Lucy's legs burned, skin buzzing from dehydration yet slick with the same cloying humidity that drenched her grimy hair. If they'd come across another golden pool at that moment, she might just have taken her chances.
Her stomach swirled between hunger and nausea, the pain in her head dulling to an ache that never quite went away, and it took far too long to calculate for certain that this was their sixth day in the arena. If you could even call it a day. Time had bled together ever since they'd gotten down into the caves.
Half-delirious, she thought it almost a pity the Capitol so frowned upon eating your competition. Kill each other all you want, but heaven forbid you get a meal out of it!
Even Eustace might have laughed at that. The thought almost made Lucy smile through her madness.
But Edmund had been shockingly quiet today, a stark contrast from yesterday's reckless abuse. He walked ahead of her, hands stuffed deep into his pockets, eventually pulling off his jacket and tying it around his waist in spite of the chill still hanging about the damp stone.
And they continued like this, with several more breaks than they'd taken yesterday despite the fact that the urgency really should have pushed them harder, their lives a mere countdown now without water.
Morning passed like a fever dream into afternoon, and the light never changed, tunnel gradually widening and growing taller, snaking lazily uphill until all at once it opened into a behemoth cavern, neither like Deathwater nor the Cathedral.
The same rough rock and greenish glow rose around them, but in place of pillars or stalagmites jutted a steep and jagged hillside, climbing so high up into the haze that Lucy couldn't make out where it ended, or indeed where the distant ceiling began. Heaps upon heaps of sharp, craggy rock stretched eternally up into staggering heights. The slope of an underground mountain.
Lucy's head spun.
It should have been a welcome sight, and surely would have been, had her muscles and heart been up for it, but the exhaustion sank straight to her bones and she felt as if her blood had dried up, sticking in her veins.
Caspian struck out first, hauling himself up the first incline and catching sturdy footholds as the rest followed one by one in his path, clambering from shelf to jagged shelf.
Splintering shale dug into Lucy's blackened fingers, single-mindedly grasping for every next ledge and dragging herself up before she could think of looking into the endless climb before her.
Jill made good pace just ahead, while Edmund fell steadily behind, slowing or stopping to catch his breath so often that he never passed Lucy no matter how painstakingly sluggish her own movement became.
Her knees scraped the top of a sharp rise as her lungs burned, dry lips longing to beg for respite, and Edmund followed a step behind, bringing his second foot up just as a patch of loose pebbles gave way.
She grabbed his wrist on reflex and he lurched forward, saving himself against the stone, but then her eyes snapped down to his arm.
Feverish, sweaty, a furnace beneath her cool fingers.
He ripped it free too late. "Get off," he growled, but his voice came out thin, out of breath or lightheaded, and Lucy stared.
"You're burning up."
Stones skittered up ahead as Caspian landed back down from the boulder he'd been scaling, and Edmund glared, bangs slicked to his forehead. "So?"
A weak comeback, leagues from the sharp attitude and quick wit he'd been so keen to display yesterday. And every day before that.
Caspian stepped back toward them. "What's going on?"
"Nothing," said Edmund, but Lucy retorted.
"I know a fever when I feel one, I'm not stupid."
"And you didn't say anything?" Caspian snapped, "Wanted to infect the rest of us?"
"I'm not sick," spat Edmund, "Mind your own business." He tried to push past Lucy, but Caspian's strong hand flew up to stop him, and when Edmund tried to shove back Caspian grabbed and slammed him into the sharp outcropping.
Edmund choked out a cry and doubled over, grasping the stone for support, hand flying to his side, and Lucy's heart jumped.
For a second he held himself there, breathing out, squeezing his eyes shut and choking back another noise too pathetic to belong to him.
"So you're hurt," said Caspian, accusatory.
"What's it to you?" gasped Edmund, but now Lucy really looked at him, studied him, jacket cinched tight around his waist, and peeking out from beneath it low on the left side of his tunic crept a dark stain unlike the sooty filth smearing the rest of their clothes.
"How long?" she asked, bewildered, "The infection's already spreading."
He squinted back at her. "Real genius, this one. Are you the brains of the operation?"
Caspian shoved him and he slammed to the ground like a ragdoll, curling in on himself with a delayed, stuttered grunt, air catching in his throat as he dug his forehead into the stone.
"Hey!" cried Lucy, and Jill stared wide-eyed from her perch as Edmund struggled pitifully to get his arms underneath himself and glanced over his shoulder at Caspian.
