A/N: Wow, two chapters in one week! I am on fire, hah. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy writing it. I asked in the last author's note regarding the rating of this story, and I have decided to re-rate it to a M+, as some have reacted strongly, be it good or bad, towards the amount of gore this story has so far, and I expect some will have further reactions once the story develops even further. I promise you, this story is meant for an older audience (adults + older teens). Some are confused by the ratings, hence my changing it into a strong mature, so that it reaches the right audience. I'd rather not scar any youngsters as I am indeed altering our beloved childhood story into something darker. I'm sure CS Lewis would turn is his grave for this, but oh well. I'm keeping it lore friendly, that's a challenging feat alone!
Well, enough author-nag, and enjoy the chapter! X
Soundtracks:
"Lucy Meets Mr. Tumnus" Harry Gregson-Williams (Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe OST)
"From Western Woods to Beaversdam" - Harry Gregson-Williams (Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe OST)
As it turns out, there had been little sleep going on lately. Even this morning, audiences seemed to last forever and drawn out even longer than usual. Sleep-deprivation was a feat every royal had to overcome at some point, but now it was getting ridiculous. The silver lining was that Narnia had not one, but five monarchs to take care of her and give her a prosper reign, for Caspian alone would not be able to handle all the weight on his shoulders at this moment alone with the little amount of sleep he had gotten these couple of days.
The Pevensies had been sent back with a purpose after all.
Susan, thankfully working well on little sleep, had spent her forenoons in the library, looking through archives, flipping and skimming through tomes, searching for certain scrolls during brunches, all the like, with no luck on finding any more traces from what they had learned so far. The 'Ice Queen' was still a mystery to her. Instead of becoming even further frustrated with the lack of progress, she decided to end it for today, and continue tomorrow. With a huff, she shut the dusty book closed.
Caspian and Peter walked down the halls, discussing the new horses that had arrived at the Castle stables after they had been shipped over the Galmanian Sea. They needed to be shod and would be taken care of the stablemaster and smith firstly. Caspian and Peter noticed a wonderous stallion in particular that left them discussing the endless abilities and pedigrees to be bred forth. It was good to have something else to focus on, just for a little while.
As they passed a corner, Susan appeared from another hallway, and they greeted her as they slowed down for her to walk in the front. "What've you been up to, Su?" Peter asked as they walked.
"Well, I have spent endless hours in-"
"The library," Caspian and Peter said in unison. Of course, she spent every waking moment there if she had the opportunity. She turned her head around to give them both a sharp look, before she turned back with a frustrated sigh as they walked.
"Right. And nothing. I found nothing at all that would even imply something useful about our dear Queen of Ice."
"Well, there is a chance that there isn't an Ice Queen at all, don't you think?" Peter stated. They slowed down to a halt as Susan turned to face them. Her eyes were tired after long hours with her nose down in books.
"Of course. But anything is possible right now. Say there isn't an Ice Queen; there are still omens that there is little literature about – psychokinesis, threats of yet another Long Winter… Honestly, it has more links to Jadis than anything else I've looked into today, but she's gone, and been so for a long time, so it can't be right." Susan explained. Caspian and Peter shared looks of agreement, but the question still lingered; could it be her after all?
"What did Professor Cornelius say, then?"
"Oh, he confirmed what we speculated; we have a powerful sorceress to deal with, most likely. Not anyone can cast a spell like that, poor girl." Susan explained with a sigh at the mention of Saralynn. Peter looked from Susan to Caspian, his gaze expectant.
"I suggest we keep our eyes open and be careful. If you see any suspicious activity, let me know. I have a meeting to attend; the council needs to be addressed about last week's events."
"Right. I'm going to town for a while, I'll see you both at dinner." Susan said as she brushed past both men.
"Be careful, Su!" Peter called. She turned halfway with a clever smile.
"I'm the very soul of caution, brother!"
Peter and Caspian shared grins.
. . .
