Disclaimer: I own nothing but the Telar, and I suppose you could wish me joy of them.

Beta'd by trustingHim17!

OOOOO

"Khonat, your wing," Lucy breathed, and Edmund's eyes went to the space behind the Telar's back where his wing had arched up. There was nothing there.

"Khonat, what-" Susan began, but the Telar cut her off.

"I must speak," he gasped out. "They took my wing as punishment - I used too much. I am falling into sleep, Majesties. I can't - I have to tell you, it's not over."

"Your Majesties?" came Oreius' tense voice, his sword still in hand, and Edmund remembered he could not understand the Telar.

"It's all right, Oreius, he is our friend, and the one who arranged our rescue," Peter quietly reassured. He stepped forward, addressing Khonat. "Our crowns still won't come off. But with the Telar King dead" - Susan flinched but drew again on the peace she'd found with Aslan - "how can they be used to restore the Telar? Did the Telar appoint a new king?"

Khonat's eyes kept closing and opening as he fought to stay awake. "We cannot appoint a new king - not by law, given the great magic - the council are still, cannot vote - but the Queen-"

Edmund caught on first, for even in Narnia, beings had a father and a mother, and Khonat had guarded a prince. "Sacrificing a king for a queen?" he asked, trying to calm himself as adrenaline flooded his body.

"Not possible," Khonat responded, eyes closing and staying closed. "Sacrifice must be same. Queen for queen. Still not right. Coming..." His head bowed, closed eyes looking towards the ground, and he ceased moving, even to the rise and fall of his chest.

"Step back from him," Susan ordered sharply, looking at the Narnians. "Do not touch him!" All the Dwarves took a step back, and another, retreating in a circle from the statue.

"Oh, Khonat," Lucy murmured, eyes sad.

"This is a still Telar?" Oreius asked after a moment. "And the others wish to sacrifice King Edmund for their queen?"

"No," Edmund said, still fighting the rising panic as the full meaning of Khonat's words—of who the Telar hunted now—sunk in.

"No," Peter echoed. "They mean to take a queen." The eyes of all the Narnians turned to Susan and Lucy, standing side by side.

"They will not succeed!" Oreius said sharply, and Peter nodded in grim agreement. "The trees provide some cover now, your Majesties, but it is only temporary."

"Should we go back to Cair Paravel?" Susan asked, her voice trembling.

"They know of it, and it may not be safe," Oreius answered. "I would not advise it, Your Majesties."

"Then where?" Peter asked.

One of the Dwarves stepped forward, carefully going around the still Khonat. "Majesties, if these be creatures of the sky, the best place would probably be underground. If I could offer my humble home-"

"Well thought of," Peter commended. "Is it large enough for two?"

"For four," Susan put in sharply, but Peter shook his head.

"They're only after you and Lucy now. Edmund and I are useless to them, and we need to end the threat once and for all."

"They can still use you as hostages," Susan argued back, her voice high with fear. "I've already walked away once, not knowing if I'd see either of you again; do not ask me to do that again, Peter."

"They have not used hostages yet," but Peter's voice was softer.

"And do you expect us to just sit and wait?" Lucy asked.

"That's exactly what I expect. You and Susan had to walk away; I had to watch Edmund fall, unable to do anything. I'm not able to go through that again, not any more than Susan is."

"But this won't be over till they're healed," Lucy argued back, though her voice grew quieter at Peter's pain. "And maybe not even then, not with Jumak—he loved his king, and I don't think he'll ever let us go."

"Let me go, you mean," Susan interrupted. "Peter—Lucy needs to go somewhere other than with me. Jumak will be hunting me."

"Wherever we go, we should go there swiftly, your Majesties," Oreius said gravely. "The Telar are swift, and I do not know how they hunt."

"To my home, then, your Majesties?"

"Please, Peter. For now, at least, let it be all four of us?" Susan begged, and Peter sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"For now."

"Lead us to your home by the most forested paths," Oreius commanded the Black Dwarf, who bowed low, shouldered his pick-axe, and led the way forward. Peter followed after him, Edmund falling in at his side, and Susan and Lucy followed, Oreius a protecting shadow just behind them. His sword was unsheathed, even in the forest, and his eyes wary. Edmund glanced back often, reassuring himself that his sisters were still there. He looked from the Centaur to the other protector who had offered himself for them, Khonat still and quiet in the clearing. They could not move him without crumbling him, but Edmund felt weary with the challenge of how to help the Telar. Though they must help, for Khonat's sake.