"Gonna put me out of my misery?" he half-laughed, voice thin and strained, and Lucy followed his eyes to the knife in Caspian's hand.
"Caspian," she snapped.
Caspian stiffened, but didn't turn, eyes fixed dark and dangerous on his target. And when he spoke, he answered only Edmund. "I don't have to."
Stone crunched under his heel. He shoved the knife back into his belt and lunged up the next rise, but Lucy said "Wait."
He stopped, ran a hand through his hair, standing silent for several moments, and at last turning stiffly back to face her, black eyes glinting in the green glow as if another spirit haunted their depths.
"He's not going to last down here."
"I know," snapped Caspian flatly.
"Well we can't just—"
"Yes, we can. He made his choices and he can rot with them, would you quit trying to save everyone for just five seconds? Is that too much to ask?"
Lucy froze, taken aback by the venom in his tone. "I— I'm not trying to—"
"Then explain to me why I'm putting up with the kid who worships at the feet of my father's killer!"
Thunder ricocheted through the cavern, black eyes blazing as Lucy's heart pounded in her throat and guilt crashed through her gut anew, stunned into trembling silence. "It—" she stammered, "It just seemed like the best—"
"The best what? The best for who? I don't know if you've noticed, sweetheart, but this is the arena."
"Yeah," she spat, fire igniting at last in her chest. "I think I noticed, sweetheart. I think I noticed when my friend died right in front of my face and I didn't even get to say goodbye because the bloody careers you so helpfully brought to us were trying to put a knife through my skull!"
Caspian blinked, as if coming suddenly back to himself, Lucy's eyes burning with unspilt angry tears.
Horrible silence plunged in between them, drowning out even her own heartbeat with ringing emptiness as her echo died on the walls, and Caspian opened his mouth as if to apologize, but Lucy interrupted.
"Let's just find a place to camp. I'm tired, we can figure it out in the morning."
She flung a leg over a sharp incline and boosted herself up to the next level, blinking the blur from her vision and brushing forcefully past Caspian who said nothing.
"Am I invited?" asked Edmund dryly.
"I don't care," she spat without glancing back, anger and frustration and guilt churning together in her veins as the stone buzzed beneath her fingers and she climbed, burning it out with the last of her energy, trembling limbs pressing on beyond the pain and weary ache, launching up shelf after shelf until the ground leveled and she collapsed at the top, breathing hard through sandpaper lungs.
For several minutes the world blurred, heart pounding like a knife through her chest, and then she shifted and glanced up at the arching cave she'd climbed into, tunnel curving out of sight again at its back.
Green and dull and never-ending.
They would never get out.
Only when footsteps and the shifting of stones came up behind her did she move, stumbling to a place against the nearest wall, shedding her bag and slumping to the floor, mouth dry, head throbbing.
Caspian clambered up next, pausing at the summit to catch his breath and gaze around the space and leaning back against the stone, closing his eyes.
Next came Jill, trudging and almost slipping, and she collapsed down next to Lucy.
And a great while later, so much later that Lucy had begun to regain some semblance of her bearings and wondered whether he'd simply given up, Edmund clutched the highest ridge and hauled himself with great effort to the top.
He sank to the stone, resting his head in his hands at the edge of the precipice, not even glancing at the cave.
A lizard slithered down the wall opposite him, and he peered wearily up, casting about for a rock, but when his fingers closed around one they only trembled, even more violently when he tried to lift it, and he pressed his fist to the ground to still the tremor. The same tremor Lucy had caught this morning without knowing what it meant.
The lizard slithered away, and Lucy's next thought struck her like a slap of cold water.
Edmund was not Anne Featherstone. He was Arabella Garrett. Cold eyes peering from a proud mask, never cracking, not even when they jeered.
"You pushed her? Winterblott said you pushed her."
"Winterblott says a lotta things, keep your nose outta places it don't belong." Garrett's broad ten-year-old figure shifted as she crossed her arms, edged in the candle-glow of peeling floral wallpaper, black hair knotted into thick braids around the sturdy face that no longer gleamed with mischief.
"Come off it, everybody knows you killed Bridget Jackson," the boy taunted, emphasizing each word cruelly, "they're just too scared to say so. Maybe they think you'll murder them, too."
A dangerous light sparked in Garrett's eyes, the same Lucy had seen take hold the day the peacekeepers came to see about the body. "I didn't murder nobody, Sorner, but don't think I won't start now."
