

"I will, I promise."

"Then this is farewell." And with that, High King Peter rode off, due west, as fast as Coalblack would carry him.

Never again was the greatest leader of Narnia in all of known history seen. Some say he made it to his destination, even claiming he met Aslan along the way and that they talked one last time, and that eventually Peter became a doctor in that other place; England. Others say he died in the Western Woods, either of being killed by a wild non-talking animal, or else simply of a broken heart. Some even think he died in the Lantern Waste not far from the lamppost; there is a statue of a kingly figure, believed to be a depiction of High King Peter, standing in those woods down to this day. As for Master Tumnus, he must have kept his promise, for Rhindon-like its former owner-was never found.

"Bit of a downer," Edmund commented as Lucy finished reading.

"That's putting it rather lightly," Lucy said, closing Myths and Legends of the Golden Age.

It was well-passed midnight, but neither the princess nor the count felt sleepy. They were sitting up in Lucy's room, seated on the carpet by hearth, a fire crackling in the grate of the fireplace; and up till a moment or so ago Lucy had been reading aloud.

Sneaking by Caspian and Eustace hadn't been hard for Edmund; both had been fast asleep. Now, the Macready, she had been tricky, as the dratted woman had ears like a hawk, but Edmund had never forgotten his old early childhood skill of making his breathing practically inaudible and so had managed to creep silently by the housekeeper when her back was turned.

Lucy's eyes flickered up to the miniature glass Lion. "Why do you think he let it happen?"

"Let what happen?" Edmund asked, shifting his weight off of his right leg which had fallen asleep and was all pins and needles.

She motioned down at the book still in her hands. "Let the Golden Age end. Why do you think Aslan didn't step in and stop it?"

"I don't know, Lu," said Edmund, sort of pensively, "maybe things in life aren't meant to stay perfect; maybe they aren't even meant to be perfect to begin with and that's why whenever it is the balance has to shift back."

"I don't think I believe that," Lucy told him flatly. "I think Aslan wants us all to be happy."

"And does happiness merit perfection?" Edmund's eyebrows raised themselves pointedly.

"Depends on your idea of what perfection is, really," she decided.

"It's hard to argue with that," her friend agreed.

Lucy stared into the fire, which was much smaller than when they'd first sat down, and then glanced back at Edmund. "Ed?"

"Yes?"

"Don't you think it's strange that the legends don't tell us what happened to Queen Susan? I mean, obviously she died, she had to of, or else I think Peter would have spent the rest of his life looking for her if she was alive somewhere, only…none of the stories says how it happened."

"It's called a loose end, Lu, lots of old fairytales end like that. Old bards back in the olden days must have thought dreary open endings were poetic or romantic, or some such similar rot."

"It isn't open-ended if we know she's dead," Lucy pointed out, crinkling her forehead. "It doesn't make sense that Susan's so important early on and then her story just peters out and doesn't tell us the whats and whys. Ed, more than half of the legends claim she pulled off a terrible betrayal and that it was anywhere from partly her fault that the Golden Age came to an end to all her fault. And yet, haven't you noticed there's no record of what she supposedly did?"

"I don't see how it matters," yawned Edmund, rolling his eyes. "She might not have even been a real person to begin with."

"That's what confuses me," said Lucy, who strongly disagreed with Edmund's belief that High King Peter's court probably hadn't been real. "If a story-teller made her up, they would have made up a fate for her. A clear ending, plain and simple. They would have made her black-and-white; either good or bad."

Edmund laughed. "By the Lion, Lu, you sound like a blasted lawyer! Anyway, King Peter's ending isn't all that clear itself. Why should his wife have it any different after bringing down a whole country?"

"I don't believe it was her fault old Narnia was destroyed."

"No?"

She shook her head vehemently. "Of course not. She loved her country, and her husband."

"Love doesn't make a person do everything right," said Edmund, a little bitterly. "Even criminals can have love."

"But not for the people they steal from or kill or whatever," she said firmly. "You don't betray the people that you love."

"If only things were always that simple," he couldn't help sighing.

"They are," insisted Lucy, "think about it. Would you betray my parents-our parents?"

"Of course not!" The very idea repelled him.

"Would you ever betray me?"

He looked at Lucy, so sweet and innocent, looking small in the large shift she was borrowing for a nightgown. Edmund would have stabbed himself in the heart with the stone knife before he did anything that would bring true harm to her, his dear one; the best friend he had ever had.

"No, never!" He scooted a little closer to her.

"See?" Lucy smiled at him. "If it's that simple for you, why shouldn't it be like that for everybody?"

