And yet again I find myself apologising for the delay in posting this chapter...oh well, this is an extra long chapter, so hopefully that will make up for it!

NarniaGirl: So glad you are still reading and eagerly awaiting new updates! I can promise to never leave this story for a year between updates, so you needn't worry about that :-). Let me know who you feel most bad for by the end of this chapter...

Rose: I would apologise for breaking your streak of not reading fanfiction...but I'm too flattered by the fact that you are reading mine! I always love it when people recommend my stories so thank you for reviewing and thank you to your friend as well! Hope you enjoy this chapter as well :-)

Aslan's Daughter: Glad to see you are still reading despite my abysmal update speed! I am glad you found the human portrayal of the Pevensies encouraging, I try to write realistic characters and I am very glad to hear that it is working! As far as the Swallows as messengers go...I actually do have an explanation for that! Unfortunately it is not in this chapter, but it is in an upcoming chapter since an Archenlander has the same question you do...

20th. of Greenroof, 1012—Seventhday

The wind was colder than Peter had expected it to be. The few other times he had visited Tashbaan in summer the whole city had lain sweltering beneath a haze of dry, still heat, but this time they seemed to have arrived during an unusually rainy time of the summer. Clouds were massing, low and grey above the swirling dust of the desert to the North, and Peter scowled at them as if he could hold back the coming storm with the force of his displeasure at its existence.

The journey to Calormen had been far from pleasant, an exhausting, breathless gallop to Anvard where they had stopped barely long enough for the Centauress Menwy to catch her breath and for Peter to find a fresh horse before pushing on through the night as swiftly as wisdom allowed. The desert had been worse—merciless heat and scorching sun by day, bone numbing cold by night, and the strange, warping of distance that that was so common in the wide, open places of the world.

The first day in the desert they had seemed to make no progress and gain no ground, the mountains behind them had barely seemed further away at twilight than they had at dawn and Peter had found himself near despair more times than he wanted to admit. It had only been the steady, calm presence of Menwy, and strangely Brickle's nervous energy, which had kept him from acting foolishly and becoming lost in wasteland of sand. It might not have been strictly wise to enter Calormen in secret in the company of such conspicuous Narnians as a Dwarf and a Centauress, but Peter knew now that he had chosen wisely.

Menwy, who was one of Orieus' kin, was arguably the most skilled healer in all of Narnia, and Brickle, despite his high stung nature and lack of stealth, was the only member of the court—excepting Sallowpad who was in Calormen already—who seemed to know nearly as much about Edmund's business as Edmund did himself. It had been Brickle who directed Peter to the house of Lemesh, who seemed to be a sort of Calormene spymaster in Edmund's employ, and Brickle who had suggested a place where he and Menwy could remain unseen while Peter searched through the more highly populated areas of the city. And yet, despite Brickle's aid, Edmund's own papers, and Peter's determination they had found nothing in three days of frantic searching, careful questions, and more than one loss of temper on Peter's part.

Now, standing among the shadowy shapes that Brickle had called the "Tombs of the Ancient Kings" (though to Peter they looked more like giant stone beehives than tombs) at the edge of the desert with a storm approaching he felt painfully close to giving up. No one seemed to know—more likely no one was willing to tell him even if they did know—where Obridesh was, if he was truly out of favour with the Tisroc, or if there had been any news of captured Northern spies. Peridan and Sallowpad seemed to have disappeared as effectively as Edmund had himself and there was no whisper of news, even in the drunken tavern gossip.

Even if Ed was alive when I left Cair Paravel there's no reason to believe he still is. It was a grim thought and Peter scowled out at the desert still more angrily, his hand clenching around Rhindon's hilt so hard that his knuckles ached. He preferred simple enemies, ones he could fight, ones he could kill to save his brother, not shadowy threats that lurked and tricked, lied and stole, and then disappeared back into whatever hole they had crawled out of. Enemies of that sort were Edmund's domain, and if even he was outmatched and in danger—or worse dead—what hope did Peter have of succeeding against Obridesh?

The sound of hooves on sand and rock startled him from his brooding and he half turned to see Menwy trotting towards him, a rather sea sick looking Brickle clinging to her back. She had carried the poor fellow all the way from Cair Paravel, but he still looked terribly distressed at being so far above his beloved Earth. Peter smiled in spite of his ill humour at the expression of relief on Brickle's face when Menwy stopped and he slid from her back as quickly as could possibly be considered safe. He landed in a rather undignified heap on the sand, scrambled to his feet with a muffled curse, and stumped away, still grumbling inaudibly and brushing the sand from his beard. Menwy watched him impassively, although Peter privately suspected she had grown rather fond of Brickle on their journey from Narnia.

