Edmund
The world was spinning as lines of swaying leaves and a sky, dotted with clouds, entered my vision. Until I could focus on only one piece of what was laid before me, I absorbed the colors of blue, green, and brown, and it was then that my sense of touch came in to play. The dew touched grass beneath me sent a chill down my spine, as the distinct smell of earth hit my nostrils. As I sat up, the corners of my eyes feeling heavy with weight, I noticed where I was. I noticed the figure beside me.
I probably should have realized that, with the lapping water already in my ears, ultimately Eleanor and I had not made it back to our tents; that we had fallen victim to the dark sky above us with our eyes drooping. She lay beside me now, the only tell that would show we were connected even as we drifted off being our intertwined hands. My thumb ran across her scar, and it was then that the world was perfectly clear to me.
I easily disconnected us, her hand going limp against the grass, as I moved closer to her.
She was still deep in solacing sleep and I sat for a long time beside her. The black lake was now a darker blue, most of the leaves easily falling from the trees and landing on the water's surface. From the grass, I could see dragonflies flying from the trees to the larger weeds that inhabited the shallower waters.
Eleanor stirred beside me, and as if by instinct, her hand reached out and began travelling down my arm, searching for something. I gave my hand to hers. I released a soft laugh. She smiled too, finally sitting up and leaning her head into my shoulder.
"You're cold, Edmund Pevensie."
"And a little damp," I noted softly.
"Hmm," she smiled, and then stood up. "Long day today."
"You're making it sound like we're just going to have a little scuffle with someone."
"Yeah," she breathed, and then looked at the ground as I stood, joining her as we began walking back to the tents. "If only it were just a scuffle."
"You know you're not actually going to Anvard?"
"Yes, I know," she said irritably. "And I understand. I haven't been trained. But it just puts me in a weird position."
Moving a low-lying branch from our path, leaves crunching beneath us, I said, "This isn't about you. It's about Solomon- what he's willing to do for power. We'd have to intervene either way."
"I should have learned how to fight," she said remorsefully, almost under her breath.
The tents came into our vision, creatures of all sorts bustling about, allowing Eleanor and me to appear from the trees and easily blend into the scene before us.
"It's too late now. You'd only be in more risk of getting yourself hurt," I tried to explain, stopping our walk. I felt my stomach drop as I looked into her eyes, knowing the next time we would meet, things would be a lot different.
"Why did you bring me along, then? What's the point of me being here?" she asked of me, almost in exasperation.
"You're safer with us. This may sound strange, but someone always has to be with you- watching you. You're the single most desired creature of Jadis and Solomon. You're too important to be left alone."
"I'm too valuable, is what you mean," she retorted blankly. "I'm just a prize to them."
Her last words were weak, as if she discerned what it was that made her say them. I felt compelled to wrap my arms her and I did, as I whispered into her shoulder, "Ordires and some other generals are taking other Narnian civilians to a location we've already scoped out," and then I parted from her. "It's safe. You just have to wait for us. All we're trying to do right now is get Evangeline and Margo back, and then we'll go from there."
"And if this gets worse," I said, holding her hand, indicating towards the scar, "you have to tell someone."
"Okay," she said, and as I was about to turn into the crowd to find Peter, she gripped my arm. Her eyes were searching my face, and suddenly I felt guilty for thinking of leaving her so abruptly.
"Please, just…" her voice broke off into the air, as I waited for her.
"Don't disappear. You're the only person who helps me stay sane," she asked of me.
I nodded thoughtfully, and before I could comprehend it, she had departed.
The ride to Anvard was a tumultuous one. I could finally feel the anticipation of confronting Solomon after all the Narnian casualties he has led to fill us. It was a strange energy, almost as if we expected to feel some emotional release from whatever came of this.
When the castle of Anvard came into our vision, perched on a grassy hill sloped in various levels, it was nearly nightfall. We trotted along, as the gryphons were sent to survey the area, filling the skies above us.
Looking up, I murmured softly, "That'll be a sure tell that we're coming."