It was a beautiful notion, and it sounded impossibly sweet the way Lucy said it, so pure and utterly utopian, but, then, 'everybody' in the broadest sense of the term probably didn't love each other as much as Edmund did Lucy; nor did it seem likely that 'everybody' had as much respect and gratitude for each other as he did for King Frank and Queen Helen.

They sat for a bit longer in silence, Edmund thinking about Lucy, and Lucy still wondering about Peter and Susan. Then, Lucy noticed the fire was so low it was very nearly all embers. Of course the maids weren't going to come in at this hour and make it big again, so Lucy stood up and picked up the gold-plated poker, intending to over-turn the embers herself.

"Lucy," said Edmund, with surprising unease, as she stood up and went closer to the dying embers, "what are you doing?"

"Over-turning the embers."

"That's the servants' job," he said, his face a little pale for some reason. "We don't touch the fireplace. Neither of us ever have."

"It's easy," Lucy said cheerfully. "We both must have seen it done a hundred times. Aren't you starting to feel cold?"

"No," he lied.

"I say, Edmund, are you all right?" She turned around, her back to the fireplace, noticing that her friend looked as if he was going to be sick. "You look awful."

"Well what do you expect?" he snapped, furrowing his brow. "I mean, it's freezing!"

"You just said you weren't cold."

Oh, that was right, he had, hadn't he? Dash it. "Maybe I should get out of here, it's late. You can go to bed. The servants will take care of the fire in the morning."

"Why? I'm not sleepy. And you do look ill, Edmund, but you don't look at all sleepy yourself, either."

"I…" He didn't know what to say to that.

She bent down close to the fire and over-turned the embers. All went quite well, except that a single spark shot up and landed on Edmund's right hand.

He hastily brushed it away, but not before a sudden involuntary scream came out of his mouth.

"Ed?" Lucy was at his side, grabbing onto one of his arms.

He took a deep breath. "I'm fine. Don't look at me like that." He pulled his arm out of her grasp.

"I've never heard you scream that loudly before," she told him. "What happened? You looked terrified."

"I thought…" he started, still looking a touch bewildered.

"What is it?"

His senses returned to him in earnest now, and he felt incredibly stupid. "I thought there was a wasp in the room," he invented quickly.

"A wasp?" Lucy repeated, confused.

"Well, you know how much I hate them." He grinned at her with forced playfulness.

Lucy would have questioned him further if Mrs. Macready hadn't, at that very moment, knocked on the door and demanded to know if all was well, having heard Edmund's scream and assuming that it was Lucy.

"No, I'm perfectly all right…" Lucy called, frightened that she would enter and discover Edmund there with her. "It…it was…just…"

"A bad dream," Edmund whispered urgently into Lucy's ear, knowing what a lousy liar she was. "Tell her it was just a nightmare and you're fine now."

"It was only a nightmare, all is well!"

"You sound uncertain," the Macready called back.

"I'm not! Really, I'm not."

"I'm coming in," she informed her.

On the one hand, Edmund was reasonably pleased to learn that if Lucy was ever being held hostage in her room, forced to say she was all right when she was not, Mrs. Macready would charge in there and rescue her, not taking no for an answer. On the other hand, however, as that seemed like an unlikely scenario, and they didn't want to get caught visiting at ungodly hours, that knowledge was not particularly comforting at this exact point in time.

"What do we do?" Lucy asked, beginning to feel a little panicked.

Edmund didn't answer. He had been at her side up till a second ago, only now he wasn't anywhere in sight.

Mrs. Macready barged into the room. "Princess?"

"I told you I was fine," Lucy reminded her. "It was only a…"

"Nightmare?"

"Right." Lucy forced a grin (Mrs. Macready was not an easy person to smile at). "Exactly. That's all it was."

"You sounded terrible. I've never heard a young lady with so deep-sounding a scream. Have you got a cold?"

"I don't believe so." She thought her teeth and lips were starting to hurt from keeping up smiling harmlessly for so long. Lucy wasn't used to faking emotions; that was more Edmund's area of expertise.

"Fine, then, I'm going back out." Mrs. Macready nodded respectfully to her, seeming to remember at last that she was addressing royalty after all. "I hope you sleep better the rest of the night, Princess Lucy."

"I'm sure I will." She hoped the housekeeper couldn't see her crossed fingers behind her back, and held her breath as the woman left the room.

"Phew," said Edmund's voice from somewhere near-by.

"Edmund?" Lucy whipped her head around to look for him. "Where are you?"

"Over here, Lu." A dark head popped out from under her bed.

"Gosh, it's good you were so quick!" she said, bending down to his eye-level as he finished crawling out from his hiding place.