The boy shrank back when she took a step toward him, but instead of running he glanced at Lucy. "Hey, you were there, Pevensie, weren't you?"
Lucy almost jumped, so often ignored for her age that she'd become used to watching invisibly from the corner. "What?" Her small voice cracked, and Garrett's eyes flashed to her.
"Did Garrett kill her or didn't she?"
Lucy glanced between them, clutching her crooked glued-together lion, the image of a broken child's body all too fresh in her mind even after so many months, the lilt of Garrett's voice as she'd dared Biddie to let go of the windowsill. But she shook her head, wordless.
Cold satisfaction settled behind the mask. "See?" Garrett lashed out before Spotty Sorner could argue and slammed his face into the common room table.
He cried out and clutched his nose as blood spurted between his fingers, stumbling back and ducking out of the room, wailing "Housemother!"
Lucy stiffened in the corner, and Garrett's gaze shifted to her.
"What're you lookin' at?" she drawled, "You wanna be next?"
Lucy shook her head, and Garrett turned to leave before anyone could answer Sorner's cries.
"I know it was an accident," blurted Lucy just as the girl stepped out through the doorway, and Garrett froze.
"What?"
Words tumbled from her young mouth before she knew why, unformed thoughts spilling before she could stopper them. "You didn't mean to hurt Biddie, it was just a joke, right? You can tell them it was an accident, when they ask, you don't have to—"
"Shut up," snapped Garrett, spinning back on her, "You know what? I did kill her, and I'm glad I did! Rotten little brat she was, hanging on Precious Princess Pevensie's skirts every waking second! You'll stay out of my way if you know what's good for you!"
And with that she turned, face flushed bright red, but even back then Lucy hadn't missed the shimmer of tears crowding thick into her eyes before she drew a sleeve over her face and bolted up the hall.
She'd never forgotten it, either, even after her sympathetic outburst proved detrimental to say the least. And yet somehow she still hadn't learned her lesson.
Edmund drew a hand over his eyes.
That same prickliness laced his posture; proud, not stuck up, guarding what precious little remained of his dignity with everything he could muster. Desperation, not wealth, punctuated his cruelty.
By the time he moved again, his muscles seemed even stiffer and more unsteady than they had been coming up the hill, stumbling and then crawling a few paces before giving out and laying heavily back against the stone.
Lucy pretended not to watch, but for the first time, curiosity gripped her for the raven-haired boy, a history of survival written in telltale silence, the begrudging acceptance of hunger and thirst and cold and heat, the attention to detail, the kind of brutality that only came from suffering.
She caught the dark stain on his tunic again, slicked to his body with sweat in the sickly green light. How long had he been hiding it?
Anne Featherstone couldn't have kept quiet about a papercut. At this rate, Edmund might be dead in the morning, infection and dehydration combined.
"Can I see where you're hurt?" she asked without thinking, and kicked herself, the weight of Caspian's eyes flicking to her.
She didn't look back.
"Why?" drawled Edmund, the usual bite in his tone dampened by exhaustion. "It's not like you can help."
"I don't know," she mumbled, "maybe I can."
No you can't, Lucy Pevensie, what are you playing at?
He stared up at the ceiling and rolled his eyes, sweat glistening on his neck. "I said I didn't save your life, so you can stop trying to repay me. Can't a chap even die in peace around here?"
Stubborn resistance bubbled up in her chest. "Why would you come with us if you wanted peace?"
He scoffed. "Now that's a question, that is. Suppose I preferred you to whatever else lives down here. Though, on second thought, that might've been quicker. Hope it's been entertaining enough for you."
Entertaining.
She glanced up at the wall, and caught a flickering shadow just above Edmund on the opposite side of the cave.
Perhaps she could do something after all.
With a breath of resolve, she heaved herself to her knees and dug the first aid kit out of her bag.
He squinted up as she crawled across to him, eyeing the kit. "Don't touch me."
"Well, that's no fun."
His sharp brows twitched and he scanned her face, as if trying to discern if she was joking, but she only raised an eyebrow.
That's not entertaining.
"Doesn't matter," he said, "nothing you can do is going to help me."
"I think we could all use a bit of help sometimes." She nearly cringed at the line, too sappy even for her taste, but she glanced at the wall again just as a shadowy lizard scuttled closer, mechanical pincers clicking over stone.
Edmund wasn't exactly the only one who could use a swallow of water right now.
She didn't move, and he sighed.
"If you must."