"We have searched as near the river as we can without being seen from the riverboats and waterside gardens," she told him gravely, bringing his attention back to the topic at hand. He felt a shiver run up his back between his shoulder blades at her words—at what she had not said. To see if a body had washed ashore. "Traitors are often thrown into the river in Tashbaan," he remembered Edmund telling him once, sounding rather more cheerful than Peter had thought appropriate. "So they do not defile the flames by burning or the land by being buried there."

"And?" Surely, she would have told him if…if what?

"We found nothing."

The wave of relief that swept over him was staggering and he drew in a deep, shuddering breath forcing his grip on Rhindon to relax slightly. It wasn't as if the sword would be much help anyway. It didn't mean anything, that they had found nothing, and yet it meant everything. There was no body, and while there was no body there was still hope, still a chance—however slim—that Edmund would be found alive. It had been six days, six days since Aslan had told him his brother was not dead—six days in which that could have changed—but he could still hope.

The wind gusted strongly, whipping Menwy's wild dark hair into an inky cloud and tearing at the worn edges of Peter's cloak. He shuddered again—the wind brought a chill from the storm massing in the clouds above the desert, and with it came the stench of death.

Menwy seemed to smell it too. She raised her head, face tilted upwards towards the leaden sky and scudding clouds, and her eyes seemed to lose focus. Peter remembered suddenly that she was not only a healer, but a seer as well, and waited, barely daring to breath, as she stared up at the sky without seeming to really see it. After a long moment she shifted her weight, seeming to come back to herself and released her breath in a long sigh.

"The vulture circles," she said in a sonorous tone, her eyes still slipping in and out of focus. "He rides the storm and death follows in his wake. Beware, oh king, for tonight one will fall even as another rises." She shook her head, as if to clear it, and her eyes focused, fixing on Peter's face with startling intensity.

"What do you mean?" he knew it was of little use to ask, seers rarely remembered what they had said during their trances and even fewer were able to offer any explanation for their words, but there was a burning frustration clawing at his throat, forcing the question—however futile—from him. More riddles, more vague pronouncements of doom—am I never to receive a clear answer? It was infuriating.

Menwy shook her head, appearing almost sorrowful, and pawed at the sandy ground uneasily with one foreleg. "That I do not know, would that I did High King, for such an answer would likely ease your worry greatly." She shook her mane of dark hair in frustration, not at himself, Peter sensed, but rather at the whole situation. He nodded, sharing her feeling of annoyance. The whole mess had been a very confused one from the very start, since he had found the papers in Edmund's room, and perhaps even before that, since he had last confronted Obridesh in Tashbaan so many months before. If only I could have cut his head off, then and there, and saved us all this trouble. Problems that could not be solved by violent and decisive action proved endlessly frustrating for Peter—they tended to be messy, complicated affairs that were not easily solved.

A distant trumpet sounded, heralding the quickly approaching closing of the city gates as the first drops of rain began to fall. Menwy shook herself, as if to dispel the lingering tendrils of vision, and swished her tail decisively. "You must return to the inn, your majesty, and if I may make the suggestion it would be wise to take Brickle with you tonight—you may have need of him before dawn."

Peter nodded without comment. If Menwy thought it wise, then she was probably right and would likely not be able to articulate the reason behind her suggestion if he questioned it. He turned to pick his way back through the shadowy shapes of the tombs, doing his best to ignore the prickly feeling at nape of his neck as he walked in front of the gaping, mouth-like entrances to the tombs. He did not like this place and could not quite shake the feeling, however foolish, that anything might be lying in wait within the tombs, waiting to spring out and drag him down into the darkness. He felt very foolish admitting it, even to himself. Edmund would have laughed at him, Peter, High King of Narnia, fearless on the field of battle, being afraid of long dead Calormenes. He shook himself and hurried on. He would gladly have endured Edmund's teasing if only his brother was safely by his side instead of missing and likely in great danger.

"Brickle!" He pulled his cloak closer as he called to the Dwarf—the rain was coming down in earnest now and he hoped Brickle had not wandered too far away, he didn't fancy being stuck outside the city gates in the approaching storm. It was bad enough that Menwy had to stay out in the weather, but there was little that could be done about that.

To his relief Brickle melted out of the shadows, shuffling his feet and tugging on his beard—Peter rather marveled that he still had a beard considering how often he tugged bits of it out.