"He'll be unprepared either way. Adonis doesn't believe that Solomon would think we'd come," Lucy noted beside me, and before she could say any more, Peter turned from in front of me and began explaining what we planned to do.
"I've already told the others, but we'll lead the front," he said, gesturing to Caspian, me, and him. "Susan, Lucy, and the other archers will circle behind us. We're going to have charge once we get to the gate, and then when we're inside, Susan and Caspian are going to work their way up the castle to Solomon. Once we have him, we send everyone else out. Got it?"
I looked upon the castle again. Archenland always seemed like a place that would remain distant from war, even the concept of it. Yet I imagined Solomon now, sitting in some hidden away room with Jadis by his side, waiting our next move. And here we were on his lawn.
When the light of the day finally slipped from us, we were at the gate, and at Peter's signal, the beginnings of a battle came familiar to me again. I was surrounded by all creatures: lions, nymphs, centaurs, tigers, and the like. All of us were one body, all moving in one way.
As the gates were slammed open by a minotaur, breaking at its hinges and allowing us to flood into the internal walls of Anvard, we moved to the center. I knew something was off, the moment I had the chance to acknowledge the red-brown stones that filled the area around us.
I looked to Peter, who was obviously filled with confusion. Anvard was silent, and as the cries of Narnians died down at this realization, it only became more apparent.
Anvard wasn't just silent, as far as we could see, it was empty. The more I stood in the wake of what I could only imagine being a mistake of our own judgment, a man opened a set of doors from one of the upper floors and looked down at us in the courtyard.
"Narnians," he called nonchalantly. By the way he lined his tone with words he seemed to be reading off a piece of paper, I knew it was Solomon. "If you're looking for a battle, I don't have one for you."
"Did you know we were coming? Did you send another posing Winged to spy upon us?" Peter yelled, without hesitation.
"If you're interested in talking, I'll be up in my office," Solomon rushed hotly, turning before the last word left his mouth and disappearing inside.
There was absolute silence. Peter and Susan looked at each other, and right as Peter tipped his head to the side, Susan insisted, "We're not going in there."
"This has got to be a joke," Caspian exclaimed. I, too, was baffled. The sight of Solomon appearing on the balcony almost seemed too strange to even imagine. "Does he really believe that he can insist we'll go up there, just to talk?"
"We might have to," Lucy admitted, looking up at the balcony that Solomon was perched on just moments before. In answering all the eyes that were now on her, she said, "We came to get answers. We'll never know where he's at if we don't go and talk to him."
"This is the man who could have summoned Jadis, Lucy," Peter contented, pointing up at the balcony in which we all looked. "He could have taken Evangeline, one of our own, and Margo. We didn't come to chat-"
"But the place he's at right now is completely different from what we believed, Peter!" she interjected. "He obviously thinks he's safe. He's got no guards on the outside. He's inviting us in. Something's off."
"Maybe he feels safe because he thinks Jadis is protecting him," I suggested. "But, I mean, we don't even know if she's hear at all."
There was another painstaking silence, our marches of hope being met in strife as only more problems arose from the actions we took in trying to stop them. Not long after, Peter finally declared we should go talk to him, saying we couldn't leave here with more questions we couldn't answer.
So soon I found my siblings, Caspian, and me entering the opened doors of the castle and ascending to the upper floors. Holtim, a minotaur, led a least a dozen soldiers behind us as the Generals waited outside with the rest of our troops. I felt so foolish, yet at the same time I felt I was entering a haven that could possibly render us all of the incessant questions that haunted us.
We knew we had reached the room that Solomon was in. It was the only one with guards standing outside the door, the only other people we had seen in Anvard other than Solomon himself.
When we were face to face with the doors, Susan was at the front, and without a word to the guards, she pushed the doors open. Inside the room was decorated heavily with the Archenland colors of yellow and red, and the very end of the room, with a giant, mahogany desk in front of him, was Solomon.