"Alright, then, take that off." She motioned to the jacket knotted around his waist, and with a deeply unimpressed stare, he begrudgingly obeyed, propping himself up just enough to untie it and swallowing a sharp groan with the movement.
She took the jacket from his hand and folded it loosely, stuffing it behind his head before he could complain, and then very hesitantly, uncertainly, she lifted the dark stained corner of his once-white shirt to reveal a jagged ridge of inflamed flesh, half-covered by a strip of old bandages around his middle.
"How did it happen?" she asked, expression practiced and neutral as she worked at untying them, and he breathed out, lying back against the makeshift pillow. A glint of reflective red flickered from the wall.
"The ravine. Jumped off to get away from Peter, right after your friend threw him into my path. They do go in for sharp rocks around here."
Lucy winced as she undid the last of the bandage and it caught on the wound, and Edmund sucked in a sharp breath and cursed through gritted teeth.
"Careful," he spat dryly.
Pus oozed from the swollen tear, a ravine of its own carving its way through his too-flat stomach.
"This won't feel very nice. I don't have anything proper to clean it with."
Edmund stifled another noise and reached up to grasp his jacket, the crook of his arm shielding his face from the red camera glint.
Anyone else might have been sick for the mere sight, but Lucy steeled her stomach just like she had so many times before, for herself or for others, and emptied the wound with gentle pressure at its edges, using the old bandages as a rag, and cleaning the outside with disinfectant she didn't dare let slip inside for fear of truly killing him.
The swelling had gone down considerably by the time the liquid trickling down his side turned red, and she pulled out fresh gauze, taping it carefully in a square to close the wound and pulling his shirt back over it, casting the filthy rag down the hill. "At least the pressure won't be so bad now, I think."
He breathed out, looking hazily up at her. "Thanks."
She couldn't tell if it was sarcastic or not.
Caspian's eyes followed her as she crawled back and tucked the kit inside her bag, now seated on Jill's other side with his back to the wall.
They almost formed a circle, as if around a campfire, only of course with no fire, no warmth, no comfort, no food, no sponsor gifts.
She ran her hands over her jacket and bumped into the folded page, hesitating for a moment before pulling it out and unfolding it, Swanwhite's graceful lines even more ethereal in the strange, deathly air.
"You kept the page," murmured Caspian, and Edmund turned his head, sweat glistening along his jaw.
"What page?" asked Jill, weariness pervading her quiet voice.
Lucy traced her thumb along the edge of the parchment, trailing grey over soft cream, finger-stained at last in the arena's all-consuming tarnish. "From my fairytale book. It was all I had on me, at the Reaping."
The stale air of the Justice Building filled her lungs, Marjorie's brown eyes lingering instead of Jill's, battered dusty book on rough carpet.
"They would never have let me bring the whole thing, so I kept this."
"Can I see it?" asked Jill.
Lucy handed it over, and the girl took it in dainty hands now scraped from climbing, short hair clinging to her grimy face, brown eyes shining as she gazed over the ever-so-familiar brushstrokes.
"These are from stories like Deathwater?"
Lucy nodded. "Legends and Folk Tales of the Old Country." The golden words glinted just as vividly in her mind as if she were huddled up in a candle-lit attic passageway. "That one's Queen Swanwhite, the most beautiful woman who ever lived in the land of Narnia."
"Susan might argue with you there," breathed Edmund, and Jill scoffed.
"Oh she would."
An involuntary wry smile crept over Lucy's face, and Jill turned the page over.
"And that's Aslan. The King above all Kings who ruled at the edge of the sea."
"A King?" Jill's brows furrowed. "But, he's a lion."
"Why do you expect it to make sense?" muttered Edmund.
"All the animals could talk in the Old Country," said Lucy. "They were just as much people as we are."
"You're saying you believe that?" Edmund turned far enough to pin her with an incredulous stare, and this time it wasn't forced for the cameras.
"I do," said Caspian.
Lucy's heart skipped a beat.
She glanced at him, his gaze already resting steadily on her, voice soft, uncertain but earnest.
"At least, I think I do."
From the reflection of those dark mirrors, she might have been on the balcony again, gazing into a starless sky, Caspian's own questions not so different from Edmund's.
"Why not?" she'd answered him in a hesitant whisper, "It's better than whatever they teach in history class."
How often had he thought back to that night?
His eyes met hers sincerely now, as if they'd never held the poison that dripped into her chest and corroded her soul.