"Menwy said you ought to return to the inn with me tonight." From the start Peter had hated the thought of staying in an inn, however unpleasant, while Brickle and Menwy were forced to remain outside the city like fugitives but Menwy had insisted with a hint of the same fire that Orieus, who was her nephew, occasionally displayed when giving orders. Peter, regardless of being the High King knew better than to waste his breath arguing with a determined Centaur.

Brickle nodded shortly, though he appeared rather dubious at the prospect. "What of the Calormenes, your majesty?"

As he spoke a great gust of wind crashed against them, bringing with it a shower of pelting, icy rain that made Peter tug up the hood of his cloak and grit his teeth in annoyance as the cold droplets struck him across the face with stinging force. "I doubt anyone will want to be out in this weather," he remarked, allowing his own annoyance at being out in it to show in his tone. "Besides, I've paid the innkeeper well enough not to ask too many questions." Thank the Lion for the greed of Calormene innkeepers—Calormenes in general really. He had learned recently just how much of their relations with Calormen were built on a network of carefully calculated bribes, and—while he didn't strictly approve of the practice of bribing foreign government officials—he did have to admit that it proved mostly effective.

The city gates were already beginning to swing ponderously shut by the time Peter and Brickle reached them and slipped though, their presence going unremarked in the gaggle of farmers clamouring to leave and road weary travelers anxious to not be caught out in the storm. Once through the gates the crowd thinned, no longer the press of jostling humanity it had been immediately inside the gates, instead a trickle of hurrying figures in the otherwise deserted streets.

The storm had begun in earnest now, the wind gusting through the narrow, foul selling streets with enough force that it nearly lifted Brickle off his feet. Sheets of rain blew sideways into their faces, soaking Peter's hair and making the escaping strands of Brickle's beard stick untidily to the front of his traveling cloak. Lightning split the sky, followed by a crash of thunder so loud and near that it made Peter's head ache.

He found himself seized by an absurd desire to laugh. If his people could only see him now, their king trudging through the slums of Calormen resembling nothing so much as a drowned rat, they would hardly treat him with the awed deference that he had become accustomed to. He almost wished they could see him like this, see him at less than his best, perhaps then they would expect less of him, perhaps then his faults would seem less failings and more typically human. Of course, such thoughts did him little good—there was no one to observe him except Brickle and Peter doubted that the faithful, if somewhat clumsy, Dwarf would be bearing tales of Peter's ordinariness back to the rest of the Narnians.

Ordinary, he thought somewhat wryly. I haven't thought of myself as ordinary in over a decade. It was difficult to feel ordinary when you ruled a whole country from a carved throne, surrounded by guards and fellow monarchs whose coming had been foretold as the hope of all Narnia. But then again, losing your family, making mistakes that endangered everything you held dear—that was very ordinary. These are mistakes kings should not make. And he knew he had made many mistakes. He had hidden the truth from his brother, and, whatever his motivations had been, he knew he really ought to have known better. Even in saying goodbye to Susan he had not been entirely forthcoming—there were things he had not told her that he rather regretted now. Still, it wouldn't matter if he found Edmund alive and preferably well.

"One will fall, even as another rises," Menwy had said, and her words circled endlessly in his mind. He tried to view the statement in a positive light—surely someone rising could be interpreted as a good thing, unless it was Obridesh who was rising to even greater power and himself who would fall. Or Edmund. Perhaps Menwy meant falling in the sense of falling from power and rising in the sense of someone being found. If that were the case, then perhaps the Tisroc and his corrupt government would fall when he found Edmund. Or she could mean fall in the sense of someone dying—someone like Ed.

He was so lost in his thoughts, confused and circular as they were, that he nearly walked straight into the firmly closed door of the inn and was halted only by Brickle stopping abruptly and mumbling something almost inaudible. Peter blinked and peered down at his companion through the haze of rain.

"What was that, Brickle?" The Dwarf started violently, obviously having meant his muttered comment to be entirely inaudible, and his somehow still grubby hands scrabbled for the drenched strands of his beard that had escaped from the hood of his cloak.

"N-nothing, your majesty." He sounded so startled that Peter decided not to press the matter, despite his own amusement. It had certainly sounded to him as though Brickle had called him a clumsy fool, which Peter found particularly amusing given the fellow's nervous temperament. Still, he supposed it was rather impossible to spend any length of time in Edmund's presence and not acquire traces of his sarcastic, and sometimes insulting, sense of humour. If Brickle was laughing at him Peter was fairly certain it was the most openly spirited behaviour he had ever seen from Brickle and he was glad of it.