Riding through the village that was busy with life and errands cleared Susan's head up a bit, along with the fresh air. She was sat on her steed Iris, who made heads turn, and the children squeal in joy. Many wanted to pet her, and more wanted to greet the Queen as she rode past the many shops, market stalls and buildings.
Susan had an escort with her, a female guard named Rhea. The young Telmarine woman had been the first female during Caspian's reign to audition for guard duty, and she had succeeded and impressed during trials enough to give her a rank. Rhea was on good terms with both Susan and Lucy, and the Queens enjoyed her company.
"My Queen, are you not cold? The air is changing it would seem, be careful so you will not catch a cold." Rhea asked her gently. Her voice was not accented, as she had spent much time in now a Narnian court, like Caspian.
She was right about the chill. It was unusually cold for the summer season, and people had resolved to wear capes as it had grown cold this last week.
"You are thoughtful Rhea, thank you, but no, I am quite alright. Cold air does me good, in fact!" she said, as she pulled her horse into a halt before a bookshop. She dismounted and handed Rhea the reins.
"I will be right back, I just need to run an errand." She assured her escort as she adjusted her cape (and discreetly adjusting her horn behind her waist).
She entered the shop, where the smell of dust and ancient paper struck her senses hard. Shelves, both tall and small, ladders and tables with old scrolls, leather-bound books and other ancient curiosities were stabled on every unoccupied surface in the room. A small lady, worn with age, sat behind a counter and knitted in peace - her shop wasn't exactly teeming with patrons.
She sprung up, ready to provide service once she saw the Queen approach the counter.
"Oh, me bonnie! What can I help ye with todae?" the jovial shopkeeper piped up in her crone voice. She was a good lady, and Susan visited her regularly.
"Louisia, I'm after some tomes, and I was hoping you could help me. They are not exactly… Well, sought after." Susan added discreetly as she took off her cloak. The old lady had kindles burning in the hearth, which said something about the cold.
The elderly woman scuttled around the counter with a clucking chuckle.
"I shall help you, dearie, to my greatest extent. You know this, there is nae a single tome or remedy for dae mind I dinnae have." The tiny, hunched-back lady snickered. Her heavy accent was part of her charm, and Susan couldn't help but smile along. She shooed Susan further into the shop as she hummed an old tune.
. . .
At dinner, Lucy, Caine and Trumpkin were already seated, eating and drinking merrily. Caine and Lucy were caught up in conversation, Trumpkin sat nonchalantly on a stool against the hearth and smoked his pipe in silence, staring pensively into the dancing flames.
Peter and Caspian entered the room and sat down after exchanging greetings.
Caspian sat down at the head of the table, with Peter at his left and Susan at his right. Caine and Lucy grew quiet as the men started to eat and serve amongst themselves. It looked as if Susan hadn't noticed her brother and Caspian sitting down by the table, as they both watched her eyes drift past every line in a heavy book. It was an old tome indeed, the page looked brittle and it was cracks in the leather that bound it whilst some pages poked out from its spine. It caught their curiosities.
"Su, what are you reading?"
"A book," she replied quickly, not looking up from the page as she carefully turned the page and took a sip of her goblet.
"Yes, I can see that." Peter answered with a mild roll of his eyes.
"Leave it, Pete. She's been scrutinizing that book since she got back." Lucy said with a chuckle. Caine grinned along as he helped himself to an apple.
After some time of eating and conversating across the table, Edmund walked in, looking fairly beaten.
"Ah, there you are, brother! We were starting to question your whereabouts." Peter exclaimed.
"Yes, and why you weren't the first to finish your plate once the dinner bell struck," Caspian added with a lopsided smile. The people across the table laughed.
"Ha-ha, very funny. If you must know, I was making myself useful with Glenstorm at the training grounds. The men are moving a bit sloppily and need work if they want to last longer against opponents, but they are battle-ready." Edmund said, his voice proud.
"Good work." Caspian praised.
"Of course. But have you all noticed? The weather is changing drastically. Snow and frost have dawned in Ettinsmoor, word says." Edmund said as he donned his fur cape and sat down by the table beside his older sister.