But for the first time, the memory of that poison lingered even as she gazed into the heart of a boy. For the first time, in her mind, they were not entirely separate. For the first time she could not so easily forget the thunder reverberating in her veins.
And for the first time, needle-sharp barbs threatened to pierce the rose stalk she'd held so gingerly between her fingers on that balcony, Capitol-engineered kaleidoscope the color of blood.
"Yes," she said at last, tearing her eyes away from Caspian to answer Edmund herself. "I believe it. Certainly more than I believe the stories they tell at Reapings. I mean, what's the point of bragging about conquest if there wasn't anything to conquer?"
"I… never thought of that," said Jill.
"Why shouldn't we have conquered ordinary people?" asked Edmund, "Why should it have been tree-people and talking lions?"
"Why not?" asked Lucy, "The stories must have come from somewhere."
"Yeah, the imaginations of lunatics like you."
"You're free to shut up if you don't want to talk about it," said Caspian.
Edmund looked as if he might have retorted, but gave up halfway and settled for a half-hearted eye-roll.
"What was it like?" asked Jill, passing the page back to Lucy. "The Old Country?" She leaned forward, propping her chin atop her knees in attention, and Lucy smiled in spite of herself.
"Oh, wild, and green, and full of life—the trees and the rivers and the spirits of the stars—everything lived and breathed and intertwined. No fences, no maps… It was all… free. Fauns and dwarfs and dryads danced under clear moonlight, knights slayed dragons in noble battles, rabbits set out tea in their hutches. I've always dreamed of it. I wonder what their voices sounded like."
"What are dragons?" asked Jill.
"They're like…" Lucy sat back and tried to think of something to compare them to. "Huge, scaly lizards, with bats' wings, and they breathed fire, and hoarded treasure, like giant crows."
"And you think we stamped those out?" Edmund's voice rasped.
"Maybe not. They might still be out there somewhere."
He scoffed.
"What about the King?" asked Jill.
"Aslan?"
She nodded. "Did we stamp him out, too?"
Lucy shook her head slowly. "I don't think Aslan is the sort of person who really goes away. He's… more than that. He could rescue all Narnia from mortal peril with one shake of his mane."
"Where is he now, then?" asked Edmund, voice low but sharp. "If he was so powerful then why would he let the Capitol destroy all your magical creatures? If he was so good then why are we here?"
Invisible cameras bored into Lucy's skin, down into the ache in her bones, into the dry patch in her throat she wished she could claw out the longer it scratched her with every painful swallow. But she only shook her head again.
"Just because he could save Narnia doesn't mean there were never any enemies in the first place. No matter how long the darkness lasted, it always came right in the end, and many noble deeds were done by men and beasts alike before the hour struck. The people of the ancient world didn't give up when things looked bleakest; we wouldn't have any stories if they did."
The cave hung silent for several long moments, the echo of her words fading off into the distant cavern.
"Maybe one day he'll come again," she trailed off quietly, "and bring back Old Narnia."
Edmund breathed a nearly inaudible sigh, and closed his eyes. "Won't matter much for us if he does. Seems like your amazing lion doesn't care too much about you."
"Yes he does," she snapped, too quick.
"How do you know?" he drawled, "Have you met him?"
"Yes."
Caspian's head snapped up.
Jill blinked.
Even Edmund turned his head, eyes fluttering open again with some effort in confused frustration. "What?"
"I mean, only in dreams, but—"
Edmund groaned and rolled back over.
"I mean it," she said, though suddenly it all sounded very foolish out loud. What did she think that was going to achieve?
"I want to know," murmured Caspian, dark eyes fixed on her.
"I…" She tried to work out how to explain, where on earth to begin, but her breath caught and she hesitated, meeting Caspian's eyes even as her chest tightened. "I was six… when… I saw my first dead body."
Edmund's breathing fell silent, Jill looked quickly down at the floor, but Caspian's eyes remained locked onto hers, unmoving.
Biddie's silhouette flashed against brilliant red, the shrieking, the bustle, the patter of feet as the other girls ran away from the window and she stared alone, sharp sill digging into her ribs, yellow hair turning dark against the pavement until Housemother pulled her away and slammed the shutters.
"She was… I didn't understand where she went. I mean, I knew she was dead, but… she'd been so real, so alive. And everyone acted like she'd simply stopped existing. Like she'd never lived to begin with."
"But it is like that," murmured Edmund, voice shallow now, the rise and fall of his chest stuttering, throat glistening with sweat that soaked through his shirt, working hard to swallow before he took another breath. "They don't come back."
