*Chapter 19-Prophecies and Powerlust *

Hellooooooooo my dears! I am so so so so sorry for the delay! School has been murder and on top of that life has just been awful and stressful so I haven't been in a very creative mood lately.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed and is keeping up with my story despite my many gaps between updates. I promise I will try to be more consistent!

Also, I'm still working on the pictures for this story, but HOPEFULLY(I make no promises) some should be up within the week. I'll post an author's note when they are. :]

Huge thanks goes out to imprintedjet09 for her love and persistent demanding of chapters and for being my inspiration! Love you Jordi!

NOW ENJOY OR DIE

Peter Pevensie could not get the one thing he wanted most in the world right now-sleep. His lids were heavy upon his bloodshot eyes and his body was virtually unresponsive to his thoughts and environment, but the tender caress of sleep would not overcome him. For the young man's mind was racing with burning thoughts and mixed emotions of the events of the past 48 hours.

The raid. Penelope's death. The confrontation with Caspian. Penelope's return. Iridescent's appearance. Iridescent's tale. Caspian and Penelope in the Chamber of Aslan's Sacrifice..

No. Stop those thoughts. he said firmly to himself. There is nothing between them.

But the truthful, logical part of his mind reminded him, unwantedly, of the way they had behaved. The way they had looked at eachother..

Edmund gave a loud snore and abruptly rolled over in his sleep, throwing his arm out and smacking Peter, rather painfully, in the nose. Peter's hand flew up in frustrated indignation to thwack his brother back, but he caught his temper at the last minute. Sighing and realizing he needed to think, and being in danger of being beaten up by Edmund was definitely a distraction, he clambered to his feet and trudged from the chamber.

Peter stopped at the exit to the chamber and doubled back for his sword, Rhindon, an ominously vulnerable feeling creeping through his bones. But even after he had his trusted gift from Father Christmas, he found the feeling to not be yet gone.

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Penelope laid on a blanket on the stone floor of the chamber designated to the female soldiers' comforts and privacy. A deep slumber enveloped her, but she was fretful in her sleeping stage. Her eyes rolled beneath her lids and she thrashed about, her limbs twitching. She gave a small cry and completely turned over, her teeth bared and her right hand groped around for something..

She was standing in the middle of a dark, dark forest. The trees had no leaves, and the naked branches twisted and turned up into the black sky, looking rather like broken limbs of thousands of bodies on a battlefield. The grass at her feet was short and dead, a deep, ugly brown. It was cold; when she exhaled she could see her breath.

She was wearily trying to get an idea of where she was when ragged breathing from her right reached her ear. She whipped around and saw something she was sure wasn't there before. Emerging from the darkness was a lowly stooped hooded figure. It walked with a heavy limp as it approached her, and as she watched its hand reached inside its robe and drew out a very familiar looking sword. After a moment of staring at the sword, recognition clicked and horror dawned on her-it was her brother's sword, Rhindon. And this hooded figure definitely was not Peter.

She took a step back in fear and felt herself collide with something warm and hard. A low growl escaped whatever it was and before she could jump forward in surprise, arms were around her. She let out a scream, but her voice wasn't her own. It was lower, richer, more accented..

As she watched, the scene around her changed. The ground froze over with sickly blue ice, which then crawled up the tree trunks and engulfed the whole forest in ice. Two huge icicles grew at the head of the forest directly in front of her, and between them rose another sheet of ice. Out from this emerged the foggy shape of a woman, wearing a long blue down the same colour as the ice with long blond hair and skin so pale you would have thought she was dead. But it wasn't to her Penelope paid attention.

The figure holding Rhindon was directly in front of her. All Penelope could see of her face were blood red eyes glaring up at her maliciously. The figure held out Rhindon, and then abruptly brought the sword down and across her wrist. An ear piercing shriek echoed through the clearing as Narnian red blood gushed from the wound and poured onto the ice.

But a strange thing happened as soon as Penelope's blood touched the ice. All around her, a gag-inducing odor swept through the forest, and right before her eyes piles of dark things she could not make out appeared through the trees. A strange whispering in an ancient language drifted through like a gust of wind and hung in the air, decreasing volume as the piles became mountains.

