Chapter Four – A New Teacher

"But why would she want to help you?" Jay questioned Lucy, a concerned look spread across his face. He had been wary of Lena ever since they had brought her back to the castle. Her wolf had nearly killed him after all. He was impressed at the Pevensie's open hearts. He had seen the torment Lena had put them all through, particularly Lucy, and he didn't want that to happen again, especially when they had only just discovered their feelings for each other.

Lucy glanced over to the other side of field where Lena was being led onto the training ground by two guards and her three siblings stood waiting for her.

"I don't know Jay… maybe she wants to change. Edward seems to believe she can and I trust him."

"But how can you trust her?"

"Because Aslan said she deserves a second chance and there is no one I trust more than him." she said, her voice hard, daring Jay to question her love for the great lion.

Jay sighed, "If you believe in her then I do as well. I trust you more than anyone, you know that, I just don't want anything to happen to you." Lucy smiled gently and pulled him in for a quick kiss, "I can look after myself" she whispered in his ear before running over to her siblings. Jay smiled to himself as she ran off, if there was anything he knew about Lucy, it was that she was completely capable of looking after herself, he had trained her after all.

"I'm not sure about this Pete" Susan whispered to her brother as Lena headed towards them.

"I know Su, but Ed said that Lena grew up reading books about the deep magic and we know how powerful she is. She's probably the only one who can help us, our powers are going to get out of control otherwise."

"Do we need help though? We have no idea what this threat is, or if there even is one."

"Lucy's pretty sure, and she's never wrong about this sort of thing and Edmund seems to believe that Lena can help."

At this Susan looked over towards Edmund. He hadn't spoken much about what happened between himself and Lena, only that his powers had allowed him to see a memory of hers that involved her mother. She shuddered at the thought of their old enemy. She had barely had any interaction with the witch, but she had witnessed her murdering Aslan on the stone table and that encounter was enough. She couldn't imagine what it must have been like to have her as a mother.

She pulled herself out of her thoughts as Lucy joined them from where she had been standing with Jay. Lena approached them with the two guards either side of her, her hands shackled. There was silence for a moment as the four siblings stood in front of Lena, unsure where to start.

"Well?" Lena said to them, "Don't just stand there, show me what you can do."

The Pevensies seemed to jump to attention as Lena spoke and each one of them closed their eyes and concentrated.

Lena frowned, confused as to why they weren't doing anything but before she could say anything each king and queen disappeared in a column of fire, water, earth and wind, each appearing in a different corner of the battle field. She raised her eyebrows, she had seen the three elder monarchs teleport during their battle but they had clearly been practicing and Lucy had followed in their footsteps.

In the four corners of the field the Pevensies drew their weapons and began to run a battle drill.

The training ground was a flurry of action, Lucy was throwing daggers at Peter, who was turning them around with his air powers and sending them flying back towards her. She dropped to the ground and rolled forward to avoid them, as her hands touched the ground vines began to come out of the earth around her and headed towards her eldest brother. She looked up, a grin on her face as her vines wrapped themselves around Peter's feet, rooting him to the ground. However, before she could disarm her brother she was shoved to the ground by a blast of water from Edmund. She jumped back up and ran towards her brother, drawing her swords and the two engaged in a ferocious sword battle.

During this time Peter had freed himself and gave a cry of excitement as he finally cut through the last vine. His victory didn't last long though, as an arrow from Susan narrowly avoided his ear. He ran towards his sister but was quickly stopped by a wall of fire she had thrown up in front of her. He glared at his sister who had nearly singed his eyebrows off and summoned a gust of wind to fly him over the fire wall, cutting Susan's arrows out of the air as he flew back down towards her on the other side of the wall. He landed only a few feet away from his sister and with a few kicks and sword slashes managed to disarm her and pin her to the ground.

There was a cry of victory from the other side of the field as a sopping wet Lucy disarmed Edmund and had one sword pointed at his throat, the other she held up next to her head, daring him to make a move.

Panting with exhaustion, the four siblings made their way back to Lena who had watched the fight with a neutral expression on her face.

"Well?" Lucy questioned, her eyes bright from the battle.

