underland / year 2356
word count: 1,058
xXx
Silver steel; rope-bound wrists; the one torturous hour in which he knew it all, yet none would hear his cries.
None but her, that poisonous wraith of a woman, smiling sweetly down as cord cut flesh against his desperate struggle to pry his body free of the throne that ensnared him.
A King, she called him, sneering, a King in his rightful place, whose throat bled from the sting of tight rope as his breaths turned ragged.
No, not a King, not a King, not yet, not now.
"Prince Rilian," a voice called out of memory, and for just an instant he saw his father's warm face and calloused hand reaching out to him on a clear white wintery day so long ago, a lifetime ago, beckoning him down from some precarious perch he'd thought an excellent vantage point at that age.
For just an instant he felt the strength of his father's arms around his waist as he dropped to the ground, and the sturdy warmth of his hand clasping Rilian's much smaller fingers, leading him up toward the palace gates for supper as their footprints trailed side by side behind them in a snow, the King's musical laugh ringing in cold air.
Now the only laugh ringing through the cold drafts of a lifeless cavern twisted with gleeful cruelty.
How long had he followed that voice into whatever perils it bade him?
How many days had he followed that poisonous creature out over the wild white plains, walking within leagues of his own land unknowing?
How many of his own people had he met on the road, and how many to whom had he spoken nothing while the lady set their path astray with her melodic promises? How many noble souls had she tricked to their death in a jingling shower of laughter as he watched behind a black visor?
He would rather have drenched his hands in their blood himself. Better an honest murderer than one who watched and did nothing. Yet here he remained, tongue-bound, wrist-bound.
No matter how far he wandered, he only ever turned north again, away from the fair southern hills, away from the babbling streams and rustling green forests of Narnia.
The footprints in the snow led away from home every time.
"Weary, are we, my King?" cooed the sing-song of the witch, inky black hair falling free over porcelain cheeks as she leered over him. "The hour is late." Her breath ghosted the sweat on his jaw. "Your struggle nears its end."
He clenched his arms and strained against the tight bonds, but the effort only sent a deep ache straight down to his bones, and he breathed a weak groan, mind clouding.
"There, that's it, give in. You always do, don't you, my pet?" She grinned. "Do you remember when we first met? Do you remember that day in the forest?"
Green pools assaulted his mind, flashing aqua in the sunlit fountain where the woman had appeared, beautiful to him then, enchantingly beautiful, so beautiful he'd hardly remembered his own name.
"Tell me, my King," she lilted in his ear, and her breath sent a shiver down his spine as her voice dripped sweet as poison. "Do you still find me lovely?"
He strained against his bonds again and she pulled away far enough to look him in the eyes, her own the color of forest pools, deep and deadly.
"I'm not a King," gasped Rilian.
"Oh? And how do you suppose that, pray tell?"
"My father," he breathed, then coughed and forced strength into his voice. "My father is the King. King Caspian the Navigator, greatest of all his lineage. I am King of nothing, and you queen of naught but such accursed holes as these."
"The King is dead," spat the witch, but Rilian only gazed up at her, mind growing hazier every moment the hour waned, yet he clung to the image of his father in the snow, warm and strong and alive.
"I don't believe you."
"And what reason should possess me to lie?"
"Lady," he breathed, though his shallow gasps only weakened, "I have never known a true thing to come out from your lips."
She almost snarled. "Here is a true thing, my King. The tunnels are almost complete. You will ride out upon your own people within a week's time and you will slay them where they stand. All will know the terror of King Rilian and his Queen to whom he binds himself above all else, rightful heir to the throne you have abandoned to the hands of a doddering fool."
Rilian breathed out, voice catching on a weak laugh as his eyes fluttered closed, already half mad with the weight of his own foggy head.
"You find it funny?" She traced his jaw with one icy fingernail, voice softening ever so slightly as it always did when he faded under her enchantment.
For a moment he breathed under her touch, the heavy, cloying sweetness of dark magic creeping up his throat. But he swallowed. "So he is alive." His eyes opened to pin hers, green pools plunging into frigid darkness as she met his gaze.
"What?"
He smirked wearily, clinging to even one small triumph as he sank beneath the waves. "You called him a doddering fool. You did not call him dead."
Her fingernail tightened dangerously under his jaw, and he laughed again, leaning back against the chair, scalp digging into cool, enchanted metal as his pulse pounded under her curved talon.
"What's wrong?" he breathed with vague amusement. "Don't you want to see me slaughter my own people, dearest Queen?"
She couldn't kill him now, and she knew it, and for the barest instant Rilian basked in her frustration as he drifted further out of thought and the pressure at his throat vanished.
"Mullugutherum!" thundered the Queen of Underland. "Make ready the way to the tunnels. Expect my return not until the morrow, but make his highness well known to my intentions."
Even unseeing, Rilian felt her cold eyes flash to him.
"I will not tarry."
The doors clanged shut, and at last the world plunged into blackness around him. But still there lingered a hint of satisfaction, even after he forgot its reason.
And the footprints in the snow turned away from home one last time.