The interior of the inn, once Peter had pushed the door open, was dark, dingy, and deserted save for a surly looking Calormen innkeeper behind the tall counter at one end of the room. The man looked up expectantly from running a filthy rag around the handle of an equally filthy tankard when the door opened, and his face fell when he saw that it was Peter. He scowled and went back to his task without further acknowledging his "barbarian" guests—despite the fact that he was making a tidy profit simply by keeping his mouth shut regarding Peter's presence in his inn.

He did not, of course, know who it was who was paying him—Peter was no fool and had not thought it particularly wise to inform the man that he was hosting one of Narnia's kings—and it did not seem to matter over much to him as long as gold continued to find its way into his pockets. Despite this he seemed to have no great love of Northerners and Peter regarded him with a vaguely disgusted air in return—it was not a friendly arrangement, but it had been a functional one so far. As long as the innkeeper continued to hold his tongue, and as long as there was a fire burning in the hearth, Peter was prepared to excuse a far higher level of rudeness than he ordinarily would have.

There was, in fact, a fire burning in the hearth and he and Brickle crowded around it gratefully, shedding their sodden cloaks and rubbing their cold hands together for warmth. Brickle rang the water out of his sodden beard with a mumbled curse and Peter found himself stifling a chuckle at his foul humour.

The innkeeper glared balefully at them from behind his counter, obviously annoyed that they were displaying their Northern heritage so openly. Peter's hair, now that he had removed his cloak and hood, could not be mistaken for any colour other than golden and Brickle, who might have been mistaken for a child while he wore his cloak, was no unmistakably a Narnian Dwarf. Peter didn't see why it should matter so much to the fellow—it wasn't as though any other guests were present to remark about their identities.

Peter sank into a somewhat musty chair that he had dragged nearer the hearth and sighed, exhaustion pulling at his limbs and weighing heavy upon his eyelids. Grief began to settle back over him, it had been held at bay during the day by the flurry of his activity, but it returned now in the absence of other occupation. He slumped down in the chair, burying his aching head between his hands.

I'm trying, Ed. I swear I'm trying, but I can't find you. Please, I need a sign, give me a sign. He wasn't sure if his last unspoken plea was directed at Edmund, or Aslan, or both, but it hardly mattered. He was vaguely aware of Brickle hovering solicitously near his shoulder, mumbling something that was likely meant to be consoling. Peter found himself wishing, somewhat uncharitably, that he would simply be silent. There was really nothing that Brickle could say that Peter did not already know, or that would be even remotely helpful, but Peter had recently resolved to keep better control of his temper and refrained from snapping at the well-meaning chap.

Brickle babbled on about going back to the house owned by Lemesh to make further inquiries in the morning (even though Lemesh had promised to send world already if he heard any news), and going down to search near the docks for the sixth time (as if six were some magic number that would lead to discoveries not made the previous five times).

Peter nodded blankly as he talked, acknowledging the sentiment more than the words themselves, and barely took any notice of the door when it opened, admitting a gust of wind and a good deal of rain as well. He heard the innkeeper make a vaguely quarrelsome remark before the door slammed shut but didn't lift his head from his hands. It was likely a Calormene traveler, which meant more bribes would need to be exchanged before the night was over to buy the newcomers silence, but Peter couldn't bring himself to care just then.

Brickle shook his arm, likely spooked by the arrival of another Calormen, and Peter bit back a cutting remark. "Your majesty!" Brickle shook his arm again with increasing urgency and Peter lifted his head blearily, fully expecting that he was going to come face to face with a troupe of armed Calormene soldiers intent on killing them.

"What is it Brickle?" he asked, rather irritably when he did not see the expected murderous soldiers.

"Look!" Brickle gave his arm one last, persistent shake and point towards the door. A truly bedraggled figure stood just inside the closed door, half leaning against the frame. He wore no hat or cloak, and his feet were bare. He was soaked and water dripped from his clothes, which were the loose linen shirt and trousers that a Calormene nobleman might wear to bed, and turned the dust on the innkeeper's worn carpet to mud. He might have been dressed like a sleepwalking Calormen, but it was clear to Peter in an instant that this fellow was no Southerner. His hair was dark, straggling across his face in sodden tangles, but his skin was far too pale for a native of sun scorched Calormen.

