One of the worst parts about the journey to where Peter was attacked was receiving word that no one had found him yet.

It had been about two days since they left the Cair and almost a third day since they had found out he had been attacked. He could have been missing for another day or so, but they did not know for certain. All Susan wanted to do was go home with both of her brothers.

She also secretly wanted to let someone else deal with the aftermath of Peter's attack too, but she knew could not do that. She also knew she was not going to let Edmund see it all by himself. Edmund might carry himself like a wise young man, but he was still fifteen. Susan hated that Peter was exposed to such bloodshed, and the two of them tried to keep their younger siblings out of it as much as they could.

Susan could not help but think that this was a perfect instance that Peter would know what to do. If it was one of them unaccounted for, he would take control of the situation. He would know how to find them while keeping a level head. Granted, once he found whoever it was, he would be a mess like the rest of them.

But they were not Peter.

Edmund was twisting in his nerves. The two-day journey only made it worse. Susan kept by him when they slowed for rest or even when they stopped entirely. He was worse when they were not moving.

Quiet and trapped in his own head, he would wave her off when she expressed concern.

"We need to focus on Peter," he would say. While he was correct, it was not in Susan's nature to neglect any of her siblings.

She coaxed him to drink some water and eat some food. She failed at trying to get him to sleep.

But as this new day grew on, her own worries started creeping on her. With Edmund dismissing her focus on him, it forced her to face her own fears about where Peter was and what had happened to him.

She gripped the handle of her horn. It felt nice having a tool to call for help at her fingertips. But her sweet comfort had a dark turn. Peter had no means to call for help, she realized. He was all alone, and that bothered her terribly.

If someone was holding him prisoner, if he was trapped or injured, did he know they were on their way?

Peter, please, we are coming. Wherever you are, just hold on, Susan silently sent a prayer to her brother. She hoped to Aslan that Peter knew. Knew that help was coming for him. Please do not let us be too late.

"My Queen," the small Robin named Ezio landed on her shoulder. She had sent him to reach Oreius and their army in the South.

"Hello, my dear Ezio," Susan said kindly. "How was your flight here?"

"Aslan graced me with kind winds." She held out her hand, and Ezio hopped onto her palm, his little feet tickling her ever so slightly. "I have word from General Oreius."

Susan saw Edmund and Phillip silently pull closer to her to hear Ezio's words.

Ezio delivered his message: "General Oreius bids you a safe journey and pleads you both to use extreme caution." Ezio shifted uncomfortably in her palm before continuing, "He is disappointed to inform that the reports of Witch's army activity in the South had proven significantly smaller than anticipated."

If Southern remnants of Jadis's army were not as numerous as they thought, where were they? She did not like what that meant for them, or more importantly, for Peter. They did not know if it were the Witch's soldiers who attacked Peter, but if some of Jadis's followers were unaccounted for, she was scared where they actually were.

"He and your army were heading back to Cair Paravel when I reached them. He said they head towards you instead," Ezio concluded his message.

"Thank you, Ezio," Susan said. "Please, rest now."

"At your command, my Queen," Ezio said as he bowed. He then bowed to Edmund. "King Edmund." Ezio fluttered off to Lieutenant Berkeley's shoulder, resting easily there.

Susan looked to Edmund; his brow was furrowed in thought. He paled incredibly. Captain Ver approached Susan and Edmund cautiously.

"Your majesties?" She asked.

Susan only kept looking at Edmund for a moment more before she said, "General Oreius will be supplying us with reinforcements when he can reach us. Until then, we cannot tarry. We must find King Peter."

Captain Ver offered her a reassuring nod before calling out to their troop, "You heard our Queen. We leave in five minutes!" Captain Ver left them to oversee this, Susan presumed.

This just left Edmund and Susan.

"Susan," Edmund finally looked at her now. Fear and uncertainty filled his typically sure eyes. "Susan, what does that mean for Peter? If our intelligence reports were wrong in the South, what happened to Peter?"

He suddenly looked closer to his age for once. He was looking to her for guidance. She had the same fears and similar thoughts. But she steeled herself the best she could. Edmund needed her.

"We will find out," Susan reassured, trying to sound confident and sure.

"If someone went through the trouble of misleading our scouts, they could have wanted something from him," Edmund concluded.

Or they just wanted to kill him. Susan's mind responded back. She did not dare to say that aloud.

