"…And then Peter just looked at me, I don't think he believed it, but he let me go anyway." Serena said, laughing.

"I'm surprised he believed a word of that, a blizzard in June is likelier." Edmund replied as they made their way up the spiral staircase leading to the top floor of the tower. It had been a cold day to take a walk along the beach, and they were both soaked with the spray of saltwater. Serena had lost her scarf to the wind; their shoes were caked in sand.

Edmund was quite sure it was the best Sunday afternoon he'd had in a long time.

As he stepped onto the landing, Edmund sense that something was dreadfully wrong. Serena's door was ajar—in fact it looked to have been roughly kicked open. And the landing's one window was opened as well. A cursory glance outside revealed that the roof tiles of the building below were cracked, as if someone had recently clambered onto the roof.

"Serena, go to my room. Lock the door between the bedroom and my study. There's a dagger beneath the pillow if you need it—"

"Bloody hell, Ed. Why do you sleep with a knife under your pillow?" She asked, ignoring his severe tone.

"Lock the door, and don't let anyone in." He replied tersely, taking a decorative but still potentially lethal sword from its place hanging on the wall and drawing it.

"This really isn't necessary. Have the guardsmen come up, if you really need it, but for Aslan's sake—"

"I swear, I'll run you through with this wall ornament if you don't get moving."

"I love you, too." She said, her eyes at the ceiling as she headed into his rooms, more to humor him than because she thought she needed to.

Edmund cautiously stepped into Serena's rooms. The sitting room had been ransacked; books torn from their shelves, pieces of furniture were overturned, and her desk seemed to have been hacked to pieces. He made his way into the bedroom, which was even worse off than the room before it. The bed hangings were draped on the ground and not "hangings" in any sense; the mattress had been slashed open. Jewelry spilled out of the boxes that lay smashed on the floor. Someone was looking for something, and it was worth even more than the small mine's worth of diamonds on Serena's floor.

Both rooms were deserted. Edmund breathed a sigh of relief, and hurried to find Serena. She would have a fit over the state of her curtains, but it was better than whatever disaster they'd just averted.

He ran into his study. "It's alright, Serena, it's just f—" He stopped short at the half dozen spears pointed at his throat.

"Put the sword down." One of the men growled.

Edmund gulped, but his grip on the sword's handle remained steady. "Nice weather outside, isn't it?" He said pleasantly.

There was a tense silence in the room. The sword was still held tightly in Edmund's hand, and six spear points were still trained at his neck.

He could hear Serena talking.

Keep talking, Serena, he thought desperately. At least, then he knew she was still alive. He strained to hear what she was saying. All he could distinguish was her sharp, rapid-fire speech, and at most a word or two. The rest came as a muffled murmur.

Her voice changed. It became louder, more high pitched. If she was arguing with someone, then the situation could get much worse, much more quickly.

It was the riskiest, most dangerous decision he had ever made, and Edmund did it in less than a split second. He let his knees buckle beneath him and ducked below the spear. He sent one man sprawling with a well aimed kick, and slashed wilding at the rest of them with his sword. He really didn't care if he killed them or gave them a few bruises and cuts. He just needed to save Serena.

As soon as the last man was out cold or pretending to be in order to avoid being cut to ribbons by a decorative longsword, Edmund locked the study doors and stuffed the key into his pocket. He threw open the door to his bedroom,

"Serena!"

He froze.

"I'd put the sword down, if I were you." A man said silkily, holding a knife of sharpened steel to Serena's neck and grasping her as if she was a human shield.

"Leave him out of this! Ed, get out." She ordered, as she struggled against her captor.

"No, don't go anywhere." The man said. "Or something happens to her pretty little neck."

"Don't listen to him! Ed, just leave, leave it, I'll be fine."

Edmund's feet remained firmly rooted in their places. "Let her go." He demanded.

"Maybe if you put the sword down, and—"

"No! You! Leave him out of this; he doesn't know a thing about it. Get out, Ed!" Serena told him, seemingly disregarding the dagger at her throat.

"Who are you?" Edmund asked instead, the tip of his blade still pointed at the man.

Serena answered for him. "I'd like you to meet my brother, Albion." She said bitterly, fighting against the grip he had on her wrists.

Edmund felt his heart drop into his stomach. The abbot's story rapidly replayed itself in his head. He knew what Albion wanted with Serena.

"She doesn't know a thing, either, there's no point. Let her go." He said, lowering his sword.

Albion's eyes flashed dangerously. He was a handsome man, dressed completely in a suit of black. Edmund was glad to see that Serena looked nothing like her brother. "Doesn't know a thing about what, exactly?"

"Ed, you don't know what you're saying." Serena said. "Don't say anything else, Ed, get out."

"I know about your mother!" Edmund said loudly, ignoring Serena.

She groaned. "Ed, shut up!"

"Yes, my mother." Albion murmured, ignoring Serena as well. "What about her?"

"She was a w—"

"ED!" Serena practically screamed. "Stop! Don't say another thing, you really don't even understand half of it!"The exertion from raising her voice combined with Albion's tightening grip caused the dagger to bite into her skin, and a thin rivulet of blood ran from the cut.

The scarlet caused Edmund to stop immediately. He didn't want anything to do with Satarra, he just wanted to keep Serena safe.

"Let him leave, Albion. We can talk, try to—"

"Put the sword down." Albion repeated, cutting Serena off. He had a sly, foxlike look on his face the Edmund didn't like. "Oh, don't think I have qualms against killing my sister. I never liked her anyway." He reassured Edmund.

"Get out, Ed! Turn around, the door's right behind you. Leave him out of this Albion!" She said, looking to Edmund imploringly.

Albion let the blade of the dagger sink a fraction of an inch deeper into Serena's throat, watching Edmund's reaction.

"You win," He said after a moment's deliberation, throwing the sword to the opposite side of the room. "Now let her go."

"Certainly." Albion said smoothly, shoving Serena away from him and to the ground. He strode purposefully over to Edmund, reaching inside his pocket for something.

Before he could react, Albion was holding a wet rag to his face. Whatever it had been soaked in made his eyes and nose burn, and when he was forced to breathe in, it burned his windpipe too. He could feel the noxious gas rising into his nose settling in his lungs. The room went hazy, and its colors began to bleed together, like a watercolor painting that had been rained on.

"No!" He heard Serena cry out from somewhere far away. "No! You said you wouldn't!"

And then the room was dark.

Oh no. What is going on?

Well ha-ha-ha, I have the next two chapters already written, so expect an update soon. I just had to break it off here, it was the perfect place to start laying on the suspense.

And don't complain about cliff-hangers, people. I've been murdering my eyes reading through all 97 chapters of Off Dreaming's "The Reign of Kellyn Wood", and she and Drew STILL haven't gotten together. THIS NEEDS TO HAPPEN SOON, OFF DREAMING. EVERY CHAPTER YOU TEASE US BY MAKING IT SEEM LIKE IT'S HAPPENING IN THE NEXT CHAPTER, BUT IT DOESN'T. JUST WHHAAATT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, HUH?