It occurred to them all at once how funny the situation was, now that it was over and all was well. They looked at each other with screwed up faces, likely both wondering who would be the first one to break down. Finally, neither of them could take it a second longer and they burst out into wild laughter.

Lucy's laugh was particularly contagious and high-pitched, and it dawned on Edmund after a moment of trying to repress his own hysterics, that if the Macready could hear a scream, she could hear a laugh just as easily. And they didn't want that. Fool the woman once, shame on her…Fool her twice? Well, he didn't think they'd get that far. Mrs. Macready was a lot of things, but stupid was not one of them.

"Shh…" Edmund gently clamped his hand over Lucy's mouth, his shoulders shaking wildly. "Shh…She'll hear us…"

They were both collapsed on the floor by the bed, lying on their backs, when Lucy finally swallowed the last of her giggles and could be even remotely serious again.

Seeing his companion was no longer in danger of giving them away, Edmund removed his hand. Lucy was still panting a little bit, her cheeks were flushed, and there was a dust bunny he'd accidentally brought out with him from under the bed clinging to a slightly disheveled-looking lock of her hair.

For a second, staring at her, Edmund found himself wondering what would happen if he reached over, gently removed the dust bunny, then brought down his hand and caressed her cheek, leaning over her, lowering himself until his lips touched hers, kissing her; repeatedly…

"What are you staring at?" Lucy couldn't remember having ever seen that expression on Edmund's face before.

He snapped out of it, feeling bitterly ashamed of himself. "You have a clump of dust in your hair."

"Oh." She reached up to remove it, but only got part of it out. "Did I get it?"

"No, most of it's still there." Edmund chuckled mildly. "Here." He removed it for her, but immediately withdrew his hand afterwards. "There you are, all set."

"Thanks."

"I should go." He stood up, brushed himself off, and looked to the door.

"Ed?"

"Yes?"

"Are you sure you're all right?"

No, he wasn't. "Never better. See you later, Lu."

"Edmund, wait."

"What?"

"Let me check to see if the cost is clear. It would be a terrible pity to get caught after all that."

Unfortunately, Edmund was indeed caught. But it wasn't Mrs. Macready who caught him, though, nor was it in the corridor Lucy's room was located in that he suddenly found himself fighting, thankful to no end that he had decided to wear a sword attached to his hip when he left his room earlier.

It was a familiar young man of Telmarine ethnicity that came at him out of nowhere; namely, his own roommate.

He wondered what Caspian could have possibly been thinking, what in Aslan's name his problem was, but he pushed those thoughts aside temporarily and fought as hard as he could. Sword to sword, steel to steel, and yet it had to be quieter than average, because of the hour. How they got on like that Edmund never could work out, even in his own mind, when he thought it over after the matter was concluded.

Caspian was a skilled fighter, but not quite as good as he himself was, and Edmund wished he were a little taller, for then he might have truly had him. He might have gotten away. Save for their difference in age, the two were shockingly well-matched opponents. They both knew every trick in the book and used each one to their advantage.

Another thought blazed through Edmund's mind like a burning comet: where the devil was Drinian? Wasn't it his job to stop boys from fighting in the corridors? Some dormitory director he was!

Taking into consideration the current circumstances, Edmund thought he would have given anything for an authority figure to break things up; even if that figure was Mrs. Macready.

The next thing the count was aware of, he was pinned back against the wall, Caspian's sword pressed against his neck.

"We need to talk," Caspian whisper-spat at him.

"If this is your idea of talking," Edmund hissed back, "then I would hate to see what you would do in a fight to the death!"

"Shut up," snapped Caspian, glaring at him. "I could slit your rotten throat right now and save everyone a whole lot of trouble."

Edmund blinked, stunned by the venom and anger in Caspian's voice. Since when were they enemies? Sure, they didn't know each other all that well, but out of his two roommates, Caspian was his favorite. Only, just now, Eustace Scrubb (annoying as anything, but asleep and not a threat), was knocking him right out of that spot.

"What's going on?"

"I know what you are," he said through his teeth.

"And what is that, exactly?"

"You work for a witch, don't you?"

"What? No! Caspian, have you lost it?"

"You had better tell me the truth. If you don't cooperate with me, I'll kill you."

"Unpardonable and uncalled for blackmail…getting my throat slit…" Edmund hummed with pretend-pensiveness. "Can't say which sounds most fun."

"This is no time to be joking, traitor."

Edmund's eyes narrowed and darkened. "What did you just call me?"

"You heard me."