One of the mounds reached a point where the things, too precariously stacked and too numerous in their nature, collapsed and spilled into the clearing, hitting the ice with hundreds of dull thuds. Penelope felt her knees give out beneath her as the things came into the light and she saw what they were.

Bodies. Thousands of them. Minotaurs, dryads, fauns, elves, humans, centaurs. The entirety of Narnia filled that forest, she was sure of it. Her mind wheeled as she watched as more and more bodies filled the clearing, and more and more piles collapsed.

Then, right before her, 5 simmering bodies appeared, three female, two male. As she watched, blood poured from their forms, and the shapes of various weapons took form buried in them, clearly their points of death.

Then the light cleared from them, and Penelope screamed until she was sure her lungs were bleeding, still in that strange voice. For laying before her, all clearly moved onto Aslan's country, were her siblings.

A sword protruded grotesquely from Peter's stomach, and a trail of blood ran from his mouth. Four arrows were shot into Susan's front at various points, one right in her chest. Edmund had no weapon in him, but it was clear his murderer had used an axe by the many gash marks running all over his body, the most obvious of these going through his neck and almost sweeping his head clean off. Lucy, at least, seemed to not have been murdered-the side of her head was caved in and horse hoof prints ran along her entire body, clearly a freak accident.

It was the sixth and final body that drew her to realize what was going on and what drew her to wake up. For there, lying not five feet in front of her, was her own body.

Penelope looked down at herself for the first time and saw, not her own pale feminine body, but the tan, muscular body of someone else she knew very well.

It was then she understood what the whispering voice was saying.

"If his blood is spilled, thus will be every creature who calls himself Narnian."

Penelope awoke with a scream, tears streaming down her face.

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Peter entered the main chamber of the How to find it deserted. It glowed orange from the torches hung at intervals throughout it. Somewhere far off in the distance, above ground, one of the patrol wolves howled mournfully to the moon.

Peter felt the wolf's cry was appropriate for his mood. In all his life, he didn't think he'd made a bigger mistake then he had in his decision of the night raid. If only he had listened to others instead of his own stubborn will..

Footsteps echoed through the chamber, and he looked up to see Edmund enter the chamber, tiredly rubbing his eyes and seemingly looking around for something. When he noticed Peter, he gave a small start and made his way over to him.

"What're you doing up at this hour? Aslan knows you especially need your sleep," Edmund said past a yawn. Peter smirked at him.

"You're one to talk," he said, drawing a chuckle from Edmund. When he stared at him expectantly, obviously wanting an answer, he sobered up. "I have too much to think about."

Edmund sighed. "Peter, if your beating yourself up about what happened at the castle.."

"I'm not," Peter snapped quickly. Edmund stared at him skeptically and he found he wasn't able to meet his younger brother's eyes.

"Look, Pete," Edmund said in a soft voice. "It was one mistake. You can't torture yourself about it."

"One mistake? Edmund, I murdered hundreds of innocent Narnians!!"

"You didn't murder them, Peter, they were killed."

"But it's my fault!"

"That may be so, but you've got to learn to let it go!!" Edmund shouted. Peter stared at him, his jaw taught and defensive but his eyes unsure and weary. When he spoke again, his voice was soft. "Pete, we all make mistakes. It's part of being human. If you didn't you wouldn't learn. Imagine how I feel about helping the White Witch. I caused the deaths of twice as many innocent Narnians as you did."

Peter stared at his brother in shock. It was the first time Edmund had ever talked about what had happened during their first trip to Narnia. His brother took a few misty eyed moments to recover himself before continuing.

"The point is, life goes on. Even after that I was able to become a great king of Narnia, if I do say so myself, and made up for what I did. You still are a great king, Peter. Don't let this one mistake make you lose your courage. Use it to become and even better leader than before."

The two brothers stared each other in the eye, each reliving everthing they had been through together. Peter found he was the proudest of Edmund he had ever been in his life. Tears were glistening in his eyes as he looked upon the man the once traitor had become.