"No… they don't come back." Lucy gazed down at her hands, thumb brushing soft parchment. "Housemother said she'd gone to a better place, but she never answered when I asked where that was. I wanted… I wanted so badly…"
"You wanted to believe," breathed Caspian.
She nodded, and echoed softly, "I wanted to believe. I wanted to know… where you could go, without your body. I used to imagine people like little packages, wrapped up tight, until they shattered and whatever lived inside escaped… slipped through the cracks into some other world."
She'd tried so many times to catch the girl in her nightmares, tried to leap up fast enough to help, tried to tell her not to play with Arabella Garrett, but it always happened the same way. No matter how she tried to keep that package together, it always shattered against the pavement.
"I had nightmares for ages. And then… one night, I woke to a golden light behind my bed. Not morning light, but it was coming from the window, so I turned, very slowly. And there he stood, taller than the bunk beds, and the light was coming from him."
"The lion?" asked Jill quietly.
Lucy nodded. "Huge, and tawny, and bright as anything, and he looked right at me. I knew him, somehow, and he knew me, and I asked almost before I could think, where did she go? He said nothing, but I could see in his eyes that he understood. He walked closer, silent even over the floorboards that always squeaked. I'm not even sure how he fit inside the room, but he did, and for a long time I could only stare into his eyes, like great wells of amber. I almost asked again, but he purred before I could get the words out. Not like a cat's purr, more like an earthquake, if an earthquake could be soothing."
Caspian's eyes wandered vacantly to the page in Lucy's hands.
"Somehow I knew she was okay. In fact, I felt foolish for ever thinking differently, so certain was the warmth in his eyes. He knew where she was, and it felt… safe. I trusted him with her. When I woke again, he'd vanished. I still don't know if it was a dream, really, though I suppose it must have been. And after that I saw lions everywhere. I found them on old jewelry in the market, on books in the library, and at last I found a story to match."
"What story?" asked Jill.
"The legend of Aslan's Country." She smoothed out the page, the golden figure once bound into the book at that very spot, amidst the swirling, looping words she'd read over and over until she knew them by heart. "A land beyond the end of the world, from which the Great Lion comes… where those who truly love him live in paradise, safe even from death itself."
Jill watched her earnestly, and in her shining eyes flickered a question she could not seem to voice.
"My nurse said everyone stays young there," said Caspian distantly, "young forever and ever, amongst the mountains and rivers and forests filled with colorful birds like jewels…" He trailed off, quieting to little more than a murmur. "I suppose it does sound too good to be true."
"Why should it be?" asked Lucy, "I don't want to believe this life is all there is. If there's nothing else out there… then I don't suppose any of this would be worth it."
"Have you ever considered that maybe it's just not worth it?" breathed Edmund. "Just because you want to believe something doesn't make it true."
"I could say the same to you," she snapped.
"Yeah, well, I'll be dead soon anyway so save your breath."
"And whose fault is that?" snapped Caspian, returning from the distant void as the edge crept back into his tone. "Maybe Peter wouldn't have been after either of us if you hadn't chased me out here in the first place."
"It's your own fault for forcing me in with the careers, what else was I supposed to do without a mentor, golden boy?"
"What?"
"You know you're the reason she hates me, right? Jadis?"
Lucy blinked.
All three of them looked at Edmund, the heavy atmosphere in the cave breaking for a second.
"What? How has that got anything to do with me?"
"The collective IQ of this group is staggering, truly."
Lucy and Caspian glanced at each other, and Edmund took a shallow breath.
"For such an insufferable show-off you'd think you would at least remember making a scene; though I suppose I am beneath your majesty's royal notice. Not that you told me anything I didn't already know. The 207th is famous in Six. Obviously."
Their confrontation in the Training Center flashed back into Lucy's head like a thunderclap.
"The Two Hundred and Seventh. You might find it interesting."
"I'd seen some of it before—everybody has, the old witch has been a mentor for years—but I admit I wanted to know what had you so bothered." He smiled wryly. "My mistake. She caught me, you know, asked me what I thought."
"What did you say?" asked Lucy.
"I didn't know what to say, I'm not evil."
Jill snorted, but Lucy couldn't shake the image of the pale lady's cruel face. And then another thought occurred to her.
"She hit you, didn't she?"
His bruise still showed faintly in the ghost glow, now almost faded from his cheekbone. The bruise Lucy had first noticed at the interviews, the day after their fight.