"Already?" Lucy asked. Snow usually didn't fall in the northern parts of Ettinsmoor this early. It was late summer! In fact, there shouldn't be snow anywhere across the borders of the Wild Lands of the north at all, this soon.
"Indeed. Could it have anything to do with…. Whatever is going on here?" Edmund asked the plenary.
Caspian and Peter shared looks.
"It's too much of a coincidence for us to disregard that fact, I think. I will send Xerxes on a flight in the morning to scout the area." Caspian said, making Edmund nod appreciatingly at that.
"If we're lucky, it's just a change of winds," Peter said hopefully. Caspian sighed as they ate on in silence until Edmund addressed his older sister.
"What you reading there, Su?"
"Can't talk, in the zone." She replied quickly, turning yet another page. She was a few chapters through the heavy tome, seemingly. Edmund put his hands up in fake surrender, making the others chuckle at the scene.
Edmund felt his shoulders unknot at a full belly, and he smiled at the fact that he had his family together again, dark times ahead or no.
. . .
That evening, when the sky was littered with stars, and a northern wind swept through the courtyard, Susan was glad to be in the comfort of the library, no matter how frustrating it was, not finding anything specific trace to help them suss out whatever was going on around court.
A feather pen was scratching lightly against paper as she took notes by a standing desk of anything that might have at least some importance whilst flipping through page after page in the ancient tome. Right now, she was skimming through a paragraph regarding the old magic in Narnia and beyond. The content was hard to digest, and it contained so many references she either couldn't interpret as time had eroded the ink on the paper, or she had never heard about the content. Alas, old magic would be a good place to try and find answers never the same.
Feeling exhaustion hit her as she struggled to interpret a word that had been scribbled over by the last owner of the book (either blood or red ink - she hoped it was the latter), she groaned and let her head fall into her hands as she rested her elbows on the standing desk.
"I couldn't have put it better myself," a voice behind her said with a sigh. Susan sobered once she saw Caspian approach from behind, his hands swinging numbly by his side - the drained look on his face almost became him well.
"I had a feeling I'd find you here."
"Oh, what gave it away?" she said, a wry smile crossing her full lips as she turned to lean her back against the desk. She cradled her arms at her stomach as she watched him shrug and return her smile. The gentle flicker of flames made his skin glow a godly hue. His eyes shimmered like saber almonds, and despite being so tired and restless, they shone with such soul it rendered her speechless sometimes. His dark locks were up in a leather band, and the look suited him well. Too well; Susan cursed internally. After a moment of silence, he approached even closer, almost too close for comfort. She swallowed hard.
"May I ask what you've been so caught up in lately? It isn't exactly light reading, I take it?" he asked, slight humour coating his genuine question. She sighed out a "well" and turned back to the book for him to see. She could feel his warm respiration wash over her collarbones as he stood behind her and looked past her shoulder.
"I didn't want to say anything at dinner because this," she turned the book and revealed the cover, "is a tome on both ancient and dark magic, amongst… other things."
Magicka Di Navbera Dinyayên – Conjuration Between Worlds Caspian read in golden letters on the ashen brown cover of the large book. He had no idea what the whole title meant, but he understood magicka without a need for translation, and understood now that this wouldn't exactly make for a good conversation starter, to say the least.
Professor Cornelius had told him about magic and conjuration of it when he was a boy but hadn't paid it much mind at the time. It was fascinating, sure, but not something he put effort into, as the half-dwarf-half-Telmarine had told him often that casting and conjugating spells did not work on ordinary men, that magicka in general was not given to mere mortals.
"Forbidden magic too?" he asked, if not a bit hopeful. He remembered something from his lessons as a boy.
"Not this far."
He hmm-ed over her shoulder before noticing the pieces of paper by the book.
"Notes?"