"Peter's alive," Susan said almost confidently before quietly adding, "He has to be."


Time slowed down as they arrived where Peter and his guard were attacked. Edmund looked around; the bodies of the soldiers who died protecting Peter had long been removed. But there had been no rains to wash the blood and gore away. The place reeked of death, and that made Edmund feel incredibly heartbroken.

They were all people Edmund knew. They all would have died to keep Peter out of harm's way, and they paid that price with their lives. The entire area was crisp and dead. The grass was dry and rotten. It looked like no one had lived there for many years, which surprised Edmund because it was not true. This area in the Western Woods was supposed to be lively and occupied. It was neither of those things.

Bralen came over, a hound dog of many years of tracking. He was sniffing around, attempting to find Peter's scent to track. There was silence around them. Nothing was alive anywhere near this battleground.

Lieutenant Kelo had been one in the patrol that found the bodies. He had remained in the area to secure it and to take care of the dead. Kelo came over to them, giving Susan and Edmund a bow.

"Your majesties," he addressed. "We had found the bodies of King Peter's guard three days ago. King Peter was not among them."

"Do you have any idea of what happened here?" Susan asked. She was putting on a brave face, braver than he could at the moment.

"Based on how this area looked, I would say they were ambushed. Severely outnumbered, it would appear. The High King and his guard manage to slay a handful of them."

"Do you have any indication of where he might be?" Susan inquired as she looked about. She seemed as revolted as Edmund was at the scene.

"We sent scouts in every direction we could, but we are having difficulties in tracking King Peter."

"What do you mean?" Edmund was the one to ask this.

"The High King's trail ends here, your majesty," Bralen said softly as he approached.

For a quick moment, panic swelled in Edmund, a cold chill trickled down his chest and rested in his heart. Why would the trail end here? Did that mean Peter was—

Before his mind could finish that awful thought, "No matter if King Peter was alive or—" Bralen cut his voice off. Looking sadly at Edmund and Susan before ignoring the word entirely, "We should have been able to find him all the same. It is as if he vanished in thin air."

Captain Ver nodded in the observation, before she said, "Do you feel it, your majesties? The dark magic here is almost suffocating." She looked at them, waiting. Susan and Edmund glanced at each other with uncertainty before he started to observe his surroundings. He looked at the ground before taking a breath.

At first, he had thought the suffocating feeling had come from Peter being missing solely, but as he took a moment to calm down slightly, he knew Captain Ver had been correct. There was a weight around this place, and it was not just from the dead. The trees were shriveled, abandoned. Just in this clearing of trees, there was a circle-like musk surrounding the edges. Even the grass was a frail, brown state only around this area.

He could only assume these were the effects Captain Ver was pointing out.

If such dark magic left such a trace on this patch of land, then the caster had to have used an enormous amount of magic, Edmund realized. If they had wanted to prevent them from tracking Peter, they had succeeded, for the time being.

"Someone went through a great deal of trouble to hide their tracks," Edmund said. Suddenly, a new uncomfortable shift took hold of his stomach, as he was rather afraid to know who was powerful enough to cause this kind of effect.

What did this mean for Peter? Who and why would they want to take him? What were they doing to him now? If his attackers had gone to the trouble of hiding where they had gone, Peter had to be alive, right? What did all of this mean?

Lieutenant Berkeley's words shook him from the rapid spiral that would have overtaken his thoughts.

"I'll send our scouts to look for new clues further ahead," Berkeley said. He gave one concerned glance at Edmund before leaving to do that.

Susan took Edmund's hand, offering him a reassuring squeeze. Although she had a rather convincing mask to conceal her true emotions from their soldiers, Edmund saw how frightened she was. And if she looked like that, then he was certain he looked far worse to her. She could always read him, even when he did not want her to.

If they could not track Peter, it meant he could be anywhere, save for the direction they just came in. They had scouts all over Narnia looking too. Why had no one found Peter yet? It made Edmund uncomfortable.

But they had to do something. He was not going to wait around. He could not.

"We are going to split our forces in three," Edmund decided almost quietly. With all of their attention on him, he grew more confident in himself. "Captain Ver, you will take a third of our troops with you and head West from here. You will send scouts ahead of you as you search."

"Yes, your majesty."

"And Susan," she nearly startled. "You will take Lieutenant Berkeley with you to head South with your third, and I will be going North."


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