There were some guards lining the inside walls of the room, but not enough to make me feel worried. This setup, however, did worry me.
"You're very confident," Peter avowed, as the crowd of us shuffled into the room. The doors behind us were left open as we approached him.
Solomon's eye flinched. "I beg your pardon," he drawled, not moving from his chair behind the desk.
"We have invaded Anvard. We all possess weapons, yet I have seen only some…" Peter's voice fizzled out, surveying the room before continuing to say, "…eight people, other than yourself."
"I don't worry when I am not in the wrong," Solomon declared, standing from his chair and moving to the front of his desk. "Especially considering this is all a foolish result of miscommunication…"
"There has been no communication at all, and that is not Narnia's fault," Caspian interjected.
Solomon opened his mouth, but then he seemed to be looking past us, at the twelve or so soldiers standing with Holtim.
"I've asked you to come here to talk," he said. "But I will not talk to an assembly. Please ask your soldiers to wait outside in the hall."
We all looked back at Holtim, who ultimately nodded as he ushered the other soldiers out of the room. Solomon's guards shut the doors with a loud, echoing thud, his eyes now dancing across the five of us. Anticipation was ever-present as his pupils dilated.
"Where are Evangeline and Margo?" I demanded. Solomon smiled down at the ground, which insulted me.
"Answer him," Susan said firmly, and finally Solomon's eyes came back to us.
"Did you not hear what I just told you?" he asked of us. "This is all a terrible result of miscommunication-"
"Your attack on Narnian territory is the result of miscommunication?" Peter asked angrily.
Solomon avoided Peter's question, saying quickly, "I don't- I don't know anything about Evangeline, or Margo, or the White Witch…"
"If you're lying, you'll be run through," I told him sternly, placing a hand on my belt, where my sword hung. "Obviously you knew we'd come eventually, and you're open to talking, so why didn't you come to the Cair?"
"Why didn't you come here earlier than you did?"
"We didn't attack Archenland! That's the difference. We don't owe you anything."
Solomon sighed heavily. "I didn't send troops to go because I didn't want to scare my people. I didn't want them to think that we were going to war."
"What do you think this is?" Susan wondered loudly, completely vexed. "And what people? Where are your people?"
"I sent them far away from here; sporadic locations throughout Archenland," he leaned against his desk lightly. "I knew you'd be coming, and I didn't want there to be any casualties."
"That's ironic," I noted dryly.
"It's true," Solomon retorted. "And my father has died, most likely at the hands of yours, so I wasn't going to invest my time in reaching out to Cair Paravel's walls-"
"We didn't kill your father," Lucy quickly rebutted.
"And how am I to believe that?" Solomon questioned. "Who would have? His own people?"
"That doesn't matter, Solomon. That's one life. Your lack of 'miscommunication' has resulted in over a dozen Narnian deaths since the first attack that you initiated," Susan emphasized.
"I didn't-"
Peter stopped him before he could even continue. "If you don't start speaking the truth, we'll have no choice but to continue into battle. We are ready. Our troops are just outside, and yours have been placed all about Archenland. I wouldn't worry about the reasoning for one man's death, whilst I stood alone."
Something in Solomon seemed to tick at Peter's words, and suddenly, like his father, he could go from prideful to begging in under a second. Which is exactly what he did.
"King Peter, I beseech you to try to understand that there is no reason to go to war," Solomon said, his voice still entirely firm. I could see moisture beginning to form beneath the pieces of dark hair that fell against his forehead. "Why would I leave Anvard so unguarded, allowing your troops to easily waltz in, if none of my people are ready and I expected to go to war?"
"You attacked Narnian ground! You caused the first battle! Why do you think you're so innocent?" Susan remarked vehemently.
"I know I'm not innocent but I know it is wrong to allow this fighting to go on any further," he rushed, his eyes shutting at his words.
