I don't own Narnia or the Pevensies.

In a small side garden, for that was where she had run in her haste to escape, Lucy wretched and trembled, crouched in the soil with her fingers dug deep into grass roots. In less than two hours, the Wren would arrive with the wedding guests. Her sister's fate would be sealed, and Valin would open the passage into Narnia to begin his attack. She was left now with no allies, no weapons, no help and no hope. She had only herself, and what good was she, by herself? Lucy's strength came from supporting the people around her: with no one left to support, she felt entirely lost.

The despair did not lift with the passing minutes, as she had found in the past it often did. But the illness did; finally, Lucy managed to pull herself to her feet and think. Her mind hazy with panic and anguish, she found it hard to come up with a next step. All notions of valiance seemed to have fled her. Right then, courage was an intellectual idea and not a feeling, but though she did not feel brave, she forced herself to think brave. There always had to be a last resort. If she were Peter, she would acquire a weapon and challenge Valin to single combat. But she was not Peter, and she could not win such a duel. If she were Edmund, she would salvage what she could of the original plan and sacrifice whatever was necessary to complete it, even her own life. But she was not Edmund, and her plan depended on allies within the castle, allies who by now were mostly dead or captured. If she were Susan, she would stay calm and cool-headed and at the last minute, would probably defy Valin at the altar and accept the consequences for Narnia's sake. But Lucy was not Susan; she was neither calm nor in a position to pull off anything like that.

No, Lucy was not any of her siblings, and she didn't know what to do. Straightening out, she opened the door to the castle and entered again, hoping that somewhere she might see something that would spark her imagination, give her a sign of what to do. She had wandered in a haze of panic and despair near twenty minutes when she found herself near the armory, the clank of the nearby smithy ringing in her ears. And it was then that she decided it: she would acquire a weapon, take on the dungeon guards, and rescue her brothers. It was the easiest part of the things she needed to do, and with their help, they could do so much more…

Sneaking into the armory proved easier than she had expected. It was guarded only by a single man, who seemed to think that a little girl heading into an armory was just there to pick up something for someone more qualified, and who gave her just a patronizing smile as she entered. She curtseyed politely and walked right in without so much as a word.

This armory was a great deal more uniform than the Cair's, probably because it did not have to supply weapons and armor for so very many shapes of warriors. Though she missed the novelty of the tiny suits of armor for animals like the Raccoons and Beavers and the majesty of the enormous Centaur swords and flankplates, she could appreciate how well-organized everything was. Deciding to find a short sword, which she knew how to use fairly well, Lucy was about to walk past the longer ones when she caught sight of a familiar blade.

How Edmund's sword had ended up in the armory, she wasn't sure, but she guessed that after the guards had confiscated it, they had simply passed it down here to become part of the collection. With some difficulty, Lucy managed to free it from the wall and buckle it to her belt, though it was too long for her and the end of the sheath dragged a bit on the ground. A thought struck her. Was Rhindon here as well, and perhaps her own dagger?

She searched the swords carefully, but could not find her eldest brother's blade. Perhaps someone had already taken it up – it was, after all, a fantastically crafted weapon; any guard would be lucky to have such a sword. Next, she moved on to the daggers, which were sheathed and placed in a large bin rather than mounted on the wall. She had to dig (carefully, of course; even sheathed daggers can be dangerous) to search for her own. She knew, though, that it could not be too far from the top, if it was there. When her fingers closed around the lion's head, she felt her heart leap in her chest and with a bit of maneuvering she managed to withdraw it from the barrel. There it was, as if it had never been taken from her, unscathed. This, too, went on her belt, and she left the armory under the amused eye of the guard, who said "don't cut yourself with that, missy" and laughed at himself.

Though she wasn't sure she remembered the route to the dungeons that the maid Merre had showed her the night before, she followed as many staircases down as she could, and after only two false starts, found herself again at the choice between the cellars and the dungeons. But, strangely, today there was no guard posted on either side, and for a moment she struggled to remember which passageway was which. She headed down, drawing Edmund's sword as silently as she could. Though it was rather too heavy for her, she thought she could handle it well enough, and it would be of better use to her than her short little dagger would.

Lucy's desperation had swallowed her fear. She felt her heart begin to race as she paced down the long passageway, waiting to get into the room that would divide up the cell blocks, where she would face the four guards, where she could free her brother and perhaps King Vareth as well. When she saw the light up ahead, she hefted the sword higher, a myriad of feelings sweeping through her, coursing through her blood, strengthening her. She felt a battle instinct like she'd never had before rear up, and from her throat ripped Peter's familiar cry –

"For Narnia!"

But the room into which she charged was quite empty. No one stood to guard the passages into the cell blocks.

Confused, heart racing, Lucy turned and ran down the first, where she had found her brothers the previous day, and where Edmund ought to have been still. Though it was dark, she could still tell it, too, was empty; her brother was gone, the door to his cell swinging open when she pulled on it. Perplexed, Lucy walked back into the main passageway and entered the second cell block.

"Back again, my little queen?" chuckled a low voice, though it was a humorless, hopeless chuckle. She looked into the corner and caught sight of King Vareth, hidden in shadows but clearly still shackled to the wall. No one was guarding him – perhaps they assumed he was too well-secured and weak to escape.

"What's happened?" Lucy asked in utter bewilderment. "Where has everyone gone?"

"I believe the king called a special assembly of his guard," Vareth told her, shifting with a clank of his chains. "From what I've overheard, that's my guess. Needless to say, I wasn't invited."

"Where…where are my brothers?" she asked. She let Edmund's sword drop at last, and clumsily sheathed it, walking over to the imprisoned king's cell and putting a hand on the door.

"I cannot say," Vareth told her, and he sounded truly sorry. "They came to collect them earlier today."

"Do you…do you have any idea where they might have taken them?"

"I don't," said Vareth, shaking his head. "But I have every trust you will find them, Queen…Lucy, was it?"

She nodded.

"One of your brothers spent the night here," he told her as she turned to leave. She looked at him quizzically, then remembered that after the guards had discovered her, they'd separated all three of them, that Peter had been put in this block.

"Yes, yes he did," Lucy nodded, pausing. "That was Peter. He's the oldest of us. The High King."

"He spoke very highly of you," Vareth told her solemnly. "He assured me that you would find a way to make things right, Queen Lucy. He seems a man of his word, and so I, too, have every faith that you will succeed in your quest."

Lucy stared a moment, blushing and feeling the shame of her recent failure. Peter trusted her. She couldn't fail him now.

"Thank you," she told Vareth at last, nodding gratefully. "I…I promise you, if I find a way to rescue my family…I will find a way to rescue you, too. I won't leave you down here."

"I know you won't," said Vareth simply, nodding. "Godspeed, little queen."

"May Aslan watch over you," she replied, nodding. Then she turned, squared her shoulders and walked back towards the light, to save her family or die trying.