PROLOGUE
FUTURE
Concerned, she stood there; second row behind a few fauns with the newly welcome summer's breeze playing with her hair. She was witnessing injustice as it came so wildly delivered by the lips of a white nightmare; mindless of the creatures around her, yet completely aware of the Lion standing tall at the front of the field.
"Tell you?" The witch said, making Juliet Capulet's eyes shift from their study of her beloved helper to look, instead, at the pale white creature so self-claiming of her frozen crown. "Tell you of what is written on that very Table of Stone which stands beside us? Tell you of what is written in letters deep as a spear is long on the fire-stones on the Secret Hill? Tell you of what is engraved on the sceptre of the Emperor-beyond-the-sea?" Even the soft scoff breathed from her darkly smiling lips felt monstrous.
No longer did Juliet feel worried. Instead, she only felt loathing rise in the direction of the witch that had made of the land she loved nothing but an eternal winter that had once claimed her life. "You at least know of the Magic which the Emperor put into Narnia at the very beginning." The White Witch continued, making Juliet's jaw tense. "You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery, I have a right to kill and—"
"Oh." Said Mr Beaver, interrupting the witch without an ounce of respect. "So that's how you came to imagine yourself a Queen—because you were the Emperor's hangman, I see."
"Peace, Beaver." The Lion said in a low growl.
It became enough to anger the White Witch further, and her next words echoed in a desperate huff as harsh as the few visible scars the younger Pevensie displayed. "That human creature is mine." She spat, lifting a pointy finger in his direction. "His life is forfeit to me; his blood is my property."
The growl of the animals around them echoed through the camp, but the roar of a minotaur drowned them out. "Come and take it, then," He said, lifting his sharp blade.
"Fool." The Witch scoffed amusedly. "Do you really think your master can rob me of my rights by mere force? He knows the Deep Magic better than that. He knows that unless I have blood as the law says," She turned accusingly towards Aslan, "All of Narnia will be overturned and perish in fire and water."
"It is true; I do not deny it." The lion said.
"Oh, Aslan." The oldest of the Pevensie girls pleaded, "Can't we—I mean, you won't, will you? Can't we do something about the Deep Magic? Isn't there something you can work against it?"
It should not be possible in such a feline face as that of Aslan's, but, somehow, the great Lion seemed to frown. "Work against the Emperor's Magic?" He said, worried and disapproving; at the other side of the Lion, the subject of the betrayal, and the Witch's hopeful sacrifice, frowned deeply. "Nay... fall back, all of you. I will talk to the Witch alone."
Swiftly, the Lion walked away from the Pevensies and to the awaiting company of a rather smug White Witch, who followed him immediately. But not without staring at the guilty child with what could only be described as some sort of evil expectancy before she turned.
Juliet Capulet hadn't felt so angry and worried since she had been told about her cousin's murder. She could very clearly see the worry in the children's faces. She could see the fear in Edmund's the moment his younger sister's tiny arms wrapped around his waist. "Oh, Edmund," she cried, soaking his shirt with her tears.
The young boy seemed unable to do more than hold the girl and keep looking at the ground as if it alone held all the solutions to his problems.
It was a look that hurt as much as shook young-looking Juliet, for it was the sort she had seen only once before. Once, a long time ago—long before the Mist she called her in-between had turned into Narnia, and long before she had even known what a Protector of Love was. It was a look depicting of one's tragedy, fear, and all-out sorrow over an action taken without the claim of conscious thought. Whether done by momentary anger, or a mistake to mirror all the horrors befallen of one's life, it was the sort of look that she'd had to kiss away from her husband's face as he stepped slowly and quietly into her chamber's safety. Romeo had murdered her cousin, and the haunted look in Edmund Pevensie's face was as grave as his had been that night.
It was guilt.
"I shan't hate thee for this if that be the reason thou dareth not look upon me." Juliet had told Romeo, urgently caressing the softness of his tanned skin, "For I know mine cousin, and his pride, his temper; t'was one to burn down the streets mindless of who it killed in its path. Thus, fret not, my love, my husband, for mine heart is yours if thou shall still accept it." Now if only she had known what would become of them and their love after that day. If only she had known he was going to murder her; if only she'd been stopped, she would have—
"You can all come back." A familiar voice called and brought Juliet back to the present, though her frown remained even as she turned to look at the one who had spoken: the great Lion, Aslan. He whom she had to thank for her second chance at life. "I have settled the matter," he said, looking in the direction of the siblings, who seemed to have stopped breathing completely. "She has renounced the claim on your brother's blood."
The world around Juliet finally breathed and rejoiced. From the fauns in front of her to the minotaur that had challenged the witch or the very Beavers who'd only moments prior had been clutching paws as if that alone were to make everything okay. The four siblings embraced, and though the heaviness in Edmund's eyes remained, a thankful smile lifted the corners of his lips as he warmed in the love of his family. The boy would live.
"But how do I know this promise will be kept?" The witch asked, silencing everyone once again
Though the silence didn't last. Aslan's loud roar echoed all around them until the once confident White Witch turned in her feet and ran. It made Juliet smile and finally join the celebration, which got louder, and louder, and louder...
...until its echo rang like a whisper in her ear and she woke on her great bed in the western wing with a halt.
With the brightness of the morning, Juliet Capulet's memories came back. She let her head fall against the pillows again once the reality she lived in started to drowned her. The memory of the first time she had seen Edmund Pevensie seemed so distant that she could barely take it.
She would never have been able to imagine the way her life was going to change after that day. From disappointment to joy, from uncertainty to love. It had all changed so quickly, but still, now... it didn't feel like enough.
She had seen wars first hand. She had served in the court of the Pevensies for the entirety of their reign. She had fallen in love regardless of how her past should have prevented it. She had married the youngest Narnian king and had seen miracles come true three times to the date—as she could claim by the reality of the child who slept mere feet away from her in her crib or the two others who slept in rooms of their own. But still, it didn't feel like enough. Fifteen years were not enough.
Why did the Pevensies have to leave? Why did the Golden Age have to end?