The brotherly moment was ruined and they were brought back to harsh reality by a scream echoing from the woman's chamber followed by frantic footsteps and harsh sobbing. They watched in alarm as Penelope burst into the chamber, tears streaming down her face. She was barefoot and her hair was disheveled, and in her hand was a naked sword. Not a minute later, Lucy and Iridescent came sprinting out after her, and Penelope, once seeing them behind her, took off at a sprint down the tunnel leading to the Chamber of Aslan's Sacrifice.

Peter jumped to his feet and started off after her. From behind him, he heard Edmund ask, "What's going on?"

It was Iridescent who answered. "She had a nightmare. Caspian's in trouble."

Without any further answer, the group took off at a sprint after Penelope. Peter caught up with her and comfortingly grabbed her hand, giving her a reassuring smile. She stared back with a deeply frantic expression and continued running.

The group burst into the chamber to the sight of Caspian standing in front of a large block of ice with the image of a woman in the middle of it. With him were two hooded figures; a hag and a werewolf. The werewolf was looming behind Caspian. The hag was holding a gleaming knife in her hand.

"STOP!!" Peter's cry echoed through the chamber, followed by the zing of Rhindon being unsheathed. The hag, werewolf, and giant woman in the ice's heads snapped up and similar expressions of anger crossed their faces. Peter and Penelope charged forward at the same time, followed by Edmund, Lucy, and Iridescent, and met the oncoming hag and werewolf. Nikabrik the dwarf emerged from the shadows and charged at Lucy, who met him with her dagger.

The werewolf threw its cloak back and jumped onto the Stone Table, then proceeded to use it as a ground for launching itself at Edmund, who unsheathed his sword at the last minute and brought it up into the monster's stomach as it went over. The wounded werewolf howled in pain and doubled over on itself, clutching its stomach. Edmund charged while its back was turned.

Lucy met Nikabrik with her dagger held in front of her, but the little girl was no match for him and he soon had her arm twisted behind her back almost to the point of breaking it. She screamed in pain and struggled feebly. Then the dwarf threw her down to the ground and advanced at her with his knife up, snickering darkly as Lucy cowered in fear, bracing herself for her death. Iridescent leapt over the Stone Table and met Nikabrik's raised knife with her own sword and quickly dispatched him. His dead body dropped to the ground with a dull thud.

Penelope sprinted at the hag and, when they were almost upon each other, threw her leg up. The hag collided with her foot and flew backwards, hitting the side of the Stone Table hard. Penelope charged forward and made to sweep her sword down and slice the hag's head off, but the hag grabbed her wrist and twisted it. Penelope's body twisted with her arm with a sharp motion and she crashed to the ground. The hag pinned her arms down and brought her razor sharp beak down to Penelope's throat. Penelope threw her legs back and grabbed the hag between them, then threw them straight out again, launching the hag off of her. Grabbing her sword, Penelope charged and before the hag could get the wind back in her, stabbed down into her heart. With a screech the hag writhed for all of a second and died.

Peter ran Caspian and rammed him over, knocking him out of the circle of ice and taking his place.

"Get away from him!" he cried at the Witch. She looked taken aback for a minute and then leaned forward again.

"Ah.. Peter dear. How nice to see you again." she said with false sweetness. "Come on. Just one drop. You know you can't do this alone."

Her words intrigued Peter. He felt as if some sort of spell were overcoming him. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to give her the blood after all. She had a point... He couldn't do it alone.. They needed all the help they could get at this point..

Suddenly, the Witch gave a cry an jerked backwards. A sword was pierced from the back of the ice and protruding from her stomach. The ring of ice disappeared from Peter's feet and his thoughts cleared just as the Witch's eyes rolled into the back of her head and the ice collapsed, showering him in painful shards. It fell away to reveal Edmund standing with his sword held above his head.

He stood and sheathed it and, shooting Peter a dark look, muttered, "I know. You had it sorted."

A lump formed in Peter's throat. He felt eyes on him, and looked to see Penelope watching him with tearful eyes from where she and Caspian stood embracing each other. The twins silently communicated their similar feelings of frightened dispair.

Could anything else go wrong in this war?

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Don't have much to say. Hope you all enjoyed it. Review and let me know. I've officially got the plot figured out now, so expect more frequent updates. :]

Love you all,

~Queen Lani Kaulitz the Hyper :D