Peter stared at him, his chest suddenly constricted to the point that breathing had become difficult. It couldn't be, after so much fruitless searching it was utterly impossible to believe what he was seeing—he must have fallen asleep before the fire and dropped into a bizarre dream. The bedraggled figure lifted a shaking hand, brushing the dripping hair back from his eyes and scanned the room, gaze fixing on Peter, and Peter knew he couldn't be dreaming.

The newcomer looked dazed, his eyes were unfocused, his expression confused, and he was leaning against the doorframe as if it were the only thing keeping him on his feet, but he was unquestionably alive.

"Ed!" Peter was halfway across the room before he even realised he was on his feet, then he paused, suddenly unsure. Edmund had made no move, either to approach him or to call out to him. "Edmund?"

His hair had fallen back over his eyes and he brushed it away again, almost impatiently, as he blinked somewhat dizzily at his brother.

"Who—" he began, then seemed to change his mind about what he meant to say and shook his head. He blinked again, his eyes seeming to focus for a moment as he peered across the dimly lit room to where Peter stood, halfway between him and the hearth. "Pete?" His expression cleared, the confusion melting away, before his eyes lost focus, his gaze slipping from Peter's face as he slumped suddenly sideways.

"Ed!" Peter barely caught him before he hit his head on the stone threshold and half dragged him further into the room, ignoring the innkeeper's mutterings about "those cursed by the gods".

"Brickle!" he snapped in the Dwarf's direction, registering distantly that Brickle was watching the proceedings in open-mouthed shock. "Fetch Menwy—I know you have a way in and out of the city other than the main gates. Get her now, and be quick about it, try not to be seen but if you are it hardly matters now." Now that we've found him—or he's found us—I don't care who knows I'm here.

Peter saw Brickle nod out of the corner of his eye and then the door was thrown up and clammed shut again with a considerable amount of force. The innkeeper muttered something mutinous and Peter turned a glare that was usually reserved for deserters or the most trying of Susan's suitors in his direction.

"Make yourself useful. Fetch me a blanket." The Calormen gaped at him, his left hand going up to his forehead in the Calormene gesture for protection. "Go!" Peter half shouted, ignoring the fellow's scowl as he turned with a huff of annoyance and disappeared into a back room. He absentmindedly hoped that the Calormen had disappeared to follow his order and fetch a blanket, and not the Guard.

Left alone, Peter directed his attention back to Edmund—who had not moved—and whose nose had started bleeding. "What have you done to yourself this time, you fool?" he asked, expecting and receiving no answer. At least Edmund didn't appear to be bleeding, except from his nose, and he appeared healthy enough—save that he was soaked to the skin and turning rather blue as a result of the cold.

Peter stared at him, completely at a loss for what to do next. It was something of a shock for him—not five minutes ago he had been dangerously close to despairing that he would ever find Edmund and now here he was, lying insensible on the muddy carpet. Peter was used enough to his brother being unconscious, but this time he was soaked with water, not blood, he didn't seem to be hurt, and Peter found he had no idea what to do. Menwy would know. He wondered vaguely how long it had been since Brickle had run out into the night and how soon he might expect him to return with the Centauress. It couldn't have been very long at all and he really ought to do something while he waited for them, but before he could quite decide what he ought to do Edmund stirred uneasily.

He opened slightly unfocused eyes and blinked up at Peter for a moment before his expression cleared and he sat up so quickly that his forehead nearly collided with Peter's. His expression had changed just as quickly, going from surprise and confusion to a very fierce scowl. "Really Peter, this simply won't do! You cannot follow me everywhere I go!"

Peter stared at him, opened his mouth, and promptly closed it again, still staring and feeling rather slow. Edmund continued scowling, arms crossed over his chest in a universal display of displeasure, and managed to look fierce despite the fact that his teeth were chattering.

"I thought we agreed you weren't coming with me."

"I didn't," Peter said, finding his voice at last though he till felt rather dazed by the sudden turn of events. "You went and got yourself into trouble, and then we thought you were dead—I'm fairly certain Susan is planning your funeral—and then Aslan told me you weren't dead, and well, here I am."

The statement sounded rather jumbled, even to Peter himself, and he wasn't particularly surprised when Edmund's confused expression returned. His eyes narrowed, scanning Peter's face, no doubt taking in his disheveled appearance and the dark circles under his eyes that spoke of worry and sleepless nights. He scowled again, obviously not liking the inevitable conclusion that he reached. "You thought I was dead? Why the devil would you think that? I've only been gone a few days!" He sounded exasperated, but Peter knew him well enough to hear the hint of fondness that hid behind the annoyance.