"You call that fighting?" Lena replied, raising her eyebrows at the four siblings. The guards placed their hands on their weapons, shocked that anyone would speak to the Kings and Queens in such a way.

"Excuse me?" Susan exclaimed, rather put off at Lena's reaction to their training.

"I mean, your combat skills are exceptional, there's no denying that" Lena continued, ignoring Susan, "but you've clearly not been taught how to properly use your powers."

"The dryads showed us how to control them!" Peter retorted, starting to think that maybe Edmund was wrong about Lena as she snorted at his response.

"The dryads may have taught you how to control your powers but they didn't teach you how to fight with them. All of you used your powers as a defence tactic, not an offensive one and none of you used your new powers. You stuck with what you knew, using weapons as your main weapon and not making effective use of your strongest asset."

The Pevensie siblings stood there speechless as they realised that everything Lena had said was true.

The next few hours flew by as Lena taught each sibling how to use their powers in an offensive power and how to take advantage of their new powers. Peter and Lucy were the only two who's powers had taken on a new active role and seeing as Lena didn't have much experience with passive powers and seemed to want to spend as little time with Edmund as possible recommended a few books that he and Susan might consult and that they could help each other to understand the other's powers. She taught Peter to focus, so that he could freeze an attacker with one hand and take part in swordplay with another. She taught Lucy to use the strengths of animals she had never even considered would be useful. The hearing of the wolf, the eyes of an eagle and the speed of a cheetah were one of the few things that allowed Lucy to become an ever greater force in battle, sensing the moves her opponent was going to make barely before they knew.

At the end of the session each sibling was exhausted and they thanked Lena before going their separate ways. Edmund hung back, waiting for his siblings to leave before he approached Lena and motioned for her guards to take a step back. Her expression gave away nothing as she looked at him with steely eyes.

"Lena… I'm sorry. I should never have… I didn't know that was going to happen…. I didn't mean to…" he struggled to find the right words as Lena stared at him.

"Please say something." There was a pause before she spoke.

"I've had a new idea about the case if you want to go over it in the library with me?" she asked coolly. Edmund breathed a sigh of relief, "I'd be glad to, I'll meet you there in a bit, I just need to get changed."

He walked away from Lena a spring in his step. He had been worried that the memory he'd seen would cause Lena to never want to work with him again. The memory had made him understand her so much more and he realised just how similar their individual suffering had been. He was going to help however he could.

When Edmund arrived at the library he entered to find Lena nose deep in a book. She barely moved her eyes away from the pages when he entered,

'I'll be with you in a moment, I just need to look into something.' Edmund gave a small smile to himself at the informal way she addressed him. She had done it to all the Kings and Queens on the training field and any other monarch would be offended, but the casualness made him feel like he was back in England, where no one knew he was a King and some even bullied him. Not that he enjoyed being bullied, or that he didn't love being king, but once in a while it was nice to have something to remind himself of home. Realising Lena was going to be a while he decided to look into one of the books she had recommended to him to help him understand his powers. The book was one, not about magic, but about the mind and how memory worked as part of the brain. It was extremely informative and he started to get a grasp on how he could operate his powers. He was so deep into the book he had almost forgotten Lena was there so when she closed the book she was reading with a loud slam he jumped and was ripped out of the world of memory sciences. Now that she had closed the book, Edmund could get a look at the cover and recognised the book as one on the influences of dark magic. He wasn't sure what Lena was up to but he was sure she had a plan.

"What happened before…" Lena began and Edmund opened his mouth to apologise for the 100th time but she glared at him and he stayed quiet.

"What happened before, will NEVER happen again." There was a short pause where she glared at Edmund once again as if her eyes had the power to shut him up, which worked as he sat silent waiting for her to continue.

"But," she began tentatively, "it gave me an idea. My mother was, well you saw, but more than being a terrible mother, she was surrounded by an aurora of dark magic, mainly given off by that staff of hers." Both she and Edmund shuddered at the memory of the staff that had threatened to turn them both to stone multiple times and a flash of understanding passed between them at the acknowledgment of the things they had experienced at totally separate times but both still felt the effect of them today. Lena placed her hand on top of the book she had been reading,

"I think this can help us win my case."