"Of course. Go ahead and look over them I could need some input. Maybe there is something I've missed," she said and handed him the papers. He stepped away to skim through her neat handwriting. She was observant, this much he knew. Her straightforward and structured notes were in such an order it caught his interest almost to the point he almost forgot about his task. Whilst reading through the different worlds, how they possess different levels of magical strength along with how it can manifest in many different ways, Susan had returned to her book, and they studied together in peace. It was nice.
After what felt like a long time, Caspian had skimmed through many pages and were currently reading a section of magic's most basic effects and their ability to override the existing laws of physics and nature when Susan called his name, almost urgently in a low voice.
Just when she felt like giving up, her head resting in her hand as she read through the pages, she had come by a section, a tiny one, that described magic that only one person had been able to perform. She recognized an illustration of ink; Jadis. Beside her on thrones alike were unknown people, but possibly same of her kind no matter.
"Caspian, come look at this."
He stood up from his stool and stepped behind her once again to read past her shoulder. She traced a finger along the barely visible lines of the book. He furrowed his brows at the title: 'City of Charn – accursed, strong and cruel empire".
"A spell, long hidden and strong enough to destroy all loving things except the caster, is known as the Deplorable Word, and was used in a single petulant act of evil magic by the half-Jinn, half-Giant Jadis. All life in the empirical world of Charn was destroyed by the conjuration of the spell." Susan read aloud.
"It is unknown how long ago this occurred, but legend calls that Jadis, later Winter Queen of Narnia for a millennium, became engaged in a global political struggle with her sister (unnamed), as the two fought to become Queen of their worldwide empire. Performing the ritual to cast the Deplorable Word, the planet became dead and sterile, in which the only thing living was Jadis herself. After the ritual destroyed the city of Charn, Jadis placed herself in a magical suspended animation in the palace on a stone throne at the end of a long line of figures of other seated royals, in the chamber called the Hall of Images. The latter has been discussed for decades, as depictions of the Hall of Images show the Queen of Winter with her family of nobles, contradicting what was first speculated after the use of the Deplorable Word."
As Susan read the section about the Deplorable Word and the White Witch's sister, be it she still existed, the pieces of the puzzle began to match.
A spell, with the ability to put whole areas in ruins – could it be the song of ice and snowstorm they heard Saralynn warn them of?
Jadis, having a sister; it wasn't something either of them imagined. They suspected she had been the last of her kind, as she had ruled for thousands of years by herself along with her followers. But now it made sense; she had had family long ago, before she ended them. But what if her sibling survived?
"She used a spell to destroy a whole world?" Caspian asked, mostly to himself.
"If she wanted power, then it makes sense. But that would imply none survived except her," Susan said, musing over the text over and over again. What if someone had survived? And how?
Susan looked up from the book and stared into the wall before her as she replayed this week's happenings. The mindpower, the control over someone else's body…
"What if… Jadis didn't exterminate all of her family?" she pondered aloud, turning her head, and found herself looking into his jaw.
"What do you mean?" he asked, his brow a frown. She turned fully around to face him.
"Think about it; Jadis exterminated her whole family, a family with great magical powers. If she delved into dark magic, far what was consider proper, why not her sister, or other family members, before even performing the ritual to make Charn a wasteland?"
"So, her sister might not have even been there after the ritual was cast with the use of a spell?"
"Exactly."
Caspian sighed deeply and stroked his jaw in thought as he leant against a bookshelf behind him.
"But how?" he asked. She shrugged as she thought, but soon met his gaze. Her ice crystal-eyes shimmered with wonder.
"With the same spell used on Saralynn, perhaps? Her whole mind and body were taken over, you saw this yourself," Susan said with a bow of her head. Caspian suddenly perked up.
"The sibling could have taken somebody as a vessel during the ritual and survived the extermination. I bet it was that very one who took over Saralynn as well," he suggested, straightening his back.
"It's possible. It would explain why it's getting colder, the wish to remove us from court… Jadis' sister wants to take over the land, maybe in the same fashion Jadis did. The promise of ice and snowstorm means another Long Winter," she said, tilting her head to the side in realization.