"Obviously," he breathed, eyes fixed hazily on some invisible point in the air. "She's crazy, everybody back home knows it. They pretend to worship her, but they all know she'll kill them if they don't. I don't think they ever really knocked the arena out of her."
Somewhere in the Capitol, the commentators would be going crazy over this kind of gossip from the Districts. An inside scoop on the life of a Victor. Edmund wouldn't be particularly safe if he ever got out of here, by the sounds of it, but of course that wasn't really the plan anymore. That was why he could say it.
"If you knew she was crazy," said Jill, "Why would you listen to her in the first place?"
"The rules are different here, okay? I don't mind a bit of crazy if it sends me a sandwich every once in a while, but clearly that's not happening, no thanks to the Capitol darling here."
"Did I lie?" spat Caspian, "She never cared about you from the beginning."
"Well pardon me for not wanting to starve to death," he breathed weakly, his eyes fluttering closed. "Now we can all starve together. How charming."
The cave fell into silence again, and Lucy watched Edmund's sharp profile, unrecognizable now from the flashy, arrogant creature he'd been in training, defenses slipping away through shallow gasps.
And then a faint ringing echoed in the darkness.
Lucy blinked.
Silence crowded in so that she almost thought she'd imagined it, but then it came again, a clear, cool, silvery ding, ding, ding.
Caspian straightened, and Lucy stuffed her page into her pocket and bolted to her feet before anyone else could move, flying over the stone in spite of the black spots pricking her vision, toward the back of the cave.
Something glinted in the opening of the tunnel, and she steadied herself against the wall just as a crowd of small shapes scuttled away over the floor, disappearing down the passage.
Lizards.
She almost laughed aloud, crouching to grasp the glossy silver container they'd left behind, nearly the size of a dinner plate, and leapt back to the others, plopping it in the middle of their pitiful campsite as Jill and Caspian moved closer on their knees, the number 8 raised in its surface.
Polly and Digory's work.
Caspian opened it and Lucy's eyes flew instantly to the water bottle.
She nearly collapsed with relief.
Packed in around it—though for a second she almost couldn't notice anything else—nestled two fruit cups, a handful of grain and nut bars, and one small, white, plastic cylinder with a twisting lid labeled plainly in black lettering, antibiotic.
For Edmund, she thought.
But… this was from Eight.
She picked it up and glanced at Caspian, who'd already grabbed the water bottle, and he glanced back, catching up with her thought process as his eyes fell to the cylinder.
Medicine was one of the most expensive gifts you could send into the arena, second only to weapons, so how on earth had Polly and Digory even managed to get that money, let alone decided to spend it on a rival tribute?
"He did say Jadis wouldn't support him," murmured Caspian, low enough for only Lucy to hear.
"Maybe his sponsors came to our team instead," she finished.
It made sense, if they were allies then the next best way to support him would be through their mentors. But why would they have accepted?
Unless it worked in their favor.
Unless he was really that much of an advantage.
How many people were watching them right now that Polly and Digory would keep an enemy alive just to maintain those numbers?
"They must know what they're doing," she murmured, and Caspian's eyes lingered on the medicine.
He said nothing, and eventually fell back to uncapping the water bottle and taking a measured swallow, then another, and then he handed it to her, brushing his own hair back with a sigh.
Crystal clear water washed cool down her parched throat, its sweetness lingering on her tongue even after she'd gulped down two mouthfuls and passed it to Jill, and at last looked back down at the antibiotic as the wave of relief tingled through her fingertips.
She crawled with some resolve to Edmund's side, dark lashes overshadowing his ghostly complexion, breaths shallow and uneven, catching in his chest.
"They sent an antibiotic," she said, and his eyes fluttered slowly open, but the exhaustion saturating his gaze made her wonder just how present he actually was.
"Why?" His voice cracked.
"Your guess is as good as mine. Do you want it or not?"
He stared for a while at the cylinder, none of the interest or relief she would have expected from such a gift registering in his expression, only a muted sort of confusion, until he breathed "Wouldn't want my popularity to go to waste," and closed his eyes again.
She bit the inside of her lip, hesitating.
Caspian's words still rang, never once having ceased in the back of her mind. Would you quit trying to save everyone for just five seconds?
But Edmund looked younger now than she'd ever seen him, the bitterness and cruelty gone out of his face as the all-too-familiar weight of emptiness crept in, the seductive ache to simply give up.