"You've been gone a bit longer than that." Peter paused to rummage through his pockets and, after a good bit of fumbling, produced the signet ring and passed it to his brother. Edmund took the ring and stared at it blankly, still not comprehending. Peter was beginning to feel a different worry creep into the edges of his mind. A few days? "This arrived on the eleventh with a very convincing note telling me you were dead."

Edmund raised his eyes from the ring to stare at Peter instead with the same wide-eyed incomprehension. "Oh." He looked around the inn, seeming to take note of his surroundings for the first time. "Why am I on the floor?"

Peter's laugh sounded faintly hysterical, even to his own ears and he was not surprised when Edmund raised his eyebrows at him. "I-I had not yet decided…whether I should leave you there…or not," Peter managed to say at last, breathless and still chuckling slightly maniacally—though there was nothing particularly funny about the situation.

Edmund regarded him calmly. "What day is it?"

The question, and the fact that his brother's teeth were chattering as he asked it, sobered Peter and he looked around quickly, wondering if the innkeeper actually had gone to summon the Guard. "It's the twentieth," he said quietly, deciding to address one problem at a time. You were missing for nine days, he added silently.

Before Edmund could say anything in response the innkeeper returned and sullenly handed Peter a rather motheaten blanket which he wrapped hastily around Edmund's shoulders. "You'd be warmer by the fire," he informed his dazed looking brother, offering him a hand as he got to his feet.

Edmund was staring at him, his eyes wide and startled. "The twentieth?" he asked in a slightly shaky voice and Peter nodded, hand still outstretched to him. Edmund shook his head, though in disbelief or confusion, Peter could not tell, and scrambled unsteadily to his feet. He allowed Peter to guide him across the room, dropped gratefully into the chair by the fire, and stared down at the worn carpet between his bare, bruised feet.

"The twentieth," he repeated, almost mechanically. "The tenth," he said a moment later, raising a shaking hand to brush the hair back from his eyes again. "The last thing I remember is searching Tarkaan Obridesh's rooms at a Calormene inn on the tenth." He raised his eyes, and Peter saw confusion and more than a little fear in his eyes. "I don't remember anything after leaving the inn. It's happened again, hasn't it? I've forgotten again."

Peter was saved from answering (he didn't have an answer that seemed appropriately comforting) by the door flying open again as Menwy and Brickle clattered into the inn, the noise of Menwy's hooves nearly drowning out the innkeeper's protests.

"I don't remember," Edmund repeated, hardly seeming to notice the arrival of the others. He pressed his hands against his temples, as if his head pained him, and pressed his eyes shut with a grimace. "Why can't I remember?"

Menwy shot Peter a concerned look as she clattered across the room, ducking her head to avoid striking it on the low ceiling, and knelt awkwardly beside Edmund's chair. Peter found himself backing away slowly, his hands shaking. Edmund was there, he seemed to be alright, but Peter couldn't push aside the dread that filled him. "One will fall," Menwy had said. "He is not dead, but neither is he alive," Aslan had told him when he asked about Edmund. But Edmund was here, he was alive, and yet…and yet I feel as though finding him was not the most difficult task awaiting me.

Menwy was speaking to Edmund in a low voice and he seemed to be nodding, but Peter could not hear what was being said and he could not bring himself to go back across the room to his brother's side. He turned to Brickle instead, clenching his shaking hands into fists and struggling to think of something useful to do next.

"Peridan is not here," he told the Dwarf, keeping his voice low. "And my brother is confused—he remembers nothing of these past days."

Brickle tugged on his soaking beard and mumbled something that sounded vaguely like "not again". Peter ignored the comment and continued, feeling his face twist into a frown. "We need answers, and Peridan may be the only one who can provide them. We must find him."

Brickle nodded, and Peter considered it a great kindness that he did not point out that they had already looked for Peridan and found nothing. "Is his majesty alright?" Brickle asked, his tone betraying a degree of concern as he peered across the room to where Menwy still knelt beside Edmund's chair.

Peter followed his gaze, feeling the dread threatening to crush him under its weight. "I don't know," he admitted, feeling rather ashamed of himself. "I don't know, Brickle."

So, I'm curious, who do you feel most bad for now? Leave me a review and let me know what you thought of this chapter! I hope to have the next chapter done and posted by the end of April, but I suppose we'll just have to wait and see if I can manage it :-) Thank you all for reading and reviewing, I am so happy that people are still interested in this story :-)

Cheers,

A