"What are we going to do?" he asked Peter in a quiet voice, hoping the girls would not hear.

"We'll discuss that when all four of us are listening," came his older sister's voice, and Peter gave him a sympathetic glance.

"Well, we all seem to be listening now," Edmund responded dryly, more loudly than a whisper, but still quiet in deference to their flight. "Peter?"

"One of us has to get back to the Cair, to try to find out if there's another way to heal the Telar, or stop their magic. And one of us should stay with the girls, because Susan has a point about Jumak. But if we can heal the Telar, maybe the Queen will be the right sort and order him to stand down. Or maybe he'll lose all his support."

"If I read his character aright, that may not stay him," Oreius cautioned. "Forgive me, my Queen, I do not wish to frighten you."

"It's all right, Oreius. You would be the one who knows how a protector would feel about his charges," Susan responded quietly.

"Do we know if pick-axes work against the Telar?" Peter asked.

"It has not been tested yet, Your Majesty," the Dwarf immediately behind the Centaur grunted.

"I've yet to meet a stone a pick-axe won't split open. They won't stand a chance, your Majesties. Dwarf promise."

"If you could reach higher than their stomachs, I might be a little more reassured," Edmund muttered under his breath. He ducked under a branch. "Which of us is going to the Cair, and which of us is staying?" he asked Peter.

"You're better at research," Peter reminded him. And Edmund knew Peter had been going to say that. Fortunately, he knew what to say to get his way and stay with the girls. He wasn't sure he could leave them, not when he had felt what the Telar would do to one of them, if they caught them.

Probably to Lucy, if they went for the youngest again. He would not let her experience that, the sucking away of life and energy as the crown grew hotter and hotter. He wouldn't. And he knew what to say to Peter so Peter wouldn't let him go to the Cair.

"So you want me going to the most likely point of attack?"

Peter stopped walking. "Edmund…"

Edmund shrugged. "Better me than you. I mean, they already had me, so they're not likely to try the same trick again. And it's not like they'd be bothered, that they didn't get it to work last time. No, I'm sure they'll handle me as carefully as they did the Rabbits, and decide I'm useless, quite the opposite of last time."

"Edmund," said Susan severely behind them, and Edmund looked over his shoulder to give her a quick wink with the eye Peter couldn't see.

"I know what you're doing," Peter growled. "You-"

"What? I said I'd go." Peter ran his hand through his hair again, and Edmund did his best to keep a straight face.

"I actually think your powers of concentration might be greater at this point in time, High King," Oreius put in, and Edmund scowled. Okay, the Centaur was helping, but still! "And there is a solution that none of us have discussed."* He paused, waiting till the Four turned to face him. "We could eliminate the threat to Narnia's Queens the same way we dealt with the threat to its Kings."

It took a moment for what he meant to catch on, and then Susan's quick "No!" nearly rang through the trees. Lucy bit her lip.

Peter turned to the Centaur, his forehead furrowing as he spoke."Oreius, we were talking about this before, around the campfire, and the fact is, the royalty are passive in this."

"Non-combatants," Edmund added, "though as royalty they are directly involved in their country's wars. Susan was asking if we could kill one helpless victim to save another."

"And your thoughts?" Oreius asked.

"I don't know," Peter answered honestly. "It feels like killing one hostage to save another. Even if the hostage is willing to die, which we don't know if the Queen is, I do not know whether it would be justified in Aslan's eyes."

"Though in this case, we're killing a victim inadvertently killing a second victim. We're stopping a murder—through killing an innocent." Edmund looked at Peter. "Let's just try to find a way to heal them instead."

"And deal with the question when it comes," Peter finished. He looked at Oreius. "Thank you for saying what none of us had seen, General." The Centaur bowed, and then gestured forward. "We should get under cover, Your Majesties."

Not much more was said until they reached the underground home.

OOOOO

*My thanks to Southwest Expat, who helped me puzzle through some of the ethics of this strategy. I'm still not certain of the moral ground here, but much more certain than I was, thanks to her help!