She'd known it herself, on the nights when she faced fever or injury alone, on the nights when no one would have found her if she'd died in that attic, when no one held her trembling hand and no one pressed a cool cloth to her delirious head. When the nightmares felt real and refused to let go, and suffocating loneliness became the only persistent sensation through it all.
She'd known it in Arabella Garrett, dead before her fifteenth birthday, hanging from that window by an electrical cord, a casualty of the system.
And anyway, Polly and Digory had been the ones to send the medicine, hadn't they? Refusing it now would be tantamount to murder.
Not that murder was exactly frowned upon here.
She moved before she could change her mind, lifting his shirt and peeling back the bandage, the wound just as ghastly as ever, dark red seeping through a chasm of inflamed, jagged flesh.
She twisted open the cylinder and dabbed its contents onto her fingers, a clear cream with a faint milky color, sweeter and smoother than any of the antibiotics she'd smelled at home, not sharp or medical, brushing it gently over the wound.
Edmund choked on a fragile whimper and clutched her arm before he could catch himself.
Lucy froze, his trembling fingers tightening on her sleeve as he breathed out, clouded eyes glancing over her, unobserving, before flickering back into his head and turning away from the others, sweat trickling down his jaw.
His grip did not loosen, and after a few moments she continued her work, surrendering one arm to him and placing the cylinder on the ground, dabbing gobs of its fragrant contents into the wound, not worrying about using too much.
Edmund's choked breathing slowed, and when at last she'd finished and brushed the bandage gently back into place, he seemed to have drifted into unconsciousness, fingers slipping down the sleeve of her tunic onto the stone floor.
She wiped her own fingers on her pants, and twisted the lid back onto the container, wondering if it possessed some kind of numbing agent, too, as she returned to the others and tucked the cream into her bag, its chilling touch lingering on her skin.
Caspian and Jill murmured amongst themselves, sorting out the food and setting both fruit cups and two of the bars aside, Jill munching on a half-eaten grain and nut bar as Caspian offered one to Lucy.
She sat gratefully back against the wall and tore the plastic, inhaling it in a few bites though she knew she should have savored it, and taking another swallow of water before they packed up the rest.
Sleep claimed Jill first.
Caspian sat back against the wall beside Lucy.
"I can take first watch," she said, and he nodded, but didn't move to lay down.
For a long time they sat together in silence, the chorus of Jill's and Edmund's gentle breathing drifting softly through the cave, Lucy's eyes resting on the rise and fall of Edmund's chest.
"I really am sorry," breathed Caspian at last, and she looked up at him. "About earlier."
His eyes flicked down to meet hers, deep and honest, though thunder still rang in her ears.
"Me too," she murmured, and Caspian's brows knit.
"Why should you be sorry?"
"I didn't mean to shout." She shook her head. "I know you shouted first, but I didn't mean to, either. And… I didn't think about what it meant… with Edmund, I didn't think about… well, I didn't think about anything, really. I don't know why I did that. I don't know why I stopped you."
"I do."
"You… do?"
Caspian smiled, almost ruefully. "Because you're Lucy Pevensie."
She scoffed. "That's not a reason."
"Yes it is."
"Well then it's a stupid reason."
Caspian smirked, and Lucy looked away, studying her hands, carving at her hopelessly chipped nails. He was right. Lucy Pevensie just had to care, didn't she?
"Are you regretting your choice in allies yet?"
"Which allies? I've got three, it would seem, though I only remember choosing one."
Lucy winced.
He shook his head and sighed. "Apparently our mentors are on your side, so I don't think I have any room to complain. Everything you touch turns to gold, against all odds."
"You know, I'm pretty sure that's a curse."
He smiled slightly, drifting into thought. "Only time will tell."
The minutes dragged on in silence again, and Lucy settled back against the rough wall. Still Caspian didn't move, leaning his head back and closing his eyes, breathing out.
"What made you believe in the Old Country?" she asked after a stretch, unsure whether he was even still awake.
For several moments, no response came, and she'd almost given up before he breathed "Lucy Pevensie."
She pursed her lips and rolled her eyes. "You can't just use my name as an explanation for everything."
"Then why do you explain everything so well?"
She swatted his arm, and he smiled sleepily.
Why had she expected a straight answer? As if he'd ever given one before.
She laid her head on his shoulder, gazing over their dim campsite with his steady warmth at her side.
Caspian Telmar.
Tribute. Competitor. Orphan. Ally. Dreamer. Child. Safety. Danger. Friend?
How ironic, that her name explained everything while his only muddled her head the longer it lived there.