Despite the severity of what they had discovered, Caspian couldn't help but grin. They finally had the answer, or at least, one answer to all of this. The challenge now would be to defeat whatever was coming their way.
"My Queen, you are truly brilliant." Caspian exclaimed with a chuckle.
They way her stomach flipped and filled with a warm, fuzzy feeling at the way he said 'my Queen' was probably one of the reasons she returned it when he took one stride, took her head gently in his warm hands, and kissed her hard and passionately, swallowing her gasp of surprise as he did so. The force of his kiss made her almost tip backwards, and she instinctively grasped his biceps for leverage.
If his heart had the ability to ping-pong off the walls, it would in this very moment fly off the walls, creating holes as it did so. He had longed for this contact with her for so long, and even though his reaction had been a somewhat spontaneous one, he couldn't help but feel delighted that she returned the embrace. Had she felt the same all this time?
His warmth, his intoxicating cologne, his overwhelming height that surrounded her and his arms that gave her a sense of safety, it all engulfed her. The way his lips melted against her lips, again and again, it made her all but melt. How on earth could a man make her feel this way? She did not know, she did not care, all she did know, was that she wanted him – badly.
All too soon, Caspian became aware of his actions, and with much effort, turned his lips away from hers. He instead rested his brow against hers, both catching their breaths. His hands caressed her jaws and neck further, and she bit her lip, unable (along with unwilling) to move, despite what her head and fears screamed in disapproval.
"I'm…" he began huskily.
"Mmh, me too…" she said, just as out of breath. Only now did he pull back, his expression warm, but in shock of his own actions. Not that he hadn't enjoyed it, because by Aslan, he had, so bloody much.
"Yeah… We… Should probably find the others." Caspian said, before he found himself shutting the book and taking it with them as they left the library.
Neither said anything on the way to the common room.
. . .
"I can't believe it," Peter murmured as he shifted in his seat by the lounge.
"Well, you better, for everything we know so far matches with the descriptions in this book," Susan replied, just as baffled as her brother.
Caspian and Susan had sat everybody down to tell them of their discovery, and after finishing their research, everybody had unreadable expressions on their faces. The book did not specify any information about Jadis' family of nobles.
"But, how do we get from here? We don't know anything about Jadis' bloodline," Lucy asked. She was hugging her knees to her chest, her back against the hearth. Peter turned towards his younger brother.
"Did the White Witch ever… Did she say anything about…" Peter began, but Edmund quickly shook his head. His heart clutched at the memory of being in her grasp, her manipulating claws, and the reminder of how he once betrayed his family.
"Didn't the followers of the White Witch die along with her?" Trumpkin asked from his stool, his pipe at hand. Her closest and most trusted followers during the Long Winter might have known of her history, but that wouldn't help them now. Nikabrik, his old friend, was infatuated by the idea of Jadis the Snow Queen, and spoke of nothing else but her, and her reign alone. And even if he had known anything of importance, it was too late now.
Caspian had kept silent during the discussion, until Susan looked at him with a raised brow, knowing he was in deep thought.
"Caspian?" she called. "You are being uncharacteristically hypo-verbal." He straightened up in his seat on the pouffe.
"I may have an idea. If we could find a… follower of Jadis, or the like, we could possibly gain more information," he said, looking from face to face.
They didn't say against him, but, the problem now would be to find someone who would give them information. And even if they found a source of information, it would not be given cheap, this much they knew; maybe not even without blood.
To prevent even more bloodshed, they would most likely have to shed blood, and Caspian did not like that thought. Alas, if it meant the safety of his kingdom, his people… And his family, he would go through hellfire and more.
It all came down to safety and saving lives; but at what cost?
A/N: Now, I have a feeling my plot is slowly coming together, but like in any plot, there will always be plotholes. So, my apologies for any you may spot, but I promise, now, the tension will only increase, and the content will be even better.
Hold onto your hats for more!
Blessed be,
Dragon