"You've got to be joking, man. You don't sound convinced even of your own words," Peter remarked from beside me. Solomon stood before us, something in him snapping. I knew he was weak to an extent, but I couldn't believe that he had the audacity to think we'd believe anything of what he said; his lips hanging loosely from his mouth, his nose often moving back and forth, his hands wearing each other out as his palms often connected in rough contact. It was so easy for me to imagine this was an act, all an act of overdramatizing in order to make us feel something for him; make us feel like he was acting noble in some sense. I could easily imagine him with Jadis by his side, almost as her puppet, but still evil in his own way. I could imagine him, standing in this room, with his soldiers holding Evangeline, holding Margo…
But I kept seeing his hands, like a nervous tick they didn't leave each other often. I knew something wasn't adding up.
"Archenland is not going to war," Solomon maintained, his eyes on his hands; the palm of his right running quickly across the side of his left. "There is no attainable evidence against me."
"We know you sent those posing Wingeds, Solomon," Peter roared, his hand gripping the handle of his sword at his side. "We know you took Margo and Evangeline. We don't need the evidence. Our people have been kidnapped, and you attacked us months ago because you know that the Winged is with us."
It felt strange referring to her as she knew what she was in this, a prize, she had told me.
"But how do you know that? How do you not know that some internal conspiracy is going on within Narnian boundaries?" Solomon insinuated.
"Because then you'd have no reason to attack us! What'd you do it for then? Recreation?" Caspian retorted indignantly.
And then Solomon was silent. Peter and I looked at each other nervously.
"Archenland isn't going to war," Solomon repeated anxiously, as his eyes traveled from the floor, to Susan, and then somewhere between the rest of us. "But there is one other option: bring the Winged you have to me. I'll round up my people. Let the proof speak for itself, and then we'll talk."
I felt my throat go dry. Could he really perceive us to be that stupid? As if we would bring Eleanor here, knowing he needs her by his side. I tried to search his face as if some tell would come out, making it acutely known that he was joking.
Peter's mouth hung open as his head shook slightly.
"Do you really think we're that thick?" he asked Solomon, and like me, as if he half-expected suddenly something would show that Solomon was joking. "We know you've summoned Jadis. We know you're unnerving the Winged, and this isn't a court of law. This is war."
"You don't have proof of that, though!" Solomon barked, moving from his desk and approaching us at the middle of the room. The air around us seemed to contract as his steps against the barren tiled floor struck us. "You don't know what I know. You don't know what kind of security I've got around here. You've only seen the top of the water," he said more daringly, and closer now so I could see the hidden vapor behind his eyes. His path was leading towards Peter, less than an arm's length from him now.
"Is that a threat, Prince Solomon?" Peter inquired, stiffening. I, too, straightened up as I looked around the room, the guards were unmoved, yet I could recollect as I looked back between Solomon and Peter that their eyes were dancing across the scene in anticipation.
"You bring her here," he murmured, almost as a demand, "and I let Evangeline live. I let Margo live. I let everyone else live. You said it yourself, King Peter, why should you worry about the death of one person, whilst you stand alone?"
"King Peter doesn't stand alone and we know how much she's worth to you. We're not giving her up," Caspian said, which Solomon break into a short, unnerving laugh.
"She thinks she's found family here, and you're using her as a chess piece," he seethed. "What kind of honor is in that, King Peter? You're no better than I."
The room was quiet, and for a moment, I feared Peter was contemplating the thought.
But no sooner, he looked between all of us and back to Solomon.
"Let's go," he declared finally. "We've clearly got nothing to fight here."
And then we left, the doors shutting behind Solomon once again.
Author's Note: Phew! All right... so obviously a lot happened in this chapter. I hope it isn't too confusing. Sometimes I worry as the author that I write things that the reader cannot understand because... well... they're not writing the story. Anyway, thanks goes to: awkward-rainbow-7, skepticallyhopeful, danielscarfmanxx, sweetsunnyrose, LadyM42, remarkables, sarahmichellegellarfan1, Marianne 16, and haloedmoon.
To everyone else, I hope you're enjoying! It'd be great if you could let me know in a review. :)
See you next week!
-JK