"Are you going to explain what the devil you're talking about, or are you just going to stand here till dawn threatening my neck?"

"All right, you," Caspian gave in. "Listen and listen well." One hand still holding the sword to Edmund's neck, he reached into his tunic pocket and pulled out a familiar object. "Do you recognize this?"

It was the handkerchief Lucy had loaned him, the one that had the silver locket bound up in it.

"Um, Caspian, maybe your eyesight isn't that good in the dark, but that is a handkerchief wrapped around a joke present from a long time ago. Hardly anything you can use to convict me of being a witch's servant."

"What do you think I found next to it, you moron?"

Edmund gulped. The stone knife. Caspian had found the stone knife. "What have you done with it?"

"Left it exactly where you hid it, of course!" said Caspian, sounding surprised in spite of everything. "You think I'm going to touch that cursed blade? How stupid do you think I am?"

"I'm guessing that's a rhetorical question," Edmund answered, masking his relief that the knife hadn't been stolen along with being found out.

"Funny," said Caspian, as though he thought it was anything but.

"Are we done here?"

"Hardly."

"Someone will hear us."

"Like who?"

Good point. "I don't know. Drinian?"

"Do you really think Drinian would stop me? Do you think he wants you to destroy everything he's strived to protect?"

"I really have no idea what you're talking about," Edmund reminded him. "You do know that, don't you?"

"Tell me what you're doing with that knife. Do you have some sort of plan to hurt the princess? And you had better not lie to me."

Edmund almost laughed when he heard that. "Is that what this is all about? By the Lion's mane, Caspian! You think I'm plotting against Lucy? Seriously?"

"You have a magical evil emblem hidden under the floorboards, and you're always with her…It isn't hard to put two and two together."

"I'm with her because we're friends," Edmund told him. "I'm not going to hurt her."

"Why do you have the stone knife, then? Where did you get it?"

"That's none of your business," he said flatly.

"Yes it is. And you have no choice, you have to tell me."

"Oh, I think not." Edmund smirked coldly. "Look down."

Caspian's sword was still pressed against Edmund's neck, but what he hadn't noticed was that sometime in the middle of their conversation, Edmund had managed to put his own sword against his chest in defense.

"How did you do that?"

"You're good, Caspian, but not that good. I learned how to use a sword at the royal court, remember? And I was already a fighter before that. You don't intimidate me as much as you seem to think you do."

He scowled. "Touché."

Edmund knew his heart was beating like a drum but hoped Caspian would think it was due to anger, not fear. "Good. Let me go at once."

"Keep your life," he said. "But know I will be keeping a sharp eye on you. Twenty-four hours a day, Edmund."

"That's fantastic, you know there's twenty-four hours in a day!" Edmund freed himself from the wall and returned his sword to its place at his hip. "Is that how you came to be valedictorian?"

"Where were you?" Caspian called after him.

Edmund turned half-way around. "I don't have to tell you that any more than you have to tell me where you were the other night."

Caspian's blood ran cold. In all his anger at his discovery of the stone knife, and fear for the safety of his monarch, he had forgotten that Edmund knew about him sneaking out. It occurred to him that Coriakin wouldn't punish him as he himself was a major part of those meetings, but it wasn't the headmaster he was afraid of Edmund telling, nor Drinian or any of the others, it was people outside of that group he feared. Enemies could show their ugly faces anywhere, and Edmund could single-handedly make an already problematic situation worse.

"Edmund, listen, you don't know what we're up against." Caspian's tone was quieter, even a touch apologetic.

"We're?" Edmund repeated. "As in you and me?"

"No, as in…" He stopped, his eyes squinting suspiciously. "Wait, we aren't allies. I am not telling you anything!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

"Weirdo," Edmund muttered under his breath, bluffing to himself. Then he remembered something. "Hold on a second, give me back that handkerchief and what's in it."

"Why?"

"Because it's mine, genius."

"Here, take it." Caspian tossed it to him.

The first things Edmund noticed when he made it back to his room were the dug-up floorboard and the hilt of the stone knife gleaming in the remainder of the moonlight seeping in from the window.

Repressing his heavy breathing, he reached down and took it out. He couldn't hide it anymore, but he'd probably be able to disguise it and keep it on his person from here on out. Only Caspian would know what it was, and only vaguely for that matter, as he knew nothing of Edmund's early childhood. It was a good thing people were afraid to touch the knife, otherwise he might have lost it tonight.

"Dear Aslan," he murmured, sinking into his hammock, clutching the stone knife's hilt as close to his body as possible. "I hate this school."

AN: Still confused? It's okay, all will be explained in due time. In the meantime, however, please review!